There are pros and cons to voting or not voting someone out in the first day. I think it's short-sighted for players to only make arguments with the strengths of the position they support while ignoring the associated drawbacks.

Saying the one is better than the other depends on your subjective desire/tolerance for risk. Not voting someone out can be considered a "safe play" for both the townsfolk and the mafia, since each group would know that they have not eliminated one of their own. Voting someone out is "riskier play" since you have a possibility of benefiting your team, but also the possibility of hurting it inadvertently.

As for the argument about this phase being the least likely situation to kill the doctor/cop, we could also make the probability of not killing those two equal to 0% if we simply don't vote. That would also give us a 100% chance that they would both get an opportunity to do something this night, and possibly give us some information for the next day's vote.

It's actually kind of silly to make the argument that we have only a bigger chance of knocking them out in the later rounds, since we have to go through those rounds regardless. Voting today only increases the chance that the cop/doctor leave the game earlier rather than later.

For those that are pro-lynch, how should we make the choice of who we vote out?

The real probabilities to look at is the probability that a role is alive the next day, not the probability that the role dies during this day from a lynching. So there will never be a 0% chance that the doctor or cop survive to tomorrow by us not lynching. The mafia are closest to reaching that 0% chance of dying by us not lynching.

Correction: replace 0% with 100% and the last "dying" with "not dying". I think you guys get my point.

To y2k's point, I hear the "wait to lynch" so we will no more. Only So far nobody has explained to me realistically how I will “know more” after today, other than to know the mafia/sk have killed two people, and I know now not to lynch a dead man. Other than that, the cop will still be a mystery, as will the doc, unless they choose to self-reveal – which they could do now. So unless we have a psychic, there is no “true knowledge” we will have tomorrow more than today – other than who the mafia targeted, I suppose.

The cop could perform a successful investigation tonight. The doc could see that he saved someone tonight. Those are two situations where we might have more info tomorrow.

But, it seems like the bloodlust is reaching a critical mass. Perhaps we should start discussing exactly who we are voting to lynch.

I'm will krellin. It makes more sense to vote someone who has been against lynching than a silent person. As such, I'm going to break the ice and open with a nomination ##VOTE Thucy

Subject to change.

The cop can also find out a townie is innocent and then what? reveal himself? How do you propose the Cop conduct himself without suffering the banhammer?

Then he doesn't reveal himself and try again the next night

Wait is there an actual vote? Goodie!

Real vote count update in next post.

Vote Count Update the Third

Thucydides (1): WardenDresden
No-lynch (5): Thucydides, Chaqa, Fasces349, AlexNesta, kasimax

Votes outstanding (12): Everyone else (I'm not writing this whole list out)

Currently NO ONE is set to be lynched!

Roughly 32.5 hours remain.

yebellz - why would the cop reveal himself tomorrow if he hasn't done it today? I think that's a strange assumption...

Ok, so I think I'm up to speed with everything now.

I can see where the people with a no-lynch vote are coming from. It's difficult to accuse a specific person this early on because it's risking that person voting you, and other people bandwagoning on because your accusation was baseless. Also, if someone is lynched, it will likely not be a member of the Mafia. The statistics seem to be a 5/18 chance of getting a non-town member (serial killer or Mafia) but that's assuming completely random selection, that everyone has an equal chance of being picked.

It's reasonable to assume that the Mafia won't vote for themselves, unless there's some sort of serious double bluff. If they all put their votes towards one person, that's 4/18 votes on a non-Mafia member already. Considering we've already got 5 (?) no-lynch voters, that's 4/13. Also, if I were a mafia member I would wait until a name is suggested and gains a bit of momentum before voting on it, so that I would not put the blame on myself if an innocent person got lynched. This means the chance of lynching a mafia member is much lower than the first statistic suggested.

That said, not lynching anyone is not a great idea either, as then we have zero chance of getting a mafia member or serial killer. I guess it comes down to what do we need more: a (small) chance of getting a Mafia member and having 15-16 people in the next round, or no chance of lynching them and having 16-17 people in the next round.

I don't know which of these is better, but I'm going to say ##VOTE CHAQA for the hell of it. Might change it later depending on what is said.

One thing is for certain - if we do decide to lynch somebody, it would be best if nobody voted no-lynch. The more people voting no-lynch the more sway the mafia have over who to lynch, if the lynching goes ahead.

Because the cop could have useful info tomorrow that he does not have today. Revealing himself today paints a target on his back from the mafia. However, tomorrow, if he got a successful investigation result, he could perhaps choose to reveal a confirmed guilty individual.

