Cases are anti-town?

[MagnaofIllusion]

I find players that go out of their way to make a huge detailed case are often scum.

I find that you are attributing a play-style choice to alignment which is terribad.

[borkjerfkin]

I read a Thor newbie game where he beat out a player who, rightly, had caugght him as scum basically by dismissing his walls with one liners.

Was this person me? If not, this happened to me.

[PJ.]

I disagree with Yosarian2.

I find fonz' reasoning to prett pretty solid. Like mentioned in the OP, I wanted to hear it from the man himself but it was 2am and I couldn't get to the beach today to bug him about it endlessly.

[gorckat]

I agree with Fonz here.

If I were to take the time to elaborate every single point in my agreement, that wouldn't increase signal and would be a pain in the ass to read.

[Jaws]

I use cases as a scumhunting tool, not to actually prove someone is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Scum can easily brush off one-liner statements, but bring up a giant point-by-point case and they'll start freaking out trying to defend every little action.

[Umbrage]

dear god please stop posting

You cant even comprehend what I mean. Autism in action. All we need now is for Junpei to weigh in.

Oh I understand you. Which is why I want you to stop posting, everywhere.

[Bricktoes]

I read a Thor newbie game where he beat out a player who, rightly, had caugght him as scum basically by dismissing his walls with one liners.

Was this person me? If not, this happened to me.

I thought it was Guy Named Riggs, but I'm sure if it worked once Thor used it again.

[Timeater]

GNR owns.

Oh I understand you. Which is why I want you to stop posting, everywhere.

>Umbad telling someone to stop posting

[Junpei]

I'll often vote without any stated reason, in the hope it will cause people to look at my target and figure out for themselves why I suspect them.

This is scummy because it entices town to find something wrong. Just like pointing at a huge post and going "does anyone see what I see is wrong with this?" is scummy.

MoI is right - calling a playstyle scummy is silly, it's all situational.

[UncertainKitten]

See, I mostly subscribe to this, because the reactions to your caseless vote also tend to be valuable. I do, however, find it works better when you give people a "nibble", one point to work off of and let them figure out the rest. Even better if they don't expound it in some wall, but just vote with you. That panics scum far more than a point by point wall they can easily find the cracks in.

But I haven't played mafia for like a year so what do I know :shrug:

EDIT: Oh, also, the confirmation bias thing is a big point. The more you're defending your vote and case, the more vested as a person you are in it and it becomes that much harder to admit you're wrong when you are.

[Timeater]

I sort of agree with the Junpei's post actually, its expecting too much of people. Timing is everything. If you post below someone who just posted a pretty scummy post and you only respond with a vote, people will be likely to sheep. That being said for that specific situation I'm talking about its probably best if you haven't had any interactions with said votee.

I think MS deals with "cases" in a similar fashion EM deals with using "fos" (note I am originally an MS player, but I do love EM). When someone foses someone in EM, its a kind of a big deal and there is a sort of pageantry and ritual to it. It seems like a lot of MS players feel there needs to be an "official case" done by someone to get anyone lynched. Its extremely hard to properly

be a mob, to have that mob mentality

, when everything is so slowed down compared to normal forms of mafia.

IMO a big part of being decent at mafiascum is being subservise/subtle enough to manipulate this flaw in the long-form version of the game.

[The Fonz]

For me, gut-based or unexplained votes always draw more heat relative to ones which are neatly explained, even when the underlying motives aren't any less valid. I feel they are unfairly presented as scummy when they're not.

Here's the thing ... I understand your point but we have two votes.

One with attached reasoning.
One without.

The first can be analyzed for such things as scum intent and how said reasoning melds with other posts by the player.

The second cannot.

Well, the first can be analyzed for scum intent. You ask yourself rather than the player why they made that vote. And has been said already in thread, how good or consistent the logic appears to be seems to me much more a function of the player making the argument than the alignment making the argument. Generally, if a player is making arguments at all in the early days of a game, I'm not that interested in attacking them, I prefer to attack those who show little interest in going on the offensive at all. Later on, I'll rely more on looking at wagon dynamics and the timing of votes and things like that.

While we seem to be on opposite sides of the spectrum as to thinking explanation is a Pro-Town action it is easier for scum to hide their pushes under the second kind of vote and say "I thought it was obvious, draw your own conclusions". Town can do it also but that only enables scum to do the same.

Well, I don't think explaining yourself is antitown. I certainly think players should usually explain their thought process if asked to. I also think both of you and I could do with being more concise in general. I just don't assume that because a player votes with one line of justification or none at all, it follows that he doesn't have any reasons. I also became excessively aware a few years ago that when I built cases of the kind you tend to deploy now, which at the time I did a lot, people would just sheep me without thinking about anything at all for themselves.

I've seen players like Chamber and Jack come under undue pressure because their posts were short far too often. Some of the best scumhunters I've seen were short post types. X-Com Terror From The Deep Mafia was one of the best examples I can think of. Chamber, playing under an alt, voted for a scum immediately after that scum had made a scummy as fuck post. And it immediately caused all the (fairly inexperienced) townies to scream 'OMG Chamber doesn't have reasons for his vote! Scum!' and he was lynched D1. Whereas to me, when I replaced in, it was excessively obvious why he'd voted the way he did when he did.

