[Official] NBC Mafia Town Win MVP=trinicardinal

[dazza2008]

Day 1 passing by with as little as this happening would be bad for town, though. We need information to go on if we want to be able to find the scum.

I'll admit I've been very tempted to vote dazza since he in one way or another seems to be spawning all the off topic conversations that have distracted us.

It was others who started these conversations mate. Should I just ignore people unless it is game related?

[Rodion]

Day 1 passing by with as little as this happening would be bad for town, though. We need information to go on if we want to be able to find the scum.

I'll admit I've been very tempted to vote dazza since he in one way or another seems to be spawning all the off topic conversations that have distracted us.

You said yesterday you had a case of sorts against someone, but you did not post because you had class. Do you think you can do it today?

[jonty125]

Who are the Rangers? Are they as good as that Celtic team?

http://www.scotprem.com/content/default ... Statistics

i don t really get why you scottish have still your own championship, there s only been nothing but 2 competitive teams all the rest sucks. just to win more titles? the welsh play in the english championships and I m sure it would be best for the celtic and the rangers to play in premier league in terms of media exposure, money, and it would push the players to a higher level, even if they stop winning stuff as often..

ok i stop talking football, back to the game!

The Welsh clubs should be sent back to their own country & keep the Scots out.

Anyway, with all this OT conversation, people have lost focus on the weak case on betiko

Day 1 passing by with as little as this happening would be bad for town, though. We need information to go on if we want to be able to find the scum.

I'll admit I've been very tempted to vote dazza since he in one way or another seems to be spawning all the off topic conversations that have distracted us.

You said yesterday you had a case of sorts against someone, but you did not post because you had class. Do you think you can do it today?

+1 to this

[strike wolf]

so the options are this.

Randomly pressure someone
Pressure someone who says something kind of weird.

I sympathize with Betiko for trying to get something going and having it backfire, it can be frustrating. BUT, we have to get some info.

vote Betiko

Fairly standard bandwagon vote. He doesn't consider what Betiko says as scummy just weird and even sympathizing with betiko. Ultimately puts pressure on to pressure the person from what I am seeing. I won't complain about bandwagoning for pressure directly (as I said more or less earlier it is necessary to an extent) but I am not seeing any merit to the reasoning behind this bandwagon and what I take out of this more than the vote itself is that Betiko did post right above him in this scenario about an hour previous. He did not address the post above him and the defense betiko provided but did jump on without adding too much to the reasoning (for the record, trini was the next post and didn't address Betiko's post either).

@Jonty - i dont think he has done something extremely scummy. I think he did something weird.

My point is, we will end up pressuring someone. I would rather pressure the person who says something weird than a random person who hasnt said anything weird, let alone scummy.

Do you think we would be better of pressuring a random person?

again as he points out he does not feel it comes down to scummy behavior but something weird yet he fails to address any defense Betiko puts forward. This sounds pretty counter-productive if the reasoning for voting betiko was to provide pressure on him and produce discussion.

It may also be worthy of note that he didn't post anything of note before jumping on the Betiko case.

vote bgthebrain

From what I've seen the others on the betiko case whether they voted directly or voiced suspicion directly they seem to have at least a. gone to greater depths at this point in contributing to the game or b. provided more reasoning into why they are voting Betiko. So at this point I won't pursue making a case on any of them.

As far as the betiko case itself. I'm not buying it. I'll agree that it is weird but I don't see anything really scummy about it so much as I see it as being an quintessential newbie comment. It's a rush to a conclusion which is more a sign of a new player than it is of scum and considering that yes betiko is new that is all I can make of it.

[jonty125]

so the options are this.

Randomly pressure someone
Pressure someone who says something kind of weird.

