Manipulation, Bleed, Player-Characters, and the Purpose of Mafia

[TemporalLich]

The manipulation tactic of causing someone to doubt their underlying thought process maybe should be called "

warping

" (though idk if that term has any underlying problems, as I shortened it from "mind warping")

An example of warping would be causing someone to believe that they have misrepresented someone when they haven't.

afaik Town don't really benefit from warping, as Town benefit more from honest and pure thoughts, though it can be useful for even benign third parties like Survivor (despite that alignment being awful to play).


The main idea for a new term is to strengthen the argument that the term "gaslighting" lies outside the bubble of Mafia and can be considered OGI and unsportsmanlike conduct at worst

[TemporalLich]

If "warping" doesn't catch on then the argument that "gaslighting" breaks the bubble (the main idea behind the moderation update related to the term "gaslighting") is weak to nonexistent considering there are arguments like this that use the term "gaslighting" casually:

Just to be clear, nobody is banning the actions described above, or even any action, per se. The mod team had set up a policy which discourages players from using the term to describe the actions of other players, on the grounds that said other players would not want to be accused of abuse (it is my personal opinion that the word gaslighting when used in the context of mafia doesn't refer to abuse, but the rationale behind the policy is that the primary definition of gaslighting does refer to actual abuse).

also I'm not much of a fan of the term "spreading mist" but that is merely because the ideas don't connect in my mind

[TemporalLich]

I see, I don’t understand banning words that aren’t slurs or slur-adjacent. It’s a descriptive term for one particular manipulative behaviour. If I get called out for gaslighting somebody in the context of a game I should assume they believe I am gaslighting them or they’re trying to manipulate me or others about me. If anybody is saying it in a way that incites toxicity or referring in a way that insinuates the person is actually abusive that should be brought to the mods regardless and no word ban would stop somebody from doing that, just makes it harder for the good ppl to articulate themselves and makes a transition to the site harder from other communities (the L word I still am catching myself almost saying for instance)

yeah I agree as well

I think it's better to have a sort of drop in replacement for the word "gaslighting" for the acceptable Mafia strategy of manipulating someone to doubt their thought process, and "warping" or "mind warping" would be a good term, though this is to minimize the risk of misunderstandings and improve game health.

pedit: the reasoning behind even proposing an alternate term is to avoid blurring the lines between in game and out of game content

"warping" might fail and if so, I don't have any real support for discouraging the use of the term "gaslighting" as there is no real alternative asides from describing the play verbosely

[TemporalLich]

I should probably point out that warping is intended to make players doubt their thought process behind their reads, while actual gaslighting is intended to make people doubt their perception of reality itself (making them think they are insane or confused)

both warping and actual gaslighting are psychological manipulation, but actual gaslighting would have an out of game effect on players



player-character separation is a very good thing and would drastically reduce the negative impact that Mafia has on mental health