The 5 things I hate most when playing mafia are...

[Porochaz]

This thread is to highlight things you get frustrated at during games and need to be sorted

1. People who need to be replaced but are still entering games. Looking at one prime example currently but a lot do it or related to this "Ill post later" - I do that a lot, Ill admit. However I dont mind if peope act on it. A lot dont and the rest of the players are waiting for ages for a post and then all they get is "Sorry, will post later" again.

2. People who get my name wrong, it's Porochaz! not hard, spell it as you would say it. Not Porchaz, Prochaz or even Porchez (which weirdly is the most common mistake!) Prozac is acceptable.

3. Over touchiness,(after 2. slightly ironic) its a heated game where your going to argue, dont cry over someone saying you are scummy or that you need to read over your post before posting or even that you need to have a rope round your neck and hung. Its part of the game! Insulting a player for something outwith the game or modding skills, thats not acceptable.

4. Self hammering as town or SK, a good example of this recently is Futurama mafia (where I played badly), where a player lynched himself as SK, which was acceptable(ish), then replaced back in as a claimed hider, there were 2 main wagons, one of which was him, he hammered himself with the reason that he was going to be lynched anyway. We were in disputed lylo and he lost us the game through his stupidness and ruined the game slightly. In my view you only hammer if your scum and dont want to give away some extra info.

5. SK's claiming, never EVER claim SK, 3 of the games Ive played in, in the past 3 months have had an SK claim. It's the most annoying thing in this list. You will NEVER win! "Oh Ill act as vig..." NO! YOU JUST LOST FOOL! Even at L-1 you dont claim as there is always a slim chance... any town with half a brain in it no to lynch you straight off. By claiming you automatically lose.

[kuribo]

1. Players who think they can lurk and just pop in now and then with, "Hi, I'll answer whatever questions you have for me." YOU ARE SLOWING THE PACE OF THE GAME. STOP IT.

2. Asking to be replaced because the town has backed you into a corner. Congratulations, jerk, you've just added to the replacement problem, and also caused your replacement to be put into a bad position. If you don't like being lynched, don't play a game where people vote to lynch one another.

3. "X and Y are clear scum partners, but I won't state why. Vote X." Where X and Y are both living players whose alignment is unknown. Sometimes not stating your reasons can be useful or even helpful. However, the majority of players that do this are not good at it and shouldn't be doing it.

4. I agree with the misspelling thing. I get "kurbio" alot. IT'S KURIBO, AS IN THE GREATEST VIDEO GAME POWER UP OF ALL TIME.

5. I probably have alot more that I can't think of right now, but that's because I'm an angry person.

Also, Porochaz, I once played a game where a townie self hammered in LYLO. If I could have reached through the internet and punched him in the ear, I believe I would have.

[Xylthixlm]

1. Lurkers.

2. Active lurkers.

3. People who won't vote lurkers.

4. "Meta" defenses.

5. Self-voting.

[Porochaz]

3. People who won't vote lurkers.

Whilst lurking is annoying, this is low on my list of lynch candidates because lurkers =/= scum and if we start policy lynching lurkers were not playing a game anymore just lynching crap players.

[StrangerCoug]

In the order I thought of them:

1. Ditto Xylthixlm's #4.
   
   
2. Having a superiority complex.
   
   
3. Withholding information from the town without a good reason to do so.
   
   
4. Roleclaiming, especially vanilla townie, too early.
   
   
5. The newbie card.

[Hoopla]

3. People who won't vote lurkers.

Whilst lurking is annoying, this is low on my list of lynch candidates because lurkers =/= scum and if we start policy lynching lurkers were not playing a game anymore just lynching crap players.

It doesn't necessarily mean lynching lurkers. Healthy bangwagons are usually good enough, with the idea it being a good way to get them playing again so the town can focus on the other lynch candidates. Otherwise if they don't comply they should die.

Letting unhelpful players get away with living only encourages it more.

[Porochaz]

replacing does a better job (unfortunetly) than wagons though, if lurkers still dont post after a wagon is formed, there still going to get lynched.

EDIT: Actually Im unsure why Im fighting for the lurker in this case. I would just ban them and move on.