I sympathize with Betiko for trying to get something going and having it backfire, it can be frustrating. BUT, we have to get some info.

vote Betiko

Fairly standard bandwagon vote. He doesn't consider what Betiko says as scummy just weird and even sympathizing with betiko. Ultimately puts pressure on to pressure the person from what I am seeing. I won't complain about bandwagoning for pressure directly (as I said more or less earlier it is necessary to an extent) but I am not seeing any merit to the reasoning behind this bandwagon and what I take out of this more than the vote itself is that Betiko did post right above him in this scenario about an hour previous. He did not address the post above him and the defense betiko provided but did jump on without adding too much to the reasoning (for the record, trini was the next post and didn't address Betiko's post either).

@Jonty - i dont think he has done something extremely scummy. I think he did something weird.

My point is, we will end up pressuring someone. I would rather pressure the person who says something weird than a random person who hasnt said anything weird, let alone scummy.

Do you think we would be better of pressuring a random person?

again as he points out he does not feel it comes down to scummy behavior but something weird yet he fails to address any defense Betiko puts forward. This sounds pretty counter-productive if the reasoning for voting betiko was to provide pressure on him and produce discussion.

It may also be worthy of note that he didn't post anything of note before jumping on the Betiko case.

vote bgthebrain

From what I've seen the others on the betiko case whether they voted directly or voiced suspicion directly they seem to have at least a. gone to greater depths at this point in contributing to the game or b. provided more reasoning into why they are voting Betiko. So at this point I won't pursue making a case on any of them.

As far as the betiko case itself. I'm not buying it. I'll agree that it is weird but I don't see anything really scummy about it so much as I see it as being an quintessential newbie comment. It's a rush to a conclusion which is more a sign of a new player than it is of scum and considering that yes betiko is new that is all I can make of it.

At last! I'm not the only one who thinks that the betiko case is a waste of time (wish I could construct a case like this one on D1 though)

Anyway I previously disagreed with BG about his BW'ing about page 11. I can't be bothered to check. vote BG

[betiko]

I hope i m not going to get another backfire for taking another initiative but i might have an idea.. why don t we take the list of players (but ourselves) and grade from 0 to 3 the level of suspicion we have for each? our entries would all be submited to safari and we couldn t see the results before everyone turns in his list. safari would then post all the lists at the same time (mentioning whose is which), so there is no bandwagoning. it might be a bit against the spirit of the game though...
it might help us in the process of voting?

[jonty125]

I hope i m not going to get another backfire for taking another initiative but i might have an idea.. why don t we take the list of players (but ourselves) and grade from 0 to 3 the level of suspicion we have for each? our entries would all be submited to safari and we couldn t see the results before everyone turns in his list. safari would then post all the lists at the same time (mentioning whose is which), so there is no bandwagoning. it might be a bit against the spirit of the game though...
it might help us in the process of voting?

I doubt saf would be wiling to do this. And BW'ing is good for town as we can see who are likely scum (trying to drift along with the crowd). A small FOS for this post as BW'ing is a key part of cases .

[Leitz]

I hope i m not going to get another backfire for taking another initiative but i might have an idea.. why don t we take the list of players (but ourselves) and grade from 0 to 3 the level of suspicion we have for each? our entries would all be submited to safari and we couldn t see the results before everyone turns in his list. safari would then post all the lists at the same time (mentioning whose is which), so there is no bandwagoning. it might be a bit against the spirit of the game though...
it might help us in the process of voting?

I neither think this is a good idea. It is only the first day, every slightest bit of suspicion is better than nothing. If we would do the list thing you suggest, I think there would be a lot of random votes or the most votes for the ones who posted the most. At this stage, it is necessary to see some interaction between all of us, bandwagoning included.

I doubt saf would be wiling to do this. And BW'ing is good for town as we can see who are likely scum (trying to drift along with the crowd). A small FOS for this post as BW'ing is a key part of cases .

Do I smell townie?

