The simple and truthful answer is that 1) You're wrong, it hasn't been 8 games, 2) VotF isn't really about Night 1 lightning rod-ness of Yours Truly, 3) even recently I've been targeted by actions on night 1 a statstically absurd percentage of the time - bergioyn and FT last game for instance. As for why now, thats simple, our games take a long time, VotF appeared formally at the end of game 16, this is the beginning of #20. It would be seriously f'd up of me to slaughter a newer player who got the cop role and understandably thought on night 1 "Maybe I should cop the player who pushed a lynch that resulted in a dead townie", because they have no background to realize that is basically a meaningless case, so it is necessary to occasionally point it out, 2) No deterrent works well if people don't know about it, it pays to hang a big sign on the proverbial door saying 'warning, armed response' or 'Danger: Radioactive Material'. 3) FT basically copped me under what I consider a very questionable circumstance on night 1 of last game, we cleared that up, but I'm disinclined to risk anyone else thinking that would be okay under VotF. It's not, the simple fact is I don't trust most players to approach me on anything remotely similar the standards they apply to others, a scrap of info that might be ignored on others, or dismissed as minor, for me becomes major, and someone could easily rationalize a NK/cop on me from something like 'Didn't vote first or second for someone, and they died a DF', this would be seen as probable bussing by me, even if it wasn't, a fair point since I pretty much always vote first or second for someone in prior games, and if someone doesn't notice that caveat, I either have to let the proverbial floodgate open or devote lots of energy taking them out, all over something that realistically probably indicated I was actually town, using the old "I won't vote for Gher because Gher is always on the other team and I think it's biasing my thinking" standard that applied from about game 4 to 14 and doubtless many remember.

Lastly, I was about to reveal info that would qualify as such a reason to those who didn't get the main point of the policy, so I went out of my way to explain why it was not, and why I did not view it as 'legit', before anyone might think it was. I really do not want to go after someone because they really did not know, its unfair to them, but I'm as much as lining a target up on my head if I don't. There's also the option for the normally improbable that we'd dismiss as unlikely or WIFOM to really happen on night action magnets. Consider last game, had I been townie, the odds of me being copped and framed on the first night should be statistically insignificant, but in reality they are very, very high, without something like VotF in play, who after all was your primary candidate for framing on night 1 last game? Lacking VotF, nothing is certain but we must always assume as a given that a framer role for instance will target an action magnet on night 1, copping becomes meaningless, and roles like framer or watcher cease being merely power roles but become exceptionally powerful. As mentioned, it's not specifically about me, its about the debalancing effect caused by any night action magnet. Right now a smart doc, watcher, or framer knows they should be targeting other than randomly, we obviously won't name names here but if we asked players to make a list of '5 best targets' for those, there will be damned little difference between those lists, even if I'm not on it for fear of retaliation that just dumps it the next one's on the list. It's one thing when come night 2 of last game everyone and their brother targeted Yuna, that was strictly related to current game events, but if come night 1 half the guns point at say, DK (obviously not a name picked at random), the game becomes unbalanced, particularly if the game is role heavy, because the odds of an unlikely pair of role powers interacting has gone from 'too small to worry about' to 'near certainty'. So, besides being grossly unfair if rather complimentary to her, it also tips game balance. Being a night action magnet is, of course, not bad for the ego, but if I thought for one moment I could disappear and re-emerge unnoticed as a new player, an essential impossibility for me as was proven back in game 5, I'd do it in a heartbeat, my ego needs no pumping and it's very, very hard to scheme with all eyes on you, so to speak, hence, VotF

Barring VotF the only solutions are for night magnets to either get pounded until they give up and stop playing or they've been targeted so much that people stop thinking of them as a threat because they die or get neutralized early most games, or, for more players to begin attracting attention by posting a lot and playing 'better'. Of course, the only way for someone to deal with that would be to encourage active posting and to sit around giving detailed explanations of the ups and downs of tactics, and of course, I've never done that. Certainly I've never deliberately posted in such a fashion as to provoke active conversation about strategy even when it might drawn unwanted attention

There's more to this of course but it doesn't bare discussion, ask me by NB if you want a further explanation, frankly, discussing it at all is something I'm not fond of which is why I don't do it much, to me VotF is there to protect me from being driven out of play by dogpiling and preventing all the secondary effects that happen when night actions become predictable, which is why I don't like seeing anyone become a night action magnet, but I assume the whole thing comes off very threatening to other players, which I dislike, because their POV is essentially me pointing a gun at them, not necessarily realizing it's because they're in my front door unannounced and people keep breaking down the door every other day while everyone else's door gets busted maybe once a month. Add to that in the background I've tended to try not to target new players or night action magnets as much, and since I've had strong say over the NK's on the whole, many haven't gotten squeezed as badly as they probably would have otherwise, yet undeniably some players have been targeted more than they should have, and the most obvious correlating factor is 'activity', to the point that I worry there now is a genuine incentive, as to the prefered opposite, to say little.

Hopefully that explains my reasoning sufficiently to you and others. Lengthier than I really like, but I perceive the whole thing to be a bit of a touchy issue so lengthy explanations are sort of necessary.