Metagaming...

[Fiasco]

Anyway, I don't metagame by trying, but there are some playstyles I know down that it is how they always act, scummy or not (IS, BJ...)

I'm considering making it my normal playing style to lynch everyone who tries to excuse their bad play by saying "it's just my normal playing style".

[Fiasco]

But lynching people based on things which don't point to them being scum is something I'd do as town as well as as scum, so you'd all have to start lynching each other for lynching me based on something which doesn't point to me being scum.

[Fiasco]

So what? You're asking us not to lynch you based on a playstyle that doesn't necessarly point you to scum because your lynching people on a playstyle that doesn't necessarly point them to scum?

Exactly! To lynch me based on a playstyle that doesn't necessarily point to me being scum because I'm lynching people based on a playstyle that doesn't necessarily point to them being scum would be to engage in the very act that you would supposedly be punishing me for.

I totally wrote the wrong thing. You'd have to lynch yourself, as you'd be using the "playstyle"-defense to justify bad play. That was it.

That's different. That's not bad play, that's consciously sacrificing success in the game in question with the aim of improving gameplay as a whole on the site. "Lynch all liars" is the same; do you think that's bad play?

Or maybe I'm just hypocritical! Maybe hypocrisy is my personal playstyle. And under your premises, you have no business punishing me for my playstyle, because that's how I behave all the time, both as town and as scum. You'll just have to deal with it.

[Fiasco]

For example, the first time anyone sees IS play, or Baby Jesus play, they think they're looking at scum. However, their respective playstyles are actually very effective as pro-town playing styles,

How does that work?

[Fiasco]

My impression was that they jump onto any bandwagon at all, which means there is no room for instincts to get involved. Even if that's not true, and even if they do have scum-finding instincts (which I'm not convinced of), why can't they try putting them into words?

[Fiasco]

Hmm... I suppose it's possible. Still, in that case, there's no need to invoke "it's my playstyle" as an excuse when you can just argue that it's good protown play.

[Fiasco]

Just to be clear, I never said anyone was a bad player... it's just, I think there are some people whose play would help the town more if they used a different playstyle.

[Fiasco]

I understand perfectly well that the point is mostly to have fun. But there's fun, and then there's fun at other people's expense. I imagine much of the fun in BJ-type playing styles is in making people mad. (I've never played with BJ, though, and don't mean to pick on him in particular.)

Losing a game of mafia doesn't make me particularly unhappy, and winning a game of mafia doesn't make me particularly happy. In that sense, I don't care about winning.

But

, for me most of the fun is still in

playing for the win

. Games like this have rules that are set up to create interesting strategic problems. Trying to solve these problems is a large part of what makes them fun for me. When others in my team start flailing around at random, that makes it less fun for me. In a team game, you do have some sort of duty to your fellow players to do your best.

Maybe players with different ideas of fun just ought to avoid each other in games, or something.

[Fiasco]

There's a golden mean between talking things to death and not bothering to explain yourself.

[Fiasco]

But would it, really? How hard is it to fake unconcern over the internet? I could see a case for scum

forgetting to

fake unconcern (less so after threads like this one), but not a case for scum

being unable to

fake unconcern.

If I'd been a good guy in that situation, I'd have gone all, "Rubbish, BJ, that's not a reason", and I'd probably have been lynched for being "defensive". Different players react to random attacks in different ways, so for the tactic to work well it requires knowing the reactor's playstyle (as town and as scum).