[MeDeFe]

I hope i m not going to get another backfire for taking another initiative but i might have an idea.. why don t we take the list of players (but ourselves) and grade from 0 to 3 the level of suspicion we have for each? our entries would all be submited to safari and we couldn t see the results before everyone turns in his list. safari would then post all the lists at the same time (mentioning whose is which), so there is no bandwagoning. it might be a bit against the spirit of the game though...
it might help us in the process of voting?

I'm not sure you could make yourself look more suspicious if you were trying. Are you trying?

And yes, that's pretty much completely contrary to the spirit of the game. In RL you have to spot small hints and get really lucky quickly, on a forum it becomes a game of information where you look for inconsistencies, try to find out who's lying, try to spot people who vote together, see who started which bandwagon, who gave which wagon momentum, and so on and so forth. Forget about making lists. Even if we could get one completely honest list from every player they wouldn't be much help (and we wouldn't get honest lists). At this point I'd rate every player as moderately suspicious on the list you proposed.

oh, btw, unvote, since it looks like the betiko wagon isn't going anywhere. I'll have to look into the newest wagon a bit more before I commit either way.

[betiko]

I hope i m not going to get another backfire for taking another initiative but i might have an idea.. why don t we take the list of players (but ourselves) and grade from 0 to 3 the level of suspicion we have for each? our entries would all be submited to safari and we couldn t see the results before everyone turns in his list. safari would then post all the lists at the same time (mentioning whose is which), so there is no bandwagoning. it might be a bit against the spirit of the game though...
it might help us in the process of voting?

I'm not sure you could make yourself look more suspicious if you were trying. Are you trying?

And yes, that's pretty much completely contrary to the spirit of the game. In RL you have to spot small hints and get really lucky quickly, on a forum it becomes a game of information where you look for inconsistencies, try to find out who's lying, try to spot people who vote together, see who started which bandwagon, who gave which wagon momentum, and so on and so forth. Forget about making lists. Even if we could get one completely honest list from every player they wouldn't be much help (and we wouldn't get honest lists). At this point I'd rate every player as moderately suspicious on the list you proposed.

oh, btw, unvote, since it looks like the betiko wagon isn't going anywhere. I'll have to look into the newest wagon a bit more before I commit either way.

well, we re not going anywhere right now and i don t agree with you. the way people would grade suspiciousness towards others without just following someone s lead seems interesting to me. you are telling that we don t have enough info and that asking everyone to put an input doesn t help, i wonder who is the most suspicius of us 2..
I m not asking for a honest answer, as everyone would fill it in considering their own interests and strategies. and if it won t help for night 1, we could always pull it out during the rest of the game to try find a logic in every player..
nvm, if i survive the day i might be killed tonight, might as well shut my mouth lol..

[Epitaph1]

Re: betiko's latest suggestion. I don't think it would be as productive as we would like it to be. In fact, it would be more prone to manipulation and people could start playing of the fears and suspicions of other players. If we have a suspicion about someone, we should just share it and get a discussion going. We're probably all at a level 2 suspicion right now anyway.

Re: BG. I think BG has not contributed much to the discussion so far and seems to have based his vote more on a general premise (lynch something slightly weird rather than a random) instead of an actual case against betiko. I don't think he was skimming (as far as I can tell) but he seems eager to lynch for the sake of lynching. I find this "weirder" than betiko's earlier questions and possibly scummy.

FOS for now, but I may upgrade this to a vote after I ponder it for a bit.

[Epitaph1]

unvote too, now that my EPL rage has settled.

[jonty125]

unvote too, now that my EPL rage has settled.

Your what rage

[Leitz]

I'm guessing English Premier League

[safariguy5]

I hope i m not going to get another backfire for taking another initiative but i might have an idea.. why don t we take the list of players (but ourselves) and grade from 0 to 3 the level of suspicion we have for each? our entries would all be submited to safari and we couldn t see the results before everyone turns in his list. safari would then post all the lists at the same time (mentioning whose is which), so there is no bandwagoning. it might be a bit against the spirit of the game though...
it might help us in the process of voting?

