sometimes people don't know their roles, initially or even all the way through, but usually they do, we play the odds on such things unless we have evidence otherwise.

well if taiga is very likely to be our cop, i'd rather not kill him.

we normally don't have no lynches in round one, way back in wotmania days we had a few games in a row where we did day 1 no lynches and for complex reasons it is something of a standing debate about when if ever they are effective, i don't suggest it often because they usually vote for me when i do. yes we've had some victories that can be connected to no lynches but as often as not it was 'in spite of'. In the bigger games we never did it, but in smaller games we often flirt with and occasional opt for a no lynch just because of the numbers. On a day with 2 scum left and 6 people total, you only lynch if you're pretty sure because if you hit a townie then that night's kill drops you to 2-2 game over, whereas a no lynch makes it 3-2 and gives you one more night of your own actions to try to figure out who is is scum, or who is town to decrease your odds of lynching a townie. On 4-2 with no one knowing who is what you've got a 4 in 6 chance, 67% of losing the game with that lynch, but if you no lynch and someone dies, the next day you have a 3 in 5 to lose, 60%, and there's a good chance you might be able to say 'he is scum' or 'he isn't' and even that latter changes it to 2 in 4, 50%, much better than 67% and much better odds if you survive that coin flip of knowing who to get the next day when its 2-1 and odds are one of the survivors pressed the lynch to indicate they are town or fought it to indicate they were scum.

so, yeha, sometimes it is advantageous, in theory, in practice, not very often and virtually never on day 1. we won't be doing a no lynch though. we'll either bag taiga or we'll chop off the head of someone we think was overly enthusiastic about the lynch compared to normal behavior and current circumstances, because they'll be a better than random chance of being scum. if we can say, 'off the 8 of us, five including taiga expressed reluctance for this lynch in a fashion a scummer wouldn't have' then we'd have 3 people, and killing one of them is a better choice then killing someone who is almost certainly a cop, if everyone does formally disclaim being a cop themselves that is.

specifically i had voted for taiga when i did in part to tempt a hammer. normally, as practiced as this group is, vote records tell us next to nothing. back in the day when a townie got lynched it probably meant a disproportionate number of those voting for them were scum, and vice-versa a lynched scum's list of lynchers were considered town... these days... well it isn't that abnormal for scummers to 'bus' one of their own early on to buy credibility as townies and the list of people voting for someone, whether the turn out town or scum, doesn't tell us much anymore.