Day 1 claims: how useful?

[Mert]

As a sub-question: In a completely closed setup, what are the factors that make up a truly solid fake claim that can convince the town, if not to endgame, for at least a period of time?

This question absolutely does not pertain to any current games I'm in and obviously please don't use any examples of current games where this might still be a "live" issue

[Mert]

Hmmmm. The problem with C9 games is the difficulty in winning as town if you don't lynch correctly on Day One.

If I had a little more flexibility (in a Mini, for example) and somebody claimed Doc on Day One when I was, in fact, the Doc, I'd consider protecting them for one night - if they lived and it seemed my protection did nothing then I'd strongly consider counterclaiming Day Two.

Of course, the thing is that if this became standard policy then it's wide open to exploitation by the scum so it clearly can't become "the done thing", but it'd be interesting to try at one point or another.

[Mert]

In a C9 game, the town's only real shot at winning usually involves lynching scum on Day One - a doc may consider it worthwhile counterclaiming in order to find what he believes was (and could well be) a scum fake claim. True, he'll die that night but if there is a cop then even by dying he's allowed to cop to live for one night and get an investigation in - which is probably the his primary job.

Seriously, if we were one mislynch away from LyLo then I'd consider counterclaiming. I agree with you totally for larger games with more flexibility but in a smaller game then I'd definitely consider counterclaiming there and then. Encouraging townies to claim doc on Day One as a matter of course in newbie games will just pave the way for scum to sail through Day One with doc claims which will just make winning even harder for the town.

I think it's better as an occasional gambit than a generally-adopted meta strategy, personally...