LOLhammering

[Muffin]

This trend really has picked up recently. It's like the new site culture is to worship being fucking stupid and think it's

hilarious

to do dumb shit F4R TEH LULZ LMAO in a game people devote months of time into playing.

I've noticed this hand-in-hand with a "cases are scummy" attitude that discourages lucid thought processes in favour of giving towncred to people who just post shit like "#202 is p town" or "[playername] is scum, VOTE: playername".

Sadly I haven't rolled scum recently, because I feel like I could get away with murder (literally) under this meta.

[Muffin]

This trend really has picked up recently. It's like the new site culture is to worship being fucking stupid and think it's

hilarious

to do dumb shit F4R TEH LULZ LMAO in a game people devote months of time into playing.

I've noticed this hand-in-hand with a "cases are scummy" attitude that discourages lucid thought processes in favour of giving towncred to people who just post shit like "#202 is p town" or "[playername] is scum, VOTE: playername".

Sadly I haven't rolled scum recently, because I feel like I could get away with murder (literally) under this meta.

In all fairness, cases and logic are actually scummy. Or at the very least not towny.

Like, any argument about cases being a pro-town thing turns mafia into "let the alignment of the best communicators win," which is pretty dumb.

Mafia is fundamentally a game of persuasion.

To pretend otherwise is delusional, and even "gut" players need to try to convince/persuade others. Without any persuasion, we might as well play single-player against AI opponents. Given that persuasion is an integral and inseparable part of the game, why would we want to discourage the more skilled players from winning?

It'd be like playing hockey with a culture of "accurate shots and passes are dumb".

(The reasoning behind "cases are scummy" is that it's a lot easier for scum to succeed when you force the game out of the realm of gut into the realm of logic because logic is relatively easy to fake, especially for someone with strong communication skills. By keeping the game on a gut-level, scum are forced into more unnatural situations trying to imitate town thought processes)

Wow I could not disagree more. You can do literally anything, hammer anyone, when all that's required of you is to say "it was gut, lol".

[Muffin]

I've never really been convinced that cases work.

It's not about making huge textwalls, it's about being able to demonstrate a cogent, traceable town-minded thought process.

Giving towncred to people who post inane shit like "#123 is p town, #321 is p scum" and nothing else just makes it significantly easier for scum to hide and "act town".

[Muffin]

If "#123 is p town, #321 is p scum" can achieve the same results as "cogent, traceable town-minded thought process", then they're both equally inane by at least one standard.

My contention is that the former makes it easier for scum to hide, and the latter makes it harder. I have not seen evidence that they produce/achieve the same results, nor would I expect to.

But you don't seem to be arguing that the two are better approach to finding scum.

Correct.

Instead, you seem to be arguing that scum and town are more obvious when everyone engages in the latter rather than the former. That's cool, but if you can't credibly show people that they will lynch scum more often if they take the time to engage in these "cogent, traceable town-minded thought process", I don't see how you can expect people who do agree to play the game your way to do so in a manner that looks genuine.

Well, can you show anyone that they can credibly lynch scum more often if they just go "psyche is p town" over and over?

I can point to at least one anecdotal bit of evidence, which is Wisdom and maybe one or two others in Mastin's recently completed bastard Large Theme. Wisdom didn't display an ounce of what I would call "a town thought process" but for reasons passing understanding, others were townreading that slot. Myself and a few others fought a huge uphill battle to get Wisdom lynched, often against misguided townies.

Titus, on the other hand, did a really good job of presenting argumentation with seemingly-consistent reasonings and might have won the game. She certainly had me fooled.

IMHO this reinforces my point: people shouldn't give a person towncred for just making declarative statements without providing the accompanying reasoning or thought process.

It's as if you're telling some dude to participate in a religious ceremony that he doesn't believe in, all while planning to kill him if it doesn't look like he's doing it with conviction. Ridiculous.

I don't really think that that's an accurate characterisation of what's going on here. I'd say it's more akin to telling some dude that vaccines don't cause autism, but he and a huge majority of others have been taken in by some kind of popular wisdom, and it's dragging everyone down into a pit where intellectual mediocrity is not only accepted but expected and cherished.

I do believe that there are good cases, and good ways to build cases.

But I also think that readiness to make posts like "#123 is p town, #321 is p scum" comes from decisions by individual players about the relative effectiveness of strategies for finding scum. Would the average player find scum more reliably if he engaged in some demonstrably cogent, traceable town-minded thought process rather than use his gut when reading a thread? I really doubt it. I really do.