I and Victor Sullivan, as mods, cannot aid the players in any way. The only thing you guys can PM us about are questions and night actions.

[betiko]

I hope i m not going to get another backfire for taking another initiative but i might have an idea.. why don t we take the list of players (but ourselves) and grade from 0 to 3 the level of suspicion we have for each? our entries would all be submited to safari and we couldn t see the results before everyone turns in his list. safari would then post all the lists at the same time (mentioning whose is which), so there is no bandwagoning. it might be a bit against the spirit of the game though...
it might help us in the process of voting?

I and Victor Sullivan, as mods, cannot aid the players in any way. The only thing you guys can PM us about are questions and night actions.

the idea was not for you to help, but just to hold answer and release them at the same time so no one is influenced by others. no one likes the idea anyway!

FOS safari cause he scumily refuses a tiny favour!

[betiko]

oh and one precision; my idea was not to sum up resulting suspicious points for each one and automatically vote for the most suspected, just to give a picture.

[trinicardinal]

sorry I haven't posted more... I was away from the office for the last 2 day and I just got a few minutes to log in and catch up on the talk... and see all the side talk. We still don't have much information for this day 1. and I can't really see anything much to give me any kind of serious suspicions about anyone at this point in time... have to reread and see if there's anything


Oh, and just for the record folks

I am male!

[strike wolf]

Unvote Vote Bgthebrain since I forgot to in my last post.

As far as betiko, his actions are very against what is the norm but I still don't really see sufficient evidence of scum motive and with his limited experience in mafia games, I am more willing to believe at this point that he is a townie thinking of various ways to scum hunt. I will not buy into the case on him. To critically analyze Betiko's latest suggestion. It's an interesting idea in THEORY but as far as making it work in a practical manner, it just doesn't fit. As Safari has already clarified, the mod will not do anything that could interfere with balance as the idea you suggested. I also don't really see a significant advantage in playing it out this way. I believe it is more effective to go with the traditional route of analyzing bandwagons, posting behavior and various other scumhunting methods.

To further illustrate my point against BG as it hasn't quite caught on or at least does not seem to be. he votes Betiko with vague reasoning about it being weird (but not necessarily scummy behavior) but he does not address the defense Betiko posted above his. Skimming or not, this post seems to suggest that bg's motives did not lie within hearing out Betiko's reasoning for making his comments but rather a claim and/or lynch. A thought process that seems more scum oriented than town. His post was a bandwagon post. I won't get into this as it is mostly an extension of the above part describing why his scummy (with the motivation leaning more towards him wanting a lynch or role claim than hearing out the person's defense) than a different thought. Finally to continue to illustrate this behavior. His jump on the wagon was his first major post of the game (He did not participate in the joke voting stage and his only other post other than to confirm before this was basically to state that he was still around). This lends more evidence that his vote was not to get a defense out of Betiko but to bandwagon. In my opinion this is much stronger than the current case on Betiko.

[Rodion]

In lack of a better case, that's one I could lend my support to.

Vote BGtheBrain.

I'm planning on writing a small guide before D1 ends, some sort of town manual in case I die tonight.

For now, though, let's just refrain from hammering (casting the 9th vote) before the person on the chopping block gets a chance to claim their character/role. Hammering before a claim will be considered a confession of being mafia and you'll either die N1 or D2.

I'll be posting the guide later when I make it, but for now I'm happy to have this laid out.

[strike wolf]

In lack of a better case, that's one I could lend my support to.

Vote BGtheBrain.

I'm planning on writing a small guide before D1 ends, some sort of town manual in case I die tonight.

For now, though, let's just refrain from hammering (casting the 9th vote) before the person on the chopping block gets a chance to claim their character/role. Hammering before a claim will be considered a confession of being mafia and you'll either die N1 or D2.

I'll be posting the guide later when I make it, but for now I'm happy to have this laid out.

