The Importance of Transparency, Cooperation & Effort as Town

[RadiantCowbells]

Psyche you're implying that the process of playing games and being right/wrong doesn't tune your subconscious into being better at it. I disagree.
And I haven't like statistically analyzed my reads but I am pretty certain that my 'gut reads' are far more useful than random chance.

[implosion]

Psyche is probably more correct to bring up memory bias than anyone will be willing to admit.

Case-based argumentation is one of many tools for convincing someone of a read. It is quite often the wrong one.

[pieguyn]

I am going strongly against my better judgement and making a second post here, and I do not mean to say anything about this "cases vs gut reads" debate in terms of read accuracy or which is a "better" style of play (anyone who actually read my post which sparked RC's posts which sparked this would see that I distinctly say both of these are fine, and that the issue is intent; people who legit just don't give a shit about winning games regardless of the approach they take for one reason or another).

however, I want to say this: while people claim that arguing based on cases usually results in the best debater/the person who can articulate their points the best winning (this does happen sometimes and it's why people regardless of approach always need to be open to other possibilities/where they might be making errors in their assumptions, which I do not claim I am good at), arguing based on a trust basis is in no way immune to this. it instead just results in the most charismatic person/the person who is most trusted (either based on town reads or some other form of credibility)/the person who is able to dedicate the most effort to the game winning. based on my experience, I have found this to be overwhelmingly less accurate unless I'm in a player list who *really* knows how to play that style correctly, I've usually been able to manipulate it when I've been scum against a player list playing that style and I've seen other scum do the same. it also has the disadvantage that it is not publicly verifiable in the game thread, so no one can cross check anything the person making the push is doing in case they *are* going wrong somewhere, which is something I hold in very high value in games as I usually am able to explain why I feel an argument is wrong if I feel it's wrong.

[Killthestory]

you really can't tell someone how to play. if gut reading works for them, then it works for them. if it doesn't, they're bound to notice it just as fast as someone else is. people adapt as they need to, and after game advice doesn't hut anyone. however, you shouldn't be dictating anyone's play because it doesn't fit with what you think is the correct play for mafia.

as for the other shit yeah that's all pretty basic i guess but really there's a lot more strategies to mafia than just mounting information on top of information. if you invest some of it, it could pay off or it could crumble around you. there's a lot you can do with information rather than reveal it and be 'transparent.'

being concise is a skill. being long winded is not. if you can't be arsed to summarize something that's too bloated with random information, then you should probably start practicing more on how to present your information in a reasonable manner than anything.

players thinking as an individual isn't a bad thing. i don't think i've lost as town recently in my past like 5 or so games simply because though the town thinks as individuals through a lot of it, more information on the entire game thread is being presented and brought out. it gives more valid conclusions on who you truly want rather than making quick lynches based off who everyone can agree with, not who they want to lynch. individual thinking is never a bad thing.

[Ankamius]

I disagree with the fundamental philosophy of the OP, as a player that relies on non-transparency in order to scumhunt.

My issues with the game and why I have so much trouble being involved in a lot of games are any combination of the following:

1. Nonstop spam posting of no value. This just dilutes the usable information in the game and makes reading the thread at all tedious.
2. Significant amounts of walls by multiple players. It's significantly more difficult to keep track of ongoing conversations when they're buried in a mountain of other text, and that's the sort of thing I look at the most.
3. People expect everyone else to read the game to understand what's going on. If I'm asking you to point me in the direction of where you would like me to look in order to understand your case, then I'm going to be very unimpressed with "read the game" or "read my iso"... especially if the game is several thousand posts long or the ISO in question is in 3-4 pages.

I don't take notes in mafia. This is not because "lol too much effort", it's literally because I've tried many times in the past and I can't find a single notetaking style that I can keep using past the first few days I start using it. I can't keep everything in the game in my head, so I operate in the present and use my past knowledge as context to be molded by what is happening now. This is also one reason that I am significantly more likely to have good reads in hydras (which is

provable

); our conversations

become

my notes, so I can keep track of what I'm thinking far more easily than I ever can by myself.

