Ethics?: Trusting the Mod

[Norinel]

From Ethics: Setup Change In-game:

Also, lying as the mod when it comes to setup-reveal is a no-no, too. Public information from the mod has to be trustable at all times - whether that be vote-counts or death reveals. For example, I'm of the opinion that death-millers are

not

a legitimate game device.

And while I don't want to start off with an essay, I'm curious where the line is drawn by people as mods, where people as players expect the line to be drawn, and if/how the line winds up between "X is dead, he was scum" when X was town and "You are a cop, each night choose one player and I will tell you their alignment" to a nonsane cop.

[Fiasco]

I think in an earlier thread, I posted Fiasco's Law of Modding:

The mod should never lie to the players

.

I still agree with that one, I think. For nonsane cops and death millers, you should use weasel words if you're going to have them at all.

[Iammars]

For nonsane cops, all you have to do is not tell them that they're sane. You didn't lie and you're not being devious.

For death millers, all you have to do is say a death scene like this:

"And the eleven of you came to the agreement that MeMe should be lynched. After hanging her from the tree, you pulled her body down and inspected it for anything that might show you who she was. You find many of these incriminating things (gun, soldier of fortune magazine, yada yada). You determine her to be mafia."

Did the mod say that she was mafia? No. She was a vigilante. The mod didn't lie.

[Seol]

For nonsane cops, all you have to do is not tell them that they're sane. You didn't lie and you're not being devious.

Don't tell them "you can target someone at night, and you will discover their alignment", because then you'll lie (which I percieved to be strongly disapproved of). Say "you can investigate at night, and will receive an innocent or guilty result" or something similar. That's letting them take their own implication, aka weasel-wording, and that's fine.

For death millers, all you have to do is say a death scene like this:

"And the eleven of you came to the agreement that MeMe should be lynched. After hanging her from the tree, you pulled her body down and inspected it for anything that might show you who she was. You find many of these incriminating things (gun, soldier of fortune magazine, yada yada). You determine her to be mafia."

Did the mod say that she was mafia? No. She was a vigilante. The mod didn't lie.

Do you declare a list of the dead in the first post? How do you describe her role there? Do you ensure that et every point you refer to the dead persons' alignment, you weasel-word it?

There's a reason why death alignments should be implicitly trustable. This is a game where anything anyone says or receives could be tainted. You need some trustable, solid basis for reasoning, and IMO death reveals are that basis. Personally, I think it's currently an unwritten rule that mods should never lie (although weasel-wording is fine in mod PMs, if a PM isn't weasel-worded that means it can be trusted implicitly) and furthermore that death descriptions specifically should never be weasel-worded.

This isn't ethics, this is simply making sure we're all playing the same game with the same rules. Certainly, I'm gonna add that as a written rule from now onwards to make it explicit, but I think it's fair to say it should be established what it's safe to assume going into a game.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

I agree with the basic idea that the mod shouldn't lie.

But instead of having to useweasel-wording, I'll simply be posting this in all my games:

Note: Role PMs reflect solely the reality as the character sees it. I reserve the right to lie or mislead you in any way I want in the role PM.

This allows me to mess with sanities, mess with whatever, without having to consistently use weasel-wording in every PM, simply to prevent the non-sane cops from realizing they're non-sane.

And I'll probably expand on that. Death Millers are an awesome role, although, as Seol kinda points out, they need to be used with caution. You don't want to turn the game into a no-reveal set-up.

[Flying Dutchman]

A mod should be allowed to keep any information about the game for himself (And neither confirm or deny it when asked about it), but outright lying is off-limits for me.

[Fuldu]

Maybe I'm being dense here, but this death miller notion actually strikes me pretty hard as a pointless role. I honestly can't imagine why I would want to put one in a setup, so the fact that it also seems unethical is somewhat beside the point. But as a general rule, roles and mechanisms that turn the mod into a participant rather than an arbiter seem dangerous. A common refrain in mafia games is not to try to outguess the mod, and though I'm guilty of it on occasion, I think it's generally a good suggestion. Here, you're creating a situation in which outguessing the mod is not only useful, but practically required. And I guess that doesn't really sit well with me.

