Claiming when you're about to get lynched.

[Aronis]

Why do people wait to claim until they are at L-1 and everyone not on the wagon has threatened to hammer?

I thought you were supposed to claim as soon as you got to L-1. The delay doesn't really help town, it just gives scum more time to get things together for their fakeclaims anyways.

[Magua]

Because of the propensity for lynch wagons to get to L-1 and then dissolve.

(Claiming is in general pretty bad for you, regardless of alignment. So everyone's incentivized to put off claiming as long as possible.)

[reinoe]

Why do people wait to claim until they are at L-1 and everyone not on the wagon has threatened to hammer?

I thought you were supposed to claim as soon as you got to L-1. The delay doesn't really help town, it just gives scum more time to get things together for their fakeclaims anyways.

Sometimes to mix it up I like to claim for no reason during day 1.

[Burning_Earth]

Yes but you are a terrible person

[Shadowmod]

More specifically:
If you are a PR, you do not want to out that info, more specifically you so not want it out to scum, and if there was something that you'd really wanted to be out right now, youd have claimed that bit already.
If you are a VT, you do not want that to be known publicly, and therefor by scum as well, because as it gives town nothing useful at all but helps scum to PoE power role hunt.

Thus you only ever want to claim when the alternative is worse, i.e. you are gonna get lynched otherwise, being at L-1 and with hammer intent stated by some one not voting yet. Even then, as some roles it may be better to tell people to bugger off or do what they cannot let be and not claim your (true) role or at least not all aspects of it (as an example, I remember having a scum-selective suicide bomber aspect to my role in one game, for examle. I would not have specified that part under any circumstances. I simply told people they would not need to know during mass claim and went on successfully sniping the final scum i the game).

[Vi]

FWIW if you play it right you can use claims prior to L-1 as social judo to make yourself look megaTown. This is a large improvement over the standard purpose of claims (i.e. "we're going to lynch you anyway buuuut maybe if you're too valuable to lynch, etc.").

[quadz08]

'social judo'

Vi is a pro using people's text-momentum against them

[GuyInFreezer]

Claim Miller Rolecop
Nobody will suspect a thing.

[Aronis]

More specifically:
If you are a PR, you do not want to out that info, more specifically you so not want it out to scum, and if there was something that you'd really wanted to be out right now, youd have claimed that bit already.
If you are a VT, you do not want that to be known publicly, and therefor by scum as well, because as it gives town nothing useful at all but helps scum to PoE power role hunt.

Thus you only ever want to claim when the alternative is worse, i.e. you are gonna get lynched otherwise, being at L-1 and with hammer intent stated by some one not voting yet. Even then, as some roles it may be better to tell people to bugger off or do what they cannot let be and not claim your (true) role or at least not all aspects of it (as an example, I remember having a scum-selective suicide bomber aspect to my role in one game, for examle. I would not have specified that part under any circumstances. I simply told people they would not need to know during mass claim and went on successfully sniping the final scum i the game).

If you're at L-1 and wait until a hammer has been threatened to claim, the odds of me believing anything you say drops drastically. If I'm a town PR, I want to claim as soon as I get to L-1 to avoid any possible quickhammers by someone. Where as if I'm scum, I really don't want to have to claim a PR I don't have, so I'm more likely to wait until the last second.

[Aronis]

FWIW if you play it right you can use claims prior to L-1 as social judo to make yourself look megaTown. This is a large improvement over the standard purpose of claims (i.e. "we're going to lynch you anyway buuuut maybe if you're too valuable to lynch, etc.").

I've done this on occasion, but it really just depends on the role. I only like doing it with weaker town PRs normally. Because it ticks me off when VTs try it and if I'm the cop or something, I generally don't want to out myself that quick.

[Shadowmod]

People rely on role claims to dertermine alignment way too much. Like when it is day 3, town has mislynched twice and some one suggests "uh, let's just mass claim or something". And most of the time it doesn't even work. What you should really do is not let it come so far that all standing between you and a lynch is a good "townie" claim.
The only thing you can really gain from claims is tactical play, p.e. not lynch the claimed cop unless it is LyLo, or force some one's hand if their claim is confirmable in some way.

