Day 1 claims: how useful?

[Cavane]

So yeah. I was thinking about it the other day and wondered whether, with traditional strategy, a Day 1 claim is really all that useful in a standard game. Here's the rub, as I see it.

People who claim vanilla townie generally get lynched anyway, because it's the only 'safe' claim to make for scum, and it's not a power role, so no big loss if it's true. Therefore experienced scum will hardly ever make this claim.

Almost always we see scum claiming cop on D1. It's really quite a good scum claim. In most situations, on D1 you won't be asked to provide any investigation results, and townies will be reluctant to lynch a power role. Of course, the real cop, will now know you're scum, but if he counter claims, he's revealed himself very early.

Claiming Doc is problematic for townie and scum. If a townie claims doc, whether he really is or not, he's almost certainly going to die that night. If a scum claims doc, the town will probably lynch him the next day because he DIDN'T die last night.

So when someone claims cop, particularly on D1, is it a scumtell?!

[Kelly Chen]

When somebody has been pressured to claim, and they claim cop, you can be skeptical I think. If they hadn't been scummy they wouldn't have been pressured so.

However, later in the game cop isn't that great as a scum claim because the town can find reason to doubt that he's been playing as a cop the whole game.

[Patrick]

Vanilla townies probably shouldn't bother claiming at all on day 1, as you said it doesn't help them in anyway.

I don't think cop is all that popular as a day 1 fakeclaim. Maybe you've just read alot of games where it happened. Doctor is a common scum fakeclaim. It is very often used to lure out the real doc if one exists. That's more beneficial than luring another role out; if the cop is lured out, they aren't dead for sure because they can pick up protection at night. But docs can't usually protect themselves.

If scum have abilities, they usually claim that ability but as protown (mafia roleblocker usually claims roleblocker from what I've seen).

[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

[Thestatusquo]

Vanilla townies should always claim doc day one, so as to draw the scum kill for the next night.

[Patrick]

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?

Not being counterclaimed tends to help It depends on the setup, in some themed games you are sometimes supplied with ready made safeclaims. In a themed game I was in that finished yesterday, scum had abillties and were told that no protown player had those abilities, so they effectively had safe roleclaims that way.

Really it depends on what your aiming to achieve with your fakeclaim.

[Jack]

Vanilla townies should always claim doc day one, so as to draw the scum kill for the next night.

But won't the real doc counterclaim? I don't think I would counterclaim right away but you can't disregard the possibility.

[Guardian]

tsq, i like your line of thinking/that style . the thing is, if everyone does that, then doc claims d1 mean nothing, as all town and all mafia should do them.

[Yosarian2]

...

I'm pretty sure TSQ is kidding.

Either that, or he's scum in all of his games right now and is hoping townies will take his advice.

[xyzzy]

Well, if scum targets vanilla townie, then the real doc will live...

But claiming is always a dangerous thing to do.

[Thestatusquo]

I am not at all kidding. A vanilla townie should always claim doc when pressured to claim. A vanilla claim gets them lynched, and a doc claim does not. The doc claim protects the real doc by drawing a scum kill, perhaps all scum kills, and the vanilla claim will not do that.

The only problem is if the doc plays dumbly. The doc/cop should NEVER claim day one, in my opinion, unless they HAVE to in order to prevent their own lynch. They should claim vanilla. (Which is one of the reasons I think "Lynch all vanilla claims is such dumb strategy...I have VERY rarely seen scum claim vanilla, since they're so likely to get lynched.)

All in all, I think LAL is really dumb.

[PurpleKoopa]

Maybe, but if it caught on, doc claims will be read as vanilla and vice versa.

[Yosarian2]

I am not at all kidding. A vanilla townie should always claim doc when pressured to claim. A vanilla claim gets them lynched, and a doc claim does not. The doc claim protects the real doc by drawing a scum kill, perhaps all scum kills, and the vanilla claim will not do that.

The only problem is if the doc plays dumbly. The doc/cop should NEVER claim day one, in my opinion, unless they HAVE to in order to prevent their own lynch. They should claim vanilla. (Which is one of the reasons I think "Lynch all vanilla claims is such dumb strategy...I have VERY rarely seen scum claim vanilla, since they're so likely to get lynched.)

All in all, I think LAL is really dumb.

Interesting.

The thing is, first of all, the real doctor is very likely to either counterclaim or to at least suddenly start voting and attacking the claimed doctor, giving himself away.

And "the real doctor should claim townie" is silly, because then he'd be lynched. The doc should claim so as to avoid being lynched.

So, if everyone played that way, then the town basically wouldn't get any information from the claim at all. If townies claim doc, docs claim doc, and scum claim doc, then anyone bandwagoned will claim doc, the town will lynch them anyway as the claim will have become totally useless.

The way we do it now, where the common stratagy is "good guys don't lie" or at least "good guys don't generally lie",at least if you bandwagon someone and they claim doc, you know that they're either the doc or the scum; and if they are the scum, and the real doc counterclaims, you can lynch without having to seriously consider a "Ok, I'm not really a doc, I'm a lying townie" response. And if there's not a counterclaim, then knowing the person is either the doc or the scum, the town can choose to avoid that risk and lynch someone else, which also helps the town a great deal. So there are a lot of advantages for the town to the good guys not lying in this kind of situation; switching to a "good guys always lie" stratagy like you're suggesting would badly hurt the town.

[Thestatusquo]

More complicated is only worse if the people playing lack the ability to figure the situation. A good doc will not counterclaim or give herself away day 1, so that's how I play.

[Yosarian2]

More complicated is only worse if the people playing lack the ability to figure the situation.

Well, "figuring out the situation" is kind of how the town wins, and disinformation makes that harder almost inevitably. There are times a lie can be useful, but I don't agree that a "day 1 fake doc claim" is ever that kind of situation. If you want to get yourself nightkilled, there are better ways to do it without all the risks involved in claiming doc.