[Natirasha]

I don't see why claiming as SK is a bad thing. If people ever listened, it could feasibly work out as a great scumplay(Say, 2 mafia 3 town and there have been unexplained kills, claim SK saying they lose if they lynch you and profit).

[Korts]

1. Being lynched on a stupid case

2. Being lynched

3. Being

3. Game stalling because of a lurker

4. Being accused of OMGUS or seeing someone being accused of it. It's an accusation that carries heavy implications but virtually never has real basis.

[Simenon]

you will always be prochaz to me, baby.

EDIT:

1. "Short posts are scummy."
2. "Bandwagoning is scummy."
3. "He's committed this many scumtells. How could he not be scum?"
4. People who refuse to directly answer a point.
5. People who put good writing above scumhunting.

[Vi]

1. Flavor-based reasoning/ModWIFOM

2. Active lurking

3. peple who cant spell and type like this??
im usualy not willing to give people who speech english as second language credit here

4. Generally thinking suicide is a good idea for roles that don't require it

5. People who post about once a week with posts that are as long as this one (maximum)

[Korts]

3. peple who cant spell and type like this??
im usualy not willing to give people who speech english as second language credit here

Ah yes, the multiple question- and exclamation marks. I hate those especially.

[dahill1]

This thread is to highlight things you get frustrated at during games and need to be sorted

Xtoxm

what prozac really means

[animorpherv1]

In no real order:

1. When people don't answer the questions they are asked (guilty, but If I missed something, I do my best to go back and find it).

2. Stupid defenses.

3. Self voting, unless you get certain roles (see Worst Role ideas thread)

4. stating "X is scum" and giving no real reason why.

5. chat speak

[Caboose]

Being asked to

prove

that you are not scum.

[hasdgfas]

4. stating "X is scum" and giving no real reason why.

I disagree with this. This can often be a good strategy if used correctly.

[dahill1]

4. stating "X is scum" and giving no real reason why.

take it away, glrok!

Originally I was going to post something along the lines of "because I said so" to draw this out and further illustrate my point, but I don't really feel like doing that, so I'm just going to explain very bluntly.

A few underlying principles:
1) Players -- especially when scum -- like to be comfortable. Bringing pressure that is difficult to respond to pulls them out of their comfort zones, making them react in a way they normally wouldn't react. This makes it significantly more likely that they will say or do something particularly telling of their alignments.
2) In the long-term, players often reveal the most about themselves when acting on limited information. While this maxim generally applies to the notion that D1 and D2 are the most revealing parts of a mafia game, it also applies when dealing with "unexplained votes."
2a) Let's look at the general case of an unexplained vote from a player of unknown alignment. The motivation for a protown player is to discern the intent of the voter, generally in order to obtain their alignment. The motivation of an anti-town player is to discern the intent of the voter (which sometimes involves seeking alignment) and to best utilize the situation to their advantage. There is an important, if subtle, difference. By cultivating our exploration of these differences, we can find new tools to seek and destroy the scumbaggoes amongst us.
2b) Now consider the case where I am a confirmed protown player making an unexplainded vote. In this case, my motivation is very clear. In some way, I am seeking to find scum. Here, I'm actually going to dip into one of my trade secrets and note that protown players tend to have a broader picture of our voter's intent, whereas scums tend to focus more on themselves (or, sometimes, their allies). If the person I'm voting is more concerened with how everyone else reacts than with deflecting my attack, they are usually more likely to be protown. If they immediately seek to bury someone else in accusations, wildly reject my vote/claims outright, or blame-shift, they're more likely to be scum.
3) Taking an alternate approach to scumhunting allows one to take advantage of "weak points" in other players' gameplay. Most mafia is played in the public arena. Players openly debate and discuss who is scum and why. Thus, most people tend to focus most of their attention on growing and evolving as players in this realm of open banter. A couple years ago, I learned that the vast majority of players didn't know how to react to certain circumstances. One such circumtsance was a completely irrational, yet intensely focused onslaught from an established player. This was a very noticeable chink in the mafia community's collective armor, and while you had your Internet Strangers and your Baby Jesuses (the paragons of this style of play), people who effectively played without explanation were very few and far between. Thus, very few players put the necessary time, thought, and effort into ensuring that they new how to interact with these playstyles. Over time, parts of the community evolve, and playing such playstyles shifts and changes just as the overall game meta does. Not only do they not know how to react, and not only do they give more information about themselves, but their weaknesses are actually exploitable, allowing the attacker as an individual to crack other players' shells and expose their soft, fleshy interiors, thus opening the game up for everybody.


