#2: a treatise on the random voting stage

[Yosarian2]

I also agree with how RVS silliness is fun but really counterproductive. Making silly votes to be silly just clouds an already cloudy stage of the game. Then again, it is a decent scumtell...

Early game silliness can be a surprisingly effective way to find scum (I hate the phrase "random voting stage"; random votes are fine, but there's no such thing as a "random voting stage").

I disagree with Glork about how artificial it is to say there's a "clear division" between RVS and serious business. If you random vote after nonrandom discussion has already started, you're effectively ignoring it... why?

That's a reasonable question to ask someone in a game. Could be that they think the "serious" discussion people are having is not a productive one, or at least that it's less productive then random voting would be.

Probably my biggest gripe about the early game is how people say "oh you, it's only the RVS, don't get worked up".

Ah, now THOSE people are scum.

In the early part of the game, be silly, be random, be bizzare, vote people for no reason; it's all can be more pro-town then doing nothing, which is often your only other option. But just because everyone is being silly or bizzare or random, it dosn't mean some of them are not dropping scumtells.

[Yosarian2]

There's nothing wrong with discussing mafia theory or stratagy, or with asking people questions, at any point in the game, especlaly not in the start.

Now, if you're doing that and never scumhunt at all, that's bad, but otherwise, it's generally a mildly pro-town thing to do.