No-Hang

From SA Mafia Wiki

A No-Hang (or, commonly, no-lynch) is when the day ends without an execution target, so no one is killed at the end of the day. No-Hangs can occur in two ways:

• The deadline passes and no player has reached the number of votes required to be executed.
• Players purposefully vote for a no hang by stating ##vote: No Hang in thread. Note: Some mods will not allow this option in their games, double check with the mod if you're not sure.

Merits of a No-Hang

No-hangs are generally considered to be detrimental to the town. Analyzing the cases, defenses, voting reasons, and voting patterns of executed player are the primary means for the town to remove scum from the game. Remove these, and the job becomes much harder for the town to win. Scum typically enjoy No-Hangs, because it allows a day to pass without any hard connections between them and another player to appear, and it gives them a "free" nightkill.

From time to time, some players believe that it makes tactical sense for the town to perform a No-Hang. This generally occurs when there are an even number of players, it is believed to be at or near EXLO, and there is no player who is confirmed as town. No-Hanging can allow power roles to have another chance to act and (often) forces the mafia to eliminate a possible suspect. However, this only works towards the end game, and is very risky.

Alternatively, other players believe that it is a grave mistake to No-Hang even when in even-numbered exlo. Firstly, given that it is exlo, generally a massclaim would have taken place. With or without the massclaim, the "free-NK" given to the scum allows them to pick off either the most credible townie, or the townie left with most potentially damaging night action, or the townie who has strongest suspicion of the scum (within margin of WIFOM), or the most perceptive / strongest personality townie. Additionally, it further dilutes the percentage of townie voices to the scum, as well forcing an unanimous agreement among the weaker minority remainder. Given that the scum could (and should!) have engineered that at least one player among the remainder is either incorrectly fixated on another player, or is a useful idiot, attaining accurate consensus for all necessary subsequent executions in exlo is made more difficult by throwing away the advantage.

Either way, No-hangs are almost always not a good idea, and should only be considered under dire circumstances.