Pro-Scum V Pooposter Town

[Taly]

I am making a chart of scum-points and town-points out of behavior I've seen come ALMOST exclusively from one alignment.
(Not many actions fall into either category.)

And the more I do it, the more frivolous it seems.

Becaue sometimes, town members are the epitome of counterproductive and pro-scum.

And even more rarely, scum can pull off a pro-town game without it just being a surface image.

[Taly]

I think nobody is responding because we're all still trying to figure this out, because it's usually one of the big reasons towns lose.

[Firebringer]

most people have shallow opinions of what people alignment are (including myself) because they don't understand the mindset the person they are talking to is.

the points for pro town or pro scum aren't very narrow way of looking at someones alignment.

You say:
X is doing something that is not pushing the win condition for Town. They are anti town, therefore they are scum. Is bad.
Just like the reverse is bad.

The best tool you can use to sort out behaviors and alignments is figure out what behaviors are irrelevant. This is your baseline behavior model for the player because all players have a baseline that you shouldn't use to determine them being truthful or lying. Then question and understand the behaviors that are outside that baseline and understand the person who is exhibiting those behaviors if they are trying to be deceptive or truthful.

This is hard work and not as simple as X behavior is almost always scum so we should lynch it, because that is a heuristic that isn't reliable because if everyone knows it than it can be exploited.

That is why any guidebook or guides to play will eventually for the most part become obsolete, people adapt to the play and they find ways around those plays.

[Taly]

@FB

I think that's why some players are more effective in games with certain personalities and struggle with others, by what you said.

It's still difficult sometimes, I am not often a subtle player (especially as town) so I have great difficulty in games where more than one person is not actively contributing in a pro-group manner. People who divert attention away from themselves, are vague with their thoughts, or just shitpost deter my sense of direction in a game.

But I've gotten into as many TvTs over this as I have caught scum. Because, depending on the person, these aren't always alignment-indicative behaviors but playstyle.

They may be behaviors that benefit scum; but are not 100% scum-indicative.

So... I guess I shouldn't think about this in terms of pro-scum and pro-town? But more squarely on someone's motives?

[Firebringer]

if you want to get better at reading players the best way to do so is by being able to accurately predict their behavior and understand what behavior they would do as scum vs town.

go read past games of the players you want a better understanding of them. before you do anything start with a blank slate. then say "I predict X will do Y in this situation if he is Z alignment" the more specific you make this prediction and the more accurate you become at getting correct predictions the better you are at understanding the player and getting an accurate representation of their mindset which infinitely helps you getting their alignment.

and don't just make one predictions, make dozens. go back and see how accurate all of them were. what did you miss what did you get wrong and why was it wrong?

[Firebringer]

you frankly don't need to do the prediction thing for past games but i think it helps because you can fact check all your predictions easier which gives you a faster way of sorting through that.

if you are playing a game and don't want to do a fast meta. just start making the predictions on the fly in the game. without going into the scum v town. If you can start doing it in the game and get accurate predictions you will have a good foundation and then when say things become inconsistent with your predictions when you had a good understanding of the player. you can sniff out the inconsistency and focus on that and catch them as scum.

[Firebringer]

So... I guess I shouldn't think about this in terms of pro-scum and pro-town? But more squarely on someone's motives?

like i think what you are trying to do is go from an understanding of what is happening backwards to find out what they are.
and I think that still has problems because you can attribute bad motives to what someone is doing when that might not be the case.

this is why you start with an understanding of the person and then go to actions because if you understand the person you will get the actions you expect.

[Taly]

I see what you're saying. I also looked at the "Lie Detector Tool" thread you posted

I don't think anything 100% works in Mafia as I've come to realize, but I will try what you mentioned here and in that thread and see how it works for me.