+ Explain, don't offer excuses. You didn't make that argument because 'I'm a newbie and I didn't know better.' You made it because you thought it was the right/protown thing to do based on the information and experience you had at the time. Why was that?
+ No matter how convinced you are that X is the scummiest player in the game, if you're the only one voting X while Y and Z have five votes each, you really ought to be offering an opinion on which of Y and Z is scummier than the other.
+ Be civil. Mafia players are human, and all else being equal they'd rather get rid of the guy who thinks they're a bunch of retards who dribble over their keyboards than someone who disagrees with them, but can see where they're coming from.*
+ Vanilla townie claims will leave you looking like a 'low-risk' lynch. People will always tread slightly more carefully around you if there is the chance you might be a power role. Even if you don't get lynched as a result of a premature claim, you've helped the scum narrow down where the actual PRs are. By the same token, 'noble' statements such as 'I don't mind getting lynched, it's better than no-lynch' are pretty much de facto vanilla claims (since lynching a cop, for example, is very much worse than no-lynch). Avoid them.
+ If you are forced to claim your role (which should rarely happen unless you are within a couple of votes of being lynched, or there is an impending deadline) go look at your role PM, or even better have it open in another tab while you write your claim. Claim your exact rolename, and try to explain as clearly as you can what any abilities you have do as well as your flavor justification for them if there is any. If this information comes out piecemeal, it may look as if you came up with each part of the claim separately.
+ Aim for a level of activity that is within the normal range for the game. By this, I don't even mean that you should necessarily avoid being the most active poster in the game (although the
least
active will always garner suspicion) - rather, that if you're posting half or twice as much as the next most extreme poster in terms of activity, you're probably going to be pissing people off and get considered either a lurker or a spammer. When in doubt, err on the side of more activity.+ If you're struggling for things to say, try looking at other players' previous games, or reading in isolation someone no-one's really talking about.
+ If you find yourself getting angry and emotional, it may be best to step away from the computer for half an hour. Get some juice or something, read a chapter of a book, then come back to the game.
+ If you're being attacked as town, the player who seems the most convinced that you are scum is not necessarily the person on your wagon who is most likely to
be
scum. + Also, it almost never happens that all the scum push the same wagon simultaneously early on. If there is a serious wagon on you, then someone on it, and likely most of the players on it, will be town. You need to convince these people that you are a bad lynch. Suggesting that the basis for your wagon is that the scum have it in for you will not help you do this.
+ Referring to yourself as an easy target is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
+ However bad things look for you, never stop scumhunting. Don't be fatalistic and assume that your death is inevitable because four people want you dead, even if those people seem absolutely convinced.
+ There's nothing wrong with the odd joke or lighthearted anecdote, especially early on. But don't let your 'lulzy' posts outnumber your 'useful' ones.
*I actually hold civility to be a slight scumtell, but that's mostly because this advice works - it's a good way to avoid being lynched.
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Really like to hear other people's thoughts on, and additions to, this guide. It's something I've been wanting to write for ages, because how often do you see a scenario where a newbie does something slightly scummy early on and then the momentum builds inexorably toward their lynch? They omgus, they start screaming, they prematurely claim... pretty soon, people who didn't even think the original act was that big a deal end up voting for them, either because they believe the reaction was itself scummy, or that the player has made herself enough of a distraction to require removal in the interests of a readable game.
