Mafiascum.net

Not naming names, though it should be fairly obvious who I'm referring to.

If there is a particular player who, no matter whether they are scum or town, plays in a way that draws the attention of the town to distraction in nearly every game, is it a sound metagame policy to lynch that player every day one in order to eliminate a distracting element?

I'm in/have been in a fair number of games with this particular player, and this player always seems to be in the thick of suspicion, whether or not they are town or scum. Is it worth it to keep them around just to see who falls back onto the "wagon Player X" strategy, or more useful to off them early?

Well, IS tends to be quite useful, he's town. So sound metagaming policy tends to be to investigate him within the first few days, to make sure he is. And if he isn't, coming out as a cop to nail IS tends to be a good use of a cop.

...what do you mean this isn't about IS?

You've essentially said who you're talking about, so not naming names is pretty useless anyway. XD.

The thing is, no matter how questionable any given player's playstyle is, they are still at the very least another warm body for the town. Also, it's entirely possible that said player might be a power role and, even played badly, a power role is useful for the town. And you don't really want to waste a lynch that way.

Also, I fully believe that no player plays exactly identical as town or as scum and it is therefore always possible to distinguish a player, so long as they are active's, alignment.

I'd say that lynching someone based on playstyle is a bad idea if I hadn't wanted to do that many a time myself.

Sadly whether it's a good idea or not, just suggesting that the town lynch the player on principle will probably get you some attention and votes.

*shrug* Lynch them for being a distraction/unhelpful , not because they are always that way. One helps correct behavior (hopefully), the other is akin to stalking.

I suppose you could also look at it as borderline discrimination even.

There's an even simpler solution; if you absolutely can't stand playing with someone, don't join any games that they're in.

Mr. Flay wrote:*shrug* Lynch them for being a distraction/unhelpful

in that game

, not because they are always that way. One helps correct behavior (hopefully), the other is akin to stalking.

Agreed.

It is never a good stratagy (except, perhaps, as a page 1 random-ish vote) to attack someone just because you expect them to play badly. On the other hand, if someone is doing something specifically in this game that you think is hurting the town, then voting for them based on that is valid, although it still might not be the best move.

The goal should never be to get the player out of the game, it's to get the anti-town behavior out of the game, or to go after a player who you think is scum based on his anti-town behavior.

For example, still not naming names, there was one player who briefly decided to adopt a stratagy where every time he was a townie, he would claim townie day 1. It's a part of my stratagy that if someone claims townie without a good reason, I tend to be suspicious of them, and so I ended up voting for this player every single time he claimed townie; not because I thought it was a scum-tell in his case, and not because I had anything against him personally, but because it was anti-town behavior, and every pro-town player should try to deter other people in the game from doing and getting away with anti-town behavior.

Ok, these are all good suggestions. I've just become a little fed up with his play recently. It's not that I hate him on a personal level, I just think that in general his play is detrimental to the town, no matter what his alignment, and the only way to eliminate that element is to lynch him.

If he's really talky, then there's good news: he'll be throwing out personal tells like crazy. So he'll be easy to peg as town/scum fairly early on and you'll be able to quickly lynch if he's scum and just keep him around and ignore him if he's town.

TCS... I know who you're talking about... and I TOTALLY agree.

I feel that you shouldn't do it unless they're REALLY doing it more than usual.

I really dislike players applying meta game tactics like "let's lynch this player in this game so he'll learn in the next one". It rarely works, and you end up losing individual games because you cared too much about the game as a whole.

The chances of this player being pro-town each game are good, so if you can, just mitigating the distraction will benefit town the most.

Maybe you can try treating this player's posts like a black box, where you ignore what is contained in them and references to what is contained in them, and only vote for that person if hard evidence is presented (cop investigation) or you give more than even odds that all other players are pro-town. This would help in the majority of games played with ZZZZZZ.

I think I know who youre talking about. If you dont, then there are more than one of these players running around the site. The person I'm referring to is planning to take a hiatus from the site for a while, so the problem may lessen.

TCS, I need to ask you.

Does the abbreviation have two letters or three.

Stop trying to guess it, guys. SRSLY, it's not helpful.

I actually think his play is improving somewhat.

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.

I totally don't know who you're talking about.

I do. And it's not nightson.

Well, aside from me. I seem to have the same effect in a lot of my games, so maybe I should look to my own house.

Okay, I don't want to name anybody, BUT YOU MEAN BATTLE MAGE RIGHT !?!?!??! :D:D

*cats out of the bag*

PS: I think he deserves at least the respect of being named when half the players who posted know who TCS is talking about.

Albert B. Rampage wrote:PS: I think he deserves at least the respect of being named when half the players who posted know who TCS is talking about.

I didn't. I'm too out of the loop.

Yeah, I mean BM. And it's not just that he's always a little scummy. People seem to think I'm scummy a lot, which I don't entirely get. 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."

The Central Scrutinizer wrote: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 will never understand this sentiment, even though I've seen a handful of players hold it.