Is this a small guide regarding this game specifically? or a small guide as a general guideline for day 1 overall? I assume the former but in case of the latter sounds like something that would be better in it's own topic where people not involved in this game may be more likely to view it.

[Rodion]

More like a "how to play as town" guide. I could post it somewhere else later if people want it, but the short term goal of this guide is to make sure there are no newbie mistakes in this game (coming from town players).

[drunkmonkey]

More like a "how to play as town" guide. I could post it somewhere else later if people want it, but the short term goal of this guide is to make sure there are no newbie mistakes in this game (coming from town players).

I'd love a D1 guide. I'll admit, I have no idea what to do D1 if there are no major tells. Seems the procedure is to start a bandwagon, then switch focus to someone who joins that bandwagon.

[Rodion]

Rodion's claiming guide

1 - What's a claim?

Claiming is the act of disclosing your role (and, in flavoured games, also your name).

2 - What are the 2 types of claims and when should they happen?

Claims can be forced or voluntary.

A forced claim is a claim that happens when its subject is in real danger of getting lynched. Claiming for someone that is L-1 or L-2 is their last shot at surviving. If the deadline is far away, you should be claiming when you get to L-2 or L-1. If the deadline is imminent, you might feel forced to claim earlier, because the approach of a deadline can speed things up considerably and you might be lynched before you realize just because deadline was there and "something had to be done".

A voluntary claim is one that is not originated from pressure, but rather from your desire to come forward and shed light in the mistery of the game.

Ideally, townspeople should only claim when forced, unless they have urgent information that can achieve immediate results, such as a cop that got a guilty result the former night or a counterclaim. Claiming voluntarily with no good reason is a bad decision. If you are making a voluntary claim, you should explain in that very post why you decided to claim and which conclusions you bring to the table.

3 - Why am I not supposed to hammer before the lynchee claims?

It doesn't matter how poorly/scummy someone has played, in the end of the day they might be town and you want mafia to be lynched. When all discussion has failed to acquiesce the lynchee, his last chance at surviving is to reveal his identity and all knowledge he has gathered throughout the game.

4 - What's the purpose of letting them reveal their knowledge if I'm set in stone that I will not believe whatever he ends up claiming?

Basically, unless deadline is looming, you have got nothing to lose by waiting! You may not believe the claim, but if that player is lynched and flips town, you can take in good authority everything that he claimed. Even though that will not ressurect him, knowing that player A visited player B during N2 could help you clear/bust someone in the future. If the player that claimed flips mafia, you can simply ignore everything he said.

5 - Since we don't want to lose town power roles and mafia regularly has power role fakeclaims (either given by the mod or created with their own imagination), does that mean mafia is immune to being lynched?

Not at all. You're not supposed to blindly trust any power role claims. In fact, even if they prove that they have the "power" they claim to have, they can still have an anti-town alignment to go with it.

6 - So, how do I know which claims I should trust and which ones I shouldn't?

This is where it gets tricky. As a rule of thumb, I think there are 3-4 claims that, if not countered, can be trusted with a higher degree than others. They are town doctor, town cop, town mason and, depending on the circumstances, town busdriver.

a) cop and doctor - those are the standard town power roles and most games have one or the other (usually both).

b) mason - this one could be a fakeclaim, but it would take a second mafia player lying in other to confirm his partner's lie. That could prove especially troublesome should one of them later die and flip mafia (the other one would be lynched the following day no questions asked), so mafia usually will not have the balls to fakeclaim town mason. If you are a town mason, make sure you ask the mod whether your mason buddy is confirmed town or not (they usually are, but there could be instances in which you can talk at night without knowing his alignment).

c) busdriver - the circumstance I mentioned is playing a balanced game with a good mod. Basically, a mafia busdriver is an extremely powerful role that could break the game by itself, so if someone can prove that he is a busdriver you could probably consider him not mafia if the game is advertised as a serious one and you trust the mod.

