The Scumhunter's Playbook, Part I of V (Project Abandoned)

[Yosarian2]

Well, Pooky never actually broke his Pooky promise, ever. He only used it about 1 game in 20 or so, because that way he could still play as scum.

Basically, it was a tactic that was so effective, while being against the spirit of the game (since by never using the tactic as scum, you could argue there was a "play to win" violation there), mith actually changed the site rules to specifically ban that tactic. Also, to ban another tactic Pooky used in a disturbingly effective way, the "huggle alliance".

Mafia Specific Rules

Breaking rules, not posting, or certain other behavior may result in a modkill or replacement in individual games; rules regarding this should be (and generally are) included up front by the moderator. Some rules apply to most games, and should be assumed to hold unless the moderator explicitly says otherwise. These are:
...
* Do not bring outside influences into the game - this includes threats, bribes, wagers, promises, alliances, etc. Using knowledge from previous games is perfectly acceptable, but try not to carry grudges from one game to another.

Mith can correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression was that that was specifically put into the rules to stop the Pooky promise and the Pooky alliance.

Yeah, Pooky's basically the Wilt Chamberlain of mafia.

[Yosarian2]

Could you please explain what the Pooky alliance was?

Pretty much a game would start, and he would declare "the huggle alliance" and invite people to join, and say that "people who join the huggle allliance won't lynch or kill each other until they're the only ones left". I'm really not at all sure how serious he was about that; that was probably always a gambit, but it was a really effective one, and some people started to get uncomfortable about it when the same people started to be in the alliance every game.

[Yosarian2]

Pretty much a game would start, and he would declare "the huggle alliance" and invite people to join, and say that "people who join the huggle allliance won't lynch or kill each other until they're the only ones left". I'm really not at all sure how serious he was about that; that was probably always a gambit, but it was a really effective one, and some people started to get uncomfortable about it when the same people started to be in the alliance every game.

Huh. I wonder if this is where SpyreX got that strategy. It's kinda a cool idea ^-^.

I'm pretty sure if anyone who's not Pooky ever suggested this, they'd get speed-lynched. Pooky's, you know, awesome.

[Yosarian2]

As far as I know, Pooky only used the Huggle Alliance in Lights Out Mafia. I could be mistaken, though.

If I remember correctly, that was at least the third time he made the Huggle Alliance.

Still, Pooky's Guarantee is indeed something I would always, 100% stand by. I haven't seen anybody else provide that kind of track record of using a keyword like "Guarantee" in a long-term meta, so until someone provided significant (I'm talking half a dozen or more) examples of them using a meta, and it could be verified that they never made a similar statement as scum, I wouldn't buy into it. It's kind of a Pooky-only thing.

I got Pooky lynched after he made the Pooky Promise once.

[Yosarian2]

and he flipped town?

Oh, yeah. Big time. (Ftr, this was in a face to face game at one of the meets)

Anyway, getting away from that, I do have to disagree with Albert's idea that metagaming is useless. I find making adjustments for the playstyles of certain players to be a very powerful tool; there are some players who always look scummy to me, but that's because a behavior or group of behaviors that I normally find to be pretty reliable scumtells are part of that player's normal town game. Now, if they're just anti-town, then I'll still pressure a person for them, but sometimes an action is a scumtell in general without being anti-town, but is not a scum tell for that person.

For example, the first few games I played with Dripping Goofball, I pretty much tried to lynch her every time I saw her, because her norma town play-style looks scummy to me (and I think my normal town playstyle looked scummy to her as well, for different reasons). Now that I know how she plays as town, I have a much better chance of reading her correctly, and when she is town I am much better able to use the reactions her play generates to find scum. These days, because we know each other's metas, we're much less likely to end up in an endless town vs. town fight of the kind that can be so disruptive to the town. On the other, when she plays under a new alt and I don't recognize her, I'm pretty much right back to trying to lynch her from the start of day 1 again, because I'm not making compensations for her known meta .