It seems that you might not fully understand all of the rules or game mechanics.

"One thing is for certain - if we do decide to lynch somebody, it would be best if nobody voted no-lynch. The more people voting no-lynch the more sway the mafia have over who to lynch, if the lynching goes ahead. "

Excellent point.

@yebellz - I understand the game mechanics. The cop can presumably identify a mafia member. As soon as he openly reveals himself (in order for the Townies to assuredly lynch one mafia person), I suspect the cop dies.

So you are assuming the cop wants to go out in a single blaze of glory for one dead mafia man? I question your logic, and question why you want the cop to reveal himself?

"So you are assuming the cop wants to go out in a single blaze of glory for one dead mafia man? I question your logic, and question why you want the cop to reveal himself?"

It's a risk vs reward problem. The longer the cop doesn't reveal his identity for, the longer he survives and so the more mafia members he might be able to discover. However, the longer he waits, the more chance he's going to be killed before managing to reveal anything, and even if he doesn't get killed he can't leave it too long anyway because every turn that goes past without a mafia member going down, the more hold they have on the lynch vote.

It is an option. The cop could also play on the DL, only trying to influence the vote toward those that he's confirmed, or maybe he waits until he's confirmed two or more mafia. However, playing on the DL risks not having an effective impact, and waiting risks getting eliminated before being able to reveal his info.

There is no one clear "right" way to play any role or even whether we should lynch someone today. It's clear that the purpose of these inane questions are not to demonstrate your ignorance of the rules or incompetence in regards to the strategy, but rather a divertionary attempt to cast doubt on my arguments to consider our decisions more carefully.

Of course, I don't have the optimal strategy worked out. No one does as it can't really even be well defined given the complexity of a game involving free form communication. What I dislike about the arguments on both sides so far is that they have been incredibly polarized with people only focusing on the pros of the position they support and the cons of what they are against. This is a detriment to productive thought and barrier to us making a decision based on a balanced rational consideration of our options.

Well, you have to make the assumption then that perhaps the cop is silent because he agrees with the action to date.

For example - and do not take this as anything but an example: Thucy has been very vocal for the wait and see routine. If he were the cop, I guess this is a reasonable stance, because he is adamant, and wants the opportunity to investigate Joe. Come tomorrow, if Joe somehow becomes the lynch target, Thucy will not reveal himself, but will willingly allow the lynching to go on - probably even arguing against it to throw off the scent of his status...but as long as Joe goes down, Cop Thucy would not reveal.

Likewise, cop Thucy may know nothing, but wish to not die, and thus stays silent.

So you can't take Cop Silence as any indication of anything. but you should examine the persuasiveness of each persons arguments, I suppose.

Likewise, a noble Townie might falsely profess to be a cop in order to save the cop.

And a mafia man might falsely claim to be the cop in order to screw with the townies.

Yeah the thing is that if someone "reveals" their identity, as long as we are playing craftily and well, it will be next to impossible to say what chance there is that this is their true identity. A townie could claim to be the cop to protect, as krellin said, an hundreds of other conceivable ploys.

Anyway I agree with captainmeme in that, if near the end of the phase it seems clear that the majority want to lynch, I would vote to lynch the sketchiest person, so as not to let the mafia unduly control the lynch vote.

However I don't think it should come to that. So far the accusations that have been out out are weak as hell and I don't see that changing. I'm mafia? Why? Because I'm anti-lynch? Plenty of other posters have made it clear that it is not an inherently anti-town thing to be anti-lynch , it's just a risk-averse strategy. I'm a risk-averse player of games. So there you have it . Lynch Chaqa? Why, exactly? Because he idly cast about a few suspicions? Half a dozen of us have already done that, including now the problem who have voted to lynch Chaqa and me. So what basis is there in that? It just seems silly.

Now as to whether to lynch a silent person; I could get on board with that at the last second . As I said before , we wouldn't have much to lose . Silent people are either suspiciously quiet , or not going to play and thus should be booted anway. We lose little by it.

"Now as to whether to lynch a silent person; I could get on board with that at the last second . As I said before , we wouldn't have much to lose . Silent people are either suspiciously quiet , or not going to play and thus should be booted anway. We lose little by it."

I'm on board with this in the event we get no leads. We seem to have a fair number of people who haven't participated yet.

I'm willing to lynch with reason. I'm not going to lynch for the hell of it. When there's a good suspect, I'll change my vote. I'm not about to lynch an innocent person, game or not.

"So far the accusations that have been out out are weak as hell and I don't see that changing." That is an opinion, and a reflection of your personality. To others, the perception of being anti-lynch is that it is a distinctly pro-mafia stance.

