Random Vote

At the beginning of a game of Mafia, there is very little information to be had. As a result, initial votes are made with no substantial reasoning offered. These are often referred to as random votes.

While many random votes are based on the generation of a random number (by a die or some other oracle), they are just as often based on arbitrary factors, such as avatars, nicknames, or even other random votes.

Purpose

When one is voted for they are closer to be Lynched. Being lynched is something to avoid, so a player who has a greater chance of being lynched will talk more to defend himself. The more someone talks, the more they reveal. If a Mafia member or other Scum reveals too much, he gives himself away. So voting for someone one thinks is a member of the mafia can lead to discovering who really is a member of the mafia.

However often one has no real information to go on at the beginning of a game. In this case, one cannot actually do better than acting at random -- and someone has to do something, or nothing will happen. It is assumed here that voting is the only action one can take at this stage of the game with any real effect.

There are also cases where one has evidence (such as an Investigation) or a hunch that may indicate that someone is Scum, but revealing the information would make it more difficult to act upon. In this case, a player may make an ostensibly 'random' vote in order to mask their real reasons. If legitimately random votes did not occur and often, this would not be possible, as saying that a vote was random could only mean that the voter did not want to reveal their real reason for voting.

Arguments Against

1. It worries new players - Players who are new to the game often see random voting and do not understand the logic behind it, and subsequently make some very wrong assumptions--for instance: all random votes are truly random, logic is not nessecary for the game of mafia, or that it is OK to cast a lynching vote at random.
2. It stifles discussion - Random voting can become so ingrained/expected that no one will discuss anything of substance until everyone has voted, and therefore the last players to come into the game are left with several unpleasant options:
   • "craft" their supposedly random vote so it lands on someone who does not have a vote yet;
   • cast a truly random vote, and risk putting more votes on one player than all the others, thereby drawing suspicion on themselves and possibly risking someone else's lynch;
   • refuse to random vote, which can draw suspicion of its own (though this is less common than the other two).
3. It's better to wait for something to happen and use that as a reason to vote - Because causal relationships are difficult to infer in mafia, statistics are often employed to gauge the value of different strategies. If a given strategy yields no result better than random play, then it has no value at all. So to say that a random vote is the best move is essentially an admission that no reasonable play exists for the circumstances.

See Also

'Oh My God You Suck' voting