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

[Dr. Doom]

Basically, ahat the topic says. I just read some games, and claiming vanilla when you are

not

at lynch -1 seemed to be really frowned upon. Why is that so?

[ac1983fan]

because there's no reason to claim. I know first-hand. If you are scum, its smarter to claim a powerrole and only when you are at lynch -1. If you are a vanilla, its smarter to wait for -1, because claiming early el,iminates yuou from the "scum kill list", whihc is bad for powerroles.

[spectrumvoid]

Because it narrows down the pool of power roles for scum to night-kill.

Say there are 3 townies and 1 power role. You claim vanilla townie. Instead of 1/4 odds, scum now has 1/3 odds of hitting the power role.

[Mr Stoofer]

As ac1983fan said, there is no point in claiming Townie before you get to lynch -1 and not a lot of point even then. If your bandwagon has any substance/logic behind it, then a claim of Townie should not de-rail it.

(This is NOT a reason to lie if you are a Townie at lynch -1. Better that you be lynched as a Townie than lie. See Lynch All Liars.

Some people to so far as to say You shouldn't claim on Day 1 if you're a plain townie.

[GreenLiquid]

If you're a townie, claiming should probably be your last resort.

[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.

[Dr. Doom]

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

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

But then the town'll lynch you for being a scummy liar.

[cuban smoker]

Claiming townie is not a good strategy early on. Suppose you do, while in fact you could be (a) a townie, (b) a powerrole, or (c) scum. Let's suppose both the town and mafia decide to let you live for a couple days.

If you are in fact townie, the mafia has a better chance of killing a powerrole, as said before.

If you are in fact a powerrole, you may need to announce later that you have this powerrole to help deduce who the mafia are. By Lynch all Liars theory, you have probably screwed the town, as said above.

If you in fact scum, you will either get investigated by a curious cop or will find that the town realizes the only players with incentives to claim townie are scum, and you will get lynched.

Therefore, it seems claiming townie is not a good idea (at least in the early stages).

In fact, if you are pressed for a claim early on, and you are in fact a townie, I suggest claiming an unverifiable pro-town role, such as doctor!

Why? The town probably won't lynch you, which is good. The scum may target you, but if you are playing for the win condition "you win if town wins" as opposed to "survive", then this is good for the town, since no powerrole dies the night you die. It can get even better if there is a real doctor in town. Now the real doctor may be skeptical of your claim, but won't publicly denounce you. They may in fact protect you since you are now an obvious mafia target.

In addition, in future games when a real doc claims, the mafia may choose not to target them immediately thinking it could be a fake doc claim. Extra bonus!

Now, if scum claim doc, things get interesting. I leave that to another post.

Suffice to say, townies shouldn't claim townie. They should consider claiming an unverifiable power role (cop/vig not good choices) for the main goal of sacrificing themselves to the mafia for the betterment of the town.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

Claiming doc is always going to help the scum figure out who the real doc is. Really, lying is a bad idea.

[Thok]

Claiming doc is always going to help the scum figure out who the real doc is. Really, lying is a bad idea.

Specifically, scum can try to analyze reactions to a fake doc claim to find the real doc.

The real trick is to avoid being bandwagonned day 1. If you are often being bandwagonned day 1, you are better off figuring out why people are attacking you than dealing with a claim.

(The backup trick is being able to defend yourself with claiming; agin, this obliviates the need for you to claim.)

[cuban smoker]

I disagree! If I claim doc and get targetted by the mafia, I have in fact saved the doctor from a random night kill. If the doctor saves me the same night, we have prevented a night kill.

If I claim doc and don't get targetted by the mafia, you may argue that I have increased the mafia's chance of finding the real doc from 1/n to 1/(n-1) (where n is number of non-mafia players remaining). But you have to wonder: why on earth isn't the mafia targetting the claimed doc? If they had reason to believe I'm not the real doctor, they must have gained this knowledge before my claim. Therefore they wouldn't be targetting me anyway. The action of claiming doctor does not increase the chance they find the real doctor.

EDIT to address Thok: No good doctor would react in any noticeable way to a fake doc claim in their posts until the end game. There could actually be two docs, and this would foolishly out both.

Now suppose that this strategy becomes mainstream, and the mafia knows that with some probability my doctor claim is a fake claim. Every time they choose not to target me (and I'm a townie) they have increased their chance of finding the doctor by a small amount. Every time they choose to not target me (a doctor), they have decreased the chance of finding the doctor to zero!

I can make a chart and calculate the EV of these plays. It's just like poker. A little bluffing keeps your opponents guessing and playing suboptimally.

Conclusion, not all lying is bad.

[jeep]

For the town... all lying is bad. You've also stopped them from killing the SK. You've also make the doctor assume (correctly) that you are lying and thus it brings him out more. It also makes it easier for the mafia to claim doctor. It also makes the guy who followed you yesterday know that you are lying... etc etc.

Seriously, plot out the EV. If you are accurate with your model, then they will almost certainly show that lying as town is bad for the town.

-JEEP

[mith]

Stopping them killing the SK is usually

not

a bad thing.

But I agree with the other bit; given that two normal doctors is rare in most setups, the real doctor (if there is one) is assume you're lying and will probably come out. In most cases, a doctor for a scum is a good trade for the town.

(I don't think I agree with the conclusion. Situations can arise where lying is good for the town. They are just so rare that inexperienced players should be strongly encouraged not to lie, because even when it looks like a good idea it probably isn't.)

[jeep]

True. Usually the SK helps the town a bit.

And, sure, I can contrive a case where lying is good. But it's RARELY going to come up. And many times when it looks like lying is good from the player perspective... it's not.

-JEEP

[Fiasco]

What about claiming unnightkillable as a sane cop? I might be tempted to try that. (Of course, now people won't trust any "unnightkillable" claims from me in the future. But at least they'll waste kills on me when I really am unnightkillable.)

[cuban smoker]

Ok, I remeber having this discussion a long time ago. In larger setups with a wider variety of roles, I think we can safely assume that all lying is bad. I respect your argument JEEP.

However, in a smaller setup, say with mafia, cops, docs and townies, I think my argument shows that the strategy of claiming doc as a townie can help the town. Specifically, you must assume:
- There are no roles that the town would prefer to see killed over a townie (i.e SK)
- The doctor will not change how they post or attract attention to you until later in the game.
- There are no 'follow' roles
- ???

I think a good strategy for the real doctor after watching a fake claim is to protect the claimer. If someone else dies, it increases the chance the faker is mafia. If no one dies, it pretty much guarantees the claimer is innocent. The doctor, in a day or two, may use choose to reveal some of this info to the town.

Ultimately, lying is not a good strategy, but I insist there exist optimal lies. For instance: if you are a vanilla townie in a claim or lynch situation, we have argued claiming townie is a bad strategy. So is getting lynched! There must exist an optimal strategy for the townie in the face of the town's claim or lynch strategy.

[Fiasco]

Lying is optimal whenever it hurts scum decision-making more than town decision-making. I don't see why that would be extremely rare.

[jeep]

Remember that the scum is "informed" and the town is "uninformed". The scum really don't need to figure out much. They just need to fly under the radar. That's why it's rare for a lie to hurt the scum more than the town. Scum can almost choose randomly during the night.

Getting lynched as townie isn't necessarily bad.

-JEEP

[Mr Stoofer]

Yosarian2 is right.

[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.

[Zindaras]

I claimed Roleblocker once as Townie. It wasn't a good decision.

[Glork]

I claimed Roleblocker once as Townie. It wasn't a good decision.

True story.

Your claimed targets were obviously false.

[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.