Mafiascum.net

Being new to the MS site, I am not sure what proper etiquette is.....I have read mixed opinions and I am curious about metagaing.

Things such as posting about a playstyle in other games.
Things like noticing where and when people are posting.

What does everyone think about this?.....Thanks!

Playstyle in other games is useful. Why not? How are you supposed to know if a player is "acting scummy" unless you know how he acts when he is scum?

Metagaming is wrong.

I keep a strip of duct tape along the left margin of my screen. That way I'm not tempted to check who it was saying stuff.

Metagaming happens when you don't wear a rubber.

Look at me now...

Arafax wrote:Being new to the MS site, I am not sure what proper etiquette is.....I have read mixed opinions and I am curious about metagaing.

Things such as posting about a playstyle in other games.
Things like noticing where and when people are posting.

What does everyone think about this?.....Thanks!

Two people on this site are famous for metagaming... especially each other.

It's me and Thok.

I find it especially useful. Generally, I find that you find the idiosyncratic nuances of their speech... the choice of words that may seem off... it has found me more scum than I know what to do with.

Kelly Chen wrote:Metagaming is wrong.

I keep a strip of duct tape along the left margin of my screen. That way I'm not tempted to check who it was saying stuff.

Then how do you know who is scum in the game that you're currently in? :teach:

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...)

LoudmouthLee wrote:Two people on this site are famous for metagaming... especially each other.

It's me and Thok.

Coming from you, that's quite a compliment.

Any high level competition will have some amount of metagame to it, whether it's simply analyzing your opponent to prepare for their specific style, trying to mess with their head to distract them from the game (this even happens in chess, see the Karpov-Korchnoi), or just for motivating yourself.

Iammars wrote: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".

But then we'd have to lynch you over lynching people based on things which don't point to them being scum.

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.

Arafax wrote:Being new to the MS site, I am not sure what proper etiquette is.....I have read mixed opinions and I am curious about metagaing.

Things such as posting about a playstyle in other games.
Things like noticing where and when people are posting.

What does everyone think about this?.....Thanks!

Both of the things you posted about seem like perfectly reasonable sorts of metagaming. One establishes a pattern of behavior, that can be checked against current behavior. Of course some people don't have a pattern, or have one that's counter-intuitive.

And noticing when/where people are posting is generally helpful on a site such as this, where games can take long enough to notice. On a fast-paced site where you're expected to post every RL day, I'd find it much less useful.

And then things like "I don't like their avatar, their signature, or the fact that they killed me in the last game we were in together" are pretty bogus, IMO.

I don't think there's anything wrong with metagaming. It's hard to analyze a person's posts without thinking back to how they've played in other games if you've been in other games with them.

Fiasco wrote: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.

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?

Fiasco wrote: 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.

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.

Iammars wrote: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.

Cogito Ergo Surn wrote: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.

Hi Arafax.
I metagame to the max. I don't think there is anything wrong with it, unless you are bringing unrealated baggage from game to game - like personal vendettas. Speaking of metagaming, it appears as though you've been posting here but not in another game you are in.

I also agree with the whole gripe about basically stinky playstyle disguised under I-always-play-this-way-so-don't-call-me-on-it. That's annoying.

Nobody can metagame me. I do the same song and dance in every game.

Fiasco wrote:

Iammars wrote: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.

As I see it, metagaming is half the game. The other half is WIFOM.

Is a given behavior scummy? Either it's scummy because it's not how a given player behaves as town, or it's scummy because it's something mafia are somewhat more likely to do than town. In the first case, you need to metagame to pick it up; otherwise you miss tells. In the second, the mafia might be scrupulously avoiding the 'classic' tell, so the few people who do it a little bit must be townies - which is, of course, the start of the classic infinitely-long WIFOM scenario.

Metagaming is like checking the criminal antecedents of a person.
When there is a murder in real life the criminal background of the suspects tells a lot about them.
Of course the fact that someone committed a crime before is not proof that the same person committed the crime in question, but there is always a high probability and that's why it's always verified in real life, with good results.
I see no reason the same shouldn't be done in mafia games.
That said I'd say metagamig makes the game easier and that's why I prefer to play with different people every time.

Yosarian2 wrote: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 wrote:

Yosarian2 wrote: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.

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 wrote: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.

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.