You don't think mafia busdriver is extremely powerful?

Scenario A: mafia does not have a roleblocker. No protective role has been yet killed. Cop claims. Cop would usually be protected while he gets investigated every night until mafia can kill the doctor and then risk shooting the cop. Enter the mafia busdriver. By swapping the cop with "player A" and having them kill "player A", they will be killing an unprotected cop (doctor is busy unkowingly protecting "player A").

Scenario B: mafia screws up big. Town is sure that they know the identity of 2 mafia players. They lynch one and let their vigilante / JOAT / inventor get rid of the other during the night. Enter the mafia busdriver. By swapping his mafia buddy with someone else, not only he will be protecting his buddy (and forcing town to "waste" an unnecessary day by lynching him tomorrow), but he will also be killing a second townie that night (mafia already has 1 kill per night).

This is not to mention that mafia busdrivers can force guilty people to be seen as innocent and the other way around by swapping 1 mafia with 1 townie.

7 - How about other roles?

I don't trust them as much, even if they can prove their powers. For instance:

a) a town tracker claim could come from a mafia tracker.
b) a town watcher claim could come from a mafia watcher.
c) a town jailkeeper claim could come from a mafia roleblocker/jailkeeper (not to mention usually only the "blocking" part can be proven).
d) a town roleblocker claim could come from a mafia roleblocker.

8 - So, should I instantly lynch any forced claim other than a doctor/cop/mason/busdriver?

No, unfortunately it's not that simple and I don't have all the answers. What I can say is that games usually have a limited number of town roles in a given power branch (investigative, protective, killing etc), so if a 16-player game has claims of cop, watcher and tracker, it's reasonably safe to assume there is at least one fakeclaim amongst the three.

I had more to write, but it's past 4 am here and I can't think clearly anymore. I hope I can continue this later.

[strike wolf]

Rodion's claiming guide

1 - What's a claim?

Claiming is the act of disclosing your role (and, in flavoured games, also your name).

2 - What are the 2 types of claims and when should they happen?

Claims can be forced or voluntary.

A forced claim is a claim that happens when its subject is in real danger of getting lynched. Claiming for someone that is L-1 or L-2 is their last shot at surviving. If the deadline is far away, you should be claiming when you get to L-2 or L-1. If the deadline is imminent, you might feel forced to claim earlier, because the approach of a deadline can speed things up considerably and you might be lynched before you realize just because deadline was there and "something had to be done".

A voluntary claim is one that is not originated from pressure, but rather from your desire to come forward and shed light in the mistery of the game.

Ideally, townspeople should only claim when forced, unless they have urgent information that can achieve immediate results, such as a cop that got a guilty result the former night or a counterclaim. Claiming voluntarily with no good reason is a bad decision. If you are making a voluntary claim, you should explain in that very post why you decided to claim and which conclusions you bring to the table.

3 - Why am I not supposed to hammer before the lynchee claims?

It doesn't matter how poorly/scummy someone has played, in the end of the day they might be town and you want mafia to be lynched. When all discussion has failed to acquiesce the lynchee, his last chance at surviving is to reveal his identity and all knowledge he has gathered throughout the game.

4 - What's the purpose of letting them reveal their knowledge if I'm set in stone that I will not believe whatever he ends up claiming?

Basically, unless deadline is looming, you have got nothing to lose by waiting! You may not believe the claim, but if that player is lynched and flips town, you can take in good authority everything that he claimed. Even though that will not ressurect him, knowing that player A visited player B during N2 could help you clear/bust someone in the future. If the player that claimed flips mafia, you can simply ignore everything he said.

5 - Since we don't want to lose town power roles and mafia regularly has power role fakeclaims (either given by the mod or created with their own imagination), does that mean mafia is immune to being lynched?

Not at all. You're not supposed to blindly trust any power role claims. In fact, even if they prove that they have the "power" they claim to have, they can still have an anti-town alignment to go with it.

