Metagaming...

[Yosarian2]

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".

The problem with this is that "playstyle" things are often things that only LOOK like bad play, but are not really. 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, so long as they don't get instantly lynched for their playing style.

Now, if someone says "my playing style is to lie, claim cop, and try to get some random lynched every game, every time I get in trouble, no matter what my alignment is" then go ahead and lynch them every time for their anti-town behavior (or just vig them night 1 every game, for that matter). But generally, "bad play" isn't as easy to define as you might think.

[Yosarian2]

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?

They both play very agressivly, appear to bandwagon blindly often without giving any reason at all, demand that we "hurry up and kill him", and basically appear very bloodthirsty; the first time someone playes with them, they look suspicious because of that. However, I've seen both of them use that agressive playstyle to find scum, and both of them have good scum-finding instints backing up their hyper-agressive playstyle.

[Yosarian2]

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?

I was a SK in a game with Baby Jesus once. I know his playstyle seems scary when you're pro-town, but trust me, when you're a bad guy and he suddenly changes from appearing to trust you to suddenly turning and attacking you without explaining why right away, it's downright terrifying, and it's very difficult to respond to those attacks in a rational way. The way other people react to Baby Jesus's seemingly random attacks can be extremly informative. And, except on day 1, he usually does seem have a reasonfor his votes, he just often dosn't share it.

[Yosarian2]

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.

That's the thing, though. Sometime people get lynched because they're acting in a way that seems to be anti-town, but just as often, people get lynched because they're acting wierd or strange in some way that just disturbs everyone or "sets off their scumdar" or whatever. The second catagory is where playstyle questions become more useful.

[Yosarian2]

But according to you, you should now be lynched in every game you are in because your playstyle is to lynch other people based on playstyles that don't necessarly point them to scum, and you can't use your playstyle to your defense because according to you, no matter if your playstyle necessarly means that you are scum or not, you should be lynched for it.

However, if by voting for him you are encouraging other people to act in anti-town ways and get away with it by calling it their playstyle, then you are also acting in an anti-town way, and therefore, as we're ignoring playstyles, we should logically lynch you.

[Yosarian2]

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

On the other hand, one of the best way to gather information is to pull everyone, especally scum, out of their standard mafia-playing comfort zone.