Connotations and Mafia

[Flubbernugget]

Do the words we use to describe different mafia roles affect how we play the game?

I'm thinking back to the Rebels in the Palace game Pokerface hosted a few months ago. I /inned for the game not exactly understanding the mechanics and what roles were equivalent to what in a typical game of mafia. In the initial setup spec, the wincons of each role was expressed in a mathemical (and connotationally "neutral") manner. This was really important to describing the guard role. The word "guard" in itself doesn't have the same negative associations that words like "mafia" and "scum" do. As a result, I went into the game with more confidence in my play than when I flip a role like "mafia." It wasn't until late in the game when the word "scum" was being used as a label that I started to slink back into my more passive scum game.

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

[Psyche]

I really like to play the role of the evil mastermind. Along with the deception and the conniving against others, I also take satisfaction in thinking of myself as a force for evil. I like being able to laugh deeply and heartily in the way those achieving selfish ends stereotypically do. There's something in the utterly egoistic commitment to self-advancement — in consciously violating values I recognize as right for my own sake — that just feels really addictive. Like how I bet cocaine feels like. Along with that euphoria, there's also this other feeling of fulfillment. In the same way that giving yourself to a cause bigger and more important than yourself is supposed to make life feel meaningful, something similar goes on when I elevate myself and my desires over everything else going on in the universe. A feeling of total humanness and confidence accompanies what I'm doing that's really tough to top. As a functioning member of society, I avoid doing that in favor of behaviors less harmful to those I care about, but in mafia — and specifically as the bas guy — I get to experience all of that vicariously, almost harmlessly. And I really value that when it happens.

Basically, the words you use to describe my role impact the sort and intensity of engagement with which I play that role. I think.

[Majiffy]

I now have a humorous mental image of Psyche cackling and tapping his fingers together every time he receives a scum role PM.

So kinda like Mr. Burns from Simpsons.

[Psyche]

I was going for something a little more impotent and restrained.

[Majiffy]

[reinoe]