6 - So, how do I know which claims I should trust and which ones I shouldn't?

This is where it gets tricky. As a rule of thumb, I think there are 3-4 claims that, if not countered, can be trusted with a higher degree than others. They are town doctor, town cop, town mason and, depending on the circumstances, town busdriver.

a) cop and doctor - those are the standard town power roles and most games have one or the other (usually both).

b) mason - this one could be a fakeclaim, but it would take a second mafia player lying in other to confirm his partner's lie. That could prove especially troublesome should one of them later die and flip mafia (the other one would be lynched the following day no questions asked), so mafia usually will not have the balls to fakeclaim town mason. If you are a town mason, make sure you ask the mod whether your mason buddy is confirmed town or not (they usually are, but there could be instances in which you can talk at night without knowing his alignment).

c) busdriver - the circumstance I mentioned is playing a balanced game with a good mod. Basically, a mafia busdriver is an extremely powerful role that could break the game by itself, so if someone can prove that he is a busdriver you could probably consider him not mafia if the game is advertised as a serious one and you trust the mod.

You don't think mafia busdriver is extremely powerful?

Scenario A: mafia does not have a roleblocker. No protective role has been yet killed. Cop claims. Cop would usually be protected while he gets investigated every night until mafia can kill the doctor and then risk shooting the cop. Enter the mafia busdriver. By swapping the cop with "player A" and having them kill "player A", they will be killing an unprotected cop (doctor is busy unkowingly protecting "player A").

Scenario B: mafia screws up big. Town is sure that they know the identity of 2 mafia players. They lynch one and let their vigilante / JOAT / inventor get rid of the other during the night. Enter the mafia busdriver. By swapping his mafia buddy with someone else, not only he will be protecting his buddy (and forcing town to "waste" an unnecessary day by lynching him tomorrow), but he will also be killing a second townie that night (mafia already has 1 kill per night).

This is not to mention that mafia busdrivers can force guilty people to be seen as innocent and the other way around by swapping 1 mafia with 1 townie.

7 - How about other roles?

I don't trust them as much, even if they can prove their powers. For instance:

a) a town tracker claim could come from a mafia tracker.
b) a town watcher claim could come from a mafia watcher.
c) a town jailkeeper claim could come from a mafia roleblocker/jailkeeper (not to mention usually only the "blocking" part can be proven).
d) a town roleblocker claim could come from a mafia roleblocker.

8 - So, should I instantly lynch any forced claim other than a doctor/cop/mason/busdriver?

No, unfortunately it's not that simple and I don't have all the answers. What I can say is that games usually have a limited number of town roles in a given power branch (investigative, protective, killing etc), so if a 16-player game has claims of cop, watcher and tracker, it's reasonably safe to assume there is at least one fakeclaim amongst the three.

I had more to write, but it's past 4 am here and I can't think clearly anymore. I hope I can continue this later.

I would add in how likely does each role help mafia. For instance mafia tracker is not very useful if there isn't a second non-town player/faction. Mafia watcher on the other hand if played right can be very useful. I agree about the mafia busdriver if played with a mafia godfather it is the closest semi-commonly used role I know of to being game breaking. It can also be important to consider (at least in theme games) how relevant their claimed character is in the plot. However this is trickier and can lead to WIFOM situations.

Doc is a weird one. it is in almost every game so it is a risky claim for a mafia member but if it is given as a fake claim it is difficult to prove or disprove. On the other hand mafia doctors are not that common (especially as mafia godfathers tend to at least have a 1 shot kill protection) except in bigger games.

Cops as town are tricky to play as it is the most common role to mess with their sanities. A guilty result early can be misleading so I would say at the least be wary of claiming. Cop is one of the easier roles to guess. It is very easily proven and a very rare mafia role (from what i've seen mafia cops also tend to work slightly differently than regular cops). I'm not sure when the last time there was a mafia cop used in a game.