It's not just about finding scum. It's also about being read as town so that others can come to the same conclusions as you. Purposely making yourself look scummy by actively refusing to provide a thought process for others to follow is just lazy.

I think you're misunderstanding my point.

And I think part of the reason is because our only guidance on what goes into a good case is a wiki of lame scumtells.

Speak for yourself. I find "tells" to be highly overrated.

[Muffin]

It seems like it underscores the problem with treating "presenting argumentation with seemingly-consistent reasonings" like a towntell.

Okay. My understanding of your (and I guess Bro's) argument is thus:

• Playing by "gut" is better because scum can't fabricate plausible cases to look town or get a mislynch
  
• Requiring people to actually show traces of a thought process makes the playing field tilted in favour of strong communicators
  
• Scum can post "cases" that are fabricated, therefore cases should never be used

My argument boils down to:

• Playing by "gut" makes it easier for scum to hide, thus lowering the overall skill requirement to win as scum
  
• Requiring people to actually show traces of a thought process makes it possible to examine their posts for consistency, which aids both scumhunting and townhunting.
  
• Being an effective communicator is an essential, intrinsic part of Mafia (forum or face to face), and endeavouring to remove this perceived "imbalance" is akin to playing billiards using robots to handle the cue because some players are more dextrous and better ball-strikers than others.
  
• Scum being able to post cases that are fabricated is literally the entire point of playing Forum Mafia, therefore cases are not alignment-indicative and the essence of the game is creating and penetrating deceptions.
  
• If scum (titus in my example) play a really strong game and post plausible-sounding cases, then this is just a player playing well and not a reason to say "cases are scummy". A strong player will do well under any circumstance.
  
• If scum (wisdom in my example) play a weak game and don't post any thought processes and still get towncred, then this is a reason to require people to show their thoughts and make arguments instead of simple declarative statements, so that their motivations can be more easily discerned. If people weren't giving towncred for no reason, Wisdom would not have lived as long as they did. Therefore the optimal town play is to require players to show trains of thought and not to simply give towncred for meaningless declarative statements.

I hope that clears up what I'm saying.

And your analogy doesn't really seem to go anywhere

I'm saying that encouraging a dumbed-down style of play where everyone just goes "psyche is p scummy for #404" but never is held accountable for

why

hypothetical post #404 is actually scummy is analogous to the growing anti-intellectualism movement in America and elsewhere in society.

I mean, suppose you have a 10 player game where every single player just does what BROseidon suggests and acts completely illogical, voting entirely on gut instinct. Is there any meaningful way such a game would be different than playing "single player" against 9 bots?

[Muffin]

I'm saying that encouraging a dumbed-down style of play where everyone just goes "psyche is p scummy for #404" but never is held accountable for why hypothetical post #404 is actually scummy is analogous to the growing anti-intellectualism movement in America and elsewhere in society.

I have a nominee for the most pretentious post in the history of mafiascum.

I suppose you're right, but oh well.

[Muffin]

When someone has a gut read and you tell them to pretend that it's not a gut read so that you can read them more easily (which is what your anti-gut position does),

No what I'm saying is that they can have their gut read, but if they produce mostly gut reads and no lucid cases or logic, then they should not expect to be viewed as town, and other players should not read this as town. It should be viewed as null (at best).

you're telling them to lie about the basis of their read and hoping to pull out a idea of their alliance from it. I think that's really silly.

I'm really not telling anyone to lie about anything. If a player really truly can only come up with gut reads and is incapable (not simply unwilling) to form a single coherent case then okay, but I think we both agree that players like this are extremely rare (or are newbies, but that doesn't count).

------

The idea that players are undiscernable black boxes when they justify their votes with a gut read is false.

Suppose I hammer town based on "gut". Then I vote scum the next day based on "gut". Then D3 I vote town also based on "gut". How can you begin to probe at my alignment? I don't see any way that I can be held accountable to anything if all I have to do is say it was a gut read.

The idea that players are miles better scumhunters when they use what you characterize as logic to motivate their votes is false.

I agree with this. But I contend that players should use logic to justify votes so that others can better read the voter.

The idea that players (like titus) should accrue townreads because they post plausible-sounding cases from time to time is also false.

I also agree with this.

The idea that gut readers cannot coherently communicate and advocate for the wagons they lead is false.

This idea was proposed by someone else in thread, I forget who, but not by me.

