I think the best way of trying to sum up the reasoning behind why it is unlikely for this scenario to be the case is to go back to the fundamentals of mafia.
Mafia is all about the battle between a minority who have power and information but must keep it secret in order to remain in power (mafia, also in some cases sk or factions), against a majority who have the potential to regain power if they can work collectively to gather information. It is designed to be a battle of the powerful few against the potential of the many.
The reason that it wouldn't make sense for town to have information about anti-town is that with both information and a majority, the basic premise of mafia is missing, hence the concerns about imbalance.
/ wrote:Can someone explain how pre-game info on an anti town faction is unfair or game breaking in an unknown setup? Personally (from a mod's perspective) I see a faction as a faction, be they mafia, town or otherwise, I would be just as likely to be unbiased to either beefing up roles in a losing faction or putting obstacles in the way of an overpowered faction, so long as it makes the bottom line of the game more fair. There seems to be several repeating arguments on why it is unfair, I would like to hear some elaboration.
1.People seem to be saying that if an anti-town had two people after them at the start of the game it would mean an instant lose for the player.
Seeing how long this is drawn out I don't think that is the case, a good player like jeraado can obviously talk his way out of a lot of things regardless of the side he is one (ie: not relying on his claim), besides, that is still two players who for one presumably (if they are indeed town) don't know each other at the start of the game, don't specifically have a motive to push for jeraado's lynch (if he is not their win condition target), and in many cases, may not even share their flavor info at all with town.
If you assume that they are town and that I am anti-town then their motive to push for a lynch is simply that I would be one of the factions which town must eliminate to win.
/ wrote:2. You people are saying it is unlikely for town to be given info on scum because it would be detrimental to scum's overall faction.
This is true, such a thing would be an obstacle for scum, but there are tons of roles out there that screw over a player far worse than this for the sake of game balance; millers, cop/goon sibling combos, in the worst cases suicidal townies.
That's both true and not true. I think the small but important difference is one of choice. Cop/goon siblings or lovers can choose whether to sacrifice themselves, or try to hold off until the their sibling is the last kill to be made. Millers can attempt to bypass the information ever being received through their play. The roles you've mentioned are difficult to play, but always have a way of either preventing the information from being made available, or deciding whether to activate their detrimental power. Given that fuzzy mentioned hating me on day 1, it would seem not to be the case here.
/ wrote:3.If each and every member of the mafia faction is a treasure that needs to survive, then why is usurper still a used role? A lynchee can fairly be of any faction if said faction is strong enough IMO, judging by the flavor of the mafia lynch yesterday, the godfather is Stephen Hawking, what if he is some sort of super-genius with zombie making abilities aside from his investigation-proofness and known mafia gaurd? Would it be a stretch to say some townies might know he is a liar since no cop could stop him?
Nope, I think that the idea of personal sacrifice is important to mafia, but again that is usually a choice. In the case of a usurper or lyncher their win condition is still for their role to remain anonymous, so while they have information, they also have a disincentive to make it public. It may be tactically wise to reveal the information they have at a certain point, but here if the information is given to town about anti-town there is no risk to revealing the information, beyond not being trusted (which is the case every time we post anything).
Really the case against me is so weak that we can only work on the balance of probabilities.
Is it more likely than not that player information has been given? Sure, why not
Is it more likely than not that if player information has been given that anti-town information has been given to pro-town? No
Is there any reason other than the role information to suggest that the player is anti-town? Nothing that has been posted
Has the players actions been consistent with an anti-town faction? No, although I could try to mount a full proactive defense here, I'd really point to two key moments where my actions just wouldn't make sense if I were antitown;
1) campin's lynch - no mafia would take the risk of trying to slow a lynch for an inactive scummate that late in the day. It would immediately run the risk of revealing the player for practically no benefit
2) If a mafia or sk player heard that another player had role information about them, they would make sure that that player was killed off before anything could be revealed. Personally I would probably do it on night 2 or 3 when the conversation had steered away from the topic.
We've spent an extraordinary amount of time on such a weak case (ironic when the case on fuzzy was dropped without dlanor answering a single question). Funnily enough, for those of you pushing for me to claim, how will you even be able to judge whether it is believable? If there are no scummy statements or contradictory information out there at the moment then its really just going to come down to how much you trust me anyway. All you'll be able to do is line it up against the flavour information, which was voluntarily provided by me anyway.
Right now the scum must be stoked - they get an entire day away from the spotlight, they get free role speculation, and the way it is going we will have no new information from today.
I agree with the points made on role claims. Claiming is a bit deal folks, it is the very last action that you must take to preserve yourself. No one should just claim at the slightest provocation, it's bad for the one claiming and it serves mafia better than it serves the rest of us. It seems apparent that many of those wishing for him to claim are only doing so from focusing on the flavour speculation that other players supplied. If it was something like a cop claiming a report that would be one thing, but it's not. They claimed to not like him. I do not find it reasonable to demand a premature claim over nothing more then the stated dislike by another player. Especially when we don't know the roles of those claiming this flavour. 