[Seol]

But as a general rule, roles and mechanisms that turn the mod into a participant rather than an arbiter seem dangerous.

Worse than the mod registering an alt and playing in the game himself as a neutral (ie, no wincon) character? I was considering doing that once...

...That was a long time ago.

[Infested-jerk]

Personnaly, I'd like a game where NOTHING is revealed at the start except possible roles. Then even as people get lynched don't tell them the lynched guy's role. Only reveal all at the end.

But as for outright lying, I'm okay, depending on the situation. (Like a paranoid cop getting random results is ok, but making everyone a townie then killing them and acting like it's a real game.... no)

[the silent speaker]

I always put, "You are a cop (not necessarily sane)," into my cops' PMs.

[Glork]

When dealing with Cops, regardless of sanity, I generally say something like "You may attempt to discern the alignment of one player per night" in the role Cop's description. It allows for enough wiggle-room for potential Roleblockers and the like, as well as sanity issues.

I never have, and never plan on using a Death Miller. I just don't agree with the concept; it seems too misleading to the players to give them false information in such a definitive manner.

[VisMaior]

I think death millers should know they are death millers. The whole point of nonsane cops is tahat they dont know wethr they are sane or not, so, with the exception of random cops (who should not be in the game anyway), I dont see the problem of them getting the exact same message as the real cop.

[indentureddjinn]

I also believe mods should tell the truth. There are too many instances where abuses could occur if a mod lied incessantly. Sooner or later, someone would think up a game where everything's a lie, and there would be mass hysteria. There should be a semblance of truth in every game, and thus the mod should not lie.

[Mr. Flay]

WTH is a death miller? Someone who shows up as scum upon death, but would have won with the town if they lived?

That's...weird. I'm not sure it's unethical, but it would have to be handled VERY carefully (and therefore might be noticeable by astute players who have worked with that mod before). Personally, if I were going to have some role like that, I'd probably have some sort of Coroner role so that I could push the reality into the game context rather than Holy Writ from the Mod.

But overall, I ascribe to "Speak no word that is not true" as a moderator; I won't lie, but the truth you hear is not necessarily the truth I said.

[Mgm]

Until now, I've seen two roles which include the players faking their death.
While technically this could be considered a "lying mod", I think it is allowed for the mod to lie as it can be explained by the flavor.

For other stuff you should use careful weasel wording.

[Mgm]

Also, if you want to include scum masons, don't tell your masons their buddies are confirmed innocent. Tell them they

believe

their buddies to be innocent.

[Aelyn]

Also, if you want to include scum masons, don't tell your masons their buddies are confirmed innocent. Tell them they

believe

their buddies to be innocent.

What I do for that is I tell the players "You are Masons. You can talk freely at night."

On occasion, if I want them to know if the entire group is innocent or not, I will say "You know your mason partners to be innocent."

But yeah, I feel outright lying to be a strict no-no. I will never lie to a player in a game design without very good reason, and in that situation I will specify in the rules that the mod PMs cannot necessarily be fully trusted.

[VisMaior]

I think you people will like my bastard mod mafia And I WILL llie to you, shamelessly

[Fuldu]

But as a general rule, roles and mechanisms that turn the mod into a participant rather than an arbiter seem dangerous.

Worse than the mod registering an alt and playing in the game himself as a neutral (ie, no wincon) character? I was considering doing that once...

...That was a long time ago.

No, I suppose that would be worse. Urgh. The way DP handled mod-as-participant in DP13 worked, mostly, because he had absolutely no volition. He did what the course of the day told him to do, and so was more of a mechanism than a player. But anything that puts the mod in the position to play kingmaker, whether on Day One or Day Five, is bad, bad, bad.

