Ethics of Scumplay

[callforjudgement]

I think it's up to the mod to try to keep the game active, not the scum; actually, one of the goals I have as a setup designer is to try to find setups that naturally encourage players to be active. (In Vote for Town, for example, lurking scum finds it very hard to win, to the point where it may be unfair on a player who draws a lurker as a scumpartner.) Inducing inactivity as scum is a legitimate tactic, if the other players let you get away with it. I also feel that intentionally not inducing inactivity as scum is excusable, despite the play-to-win rule. (It may be worth establishing a meta of trying to restart a flagging game when Town, thus forcing you to also do so as scum to avoid being caught out by a meta tell.)

Toxic behaviour shouldn't be acceptable as any alignment. I feel it's up to the moderator to police this. If other players are being toxic, breaking the fight up should be the moderator's job, rather than forcing the players to do it.

[MagnaofIllusion]

My only major "scum ethics" issue is when people replace out under fire.

I echo this but add that Town who specifically replace out under fire are just as bad.

[Papa Zito]

I'll grant that but it seems far less common, usually townies just eat the lynch.

[Vi]

I'll grant that but it seems far less common, usually townies just eat the lynch.

unless I'm pushing their lynch as alternative-town
then they tend to replace out and someone like Faraday takes their spot :]

[Firebringer]

I'll grant that but it seems far less common, usually townies just eat the lynch.

I think one of my few replace out was from you suspecting me when I was town and I replaced out.

I have only replaced out as town though.

[MagnaofIllusion]

I think one of my few replace out was from you suspecting me when I was town and I replaced out.

I have only replaced out as town though.

Are you flat out admitting to a strategic replace out Firebringer?

[Firebringer]

I think one of my few replace out was from you suspecting me when I was town and I replaced out.

I have only replaced out as town though.

Are you flat out admitting to a strategic replace out Firebringer?

It would only be strategic if someone actually picked up on it and I was using that to clear my slot.
But I have replaced out of so few games nobody notices.

[callforjudgement]

I know "is replacing out by choice alignment-indicative" is a debate that's been had several times in the past, with IIRC inconclusive results. Interestingly, newer players tend to assume that town replace out more, and experienced players that scum replace out more.

I have a suspicion that if players do replace out tactically (and it seems likely that some do), it's most likely to be players who feel that they're losing. A simple town/scum analysis of replaced slots would be unlikely to show up that pattern.

[Wisdom]

I don't know what you mean by this.
Do you mean just complaining about the game state?

I'm not even sure it's possible, but I imagine there are scum players who could find a way to stifle discussion during the Day which would promote Town apathy.

It is possible. In this game, for example, I kept provoking Metal Sonic into 1v1s with me, knowing it will cause town apathy.

[mykonian]

I do think scum's job blending in gives them a reason to not try and get an apathetic Town up and running again. And if making a single kill silences the whole game, there's something wrong with the Town as a whole that isn't the scum's responsibility to fix.

I don't think scum should be allowed to be more toxic or mean just because they're scum. Ultimately this is still a game and allowing yourself to become more disrespectful just to win seems unsportsmanlike.

I disagree with this on a couple of levels.

I don't think scum have any obligation to blend in. You commit as many scumtells as you can get away with, since they are tells because they are giving on an advantage. Town don't cover all gaps, you can sneak enough through. Scums job is not to be as good as town, it's to ruin it.

Mafia when played is an exercise in information creation, where discussion, the building on others ideas leads to a sort of consensus that's better than an individual's ideas. Now if a whole group is having the same goal, this is proven to work. In this game though, a couple do not have the same goal. It's correct that they try to put a spanner in the wheels. Now if the process was anywhere near streamlined, that'd mean feeding in false information, getting town on the wrong track. If it were near streamlined, you'd get ideas to pop up, flare as they were discussed, and die out as the next one replaces it. Scum have to move with the town and help them figure it out or look out of place.

But it isn't streamlined at all. Back in the day I discussed the ethics of a play that more or less guaranteed you'd get away with killing discussion and towns motivation to play with Tierce, and she figured that crossed the line. I'm not so sure, given some people have made that exact line of play that I had to choose as scum, their playstyle! And I can think of a multitude of ways you can throw a spanner in the towns wheels, some which I could somewhat pull off as my meta is close enough, others I'd trust that people wouldn't meta me anyway (which they don''t), but all of which I've seen townies do by habit, murdering their own chances at victory. And I don't even mean lurking here, active plays that mean your side will lose.

Craziest thing is, some of those actions are even seen as town. Am I as scum suddenly not allowed to be even worse than town in ruining a game, even if it advances my agenda?

[mykonian]

@wisdoms post, that was exactly the thing Tierce and I argued about. There's too many people out here who cannot leave an argument, and town have a habit of getting bored of a long exchange, making it a coinflip they don't want to take. You remove yourself from consideration for todays lynch in the same go as you muck up the towns ability to actually read the thread. Yet, you see town-town fights escalate in exactly the same way, killing the game just the same.

[Ümläüt]

Replacements are a mixed bag that can make or break the game for you. If a strong player subs into Town, your best laid plans are usually kaput. (o/ Hi, Aquanim.)

To be fair you probably still would have lost that game once I claimed.