You can not say "you accusation is weak as hell" because, to the best of my knowledge, any accusation ever in this game will be only based upon "weak as hell" perceptions of other players actions/opinions. I understand what you are saying, Thucy - but by your philosophy, you will seemingly never want to lynch, as you will never be 100% certain. I'm also not certain that this game is styled to be a "risk-averse" scenario. Generally speaking, we are risk averse in the hope that risk aversion will stop any ill-effects. In this game, we know for certain that ill will befall us, and the ban-hammer is certain - so I believe the growing consensus is that there is no gain from risk aversion.

Therefore, it would seem your argument for fitting the noose about the silent man's head hold merit.

I agree with the following point made earlier, if there is going to be a lynching, we can be sure that the mafia will influence the vote away from one of their members. So if the lynch vote gains traction, the no-lynchers should work together and agree upon lynching somebody else (at random - hopefully our voting block will be big enough), then at least we might have a chance to get one of the bad guys. To summarize, for me: no lynch > truly random lynch > lynching steered by the mafia votes.

@yebbelz: You have to do something - join a game, donate some points; you just can't give an angry mob such a good reason to go after you! :-)

I can get behind the random lynch, I agree that any formalized debate and conclusion on who to lynch would be heavily influenced by the mafia to avoid one of their own, and a random lynching would have better odds at hitting a mafia member.

Well, while I do not know who the vigilante, doc or cop are, I would like to offer them some advice for how i would play tonight.
Cop: Well, it is quite simple, assuming you survive today (which is likely) you should investigate a prominent figure (Thucy, Jok3R, Chaqa, Krellin, Warden) you are unsure about. Such prominent figures tend to steer conversation, and while it may just be a very expressive townie, I have a hunch at least one member of the mafia is part of the main conversation. You could also look for a not so prominent figure who posts near the end, as we have previously expressed this as another mafia strategy. Also, I suggest you try to influence conversation after you have some hard evidence, but don't reveal your identity willy nilly, because if the mafia knows who you are, you will be either role-blocked or killed.
Doctor: It is likely the mafia will go after a prominent figure, so I suggest you find someone you believe is in danger and is near center of conflict (and who the mafia might want to lynch, obviously) and protect them. However, I do not think it would be wise to protect someone directly in the center of conflict, as I have expressed my previous concern that at least one may be mafia(or even the serial killer). Granted this is mostly speculation, so take my words with a grain of salt.
Vigilante: As I suggested before, I suggest you focus on finding the serial killer, as he can shield himself from investigation or death, so he will be tougher to catch. Also, as Fasces mentioned, don't waste that shot.
@Fasces: While you may not use math to play mafia, probability and risk management can not be ignore. And while I did say algorithm, I meant process based upon logic, reason, and rules, but algorithm sounds so much cooler. If you believe me to be suspicious, I will happily sit for a trial, but that will waste time. Despite your accusation of me, I believe you actually are trying to benefit the town, so I will not cast my vote for you. I may wait a little longer for more posts, but I have a good idea on who I think actually is mafia.

y2k - and thus, re: mafia infuence, some possibilities exist:

1. We make a group assertion on who to lynch, and it goes uncontested by anyone (other than he who is to be lynched) and we can assume the mafia is happy with the result, and thus it should be changed

2. We make a group assertion, and but a few protest...which means either we have targetted the mafia, or we have nay-sayers saying their nays because they want to say nays.

/\ This is why I have advocated the idea that if the overall group is agreed on a course of action, then those in the minority who do not comply with the group should be eliminated to better work together in the future. This is no place for a free and open democracy; but instead Vanilla Town should be under Martial Law, with full compliance under threat of the rope, so as to better identify those that are working against us.

Under that logic krellin, all the mafia would need to do is to always align with the majority, and they would eventually win as the dissenters are whittled down.

I honestly think it's probably fairly likely that many of the mafia members are afk. Only, what just over half of the players have even posted?

All of your suggested Strategies sound alright at first glance , but again, none is entirely convincing.

I still think it's entirely unclear that either no-lynch or pro-lynch is associated with the mafia. As others have said it's a play style question for both sides.

Indeed do not discount the fact that the mafia could have internal disagreements itself about what to say, who to try to lynch, and who to murder. So do keep that in mind . Alternatively they may intentionally disagree in the open so as to shield one side or the other.

It's a morass. I still say no-lynch is preferable and if we must lynch, that it be a silent one, right at the end (which may be logistically difficult to get the votes in anyway)