Claiming a special role: allowed or not?

[Esh]

This is something that has come up in discussions in a couple of games I've played now, and I would love to hear other people's thoughts on it.

Let's say you're playing a 5-player game, with Paranoid Agent as the only special role. Right at the beginning, the Paranoid Agent says what their role is.

I know there's nothing in the rulebook that say they can't do this. I just wonder if it's really in the spirit of the game, and what the designer intended.

There's no reason for a regular Agent to counter-claim that they're the Paranoid Agent. Which means that if anyone counter-claims, it would have to be the Insider. If that happens, the Paranoid Agent knows 100% who the Insider is, and the regular Agents now have the whole game narrowed down to a 50-50.

But if the Insider does NOT counter-claim, that means that the Agents now have one person that is 100% above suspicion. It feels like that makes things WAY too hard for the Insider, especially since including the Paranoid Agent already gives the Agents an extra benefit with their double-vote. If you have a Risky Agent or Sleeper Agent in the game as well, they can do the same thing, and now the Agents are automatically in a 50-50 situation, right from the very first round.

What do you think? Is this kind of role-claiming okay?

[Mointertain]

I just checked the rules. It says on page 9:

"Make sure, when counting to three during the vote, that everyone has both hands in the air so that the Paranoid Agent isn't revealed (and the voting remains fair)."

With this quote the intention of the game design is clear: You can't just call your role. That would be unfair.

[Esh]

That does seem to imply that secrecy is intended, yeah. Nice catch.

[Echo_was_sorry]

I think they probably treated as bluffimg acts Like what players do in the well known werewolfgame which I don't know the English name. like“ I'm the seer” or sth

[JustAnItch]

Like what players do in the well known werewolf game which I don't know the English name.

The game is called Werewolf (or One Night Ultimate Werewolf) in English as well.

Like any bluffing game, it can be understood that any claim can also be a lie. Therefore, claiming what role or cards you have/had isn't against the spirit of the game. Asking someone else what they have/had and making plays accordingly is what is (or should be) banned by the rules. Similarly, in your case, claiming Paranoid Agent should be banned regardless, if there's no way anyone besides the Special agent can claim it. This is just my opinion. Idk about the designers intent for the rules per se.

[arrie1987]

Like what players do in the well known werewolf game which I don't know the English name.

The game is called Werewolf (or One Night Ultimate Werewolf) in English as well.

Like any bluffing game, it can be understood that any claim can also be a lie. Therefore, claiming what role or cards you have/had isn't against the spirit of the game. Asking someone else what they have/had and making plays accordingly is what is (or should be) banned by the rules. Similarly, in your case, claiming Paranoid Agent should be banned regardless, if there's no way anyone besides the Special agent can claim it. This is just my opinion. Idk about the designers intent for the rules per se.

I don't see as a problem that you claim in the beginning to be the paranoid agent. This can also be true or false. A 2nd person can then also claim they are the paranoid agent.
The only thing you need to be aware of, is if you play that particular role in real life,during voting it can change depending if that role is revealed or not.

When revealed, easy, that agent can bring 2 votes, by putting 2 fingers in the air and vote for who he wants.

When not revealed, everyone puts 2 fingers in the air, so that you do not know who the paranoid agent is. Then with the count down you can do 2 things. (1) when counted to 0 the "normal" players vote with 1 finger in the end or (2) everyone votes with 2 fingers and only paranoid agent counts as 2 votes then or all other players drop a finger.

BGA it is easy, you dont put fingers in the air

[najata]

Yeah, in real life that addendum about everyone voting with two hands is so that during the vote, noone gets influenced by the fact that paranoid agent gets two votes. If I as an Agent were to vote for X, and they would be the only one that has two hands up, I would immediately know during voting itself that my vote is wrong and I would like to change it immediately. On BGA we don't have that problem, since we don't see how others are voting.

So I have no problem with anyone claiming they're the paranoid agent. Or any othe role, in fact. It could be bluffing, and the Agents could also say they're Paranoid, and while it makes them suspicious in the eyes of the real Paranoid Agent, maybe they would want to assess the reactions of others and see if anyone other follows the claim. We've had plenty of that in our Werewolf/Mafia games in real life. People claim the roles all the time, and they can be bluffing or not - it tells you more about others anyway.

That being said, I don't really see the point of claiming any role online, especially in games where you don't get much of a response from other players and can't really see them. Some games are being commented constantly and some pass in complete silence - there's no real point of saying anything in the latter. Yet, I don't have a problem with anyone claiming anything - as I have no way of verifying most of their claims until the very end of the game and I am fully aware that people can be bluffing their way out all the time.