[Fuldu]

I think you people will like my bastard mod mafia And I WILL llie to you, shamelessly

Heh, and I've just been thinking how hypocritical I'm being with all this moralizing when Worst Role Ever Mafia broke a number of these ethical guidelines. Not this one, so much, as I don't believe I ever lied to the players, but from some of the other threads. I nearly had to change the setup midway through the game (fortunately, the player to whom that would have applied was lynched), I gave several players roles in which I told them to do something and then punished them for it, and there were a couple of instances of poorly-defined information leading players to draw game-losing bad conclusions.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

WTH is a death miller? Someone who shows up as scum upon death, but would have won with the town if they lived?

A Death Miller is a Miller that looks so guilty that he is still seen as scum even after death.

So far, a total of one forum game has included a Death Miller: Raj's freaktown II, in which case it was a Death Miller Supercop, that actually managed to nail all 4 scum before he died, so the role did sort of need a drawback.

I think a Death Miller when handled with care can add to the game, exactly because you'll never be certain till the game's over. Death Miller Overeager Vigilante Masonries are especially fun.

[Fuldu]

And this drives us a bit further off topic, but if I flip a coin for every death and mark the deceased as town if it comes up heads and scum if it comes up tails, you'll also never be certain 'til the game's over. That doesn't mean it's a good mechanism.

All this role does, that I can see, is introduce additional noise into the system, which only serves to make the game less about skill and more about the vagaries of chance. If players don't know whether the deceased was pro-town or not, they can't use that to interpret the voting record. The more and more that the available information is useless, the more that it comes down to which roles are lucky in their targeting and whose personalities are more forceful.

[GreenLiquid]

I agree that, to an extent, mods should not lie to their players. However, cop sanities are out of that window and as a mod I expect the players to know full well that insane, paranoid, or naive cops are potentially possible, and probable...

OK, stop there.

On some unused setups though, I had cops that were told they are guaranteed sane. Which brings me to my next point: if you're giving the player extra or unnessesay info, DON'T LIE. That's a major, biggie no-no and is very bad. If you can't come up with a way to answer a question that doesn't give info away, then just don't answer it.

Death millers sound OK to me, so long as the death miller knows he's one and that there is only ONE such role in the game. I actually have considered anti-town anti-death millers (scum that turns up innocent) in the past: this works much better as the scum naturally are trying to decieve the town anyways.

[Thok]

Since we've started talking about death millers, I feel like I should bring up News Mafia, where the mafia had the ability to alter one part of the night scene each night as part of the game mechanic. The mafia ended up using this to effectvely turn a scummy looking person (Falloutgirl, who had counterclaimed a cop and led town towards their lynch day 1) into a death miller. This came at a severe price for scum, as we essentially had to give up are ability to alter articles the rest of the game.

In the end, however, the death miller led to scum winning, as nobody could believe that Falloutgirl was actually protown.

[Yosarian2]

And this drives us a bit further off topic, but if I flip a coin for every death and mark the deceased as town if it comes up heads and scum if it comes up tails, you'll also never be certain 'til the game's over. That doesn't mean it's a good mechanism.

All this role does, that I can see, is introduce additional noise into the system, which only serves to make the game less about skill and more about the vagaries of chance. If players don't know whether the deceased was pro-town or not, they can't use that to interpret the voting record. The more and more that the available information is useless, the more that it comes down to which roles are lucky in their targeting and whose personalities are more forceful.

Well, if a person is a pro-town cop and knows he's a death miller, it would be an interesting disadvantage to play around; you wouldn't be able to rely on breadcrumbs at all, for example.

On the other hand, I agree that a death miller adds slightly more "noise" to the system, but that's true of a regular miller as well; the possibility of one adds slightly more noise to the whole cop system of information. So long as death millers are rare, and so long as the person knows he's a death miller and can play around it, as part of a well-balanced game, I don't see any real problem with it.