Mafia Is Not Funny

[BuJaber]

I'm of the opinion that self votes are never helpful for town, if they were at some niche scenario then I am sure there was a better way to do the same thing.

No self-votes as town, would force scum to stop self-voting and would force both factions to try harder.

I think it can be objectively and systematically eradicated. And in many many situations it was blatantly playing against the self-voter's win condition when they sped up their lynch or got themselves at L-1 then quickhammered, or simply hammered themselves (as town).

[BuJaber]

As in the action itself is visible, it's not a subjective thing, so as soon as you see a self vote everyone knows it's a self-vote. That's the objective part.

I would also presume that my opinion is based on fact, because I chose my words very carefully to cover all situations, but someone still might disagree so I won't claim that my evaluation of self-votes is also objective.

As for systematically, my old thinking was to just auto lynch any self-votes until it stops eventually but xtox's idea is better. By having the mods enforce it game after game, it will have no effect on the game outcome and it should eventually catch on. Though this method does require that enough mods share the same opinion. Like the only way to really remove any subjectivity and/or abuse of power is to not have it in the first place.

Let me ask a question that may help convince the doubters. You said you used self-voting effectively in the past; do you think it was the best way to do what you did?

I think nobody disagrees with the concept when it is blatantly bad like self-voting in lylo or whatever. I think people see it have a positive effect on a game sometime and think it is worth keeping around for those. But I would argue that in those same scenarios, the self-vote was the lazy/unskilled option.

The only real exception is scum hammering themselves to end the day early, but even that, unless it was a confirmed guilty, there is always somr argument you could make to weasel out of the lynch. Just because me, you, and X can't save themselves in that scenario does not mean all scum players can't save themselves in that scenario by just talking. Challenge yourself, and raise the bar for us all.

[BuJaber]

Btw since this thread is a catch-all and not just for self-votes.

I don't know how troll accounts aren't considered against the rules.

If you join a game, and only post like 6 joke or shitposts, and lurk throughout the gamd, then you're not helping your team, you're not playing the game, and you're just taking up space.

I don't want people to not have fun. I encourage fun, and analyze games I did not enjoy to try and avoid doing things that make it unfun for me, or environments that make it unfun. But troll accounts is just going too far. It is intentional game sabotage.

[BuJaber]

Mafia is complex enough that you can't really ever say that anything you do is the best thing you could have done bujaber

This is true.

It comes down to this.
Is the potential gain from the rare times that it will be helpful big enough to outweigh the negative consequences of all other times?

Self-voting is the unicycle of mafia tools. Maybe one employee can ride one and get to work early despite the traffic, but the vast majority will fall down trying.

[BuJaber]

Flavor leaf, a lot of players here have this shallow idea that if a player does something as both alignments then it is NAI for them.

I think this is bullshit. I think there is always a difference in play even if the visible action is the same, the agenda/motivation/intention will differ etc, the actions around the action, the way they direct such action at players.

However, I have found that convincing people of this is incredibly difficult. They just shun you at best, and often turn on you and lynch you just because they think there is no way anyone can read alignment in said action.

And you know what that does? It spreads the idea that this is a good way to escape suspicion. People should just do action x many many times as both alignment so it becomes known that they do that. And then more people falsely argue that it shouldn't be analyzed because it's "NAI" and then you have RVS and early game filled with nonsense like this, and players start to adopt another false perspective which is that the early pages tells you nothing about alignment.

It's just a vicious cycle of people basically making excuses for why they are not scumhunting. But I try to speak against this out loud in games, and the most frequent reaction I encounter is people call me scum for it, ignore my opinions and reads, and eventually mislynch.

I just caught a player in a game on page 1 for making a joke claim. Soon after that I caught one of his buddies for strongly defending him/attacking me. My reads were ignored, other people got lynched instead, I was mislynched later, and scum won with both those players endgaming. It was absolutely pitiful and all town said at the end was good job scum no taking responsibility for their shit play at all. Why? Because the player I caught is a troll who jokes in every game, so for some reason that means nobody can ever scumread him for that.