Ethics: Type-2 Metagaming

[Seol]

If a person lies in one of the rare situations when it would actually make good logical sense for a good guy to lie, why would you assume that they're scum?

I'm still waiting for a scenario when it makes sense. I firmly believe you don't need to do a full role reveal. So clearly you don't need to claim that you are a vest. You can claim Townie, because you are.

If I find a situation where it's better to lie, then I'll give on that instance. Give me a good example that might be generally applicable, I might reconsider.

-JEEP

I did have a situation once, which I thought was worth trying. I had cop powers, and I had effectively lead four scum lynches in a row. Furthermore, in a fairly small pool of plausible townie names in a theme game, I had proactively claimed a gimme role - I had the total trust of the town.

Furthermore, I was part of a mason group. The town knew I was a cop, but not a mason, although I had strongly hinted there was more to my role.

Now, under these circumstances, I had a cunning plan - lead the game into mass claim the following day. There was a shortage of plausible townie names, so I figured if I lead the claim and tried to get my comasons to claim early, and to

fake

-claim at that, then by the end of the claim process scum would see that some good claims hadn't been taken and might take them themselves. At that point, I could reveal I was a mason and so were my partners, that I'd told them to lie to set the trap, and that X is lying about his role-name because it's actually Mason Y's rolename.

Of course, the trap didn't work - but the reactions of the town to the reveal of the lie were quite useful, and it didn't backfire at all - the last three remaining alive were me and my two co-masons.

That's

when I found out one was an SK and the other was a godfather with cult-recruiting powers.

[Seol]

ebwop: On reflection, it was my co-masons who lied, not me, and they

were

scum...

[Seol]

Ethics is a difficult topic to discuss in respect of a game like Mafia - what does "ethical" mean? As far as I'm concerned, it's "play for the win, and win by any means possible within the game's framework". Anything allowed by the rules is fair game, and playing with any objective

other

than winning is arguably

un

ethical (as you damage the chances of victory for those allied to you, and are betraying your true purpose in the game).

I don't see the ethical dilemma in discussing the tactical merit of Lynch All Liars. If we're talking ethics, we are, I presume, talking about the ethical merit of

metagame ploys

- or, to put it another way, being prepared to sacrifice optimal strategy in one game to improve performance in

other

games. Lynch All Liars is perhaps the most meritworthy metagame ploy I've seen, which means it is, in some ways, a bad example for discussing the ethics of metagame ploys.

LaL works on the following principles:

1: Townies never

need

to lie.
2: Scum often

do

need to lie.
3:

If everyone is aware

that lying will result in them getting lynched, then nobody will lie unless they need to.
4: If nobody lies unless they need to, all liars are scum.

Therefore,

as long as LaL is fully understood and adhered to

, it is foolproof. This then raises two questions:

1: What if it is not fully understood and adhered to?
2: Does adhering to it have a cost?

The tactical discussion of LaL covers both of these questions, but the ethical discussion only gets involved with the first point, as this addresses the false positives.

Let's take a situation where a new player fake claims doc when he's a vanilla townie. This is later caught as a lie (by, say, a tracker) and then they admit to lying, because they didn't want to be lynched. Someone cites LaL and the player then claims he'd never heard of that before - a perfectly viable explanation. LaL demands the player be lynched regardless, and to

not

lynch him weakens LaL.

However, his behaviour shows no signs of him being scummy - the original claim came as a result of a random day 1 bandwagon, and the

only

reason for suspicion on him is the lie about the role (a lie which, as a new player, is understandable).

If we amend "Lynch All Liars" to "Lynch All Liars except when they have a plausible reason to lie or they weren't aware of LAL", then it becomes next to useless, as experienced players can often retcon plausible justifications for lies and inexperienced players can always claim ignorance - it no longer actually achieves anything. Therefore, if LAL is to remain useful, we have to lynch players who are caught in lies

regardless of the circumstances

.

Now, as I said, I am not arguing the tactical merits of LAL here, and it is debatable whether it is correct to do so or not. However, if we're talking about the

ethics

, then this is where the issue comes up. In order to maintain LAL as a metagame ploy, we will occasionally have to do things in games which are likely counterproductive to our chances of winning

that

game, using the justification that it will result in maintaining a useful analysis device which will improve the chances of the town winning

future

games.

Is it

ethical

, in a Mafia context, to

deliberately

perform an action which damages your chances - and your team-mates chances - of winning the game? If you accept my approach to ethics, which says your purpose within the game is to play to win, then the answer surely has to be "no".