[Zachrulez]

If a player is at lynch -1 with a lynch pending, that really shouldn't be the time for players to suddenly decide that the person claiming vanilla is town, that really shouldn't stop the lynch, and then of course the more you play the game of how awesome you are at reading claims, inevitably you end up outting power roles anyway which is like the exact opposite of what you want to be doing.

Ideally in games I would NEVER claim until my role had information that made claiming worthwhile, but in game it's kind of a judgment call. My thought is that if you're vanilla you probably don't even want to bother claiming because it's better from a power role fishing perspective if they just lynch you. (Regardless of this I have claimed as vanilla because the site meta REALLY wants you to when you're under pressure.) As a power role, it's really a judgment call. If the momentum for your wagon is inevitable then you probably want to claim as far before lynch -1 as you can because the more you put off a claim the more likely town is to lynch you anyway.

[Faraday]

People rely on role claims to dertermine alignment way too much. Like when it is day 3, town has mislynched twice and some one suggests "uh, let's just mass claim or something". And most of the time it doesn't even work. What you should really do is not let it come so far that all standing between you and a lynch is a good "townie" claim.

There's nothing wrong with massclaiming and trying to work out if the power roles claimed make sense with what you've seen.

People worry too much about outing power roles, I think. If you think the VT being wagoned is town you should be trying to dismantle the wagon, not going for the "worst case scenario he's just a vt", lynch.

[Beck]

Because of the propensity for lynch wagons to get to L-1 and then dissolve.

Well I suggest we nip that in the bud

[reinoe]

People rely on role claims to dertermine alignment way too much. Like when it is day 3, town has mislynched twice and some one suggests "uh, let's just mass claim or something". And most of the time it doesn't even work. What you should really do is not let it come so far that all standing between you and a lynch is a good "townie" claim.

There's nothing wrong with massclaiming and trying to work out if the power roles claimed make sense with what you've seen.

People worry too much about outing power roles, I think. If you think the VT being wagoned is town you should be trying to dismantle the wagon, not going for the "worst case scenario he's just a vt", lynch.

THIS!!!!! If I think someone is town, I'm not going to wait until they get to L-1 to defend them. Wagon analysis should start before L-1. Even if you think the person is scum. Sometimes I will think a person is scum but the wagon on them just makes my skin crawl.

[Vi]

People worry too much about outing power roles, I think. If you think the VT being wagoned is town you should be trying to dismantle the wagon, not going for the "worst case scenario he's just a vt", lynch.

This this this this. Why is this so difficult for people to understand?

No seriously. If outing a role (which

might

be a power role and

might

be the kill choice) is worse for Town than mislynching (removing two people from Town's numbers, increasing scum advantage) then that suggests that the Town is screwed without the power role, which means they were probably going to lose anyway outside Follow The Cop setups.

[Zachrulez]

People worry too much about outing power roles, I think. If you think the VT being wagoned is town you should be trying to dismantle the wagon, not going for the "worst case scenario he's just a vt", lynch.

This this this this. Why is this so difficult for people to understand?

No seriously. If outing a role (which

might

be a power role and

might

be the kill choice) is worse for Town than mislynching (removing two people from Town's numbers, increasing scum advantage) then that suggests that the Town is screwed without the power role, which means they were probably going to lose anyway outside Follow The Cop setups.

I'm suggesting that if the town was willing to lynch a vt before a claim, the claim itself generally shouldn't stop the lynch. It does surprisingly often. The reason tends to be because people think the claim "sounds town" as if scum doesn't have the ability to make a claim sound town.

I'm not suggesting that if it becomes obvious a player is town you shouldn't accept the consequences of the player now being outted. I am suggesting that if it's so obvious a player is town, they probably shouldn't have been run up to a claim in the first place. I do think towns have a tendency to run up players just to get a claim and it's not particularly good play.

As a player I get annoyed when you have a quarter to a third of the town outed on day 1.

[Vi]

People worry too much about outing power roles, I think. If you think the VT being wagoned is town you should be trying to dismantle the wagon, not going for the "worst case scenario he's just a vt", lynch.

This this this this. Why is this so difficult for people to understand?

No seriously. If outing a role (which

might

be a power role and

might

be the kill choice) is worse for Town than mislynching (removing two people from Town's numbers, increasing scum advantage) then that suggests that the Town is screwed without the power role, which means they were probably going to lose anyway outside Follow The Cop setups.