I don't read the entire game before I replace in because I've noticed over time that my read quality degenerates significantly when I do. I simply function far better in a game when I'm forcing the information I need to be relevant instead of trying to mold what I need from something that isn't compatible. However, I will state that someone who places a lot of emphasis in keeping track of the entire game is one of my most valuable allies when I can find them, since I rely on piecing together context clues into a single whole and there are usually gems hidden in earlier days that I have no hope of finding by myself.

I am a strong advocate for gut reads, simply because a lot of what I pick up from scum is really subtle things that are not easy to put into words. Most of my cases as town are literally fake because I usually don't actually know

why

] I'm scumreading someone.

I'm not transparent for a reason. When I go into a game and become transparent with all my thoughts, I almost always get townread because of it. This is probably the biggest reason I'm almost impossible to mislynch without significant extra help (aka role shenanigans or severe town apathy). However, being universally townread actually hurts my ability to read people. I get my best reads from being attacked or directly interacted with; people are usually happy to tell me whatever I want to know if they think I'm town, and scum can abuse this to either remove me without stirring up any controversy at all or just slide into my blind spots without being detected and drive me to apathy.

I can't change all this without fundamentally changing how I think, and the way to play the game proposes in the OP will make me a significantly weaker player in just about every case.

[Ankamius]

players thinking as an individual isn't a bad thing. i don't think i've lost as town recently in my past like 5 or so games simply because though the town thinks as individuals through a lot of it, more information on the entire game thread is being presented and brought out. it gives more valid conclusions on who you truly want rather than making quick lynches based off who everyone can agree with, not who they want to lynch. individual thinking is never a bad thing.

This is a very important thing to consider, since usually the most dangerous people to deal with for scum are the ones that either are currently or are working towards sniping out scummy players that are otherwise being overlooked as town by the rest of town, but are also close enough to the rest of town's reads that they're still able to use their influence to start changing everyone else's minds without being quickly written off as wrongtown.

[drealmerz7]

more people with principles and mafia-theory like these need to play more games and influence more players!!! I think a lot of it comes down to what is accepted and what examples are being set.

sorry for not doing my part as well as I could in many games since I've joined, I will do better, things need to get better

SLAUGHTER THE

USELSS

floaters

[drealmerz7]

My way, no one wins the game for being better at arguing or rhetoric.

wrong

[nancy]

the thing about gut reads, the reason it's not true that any one person's gut reads are directionally different from another persons, is that there isn't really any way to sharpen them
however good your gut reads are, that's how good they'll always be

Don't really agree with this, my gutreads became progressively better (from indicative of nothing to actually signalling me to pay attention to something important) over the few months that I played. I also grew to understand them better which further refined them.

Am of the opinion that there is not one way to play mafia and in order to get better you should at most try to model your play after players you feel an affinity to because if you don't play the style of mafia that feels right to you personally then you'll be stuck having to try to translate yourself into a foreign language whenever you express anything. If you do your best and others believe that you've done well and want to play with you again then I think you've succeeded (success is a gross concept but I dunno what other word to use there).

[Titus]

Sorry, I totally missed this topic but working with your TRs is about giving them what they need.

[Ranmaru]

the thing about gut reads, the reason it's not true that any one person's gut reads are

directionally

different from another persons, is that there isn't really any way to sharpen them
however good your gut reads are, that's how good they'll always be

This is a bump, I know. Yet I have this burning desire to say I like this post. It makes me think, that maybe our gut becomes better when we improve our understanding of scum behavior and town behavior, the more we focus on improving our logical reads.

[chennisden]

I think gutreads are very important, especially since a lot of scum players try to control the narrative with

logic

.

I would say if you feel like town is

losing

the first place you go to is your gut