The idea that people who predominantly use gut reads are "inane" and people who don't are superior players - well that's just in bad taste.

I agree with this, also. What I said was that statements like "#123 is p town" are inane, not the players. I also said that superior communicators are superior players. I said this in response to someone (you?) who said that if the game is based on logic then the best communicators win. I believe the best communicators will always win because mafia is fundamentally a game of persuasion. Trying to make the game less about the best communicators winning is silly.

[Muffin]

What exactly is a case? I thought it was just reasoning behind someone being scum, which would include gut reads.

But a gut read is just the lack of a reason.

"He's scum."
"For what reason?"
"He just

is

."

That's not a case IMHO.

[Muffin]

Some player simple do play off their gut and don't have an answer for their view at that moment. However, if the player spends the whole game only gutreading people and randomly voting people for no good reason, then that's the time to stop giving them credibility.

+1

Unfortunately my experience in recent games has been that people just keep giving those players towncred because "cases are scummy".

[Muffin]

Can you give examples of this town cred being handed out for that reason?

I have already.

Because I'm pretty sure you're not taking into account other factors.

That's possible but I feel it's unlikely.

Unless your argument is simply that you don't like when people play like that and you don't like when others from a town read on players while they're playing like that... In which case, learn to deal with it. Short of abducting them and torturing them until they learn that mafia isn't a game, I don't see what complaining about it is going to do. Blacklist or PL.

I'm not a "big name" here on MS so my PL attempts don't carry much weight.

My opinion is that the "cases are scummy" side of things is dragging the site meta towards a less-enjoyable state. I don't think I'm alone. I guess I could "learn to deal with it" but obviously I'd rather not have to, just as I'm sure you'd rather not have to deal with changes you perceive as detrimental to enjoyment of one of your hobbies.

[Muffin]

@ muffin

I had a long conversation with another member on this site about "ballroom mafia" versus "conversationalist mafia" and we agreed "conversationalist mafia" was dominating the site currently which was a sharp swing in the opposite direction of what used to be "ballroom dancing mafia", which sounds like the environment that you are more comfortable in. and how the next site meta shift probably needs to reflect a balance between the 2.

that's a great way of putting it, actually.

I think I made one iso case a couple of years ago in adventure time mafia on ces for being scum and he turned out to be conftown that same day.

I made 1 case last year with quotes and effort and shit and all 3 players were town.

I don't make cases not because "cases are scummy" but because I am horrifyingly stupidly bad at it.

I do infinitely better in games when I work things out in my own way even tho other pple might not understand them. I mean I try to explain it and to me it seems very simple to understand but what I have come to realize is that it is very similar to speaking a different language. its like if you read oh I do not know, pick a foreign language that you don't know that was written on a chalkboard and how it looks like jumbled letters or characters and it doesn't make sense to you. it is an incoherent mess all smushed together that you don't understand. its why I don't even try explaining how I obtain my reads most of the time cos to me sometimes the nuances of a motivation are like in big neon lights and I sit around wondering how pple can miss it. and when I say big neon lights I am talking about the hesitancy in lynching a claimed scum role blocker or lynching the next day the person who kept insisting that it was mylo cos of another supposed faction and kept trying to save the claimed scum role blocker when the evidence proved otherwise. like I don't get that at all cos there was zero town motivation for that player in that situ.

I do try to explain my reads I just don't think that pple don't always understand what I am saying altho I have tried and sometimes I do get tired and lazy and will call something "gut" when I have a lot more reasons than I do. i don't think I am the only player who feels this way.

so I hear your frustration but I think that there needs to be a meeting place in the middle.

anyways I feel sort of sentimental about you and just wanted to try to offer a varying view.

I agree that there needs to be a meeting place in the middle. I've certainly gone with gut instinct on occasion. And mollie, I've played with you enough to know that you aren't what I'm describing/railing against.

If you or anyone else says "I have reasons but don't have energy/time to explain them now, here's my vote" that'd be enough for me in the interim, provided the reasons come out at some point.

[Muffin]

Necropost.

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p6858724

Won a scum game; took all the things I was complaining about in this thread and played that way. Was widely townread.

[Muffin]

is there any real reason to think that or are you just saying so

Looming deadlines are a great way to "compromise" and vote a mislynch as scum.

[Muffin]

So no doubt that's part of why vezok feels hammering should happen organically and days shouldn't be dragged out to deadline.

[Muffin]

What

[Muffin]

When has that ever happened? How is that prototypical of a wagon that grows organically to lynch?