Furthermore, just talking briefly about tactics:

What good does it do to improve the town's chances of winning future games - games which (if you play in) you stand as good a chance as anyone as being scum in? You're not even increasing

your own EV

over future games by increasing the power of the town. So, you're sacrificing your chances of winning in exchange for something which may help

or may hinder

you in the future.

Mafia is a zero-sum game - every win for one group is a loss for all others, and metagame ploys which increase the strength of the town will be balanced by setups favouring the scum to compensate. The impact of LaL in future games should, ethically speaking, not be a consideration - but tactically speaking, why do you

want

to assist the town in future games?

[Seol]

Lying can benefit a town.

Example:
End of day 2, a suspected person is on three votes. The person about to be lynched is a mafia person. Since a undecided townie (player X) thinks Player (F) (I would have used Y as the) variable, but it looks like a part of human anatomy...) is the cop, and player F is the cop, who has been pushing extremely hard for the lynch. SO this townie, sensing that Player F will be night killed, he makes a role claim right before he casts the final vote, lynching the mafia player.

Now, because of the Cop Claim, that townie might have taken the bullet away from the real cop. Obviously, the mafia would face a descion, kill the guy who claimed cop, or who pushed hard for a lynch. I think they'd take the claim kill, because it seems simpler. Less fus, some guy claimed cop, so he got killed, letting the real cop survive to investigate another day.

Or alternatively -

The Mafia don't kill player X, because they're worried he'll be doc-protected and miss their kill. The next day, the real cop counterclaims, Player X confesses he lied, gets lynched and the cop is exposed anyway.

[Seol]

Yes, but
1. if he is caught in a lie, his scumminess jumps a lot.
2. LAL doe snot mean you really have to, and obliged to, and simply MUST lynch everybody who lied. If you happen to know for sure he is innocent, of course you dont kill him. Its a metagame ploy, thus, a reason to vote for or lynch the liar, but as all reasons, you dont have to listen to it.

Except that, if you

don't

listen to it, then it doesn't work any more. In order for LAL to actually be a reliable tactic, you have to use it, otherwise it's "LynchSomeLiars" and in the future scum will know it's possible to wriggle out of it.

LAL

does

mean you simply MUST lynch everyone who lied, otherwise you're not applying LAL properly. It's that extreme which makes it a debatable principle, but also that extreme which makes it

powerful

.

Just a little bit of addition: lynching someone on LAL is not immoral. the dilemma of morality does not come up, as it is the norm to do so. in fact, lynching a townie is not unetchical, altough it is bad for your chances to win.

The morality question emerges in other situations, like, breaking the rules, or ruining the fun of others. metagaming does not fall in any of these.

Well, the second paragraph applies to real-world ethics, but there's also the question of game ethics - how we ought to play. When we have a situation like enforcing a metagame strategy, and in the process harming not only your chances of winning but everyone else on your side's, it is arguable that

within the context of the game

that is unethical behaviour.

[Seol]

Saying untruthfully "I'm a cop and X is scum.. lynch them!" (just because you think X is scummy) is stealing away each townie's job of thinking for themselves about who is scum and voting accordingly. That's OK when it's your role to do that, but if it's not your role, then it's an unfair strategy (no matter the outcome).

That's not an unfair stratagy at all. I doubt it would often be a good stratagy, but part of the game is trying to manipulate other people into doing what you think will help your side win. They can choose to either believe you or not.

Agree 100%. I think it's bad play, but I don't think it's unethical. It's not codified into the rules of the game that the townies aren't allowed to lie.

[Seol]

That is true too. But applying LAL and lynching the liar is not immoral either.

We're looking specifically at a situation where we're relatively sure the liar isn't scum, but we lynch him anyway purely to maintain the metagame strength of LAL.

We're doing something knowing it will damage our chances of winning

this

game to help us in

future

games. If ethics exist within the game, they're based around the principle of "play to win", but to enforce LAL you're sacrificing your primary motivation in favour of something which is irrelevant in respect of that game. That's the argument why it's unethical in a game sense. If you're saying it's

not

unethical/immoral, that's the context to which we'd need a rebuttal.

[Seol]

We're looking specifically at a situation where we're relatively sure the liar isn't scum, but we lynch him anyway purely to maintain the metagame strength of LAL.

This is a contradiction in itself, You cannot be "relatively sure he is town" if he is caught in a lie, exactly because of LAL...

That assumes everyone knows LAL and adheres to it. I suppose the situation we're looking at is one where the player isn't aware of the LAL principle, or possibly they just don't agree with it and disregarded it.