JMich: a no lynch is more likely to provide info than a lynch, especially with that many investigative roles running around.
Interesting analysis. The major risk of a no lynch is that if the game is a 5-4 split, a no-lynch ends the game barring doctor making a save.
Your analysis also to some (imo significant) extent relies on the assumption town investigators have something useful to find amidst the noise. I'm skeptical town has an alignment cop - given the number of roles in play that would seem like an overly strong town (and we're getting our buns handed to us atm).
My theory is that town has cops who get tidbits of information. I'll probably miss something but what are the alternative cops:
Role cop - 1 confirmed. Multiple possible.
Vanilla cop - Weaker version of role cop. Possible to likely.
Could also theorize a parity cop or a stats cop. Am I missing an alternative?
Having been a parity cop last game the basic design means you probably don't know anything til at least day 3 (and 4-5 more likely) because you only get info when you have enough targets die. Also, the role is pretty reliant on an N0 action, which seems inconsistent with the claims we've seen. No one mentioned being searched/mind-read as we entered. If there is one, it would seem to be on top of all the other roles on the table with no tell. So I'm assuming parity cop is out.
Stats cop, maybe. But if there is one and they were town what can they prove? I believe Lift argued that the boulder on RW was a feat of strength; Hijack countered it could have been magic. We're in a cave, so maybe it was a trap. Cristi was killed by blades,
Personally I think it's risky to assume cops are going to win the game unless tracker catches the murderer in the act and all other night actions are accounted for elsewhere.
You said yourself, it's not the game design that's at issue here, it's players' perception of it. At daybreak of D2 people were ready to lynch any second role cop; I made assumptions about role blockers, and still not sure how a tracker (role more or less confirmed, alignment at least open to question) fits in.
Going back to D2 my perception was that town had a lot of weak to moderate investigative roles presenting a diffuse target for scum, and that the case for full claim was compiling all of it to build a larger thread while we still had time to do some verification of claims with the roles available. Could also have sicced the tracker on people who claimed vanilla or claimed a role with no calling card.
That thread is weaker today and will be weaker still tomorrow, and time has grown too short to do any meaningful verifying in future nights. We're facing the end of the road now.
TLDR, I'm skeptical town has A cop that's going to solve the puzzle alone.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but the list of players still alive who have not received a NA would be just JMich, Wyrm, Lift?
Also, unlikely it's out there, but does anyone want to claim a received action for N2 that had not been reported for N1?