[Yosarian2]

Seriously; voting on gut is fine if that's the best you can do, but if you actually have a reason for thinking person X is scum, it's usually best to say it. You can lead with a vote and explain later to get better reactions if you want, but if you have reasons, you should share them at some point. You might convince other people, or there might be some huge hole in your logic that someone else can point out.

Just remember that half the reason of making a case on someone is the chance that you might be wrong, and if you are, you want someone to explain to you why you are wrong. It's not a debating club; if you "win the debate" but lynch a town it doesn't help you.

[Junpei]

Re: Reaction tests: If you don't know what you're looking for, then you're looking for trouble.

[Yosarian2]

Re: Reaction tests: If you don't know what you're looking for, then you're looking for trouble.

It's worthwhile poking at someone you are suspicious of to see how they react and how other people react.

I should be clear, though, that when some people say "reactions tests" they mean "I'm going to do something stupid, scummy, and anti-town and see how people react", and that's a terrible idea. Never do something actually anti-town in order to get a reaction, or the reaction will be "all the townies quicklynching you"

[MonkeyMan576]

It depends on the nature of the case. If it is a logical case then it is helpful. Sometimes, cases just try to nitpick every single thing someone does, which might not be helpful.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Well, I don't think explaining yourself is antitown. I certainly think players should usually explain their thought process if asked to. I also think both of you and I could do with being more concise in general. I just don't assume that because a player votes with one line of justification or none at all, it follows that he doesn't have any reasons. I also became excessively aware a few years ago that when I built cases of the kind you tend to deploy now, which at the time I did a lot, people would just sheep me without thinking about anything at all for themselves.

My problem is the farther extreme of the Vote without explanation game ... after someone asks "Why did you vote PlayerX" and the voter says something to the effect of "Gut" or "Read the thread". Both of those are useless responses that don't to anything to help the proceedings. At the end of the day people who just vote, never give any explanations and flaunt not bothering to do so are always going to fall into my "Ignore and vote if a wagon forms" pool. It's a me issue but it's where I am at.

In the end I'd say every read is gut. Something about the post you see says "This isn't right" and you look closer. Heck, look at LMP's recent Buffy the Vampire Slayer game (although for some reason I can't find it at all. And I know it was not Tiger eaten. Did something happen to part of the completed game in Mini Theme?). The first post iStark made hit my gut like a Ton of bricks. He got lynched in like 5 pages and was scum.

[Giitah]

So, is it better to vote w/o anything (but of course have reason), vote w/ a concise explanation, vote w/ some explanation and some left for others to find, or to make a point-by-point case and vote? It appears we've had responses from every single faction here. Admittedly, though, the only one with a pro for a point-by-point case is Jaws in post #29, but other than that we've had lots of different responses. Should we tighten the parameters of the question and rethink or is there any consensus?

I think that in terms of garnering votes, a concise explanation fairs much better than a lengthy point-by-point analysis. Additionally, point-by-point analysis tends to lead to you strengthening your conviction of your suspicion without regard to whether or not your suspicion is correct. Based on these I think I'd try to shift my game to the former rather than the latter, but it seems some people are even for voting w/o an explanation, which I can only say is... difficult. Refer to MoI's post above, I think he summarized my feelings on the matter pretty well.

[Yosarian2]

In the end I'd say every read is gut.

That's really not true.

I can't tell you how many times that I had a town gut read on someone for most of the game, but I voted them anyway, because logic dictated that they had to be scum. Usually logic trumps gut.

[Vi]

Or put it like this.

Scumone makes a scummy post.
I vote them without explanation.

Your options are:
*agree and vote
*disagree and don't vote
*ask for a reason

If you ask for a reason, you're not necessarily likely to get a full case, but a reason or two perhaps (assuming the answer isn't "because they're scum"). From there, you can choose either to vote or not to vote.

If after that reason is given you still want to argue it out instead of making a decision, you might be nitpicking a bit much and/or trying to defend them without making a decision, neither of which is a good thing.

As a bonus, votes without explanation can throw everyone else off-balance. If it happens to your scumpartner and you don't really know WHY they're getting voted, that places all of you in an awkward position.

[crypto]

Usually logic trumps gut.

this statement is delightfully retarded on so many levels

[Junpei]

@Vi:

Actually you're leaving out things such as voting you, or asking you why you didn't provide a reason.

Furthermore, asking for a reason and then arguing on your reasoning could be because of many things. Maybe you really have poor logic or your explanation incriminates yourself somehow. Both of which are good reasons to ask for more reasoning.

As for scumpartner being voted, I'd do this: Ask why you're voting for them.

[Nero Cain]

Usually logic trumps gut.

this statement is delightfully retarded on so many levels

naw. I've seen plenty of "logical" cases be wrong.

[Yosarian2]

Usually logic trumps gut.

this statement is delightfully retarded on so many levels

Ok, I should clarify that. Usually for people who are not bloody idiots, logic trumps gut.

[Seraphim]

Logic is great when you can get it. I've found that you rarely get a chance to employ it though.