A good doc will not counterclaim or give herself away day 1, so that's how I play.

Not necessaraly true. For example, in a newbie game, if I didn't know if there was a cop, I would certanly counterclaim a fake day 1 doc claim, because it's worth it to get the doc nightkilled in that situation if it means that one of the two scum get lynched. And besides, it's very hard to not give yourself away in that kind of situation; if you're pro-town, you WILL tend to act differently towards someone you know is lying. That's almost unavoidable.

[Dr. Doom]

Vanilla townies should always claim doc day one, so as to draw the scum kill for the next night.

Absolutely don't! The real Doc will think they are scum, and probably counterclaim. Even if he does not, the Scum will have a good guess at the real Doc from how the Game develops.

The way we do it now, where the common stratagy is "good guys don't lie" or at least "good guys don't generally lie",at least if you bandwagon someone and they claim doc, you know that they're either the doc or the scum; and if they are the scum, and the real doc counterclaims, you can lynch without having to seriously consider a "Ok, I'm not really a doc, I'm a lying townie" response. And if there's not a counterclaim, then knowing the person is either the doc or the scum, the town can choose to avoid that risk and lynch someone else, which also helps the town a great deal. So there are a lot of advantages for the town to the good guys not lying in this kind of situation; switching to a "good guys always lie" stratagy like you're suggesting would badly hurt the town.

100% Acknowledge. The Main thing is, that if Town holds to "LAL/Good Guys don't lie", then a claim will either mean scum or the claimed role, so the player with teh real role will know whats going on, and the other Townies only have to consider two options/can disregard any "Okay, I lied, I am really a townie" defense entirely.

[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.

[Yamahako]

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.

exactly, if that were to become the "rule," Then if a scum is wagoned, claims doc and the real doc doesn't counter claim thinking that person is a townie - then the scum may have just tied up the doc for the night in addition to avoiding a lynch.

The chance is too great that the doc won't follow the "plan" you've set-up, and in a game where the doc might - you've probably got savy enough scum that would either take advantage of it, or not be fooled by it. Which leads you to the logical conclusion that its best not to claim doc - back where we started.

Due to the random nature of the first lynch anyway - I almost think all day one claims are grounds for lynching. Most scum are going to claim if they are on the block anyway, making there be a danger of counterclaim. And most power roles will be outing themselves for a night kill anyway. I think if you want to talk your way out - that's fine - but a claim is usually not something that sways my thinking. Good townie behavior is harder to fake than a claim.

[Thestatusquo]

Vanilla townies should always claim doc day one, so as to draw the scum kill for the next night.

Absolutely don't! The real Doc will think they are scum, and probably counterclaim. Even if he does not, the Scum will have a good guess at the real Doc from how the Game develops.

It really doesn't matter what the real doc thinks. As long as the real doc doesn't do something stupid like counterclaim. There are VERY few situations where a doc should counterclaim on d1, and this is certainly not one of them. If the real doc is an idiot, then they will, if they are intelligent, however, you will draw the scum kill that night, which is a pretty awesome thing to do as a vanilla townie.

[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...

[Yosarian2]

It really doesn't matter what the real doc thinks. As long as the real doc doesn't do something stupid like counterclaim. There are VERY few situations where a doc should counterclaim on d1, and this is certainly not one of them. If the real doc is an idiot, then they will, if they are intelligent, however, you will draw the scum kill that night, which is a pretty awesome thing to do as a vanilla townie.

No, the real doc will assume you're scum, if you claim doc. At the very least, he probably won't unvote you when everyone else does. Which leads to "Yos, why didn't you unvote TSQ when he claimed doc? Do you want to lynch the doc?" Followed by me saying "Well, I don't know if I believe his claim, I think he might really be another doc somwhere who just dosn't want to counterclaim..."

Basically, even if the doc dosn't intend to counter-claim, this kind of tactic often gives the real doc away anyway, which will lead to the fake-claimer being lynched and the real doc getting nightkilled.

Besides, like I said before, if you want to draw mafia fire, there's much, much safer ways to do it, at least in a large game. For example, in Committe mafia, I wanted the scum to nightkill me rather then someone else becaue I was a "had to shoot every night vig", a role I considered somewhat less useful then even a vanillia townie. So without lying to the town, I took information that I had (like the fact that there were "had to shoot every night vigs", and the fact that I knew the person I had killed hadn't been killed by scum) and used that information to help the town avoid mislynches, while implying that I got the information from some kind of undefined role. Basically, I didn't lie, and I didn't say anything that might have caused a counterclaim, but I gave the scum the impression that I might have had some kind of info role, so they killed me, just as I intended.

If you want to get yourself nightkilled to draw mafia fire, claiming doc is about the dumbest way to do it.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I don't claim Day 1 anymore, no matter what my role is. It's a useless endeavor. I seem to often claim Day 2, which is probably too early in most cases.

ETA: Unless I'm counterclaiming, no claims Day 1.

[Karo]

VERY VERY USEFUL

[HackerHuck]

If I'm a mafia roleblocker, I would love for someone to claim doc day one.

We just block the claimed doc that night, kill someone else (hopefully the real doc if they do end up countering) and let the town hammer him in the morning.

[Seol]

scum should always claim doc, hopefully you'll draw out a counterclaiming doc or evade lynch. for this reason, always lynch claimed docs.

doc should claim something that won't get him nightkilled by the mafia. mafia traitor is a good call here, and as long as you're following the "always lynch claimed docs" strategy you're no less likely to survive the day than if you'd told the truth.

if you're a vanilla townie, refuse to claim. it's the same thing as claiming vanilla townie anyway as people with roles can't wait to tell everyone.