Metagaming

[pablito]

Some players (hell probably me too) have quirks that look detrimental to the town on the surface during D1. But I've found that looking at who brings up these quirks and when can be an important discussion topic and can give information on distraction and projection techniques by players in the game. You can uncover some good tells when you look at that stuff.

I think that negatively labelling a player says as much about as the targetted player as the labeller. And there's also likely a communication failure between those players no matter whose fault it is.

[pablito]

It's that he can derail legitimate bandwagons with his mere presence in the game. It's that he openly and blatantly says, "yeah I'm scummy as hell, but it's worth it to screw up the games in which I'm town in order to have cover when I'm scum."

I do not see how being able to "derail legitimate bandwagons" is a one-person process. Players and scum have every right to keep their vote where it is or they can switch to vote the "derailer". Then again, I think my game philosophy is different than some others because I tend to blame the town as a whole when some things fall flat.

There is a point that players may take that stance as a cover for future games. But I have to strongly believe that no one ever played their first game and said "I will purposely try to lose the game so that when I'm on the other side, people will think differently of me." New players notice how people react to their behaviors and change their playstyles accordingly. Something must have happened in the early games which may have caused a player to choose his playstyle and in later games players' reactions have reinforced this behavior. I think lynching is only going to reinforce the behavior.

If you truly think that a player is being detrimental in all games because of his/her style, don't give a person a pass just because he's new or because he fits the profile, but don't automatically lynch a player because of his/her playstyle; take it all case-by-case. But if it happens a lot and you have a distaste for any specific playing style, then try to isolate your feelings apart from everything else and it can help you gauge the player better. And if you're the vig, then no matter.

But the big reason why it's not good to policy-lynch any player D1 is because it may cause this person to amplify their behavior D1 until they get the message, but even then, they may just give up on mafiascum and spread the bad word or they may just return to their style later on anyway. I know some players that tend to get killed N1 because of their reputation (a policy night-kill) may be more aggressive in D1 because they know they might not have long to live. They adapted to the style because they die early and they see no reason to abandon that style for D1. Similarly, if you make someone a policy lynch, they may continue with a style that benefits them for D1.