Manipulation, Bleed, Player-Characters, and the Purpose of Mafia

[biancospino]

regardless of anything else, this discussion is making it clear to me that I completely lack a working definition of gaslighting that aligns to any degree of faithfulness to what seems to be the consensus.

Can someone give me a definition? I'm honestly quite confused tbh. Because really to me just making someone doubt their reads or though process shouldn't be called gaslighting simply for the same reason that a spade shouldn't be called a sword

[biancospino]

So here's the thing. Like many other English language words (and words in other languages, I'm sure), the word gaslighting has several definitions. Here are both definitions I found on Merriam-Webster:

1. psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.

2. the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one's own advantage.

Obviously, the first definition is a form of abuse that is obviously not acceptable and completely outside the scope of the game. The second really has nothing to do with abuse and is just about misleading. However I'm not sure if it gives an accurate representation of how it's used here. I think here it's used to mean "

the action of stating untrue facts as true in an attempt to convince someone who

knows

they aren't true that they are true anyway

". It's different from simply lying. Lying would be, for instance, claiming a cop guilty when you are not a cop. Gaslighting is used for instance to describe the following sequence: A mafioso softclaims a guilty, gets their target eliminated, and then insists that they weren't softing a guilty at all and were misrepresented and that they thought somebody else was actually softing a guilty, and then even though you KNOW they did soft a guilty, you let yourself be convinced and eliminate the other person instead. Or another example is if mech doesn't clear someone, but they insisit that it does clear them, and they continue arguing to the point where you're questioning yourself and decide that you know what, maybe the mech does clear them. Both of these would probably be referred to as gaslighting by players who use the term colloquially (IMO). If someone else sees it differently or has something to add, go ahead.

Thanks. If the word is indeed used to refer generically to 2 and specifically the

blue

, then yeah, obviously is a thing in games.
If indeed people do use the word as such, and it is generally understood as such, then maybe there isn't much of a problem.
I still kind of doubt that using the word that broadly isn't ever going to cause gross musunderstandings, but may just be me idk.

After a game is over, continuing to try to hammer home the bullshit is taking it too far, and if you can see that you're adversely impacting another player's IRL mental health, it's time to back off regardless of wincon.

Before reading this thread, I was under the assumption that if X was accusing Y of gasligthing, they would 100% be accusing Y of greviously impacting X's mental health oog, and voluntarily.
Like, if I was the accused one and believed that the accusation was in good faith, I would immediately cease during what I was doing in the game toward X because I would understand that whatever it was, it was explicitly harming X as a person and not only as a slot. Which, obviously isn't good for game integrity.

I understand now that it's not what people mean but it still seem an unwise choice of words. Unless it gets rooted in site culture enough to the point of being the plainly understood meaning (which, again, maybe it's already the case and it's just a me problem).

Say, you correctly accuse someone of being scum? What do you expect them to do in turn? Convincing you that you're "insane" may be pushing it, but convincing you that you didn't see what you think you saw and that even if you did it didn't mean what you think it meant, well... that's kind of what they have to do isn't it? If you're particularly good at catching scum, then scum have to attempt to convince you that you're incompetent. Perhaps even over an extended period of time, as a game can last quite a while.

I don't think DE is saying not to do that. In fact that sounds pretty much something that scum should do, or attempt to, to comply with the play to win rule. That's pretty normal game behaviour.

To be abusive something needs to directly interfere with someone's personhood, which such a mundane in-game action clearly does not intend to do (and it can't intend to, because otherwise it would be ogi; and wheter it does in fact produce adverse effects irl is actually accidental, absent the specific intention to cause them).

PE: if we're saying that "make X believe that they made errors while scumhunting" is gaslighting, then any defense ever from a caught scum is an attempt at gaslighting. Clearly it can't be the case, otherwise the word becomes so generic as to lose meaning.
Like, if I have stolen the cookies from the jar, and you have done your investigations and conclude that it was me, and when accused I try to talk you into believing that no, it was in fact Timmy that stole the cookies and I don't ever like chocolate, and that your conclusion is wrong for [reasons]; I'm doing exactly the same thing, including trying to make you believe that you suck at investigating, and clearly I'm not gasligthing you, just vanilla misleading and lying