Why is a "vanilla-townie"-claim so frowned upon?

[Yosarian2]

Or, basically, you shouldn't ever claim at all if you're a flavorless vanillia townie, no matter what day it is, unless the town's doing a mass claim or something. It just dosn't help, it just makes it easier for the scum to find the town power roles, and at the same time makes you a "safe lynch". It's just not a good idea.

[Yosarian2]

Otoh, if you have a powerrole, isnt it a very good idea to claim vanilla? So the Mafi awonmt kikll you at night?

Well, but then what if a tracker targeted you, and discovered you were lying because you did do something at night? They'll probably assume you are lying scum, and lynch you. Or what if at some point later in the game, you need to reveal your actual role for some reason? (such as "I investigate person X, he's scum" or "I protected person Y the night there was no kill, he's probably town", or "We lynch person X today, i'll vig-kill person Y tonight, then we'll win" or even "i'm the doc, please don't lynch me"). Then no one will believe you, as you've already lied to them, and whenever you get into one of those "well, were you lying then, or are you lying now?" situations, you're probably screwed.

Best is not to claim unless you've got a very good reason for it. And a vanillia townie almost never has a really good reason for it, unless for some reason there's some useful information the town can gain from it, like end-game in an open role game where the number of townies is known in advance for example.

[Yosarian2]

There are a few rare situations where lying can be good, but "never lie" is a good rule of thumb to follow for newbies, as the situations where lying can be good are really rare.

[Yosarian2]

True. Usually the SK helps the town a bit.

Heh...too many SK's have won lately for that to be true.

Anyway, even besides the chance of a SK win, I tend to think that random kills tend to help the scum; if a SK kills 3 times in a 12 person game, takes out 1 scum and 2 town, he dosn't chance the scum/town ratio of the game but the town gets less lynches and the town power roles get less nights to investigate, which makes it harder for the town to figure anything out. Also, SK's tend to try and take out confirmed innocents and town power roles in general, which hurts the town further.

[Yosarian2]

Mgm: Right, exactally. If claiming townie would somehow stop you from being lynched, it might be ok, but it shouldn't do that (unless there's also flavor involved or something). In fact, because I think a townie should never claim townie, I'm less likely to trust someone who claims townie then I am to trust someone who's just refusing to claim.

There are exceptions, but they're not that common.