Random Voting Stage (RVS)
Games here on MafiaScum almost always begin with what's called the Random Voting Stage (RVS). Beginning of the game, players have extremely low information (besides the mafia team who already know everyone's alignments). At this time, players generally will vote for non-serious reasons to provoke reactions from other players. Eventually the discussion will progress, and the game will get moving out of the RVS Stage.
Typically, L-x is how we convey how close to a lynch a player is, with x being the amount of votes needed to successfully lynch a player. You should generally always announce that you are putting someone at L-1, 1 vote away from a lynch, so that someone can't come in and accidentally vote and lynch a player before the playerbase is ready to move on to the next day. This also prevents any Mafia-aligned players from ending the day on their terms by placing the final vote to lynch ("hammer") and then brushing it away like they didn't know it was L-1. Generally, you will also see people post L-2 or L-3 (2 and 3 votes away from lynch).
Before you hammer the player, it is customary that you give an "Intent to hammer" post, so that the player can then claim their role. It is usually best to allow
other players time to react and respond to the claim before hammering.
Unless you are at L-1 and have been asked to claim because of an intent to hammer, it is almost never a good idea to claim your role. If you are a Town Power Role (PR), you are then likely to be killed by Mafia in the night, or Night Killed (NK'ed). If you are a Vanilla Townie (VT), you may think that claiming might not matter too much, but by doing so, you will be narrowing down the field of who a potential PR might be.
There are exceptions to this rule. For instance, if a Mafia-aligned player has just claimed your role, or your role directly counters the Mafia player's, claiming early to counterclaim (CC) would directly out the Mafia player as Mafia, and the town would benefit.
LyLo is the abbreviation of “lynch or lose.” LyLo in the Newbie Queue is when there are 3 remaining players, 2 of which are town and 1 is mafia;
or when there are 5 remaining players, 3 of which are town and 2 are mafia. In these situations the town aligned players should not carelessly vote like is done during RVS or early days, as the mafia player(s) can instantly provide the necessary votes to lynch (“quickhammer”) and win the game without the town being able to fight back. MyLo, however, stands for "Mislynch and Lose", meaning the game will end on a mislynch, but not if you choose to "No Lynch". This generally can be helpful when there are an even amount of players left in the game, and you want to narrow down the pool with some night actions.