I'm suggesting that if the town was willing to lynch a vt before a claim, the claim itself generally shouldn't stop the lynch. It does surprisingly often. The reason tends to be because people think the claim "sounds town" as if scum doesn't have the ability to make a claim sound town.

I'm not suggesting that if it becomes obvious a player is town you shouldn't accept the consequences of the player now being outted. I am suggesting that if it's so obvious a player is town, they probably shouldn't have been run up to a claim in the first place. I do think towns have a tendency to run up players just to get a claim and it's not particularly good play.

As a player I get annoyed when you have a quarter to a third of the town outed on day 1.

I have seen Towns run people up for lolclaims, but I don't expect it much from this site. But, the meta has probably changed since I was last active... Nonetheless, the point that I don't think is getting through is that players may not seem Townish

until

they claim, at which time things change.

As a player I almost prefer when a quarter to a third of the (Mini-size) Town is outed on Day 1, provided that they didn't claim frivolously and I think they're all very likely to be Town.

[Faraday]

People worry too much about outing power roles, I think. If you think the VT being wagoned is town you should be trying to dismantle the wagon, not going for the "worst case scenario he's just a vt", lynch.

This this this this. Why is this so difficult for people to understand?

No seriously. If outing a role (which

might

be a power role and

might

be the kill choice) is worse for Town than mislynching (removing two people from Town's numbers, increasing scum advantage) then that suggests that the Town is screwed without the power role, which means they were probably going to lose anyway outside Follow The Cop setups.

I'm suggesting that if the town was willing to lynch a vt before a claim, the claim itself generally shouldn't stop the lynch. It does surprisingly often. The reason tends to be because people think the claim "sounds town" as if scum doesn't have the ability to make a claim sound town.

I mean the whole point of mafia is trying to distinguish town things from fake town things, people doing this from how someone claims their role isn't any more outlandish than lots of other stuff people use *shrug*

[Muffin]

FWIW if you play it right you can use claims prior to L-1 as social judo to make yourself look megaTown.

Not sure what you mean by this, could you elaborate and/or give a quick hypothetical example?

[Shadowmod]

I mean the whole point of mafia is trying to distinguish town things from fake town things, people doing this from how someone claims their role isn't any more outlandish than lots of other stuff people use *shrug*

That's true, but claiming is just one little among many, many things and should not get more focus than it deserves. Some people seem to think a mass full claim is a magical device that will break the game wide open for town, whereas in reality it can just as well turn things from bad to worse for a town that's already in bad shape.

Giving lynchees the chance to claim, bring forth a final defense or share some last words before the hammer is good practice of play, though.

[Vi]

FWIW if you play it right you can use claims prior to L-1 as social judo to make yourself look megaTown.

Not sure what you mean by this, could you elaborate and/or give a quick hypothetical example?

It's like claiming any other role. Yours happens to be vanilla, but if you make it very clear that you've been playing with that in mind, then etc. (Of course this can be faked, but many sensible scum will be keeping the option open to claim a power role and won't go for that approach.)

Two kinda-themey games I can think of that may be relevant to this thread (and show that I'm oooooold, and that I kinda miss some people, like circa-2010 Vi ):
Of Rogues and Curses - no fewer than three V.Townie claims Day 1. All of them were Town. Scum got lynched Day 1. Town lost but not really due to the claims (more like a brilliant gambit on a flavor technicality).

Pie E7 Mark II - It's frigging Pie E7 and a V.Townie autoclaimed at L-1 on Page 5. I proceed to break the setup anyway

with the help of the claim

.

[Muffin]

It's like claiming any other role. Yours happens to be vanilla, but if you make it very clear that you've been playing with that in mind, then etc. (Of course this can be faked, but many sensible scum will be keeping the option open to claim a power role and won't go for that approach.)

Oh I see what you're getting at. Makes sense.

[Thestatusquo]

Never claim.

[reinoe]

It's like claiming any other role. Yours happens to be vanilla, but if you make it very clear that you've been playing with that in mind, then etc. (Of course this can be faked, but many sensible scum will be keeping the option open to claim a power role and won't go for that approach.)

Oh I see what you're getting at. Makes sense.

That means sometimes you gotta breadcrumb vanilla townie.