Claiming 101
aka - why am I having to write this in the middle of a game where people are already claiming?
So let's start with 'what is a claim?'
A claim is when you announce your role to the world. There are many reasons to do this. A fair few are bollocks reasons.Let's do a quick glance over 'reasons to claim'
1. You're going to be lynched, you claim to try to stop the lynch.
2. You have game relevant info that seems worth exposing yourself to NK (e.g. you can cause the lynch of a scum, you can prevent the lynch of a confirmed town/make a confirmed town)
3. You're doing the gambitz!1!!
4. You're trying to expose enough setup info to allow town to gain a scumhunting advantage (generally this is part of an organized massclaim if it is remotely happening in a good way)
The above are all good reasons to claim, but you'll note that there tends to be certain addendum attached to each, that's because it is very easy to claim in a stupid way for each of the situations. Just as a quick example - let's look through a bad version of each claim reason;
1. You claim at L-2. No one was expressing much intent to vote you who wasn't already voting you, you probably could have just kept arguing against your lynch.
2. You decide your info is game relevant (I tracked Player X going nowhere last night, and there was no kill, he's the scum!) when it isn't.
3. Your gambit is dumb (I'm going to claim to be a day vig and post
Kill: Player X
lulz, this will get great reactions!)
4. Only half the town agrees to the massclaim, and only half claim, and then the claims peter out. Or you do it in a setup where the mod has built to punish mass claim game break plans.
So, at the end of the day, what is the real hope to a claim? That answer is the same as the answer town should have for literally anything they do - that the action will lead to lynching scum or to clearing town. So as you start to think about claiming you should basically ask yourself how the claim does one of those things. If you can't clearly articulate it then it's probably not the right time to claim.
Another good thing to look at is your downside for delaying your claim.
As an example, say it's Day 1 in a Semi Open setup like 2d3.
Someone gets run up to L-1 and claims Cop.
You, however, are the Cop.
Do you claim now and get the scum lynched?
Well...maybe, maybe not. There are a few possible paths;
1. You claim, scum is lynched. The scum team will then try to kill/block your role and town may or may not have a protective role. You got town 1 scum flip at probably the cost of your life and/or functionality besides being a confirmed town.
2. You do not claim. Someone else is lynched (who may or may not be town) You then get an investigate at night - you may or may not be NKed - if you die then scum is lynched the next day, if you live then you have a clear or a guilty to report and can still counterclaim the fake claimed Cop.
Which option offers more benefit to town? I would argue #2 because it provides more info to town overall (though there is some potential risk of how people do or don't react to your counter claim, but by counterclaiming you do assure a scum lynch within two phases). The ramifications of your claim a phase or two down the line are always something to consider, and if there's no downside to not claiming right away, then maybe don't claim (a good classic example of this is a Vig - a Vig literally should almost never counterclaim as long as he still has bullets and a night phase to work with - because a bullet is a really good counterclaim.)
How to claim when you claim?
There are basically two schools of thought to this.
Each has pros and cons.
1. Tell Everything immediately
In this version you claim your role, you claim all relevant night targets and which night you visited each. You claim any results. You claim any relevant bits of fluff or hidden info in your role PM. You reveal that awkward reference to Kevin Costner was your Bodyguard crumb, ect. ect.
Pros: very helpful for trying to setup break. Very helpful to do a full info dump in case you die before revealing something useful. Very helpful in getting a town that has run you up to L-1 with hammer intent to try to trust that you're telling the truth.
Cons: Gives scum maximum information about what is or is not known about their activities.
2. Tell things in drips and drabs.
Pros: Can work to lure in scum counterclaims before you drop more info. Can work to lull scum into a false sense of security in order to try to get them to reveal more info prior to outing them. Helps in the gambitz!1!!
Cons: Can make you look scummy. Can deny town info that would help them scumhunt. Can distract or annoy town, making them suspect you or an innocent person for non-valid reasons. General potential headaches from other roles claiming to counter your semi-false/incomplete claims.
Generally speaking, by the time claiming is a good thing, you should stick to method #1. If you can't clearly and *specifically* describe afterwards why you opt for a #2 claim, then a #2 claim is basically always the inferior move. Naturally thousands of exceptions exist to this broad statements, but it's a good core rule of thumb. I would also suggest that the more a game includes the following words "Normal, Open, Semi-Open" in its name the less valuable #2 method is. The more "Role Madness, Theme, Closed" appears the safer and more reasonable #2 is.
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For what is happening in this game right now.
At game day start - a no kill is meaningless to everyone except scum.
Now, if you're a town PR who can protect people/prevent actions then the lack of a kill might have more meaning. That said, scum might have no killed just to screw with you/because they're not really present players and gaffed up submitting a kill. Do I think that happened? Probably not, but it is important to at least keep it in your paranoid town mind as a possible reality.
So, at game day start - the only claim I think would have been a good idea was the aforementioned Tracker claim that I mentioned on Day 1 (and I would argue that a full reveal of night results within at least 1-2 real life days would then also have been a good idea).
The thing is, now we have a JKer claim.
That means we either have NK as scum lying to us, NK as derp town lying to us, or we have NK as JKer and have a Doctor, a Tracker, or no other PR at all.
So, what is our over and under for claim info?
In any world where he is telling the truth, NK is the most powerful town role and has outed himself - this is not beneficial for town.
Scum would be dumb not to kill him - because they can't risk him being alive if we manage to lynch a scum.
Scum also know whether there is a Doctor or a Tracker or no other PR - which means now scum has a lot more information than town does (again, showing it was not a good idea to claim if NK is town)
So, here are my suggestions;
1. We treat NK as confirmed town today (this is not a permanent call, but it is a decent one for now) Scum either have to kill him if he's town, or risk him becoming a better Cop if we manage to kill scum. Also, if we have a Doc then Nk's actions start to work like a Cop for us a bit right now - so, bottom line, his lynch today is stupid and I oppose it.
@NK - you should claim your night action within the next 48 hrs or I'll presume you're scum and lying to us. If you're not going to claim your action I request that you present info on your brilliant plan of 'how this will help town for you not to claim action' and then I will explain how that logic makes no sense, will note that you shouldn't have claimed anyway, and demand your night action or we'll lynch you.
2. Any Doctor should not claim unless you're brought to L-1 with a hammer intent - you should protect NK, *especially* if we get a scum lynch today.
3. Any Tracker should not bother to claim now either, as the JKer claim weakens the value of your claim. However, you *should* claim if you have a track result showing someone who is not NK visiting someone else, or if you tracked NK and he claims to have targeted someone other than who you tracked him to. You would do these claims because they would help us with info and catching scum - if people are confused about how that works feel free to ask. Again, you do claim at L-1 with hammer intent if that happens to you, any info you have is less valuable than you getting lynched
If people disagree with any of these ideas feel free to explain why. I'll then explain them more fully (or be amazed at your insight and change my mind). But I suspect you're not changing my mind.
But here's what I said;)There are rules governing how an IC answers theory questions, so by definition your case is 50% wonky. Also, why should I support a case on me?
