In post 0, CrashTextDummie wrote:I've seen this weird bit of hammer etiquette come up with increasing frequency lately, from players both old and new, and I have a couple of questions about it, namely:
1. Who came up with it?
2. What's the purpose of it?
3. Can we please stop doing it?
The rules of conduct when it came to claiming under duress used to be very straight forward: If you were put at L-1, you were expected to claim. If your very next post didn't contain a full claim, you were lynched. Simple, effective. Things got only slightly more complicated when people decided that refusing to claim certain roles (VT, doc) is strategically viable. Most of the time, you were hammered anyway.
This "intent to hammer" business adds an additional step to the proceedings that, as far as I can tell, serves no other purpose than to give scum more time to come up with a fake claim. As much as we all hate to do it, claiming truthfully as town is one of the simplest things to do in a game of mafia and takes no time at all. On the other hand, coming up with a compelling fake claim is one of the hardest and nerve-wracking exercises for scum. Giving them a grace period between L-1 and someone claiming intent to hammer affords them the time to put more thought into it, discuss it in the scum QT, etc: L-1 -> start thinking about fake claim, "intent to hammer" -> place fake claim.
Refusal to claim used to be a decent scum tell. It's strictly more beneficial for scum not to claim than it is for town because it eliminates the risk of being contradicted. Failure to acknowledge that you are at L-1 used to be a
very
strong scum tell. The current situation is confusing and a hindrance to scumhunting. People who believe in announcing intent accuse those who don't of premature hammers and claims. Those who don't believe in announcing intent accuse those who do of refusing to claim and failing to acknowledge that they're at L-1. Since this is apparently a matter of two different believe systems, neither camp is wrong and neither camp is correct and actual scum manages to fall through the cracks.
Could someone please give me a compelling reason why announcing intent to hammer instead of just hammering when someone fails to claim is beneficial for town? Or better yet, could we just stop doing it?