Apologies! I have made an error.

It was written "TwilightBard, Xyem, Notfrenchyet are tied closest to lynch at L-3. "

This was a mistake, in fact they were at L-5. It has been corrected now.

A soft claim would be like what Muttly appeared to make. Saying something like "If I get too drawn into this argument my bread might burn" would appear to be softclaiming a baker as opposed to a hardclaim which would be more like "I am the Baker (Town Mint Choc Chip) These are my powers, blah blah blah".

As for why claiming is bad, it's less that any kind of claiming is outright bad and more that you don't want to claim too early.

Pre-EDIT: I got distracted while typing this and I see bazilisek has already given a better explanation but I'll post this anyway.

Damn, I'd love to be a Town Mint Choc Chip.

No, I put xyem to (what I thought was) L-2, the standard place to give time to reply.

I did justify it by saying he was the most suspicious by a small margin, hence the desire to put him under pressure.

@Vitek: It's not so much the fact that he argued with them, it's how the first argument led to the second kind of thing.

Anyhow, apparently he's only at L-4 so my vote still stands as I head to class.

So is it a good idea to lynch on the first day or not?
We have absolutely no hard evidence for anyone. so a random lynch would be 3/12 chance of hitting mafia (is that right?).
But not lynch means 100% chance of NOT hitting mafia, which isn't a good thing either.

Personally, I got frightened by the deadline, and panicked into voting for someone rather than no-one. (grr joe! :< )

Sorry for the lack of justification, newbie error I guess.

He only ever reached L-3 actually because he was L-5 before yours and littlerabbit's votes.

And what is town mint choc chip? *my head hurts*

Well, you just gave the exact reasoning why nolynch is not considered a good idea in the vast majority of cases. Small chance is much better than no chance at all.

That being said, scum usually do manage to steer clear of suspicion on the first day, so I'd say the chances of hitting one of them are a bit lower than what mathematics would suggest. Still, it's better than giving them a free pass.

A nolynch is generally seen as a bad idea, especially early on in the game as you're giving the mafia a head start (although you're also giving town power roles a head start).

There are a few circumstances towards the end of the game where a nolynch might be the best option,

e.g. there are three town and one mafia left. A mislynch could lose the game for the town (unless they have an excellent/lucky doctor or roleblocker) because they would go to night with three players and wake up with only two (one of which is the mafia).
A nolynch would mean at best they wake up with everyone alive (but with an extra night of investigation if they have a cop) and at worst down to three players.

Like Town Vanilla but tastier. Don't worry, it's meaningless. :P

You mean because of human error? Maybe we should all go for xyem's method of rolling a die and see what happens.

If, as you say, Mafia aren't usually killed on the first day, and a non-mafia lynch would potentially put us in the position of having accidentally murdered a useful role like the doctor or detective or something. Are then town's chances affected more detrimentally than positively by a D1 lynch?

Not necessarily an error. It's just that we aren't picking the candidates randomly. A diceroll would work better, I suppose.

And another thing: with a lynch, you can then go and check who voted and when. Very useful, that.

First day lynches really are 0/7 here? Wow we are terrible.
I read one mafia game on MTGS last week and there they made research and concluded that they have almost 50% success rate of hitting mafia on day 1.

50% eh? That's a bit more comforting! I think I shall roll a die and see what happens.

Hmm Twilight apparently. (sorry!)
vote twilightbard

I'm not sure how I am supposed to "defend myself"... the votes against me are "Xyem is most suspicious, even if only slightly" and "we have to lynch!".

There's nothing to defend against. People are voting for me because of a little extra suspicion for whatever reason and then I'm accruing more votes just to lynch before the deadline.

The irony of being lynched because of a deadline I was arguing against - because I argued against it - is not lost on me :P