Mrs Lizzy, Dizzy, may I call you Dizzy.
Why is it “my” day one random votes which bother you?
Riddle me this.
The game has started. The game involves voting for people.
Now we can either
Or
I prefer to start playing the game. Call me crazy.
Here’s why these votes matter, besides the obvious, which is that this is what the game is about.
Later on in the game, there are going to be dead people. Murdered by scum, lynched by unknowns.
Suppose I vote for people, and I am killed off, and late in the game, the people I voted for are still alive.
That is interesting because if the murders were random/unrelated to the people I voted for, then the odds are better that the people I voted for are dead.
Why would they still be alive?
Random luck (odds are lower, the longer the game progresses, that my random votes picked the guy who would survive)
They’re scum and thus will never BE murdered.
The scums deliberately want you to lynch this person.
Since 2 and 3 are more likely, this gives our DETECTIVES someone to SCAN.
Because if they’re leaving this person alive and we know they’re innocent, that’s great for us.
And if they’re guilty, they get caught.
If everyone votes randomly and there’s a good spread to the votes, some of us are GOING to vote for guilty players. Those players will never be murdered.
Okay, so what if I never get murdered, even though I guessed correctly?
Well, I’m liable to latch on and not let go. You’ve all seen me do it. So then the odds of a guilty scumbag getting lynched increase as the game progresses.
And if my vote is on a guilty party right now, and I am vicious and don’t let go and they die and they flip scum, then I’m a big murder target, which means that I won’t be mislynched and I helped kill a scum, two very good moves for town.
And not voting accomplishes allllllllllllll nothing.
You may call me whatever you want as long as it’s not late for dinner!
And I think you are Cray Cray 
It’s not YOUR specific random vote, it’s random votes in general. I just think they are weak and the easy move. I struggle a LOT on Day1 and usually get a lot of flack for it, but I’m thinking and trying to come up with something of value and merit vs just fluff.
Your early votes should indicate the following:
In a close vote situation, you’re liable to leave your vote on your candidate of choice. If it comes down to it, you are willing to lynch this person. That is being on record, and good for later analysis and also, helps others decide who to vote for now, to agree, disagree, or nominate a third party.
That if this person is still alive in the late game and the one who nominated that person is dead, you remaining folks may want to take a look at them / consider them a possible Godfather if they’ve been scanned innocent and still not murdered.
My only problem with random voting on day 1 is that it sort of seems unnecessary. At least in my experience, a good back and forth on the utility of LtL or similar provides more than enough material to make real cases on players.
Dizzy, my point is that the game doesn’t really begin until we start having a voting record.
If we all abstain from random voting, it will be day two and we’ll have one dead townie to show for it.
Then, we have day two to random vote. It’s going to be random until we have an actual reason to vote for someone, which will largely be based on who voted for whom later on, when and why.
I’m willing to be on record as supporting candidate X for death, because, and now.
Note that the random voting doesn’t prevent you from doing any of that.
If you want to be on record as not being on the record, that’s fine. I prefer to score coolness points for pointing at Moriarty with the very first vote. 
Or you guys could all abstain and I can lynch Darth Sensitive on my own, and win the thread if he flips guilty. I’m cool with that too.
I’ve always thought that one of the most important things is that everyone have SOME kind of voting record, starting from Day One. It’s the main thing we can use to hold people accountable for their actions.
There’s also the thing that townfolk don’t know anyone else’s alignment (except for Monks or similar roles). Scum are more likely to show their hand (their knowledge) when they vote.
Clues: I don’t really know how many Scum we’re expected to have, but I don’t think they’re less than 6. If we have 14 Town players, at least 8 have “True Clues™”. Add the 6 “True Clues” that Scum have and we have 14 “True Clues” or more. So, it’s important to keep a good track record on Clues and whether or not they are proven to be true; during the end game I believe they might provide the missing information to weed out Scum.
What if our clues help identify us to scum? For example, perhaps a scum clue looks like: Sherlock’s clue talks about false identities. Or, Dr. Watson’s clue talks about a Godfather. I would suggest that everyone keeps their clue secret unless it is strictly helpful to town in some way, not merely if it looks benign.
