[Trinket]

Yeah you are right! But that's only for sickbeard, that script is a bit different because sickbeard gets it's default values from another file where the variables are declared. You can see that here:

Terminal

# Source SickBeard configuration
if [ -f /etc/default/sickbeard ]; then
. /etc/default/sickbeard
else
echo "/etc/default/sickbeard not found using default settings.";
fi

In /etc/default/sickbeard I have declared the variable "GROUP=download" and that variable is called back again, It's unnecesary to do declare it again in the init script, I could use it directly as it's imported from the default file, I do so just to remember that variable exists.
Pay attention to the init scripts, just sickbeard is different.
Here are the default variables for sickbeard:
/etc/default/sickbeard
Sorry for that!
You could just do:

Terminal

"start-stop-daemon --background -d $APP_PATH -c $RUN_AS:download $EXTRA_SSD_OPTS --start --pidfile $PID_FILE --exec $DAEMON

What I was trying to explain you to do was just in order to make it easier to replace if you for whatever reason wished to do so. But maybe it's easier if you just add ":download"