Manipulation, Bleed, Player-Characters, and the Purpose of Mafia

[Radical Rat]

1. psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.

Obviously, the first definition is a form of abuse that is obviously not acceptable and completely outside the scope of the game.

Hot take: That's a legitimate strategy that should be allowed as long as everyone playing agrees to it beforehand (i.e. it should be allowable on the ruleset level) since it introduces the additional skill ceiling of gaslighting, resisting gaslighting, and helping other townies resist gaslighting/helping your scumteam gaslight townies

I have two things to say to this:

First, from a personal viewpoint, I play mafia because I want to have fun with other people, and I happen to enjoy deduction, especially of the social kind. Obviously it can be stressful but at the end of the day I do it for fun. Now, being manipulated into thinking that I am insane, or incompetent or stupid, and having others question my sanity is so far removed from my idea of fun that I'd rather not play at all. It's just a violation of the purpose for which I am playing. It's also just not something I'd ever do to somebody else. If this ever becomes a thing, I sincerely hope it is opt-in and limited to a small number of games.

I do, however, get the appeal for people who really like to play scum to try for something like that, in a twisted sort of way. And I guess there's technically not much harm done if all parties consent before the game starts. But I don't think what you presumably want (being able to influence the player's IRL mindset and toy with their esteem and cause them to trust you over themselves) could work very well unless you play it with secret alts, just because things happening in other ongoing games or even casual interactions will very probably undermine this, unless you actually decide to manipulate the person out of the game thread which I think you see why that would be problematic.

Say, you correctly accuse someone of being scum? What do you expect them to do in turn? Convincing you that you're "insane" may be pushing it, but convincing you that you didn't see what you think you saw and that even if you did it didn't mean what you think it meant, well... that's kind of what they have to do isn't it? If you're particularly good at catching scum, then scum have to attempt to convince you that you're incompetent. Perhaps even over an extended period of time, as a game can last quite a while.

The alternative is ignoring you completely while trying to convince everyone else you're incompetent instead, which is incredibly conspicuous and personally I find even more frustrating, or to just go "Damn, you got me!" which is... obviously not advisable.

There are of course limits here, like. After a game is over, continuing to try to hammer home the bullshit is taking it too far, and if you can see that you're adversely impacting another player's IRL mental health, it's time to back off regardless of wincon. But the general concept of manipulating others into doubting themselves and distorting their "reality" (within the context of the game) is just how the game has to be played as scum, especially with strong Town players or PRs. To me, signing up to a game of Mafia IS consenting to that.

[Radical Rat]

1. psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.

Obviously, the first definition is a form of abuse that is obviously not acceptable and completely outside the scope of the game.

Hot take: That's a legitimate strategy that should be allowed as long as everyone playing agrees to it beforehand (i.e. it should be allowable on the ruleset level) since it introduces the additional skill ceiling of gaslighting, resisting gaslighting, and helping other townies resist gaslighting/helping your scumteam gaslight townies

I have two things to say to this:

First, from a personal viewpoint, I play mafia because I want to have fun with other people, and I happen to enjoy deduction, especially of the social kind. Obviously it can be stressful but at the end of the day I do it for fun. Now, being manipulated into thinking that I am insane, or incompetent or stupid, and having others question my sanity is so far removed from my idea of fun that I'd rather not play at all. It's just a violation of the purpose for which I am playing. It's also just not something I'd ever do to somebody else. If this ever becomes a thing, I sincerely hope it is opt-in and limited to a small number of games.

I do, however, get the appeal for people who really like to play scum to try for something like that, in a twisted sort of way. And I guess there's technically not much harm done if all parties consent before the game starts. But I don't think what you presumably want (being able to influence the player's IRL mindset and toy with their esteem and cause them to trust you over themselves) could work very well unless you play it with secret alts, just because things happening in other ongoing games or even casual interactions will very probably undermine this, unless you actually decide to manipulate the person out of the game thread which I think you see why that would be problematic.

Say, you correctly accuse someone of being scum? What do you expect them to do in turn? Convincing you that you're "insane" may be pushing it, but convincing you that you didn't see what you think you saw and that even if you did it didn't mean what you think it meant, well... that's kind of what they have to do isn't it? If you're particularly good at catching scum, then scum have to attempt to convince you that you're incompetent. Perhaps even over an extended period of time, as a game can last quite a while.

The alternative is ignoring you completely while trying to convince everyone else you're incompetent instead, which is incredibly conspicuous and personally I find even more frustrating, or to just go "Damn, you got me!" which is... obviously not advisable.

There are of course limits here, like. After a game is over, continuing to try to hammer home the bullshit is taking it too far, and if you can see that you're adversely impacting another player's IRL mental health, it's time to back off regardless of wincon. But the general concept of manipulating others into doubting themselves and distorting their "reality" (within the context of the game) is just how the game has to be played as scum, especially with strong Town players or PRs. To me, signing up to a game of Mafia IS consenting to that.

this is where, again, player-character separation may be a good thing

if you're attacking another player directly (ad hominem, etc. against the rules already) as opposed to attacking the character they're playing (there's no separation because mafia isn't as distinctly a roleplay as, say, pathfinder is), those are two different things

i think manipulation extends in a similar way. it'd be bad to manipulate someone out of a mafia game, but the contract is that within the game you're allowed to lie towards the goal of achieving your win condition. so you shouldn't gaslight users onsite. but you can 'gaslight' (a subset of manipulation and deception, which

are

licit things to do inside the confines of a mafia game) characters in a game.

so if we're friends playing a mafia game and we act as somewhat trusting friends within the game, and i then talk to you outside the game and manipulate you outside the game to try to get you to act differently in the game, that is bad and not allowed. but if we're friends outside the game and then you manipulate me inside the game to try to get me to act differently in the game, that's fine and allowed.

this is why i argue for that separation of player and character. without them, we have a contradictory reality where it's sometimes allowable to lie and manipulate a person and sometimes isn't. if we're players who are friends and our characters are lying bastards towards each other, we are still friends and have always been friends. this is something we're agreeing to act out.

The problem there is that while, obviously, attack the play not the player applies here, but beyond that scumhunting is a task reliant on a player's actual real life abilities. To defend oneself as scum, you must convince the opponent that their scumhunting is bad, falsely leading them to believe they have made logical or observational errors.

If the manipulation is successful, the Town player will believe that they personally made these errors, because there is no difference between their "character's" performance and their own. If this happens frequently enough before the catharsis of the flips is reached, they may even begin to believe they're just bad at the game generally, or even unintelligent generally.

This is an undesirable outcome, but one that can't really be meaningfully avoided once the game begins. The Scum player, if they mean to win, MUST perform manipulations in a similar fashion. The Town player MUST therefore be subject to it, or at least the possibility of it.

The character/player separation IS important for out of game interactions and relationships. That kind of compartmentalization is the only way these kinds of games can work at all. But it doesn't do much in the moment of the game itself, only once you leave the game thread behind.

[Radical Rat]

Actually removing this because I realized I'm being pedantic here and it really isn't the point being made.

Sorry, I do actually think you're right overall.