And FYI, Xtoxm is a poor benchmark for erratic behavior. It has to be used in moderation, and is really only useful after one has established oneself as being able to consistently find scum using traditional methods. If I had been wild and erratic immediately after joining Scum in 2005, I don't think I'd be anywhere near where I am today. The biggest issue with seemingly :nothelpful: play is that far too many players have no idea when, where or how frequently to utilize it.... so they really do end up just being :nothelpful:. It's awfully hard to explain... something you more have to see and experience over time.

Keep in mind that like these behaviors are also very case-specific. I will not treat Thok the same way I would treat an Oman or a Vollkan or somebody I've never played with.



Now.
Did you know that unexplained votes are the best things ever?

[hasdgfas]

1) lurkers, active or otherwise(especially people who lurk, then come in and say "anyone have any questions for me?" Yes, I have one. Why aren't you playing the game?)

2) claiming for no reason

3) claiming scum(if someone does this, even as a joke, I will vote them and not let up no matter what)

4) people who claim you're OMGUSing them even when you have a good reason to vote for them and they happen to be voting you

5) replacing out because you're under pressure. this

only hurts you

there are plenty more, but these are probably my main ones

[kuribo]

Being asked to

prove

that you are not scum.

haha, god yes.

that's like saying, "God exists. Now prove he doesn't."

[kuribo]

In no real order:

1. When people don't answer the questions they are asked (guilty, but If I missed something, I do my best to go back and find it).

2. Stupid defenses.

3. Self voting, unless you get certain roles (see Worst Role ideas thread)

4. stating "X is scum" and giving no real reason why.

5. chat speak

1 and 2 are things that scum do though, when they're backed into a corner. It's not necessarily "annoying," just a consequence of human behavior.

You should be pressuring these people.


Oh, and another of mine:

"This vote is only for pressure," congratulations, you've just removed whatever worth your vote had.

[Porochaz]

This thread is to highlight things you get frustrated at during games and need to be sorted

Xtoxm

what prozac really means

1,2 and 3 no
4 yes. The example was Xtoxm but its not an isolated case
5, partially. Out of the 3, Xtoxm was one of those times.

Also Nat, I worked it out the only way SK can win is if town lynch mafia first. They lynch SK or Town, the town loses. However mafia unless there really dense will kill the SK for a chance of winning, it would be retarded if they didnt. If by some miracle they kill town instead, the said SK still has to be lucky and kill the remaining mafia member to win.

[Korts]

Oh, and another of mine:

"This vote is only for pressure," congratulations, you've just removed whatever worth your vote had.

I agree. Either make up a reason, however stupid, or shut the fuck up. There is no middle ground.

[Lord Gurgi]

1. Demanding a case from someone and then not reading it.
2. Complaining about the mod, especially in thread.
3. People who flake when they have already screwed themselves and their replacee over.
4. Being lynched for finding the scum, a.k.a. "He's too good, he must be mafia."
5. People who get worked up and make impulsive decisions that are either wrong, or for the wrong reasons.

[Oman]

you will always be prochaz to me, baby.

EDIT:

1. "Short posts are scummy."
2. "Bandwagoning is scummy."
3. "He's committed this many scumtells. How could he not be scum?"
4. People who refuse to directly answer a point.
5. People who put good writing above scumhunting.

EDIT: "I did X for reactions, I know it's scummy"

[Lawrencelot]

1. People calling WIFOM on something that is in no way advantegeous for scum.
2. Getting lynched as scum for the wrong reasons.
3. Active lurkers (no they're not always scum unfortunately).
4. Dumb people
5. Over-agressiveness and tunnelvision