To the topic, I think apathy-promoting tactics and the like are perfectly legitimate even if they do tend to make the game less fun to play. I'm even pretty tolerant of emotionally manipulative behavior as long as it's dropped once the game is called. I figure that's what I'm signing up for. I do draw the line at insults that have no bearing on the game (and are not obviously in jest e.g. "You smell bad").

Personally I've never lied about real-life time constraints, if only because it's useful from a meta standpoint to be able to say "I never lie about real-life time constraints." (Interesting side question: how is this different from a trust tell?) I also think it's kind of dirty, especially if you're giving reasons that may cause your friends on-site to worry for you needlessly. But I can't claim total moral superiority here since I will happily

take advantage

of real-life time constraints (i.e. post "Sorry, I'm really busy at work" when I really am busy at work but also looking for an excuse to lurk), and I can't say that outright lying is a beyond the pale when this isn't.

Someone brought up replacing out strategically, which is banned by site rules anyway; but what I've never seen discussed is browbeating another player into replacing out if you think the replacement will be easier to read or mislead for some reason. I don't know if this has ever really happened, but I have seen people replace out due to interpersonal conflict which means the potential is there. I hope we're all sportsmen enough that we never have to make a rule about this.

[mykonian]

We aren't sportsmen like that. Won't say that I've done it, but the way some people replace out nowadays is too easy to abuse as scum, and I wouldn't know why not. Having town wait for a new player, who has to get up to speed, etc, is destructive.

There are people who replace out regularly when they get voted, or at least get quiet and lurky. There are people who at the first sign of hostility decide they rather try the next game. Idk about you, but I'm quite happy to call such a persons every action in question then. It's not hard to make someone's game a living hell without even getting close to the line, and it's easy enough to cover up as scumhunting. I'm not a saint, just a mafia player. Make yourself vunerable in such ways and I'd say I'm obliged to abuse it.

[Ümläüt]

Trying to convince a strong player to replace out so you can win is like antagonizing Hikaru Nakamura until he walks away from the chess board, then getting one of the spectators to take over for him, then going around telling everyone you're a better chess player than Hikaru Nakamura after you win.

[TierShift]

Scum should be allowed to be toxic and apathy-inducing and it is town who bear the responsibility to punish this behaviour by roping the player in question.

[Ümläüt]

The problem with saying "just rope 'em" is the number of players who openly behave in a toxic manner as part of their

town

strategy, to "get reactions." I don't really buy this as a viable technique, but honestly I see it as often if not more so than scum behaving the same way.

Someone will say we should policy lynch for that anyway to discourage that kind of behavior, but for me that falls into playing against wincon as does any similar sort of meta-strategy, so I can't advocate it.

[TierShift]

That does not take away that it is town's job to disencourage such behaviour.

I'm of the opinion that lynching toxic players furthers your wincon as town as it promotes town cohesion and diminishes town apathy

[Lycanfire]

I don't think scum have any ethics involved beyond site rules. People don't want to suspect lurkers or people that aren't contributing because the game isn't fun that way. If town want to play in a way that's fun for them, scum have no obligation to play in a way that isn't fun for them. Mods can introduce deadlines and mechanics to curb coasting if it's a problem.

What's fun for me won't be fun for others. If you get an awful mix of players that want to play the game differently it'll be a shit game. Hold your nose.

[kuribo]

I mean I don't make up real life stuff. If I'm talking about my life it's true, and not alignment indicative.

But other than that, no. There's no ethics to scumplay. An ugly victory is better than a beautiful defeat. And another site had a very good reminder about Mafia that I liked: "The game isn't always fun all the time. By signing up you stick with it." I think too often people go "this isn't fun right now" and they stop posting or putting in effort, then the game dies and it really isn't fun. Whereas if they stuck with it for the day or two that it was like grinding teeth it would go back to being fun rather than dying out.

I used to argue the point with DGB who used to say personal problems as an excuse were a scum tell

I told her I couldn't see it that way since I bitch endlessly about my personal life / work regardless of alignment

[kuribo]

Trying to convince a strong player to replace out so you can win is like antagonizing Hikaru Nakamura until he walks away from the chess board, then getting one of the spectators to take over for him, then going around telling everyone you're a better chess player than Hikaru Nakamura after you win.

I've had people discuss that strategy regarding myself and believe me, pissing off someone to the point of them replacing out is a shitty thing to do

Baiting someone for a strategic person should be punishable by public beating

[callforjudgement]

Right, there's a way you have to go about riling people up.

If they vote for you in annoyance and get scumread for it, you probably did it right.
If they replace out in annoyance (especially if half the town follow them), then you were way over the line.

[Comparing Realities]

"Unethical behavior is just what the losers call creativity."

...Or...

"Happiness and love are literally the only things that matter in this entire stupid world."

...Take your pick. There's a third option, incidentally. If you find it, you get a cookie.

[kuribo]

"Unethical behavior is just what the losers call creativity."

...Or...

"Happiness and love are literally the only things that matter in this entire stupid world."

...Take your pick. There's a third option, incidentally. If you find it, you get a cookie.

"Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat."

[SpyreX]

There also the difference between personal and site ethics and we can get muddled there.

And the real code is 420 lynch hydras every day

[Ranmaru]

On replacements who replace out under fire, I like replacing into those slots so I can practice defending myself from an impossible situation. Then I regret it.