Good opening questions for Adventurers in Are You the Traitor?

Question

Many people complain, when they first try Are You the Traitor?, that they don't know where to start; a lot of people will just sit there and think about it, without saying anything, or will accidentally reveal their role quickly by the questions they ask or fail to ask.

What are some good opening questions or strategies for getting the ball rolling, if you're a guard, traitor, or keyholder? While you have different goals in all of those cases, you're trying not to reveal that, so your opening questions or discussion should probably be the same regardless of which role you take. The same question could be asked for the wizards, but for the purpose of this question, lets restrict it to the Adventurers.

If you're an Adventurer, what are good ways to start the game and get the ball rolling?

Answer 1

There's the obivious one...

"Are you the Traitor?"

I find that newbies especially, will telegraph their own identity by their behaviour in the first 20 seconds.

Asking about the traitor ===> Guard. Asking about the wizards ===> Keyholder.

etc.

So my suggestion for your own personal strategy is to form a habit (and importantly, be seen to form a habit) of always asking the same question (be it "Are you the traitor" or "Are you the keyholder") to all players in the same order. This stops them from gaining information from your question or question ordering. What you want to do is watch the reactions. For example, if you ask if Alice is the Keyholder, and she answers with an uncertain no, and Bob lights up and glances at the 2 wizards, its usually safe to accuse Bob of being the traitor (because he knows the keyholder, and now needs to signal evil wizard). The key to that game is not the question, or the answer; its regulating the flow of information by amassing as much for yourself as possible without revealing any of what you already know. Your goal is not necessarily to discover your target; your goal is to possess the sum of the public knowledge, while maintaining your monopoly rights on your private knowledge.