How much of the prior discussion about our clues did you read before posting this?
On re-reading the rules I noticed that at least 50% of the TOTAL Clues are “True Clues™”.
So, if we have 6 Scum we could have as few as 6 “True Clues™” assigned to Town.
Sorry about that mistake.
I’ve read the thread but have no suspicions yet. I agree that Mahaloth’s proposal seems anti-Town, but I don’t think a Scum would place his head on the chopping block like that. I’m more suspicious of those repeating the obvious pro-Town advice for each player to judge a reveal himself.
I doubt if Storyteller is sadistic enough to use pro-Scum meta-clues like that. The post almost pings me.
My own clue, if true, is something Scum probably knows already. Revealing it would introduce layers of Wifom, which might benefit Scum, especially if it is actually false. I may reveal it Day 2 or 3, but I see no urgency.
I was about to oblige, but…
OK, that’s a legitimate vote now. Still weak, of course, but that’s to be expected on Day 1. You’re off the hook… for now, at least.
To be clear: I agree 100% that early votes, even when we have very little to go on, are essential for the game. But there’s a difference between “very little to go on” and “nothing to go on”. Nobody ever got lynched based on just a single person’s vote: Any vote, in order to be meaningful, must have at least some kernel to it that others could in principle look at and say “I agree”. Nobody can agree with the argument that Darth Sensitive must be Scum because his name isn’t a proper Sith name, so that vote was useless. People can agree, though, that he’s relatively unengaged in the game, and so that vote is useful, at least a little in its own right and more in terms of later analysis.
Total aside: This right here llustrates exactly why I love mafia. Septimus is most suspicious of the people who try to help town early on… and he’s not wrong to be so suspicious.. I would not be surprised in the least if one of us “wait-and-see” people is scum trying to score early pro-town points.
I have no greater insight than that at this juncture, as I’m about to be busy assembling a green screen. Just wanted to say the rush of being smudged by an honest suspicion (unless Septimus is scum scoring an easy reason to vote! * Intrigues!*) is why I enjoy this game.
Oh, and
This is a good point. On the other hand, there might also be as few as only one false clue, and Scum might well tell the truth about their clues, too. Assuming that Scum will always lie is nearly as dangerous as assuming that they’ll always tell the truth: This isn’t one of those mysterious islands found in logic puzzles.
And yet, if he’s guilty, both votes still have the potential to kill him.
A vote doesn’t become wrong or right because there was reasoning attached.
The one which kills him for no reason (esp an initial vote) is more likely to come from townies, in my experience which may change this game because I just said that aloud.
Scums like to pretend to be all serious and will refuse to vote for their fellow scums unless they see a strong logical case they can agree with.
But of course they’ll vote for townies for any reason, or none.
Also, as far as reasoning goes, the reasoning I added to my vote after the fact was worth enough to buy a cup of coffee at starbucks, assuming I also gave you 4 dollars. It would seem, prudent watchdog, ever-vigilant against random voting, that the bare minimum to gussy up random votes so as not to attract votes for random voting is shockingly low.
If that’s all scums have to do to not gain votes for their votes, they’re going to be on easy street, not baker street.
You contradict yourself. If Scum will vote for Townies for no reason at all, then the one who kills a guy for no reason is likely to be Scum voting for Town.
But in practice, we don’t see much of that around here. Around here, if someone votes for someone else for no reason, it’s usually just evidence that the person doing the voting is Askthepizzaguy: Most of us won’t vote for anyone without a reason, regardless of our alignment.
Also, vote analysis is a tool, yes, but it should not be overestimated. You’ve never seen my vote-analysis program in action, but I say in all seriousness that I believe it to be the most accurate analysis possible, given the data of who voted and unvoted for whom on which days. And the skilled players around here can still fool it. Just analyzing who votes for whom isn’t enough: You also need to analyze their reasons for it (something a computer can’t do). And to do that, there need to be reasons.
That’s all they need to counter the charge of random voting. They may well still be convicted on some other charge.