You're still comparing apples and oranges here though. Your 18% may be an accurate success rate, but that's not the same as town's probability of lynching scum by decisive lynch. So to state that random's 25% chance of lynching scum is stronger is blatant misrepresentation, as KoD said. As I said before, each town vote, directed at anybody but themselves (as they know they are town), increases the probability of hitting scum over random lynching, as a vote to randomly lynch could be a vote for yourself if you're selected by the generator. You go from 3/12 shot to a 3/11 shot, which raises the probability of hitting scum by roughly 2%, and that's just by removing yourself from your voting pool. So as the numbers show random voting actually has less probability of hitting scum than directed voting. As KoD showed in his example, the success rates aren't guaranteed to be higher either. You literally have no argument for why a random lynch is stronger than a decisive lynch right now.
If this were true, the success rate of day 1 lynches in the past would be expected to be closer to 3/11, or 27%. The reason this isn't true is because you're looking at random votes instead of random lynches as this game provides. If a town member votes for a random player aside from themself, it has a 27% chance of hitting scum. Scum won't vote for themselves or their allies though. If they all vote for random townies then the chance of scum being lynched falls below 25%. The random lynch option is stronger because it effectively overrides scums votes, allowing for a true random lynch.
This is also the reason the successful day 1 lynch rate is worse than random. When the town has little evidence to go on day 1, there vote usually is essentially random. The mafia does have evidence to go on though. They know who not to vote for. The mafia starts with an information advantage over the town and can sway the lynch more easily than the town can. As the game progresses, you gain access to voting records, alignment information, roleclaims, and so forth. The town becomes more and more informed in comparison to the mafia, and their voting becomes more and more informed. The mafia knowing each others alignments becomes less of an advantage and they can't control the lynch as effectively. Depending on the game the chance of mafia being lynched could quickly become
better than random as the town actually has things to go off of. On day 1 they remain weak, however.
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@Info gathered from a random lynch, Rag's argument is dependent strictly on the assumption that there will still be competing wagons. The problem here is it's an assumption. Looking at his examples, he uses no lynch instead of random lynch to point out generated information. The problem there is no lynch, by itself, is far more telling than a random lynch. Let's look at the example from a random lynch perspective:
Silly and Random are tied. Late in the day KoD switches to Random lynch. Silly is now still not safe from being lynched.
What have we learned? Nothing. Let's say Silly still dies to Random and flips scum. Did KoD switch to save Silly? Probably not since Silly still could die anyways. Did KoD switch because he thought Random was the better option? Probably not because there's no argument for Random nor is there accountability in the final outcome. What can we actually deduce from such a switch? Not much. KoD and Silly could be scum mates, with KoD unvoting Silly because of the belief that Silly had a better chance of surviving a Random lynch than risking somebody switching. But! KoD could be town who simply has become doubtful about his current reasons for voting Silly but still maintains there's a chance Silly is scum and is therefore okay with Random taking Silly out. But! KoD could be town or scum who has simply chosen to unvote but sees that just unvoting isn't going to stop a Random lynch and so resigns to fate and piles on a vote anyways. When you actually look at the business end of a Random lynch, it's plain to see that the information gathered is far less than decisive lynch or even a no lynch. Does it produce no information? No. Even if the whole game jumped on the random wagon and just ended day, you'd get dead guy information. Does that make it similar? No. As the above shows, the information is vastly inferior and of far less use to the town.
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You're contradicting yourself. You suggest that a no lynch is different from a random lynch because it ends up saving silly, and then say that trying to save silly via random lynch is a null tell because KoD simply could have ended up preferring a random lynch over a silly lynch as town.
Your logic also applies to virtually any last-minute switch of vote. Check this example:
Silly and Numbers are competing wagons at the end of the day. At the last minute, KoD switches from Silly to Numbers, resulting in Numbers being lynched. What can we actually deduce from such a switch? Not much. KoD and Silly could be scum mates, with KoD unvoting Silly because of the belief that Silly would survive. But! KoD could be town who simply become doubtful about his current reasons for voting Silly, and switched to Numbers. But! KoD could be town or scum who has simply chosen to unvote but sees that just unvoting isn't going to stop a Numbers lynch and so resigns to fate and piles on a vote anyways.
There are always many reasons that a person could switch wagons at the last minute. In the case that the person who was saved by the last minute switch ends up flipping scum, one of those reasons starts to look a lot more valid. This is true whether you're switching to no-lynch, random lynch, or a third party. Random lynch might only reduce the chance of scum dying to 25%, but compared to 100% it is still a no-brainer decision to make as scum.