The Importance of Transparency, Cooperation & Effort as Town

[RadiantCowbells]

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

[Accountant]

I thought mafia was a game about arguing

[RadiantCowbells]

Sure, in a loose sense. But more importantly to me the game is about winning. It's a competitive game.
To me it seems like all the 'let's throw cases at each other until the superior argument wins' falls flat in reality when you deal with real games. Maybe if you play with 13 people who play like that it can work.
Most games though there's going to be someone who is busy with IRL, people who aren't good debaters, people who are simply

illogical.

Regardless of where you play games.

What I end up hearing from most of the 'argument strength is best!' crowd is that you just have to lynch these people. These are the same kinds of people with mottos like 'everyone I lynch are scum, just not all mafia.'

Like, no. Unless someone is bang out of line you can't lynch someone and then blame them for it. Take responsibility for your votes.
There ARE ways to read shitposting. There's ways to read everything. If you lock yourself into only reading and working with cases then you are pigeonholing yourself into a small part of the game.
I would argue that it's, straight up, blind and shortsighted play. This thread is yelling for everyone else to change instead of changing yourself to play the game as is.
I think that's amusing and I think that if I tried to argue that everyone who doesn't try to create a narrative behind people's thought progression or widespread meta analysis and comparing the kinds of posts people make as different alignments in broad categories needs to stop playing the game the way that they do and start playing my way I'd get irritated responses because why am I telling everyone how to play the game; but when the vocal 'CASE CASE ARGUE THIS IS NOT MS THIS IS EPICMAFIA NOW BITCHES' crowd inevitably brings up how terrible it is that people aren't wallposting or only posting cases

I am not saying that it's okay to never explain your reads. Being unable to communicate with town and therefore unable to project your reads onto other votes is bad.
But the 'case' as a construct is not the only way to play the game and I don't feel like it's the best one either.

There are unacceptable ways to play the game and there are bad ways to play the game but not fitting into the archetype of throwing walls around and not being able to 100% put everything that you're playing the game around into words are perfectly fine.

[wgeurts]

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

This is literally the core of the game.

[Accountant]

What I end up hearing from most of the 'argument strength is best!' crowd is that you just have to lynch these people.

ppl who say that are really dumb

BUT

I think not explaining your reads/intentionally being obtuse is definitely scummy as fuck, unless rendered NAI due to established meta.

[Accountant]

like town has no reason to be obtuse about shit barring gambits or whatever. even you, RC, always make it clear "I want X lynched, I think Y is town" even when you're being at your most cryptic

[wgeurts]

Also i completely disagree that the responsibility of a mislynch wholly lies on those pursuing it. It's a mix, and if someone isn't actually playing properly the fault can very much be mostly theirs. I've never said we should only work with cases, ideally everyone would be doing so. That's not the case right now, currently we have to damage control those not pulling their weight. That doesn't mean we should just accept that fact, the contrary it's true: we should strive for the ideal.

Those already playing have likely learned how to gain information from those not doing anything, that doesn't detract from the fact that those coasting learning how to play properly is the better scenario. It is objectively so that explanation and effort is beneficial in the majority of situations. That's basically mafia play. It's like playing football once again and having those not bothering to do anything saying that those actually attempting to win should just learn how to deal with the fact they're lazy. That's not how it works. Neither does it work like that in mafia.

I'm saying people should start at least trying to play the game properly. They don't have to give it their all, but if they're not willing to invest any effort they shouldn't be playing.

[RadiantCowbells]

If someone AFKs in a league of legends game at silver it's their fault for afking but it's also my fault for not being able to 4v5 a bunch of fucking silvers.

Blaming other people is always a dead end but improving yourself is something that you can always do.

[RadiantCowbells]

You're also heavily implying that everyone ought to move towards playing the game your style with cases and walls and shit as if it's the ideal. I disagree.

[RadiantCowbells]

I am also not justifying blatant coasting nor failing to contribute anything. I

am

pointing out that burying your head in the sand and telling everyone how to play the game is a bad way to approach it.

[wgeurts]

If someone AFKs in a league of legends game at silver it's their fault for afking but it's also my fault for not being able to 4v5 a bunch of fucking silvers.

Blaming other people is always a dead end but improving yourself is something that you can always do.

And who has argued a single time that we shouldn't be improving?
We're arguing that others should do the same.

[wgeurts]

You're also heavily implying that everyone ought to move towards playing the game your style with cases and walls and shit as if it's the ideal. I disagree.

No, I'm saying they should explain all claims they make.

[RadiantCowbells]

It sets a dangerous mindset when you start saying 'we would have won if XYZ did A differently' instead of 'I should have done XYZ differently'

[wgeurts]

I am also not justifying blatant coasting nor failing to contribute anything. I

am

pointing out that burying your head in the sand and telling everyone how to play the game is a bad way to approach it.

Explaining yourself should be something standard with every playstyle.

[RadiantCowbells]

And if your read isn't something that can be put into words?

[Accountant]

RC I think we don't disagree about anything substantive here

[RadiantCowbells]

Me and you, yes. Me and wgeurts?

[Accountant]

Yeah you and wgeurts sort yourselves out. Thanks for the civil discussion.

[RadiantCowbells]

Like I agree that there is a wrong way to play the game. In fact there are many, many wrong ways to play the game. What I disagree with is that there is any one way to play the game besides trying to maximize your winrate; with the caveats that certain behaviour is verboten even if it maximizes your winrate in the short term for various reasons.

[wgeurts]

And if your read isn't something that can be put into words?

Then you probably shouldn't be relying on it or should seek a way to put it into words. Mafia isn't a spiritual game.

[RadiantCowbells]

As literally just one example in a career of reads that I couldn't put into words here's a game on my Severa alt
viewtopic.php?f=52&t=66342

I had no coherent way to put my read on either Postie or Blue into words but I got them lynched and both flipped scum.
If I were to follow your advice and not use the reads that I can't put into words I would perform significantly worse as a player and have a significantly worse winrate. Why should I sabotage myself because you don't like how I play?

[wgeurts]

I'm not saying you shouldn't pursue them, that's literally missing the entire gist of what I'm saying. I'm saying that people need to start trying to explain themselves more, and start working together as a collective. I could have left that part about gut reads out, as the entire point I was making is something entirely separate to the legitimacy of gut reads. I mentioned them as they're used an a excuse not to participate and actually invest effort.

Also you do understand how a gut read comes to be? You're either subconsciously seeing something or you're simply biasing yourself and getting lucky.

[RadiantCowbells]

Subconsciously seeing something: yes.
Did you know that as you get better at something your brain activity first increases then when you truly master it you decrease it?
Your conscious brain is required to participate in the activity less and less and it becomes more and more automatic. That's when you know that you're truly good at something.
If my subconscious doesn't see something in the game I can force activity from myself and force myself to try to see cases and make connections but that's never going to be as good.

[Infinity 324]

First of all, Infinity, how do you think a gut read forms? I mean on a cognitive level, how does your brain send the gut signals to you?

Well obviously there's some way it happens. And sometimes you can find that way. But sometimes you can't, and that doesn't mean you throw the read in the trash.

[Infinity 324]

I agree with 127