Mafia Rule Updates Discussion Thread

[Dunnstral]

What is the purpose for the new rule on trust tells? Was there an influx of reports?

[Micc]

Thank you to the Listmod team for their work on these updates. They look great besides one small thing:

Can my name be replaced in the outdated ongoing game discussion examples?

[Radical Rat]

I think the new trust tell rules are overkill. My understanding is that the problem with trust tells is that you sacrifice current games to get an advantage in future ones, and indeed that's no good. But the new rules seem to encompass simply having a belief that as a certain alignment you should play a certain way.

Like, I personally believe that hard bussing is bad for Mafia. Therefore, except under extreme circumstances, I'm not gonna do it. And I don't see it as a threat to the game's integrity to say as much.

I understand that establishing a track record of not bussing then gives me more credibility on a scum wagon than someone without such a record, but that's just a natural consequence of playing a game many times with the same people, and that advantage will remain regardless of whether I'm allowed to say it or not. It's not something that can just be legislated away, unfortunate though that may be, and attempts to do so just restrict legitimate arguments from being made.

[Davsto]

and i think additionally that having and giving a reason for "always" behaving a certain way avoids being a trust tell because there's an implicit notion that you'd behave differently if it were tactically advantageous (i.e. the reason may not necessarily apply)

Like you might say you never lie about your role pms because you believe it gives you a disadvantage even if you're scum - this comes with an implication that you might still lie (e.g. by omission) if circumstances were different to usual. Same with the hard bussing - you may never do so but if you say it's because of a certain tactical reason, there's room for that tactical reason to not apply.

i don't necessarily think trust tells

have

to come with a detriment to be a trust tell, i think what should make it punishable not is whether the reason they do it is so they can say they always do it, with the implication that they could do it even if it's disadvantageous. Take what mastina has said vs someone who always tells the truth about their role pm and when asked says it's so that people will always believe what they say about their role pm.

there's a bit of grey area especially since you can't tell what people are thinking but i think you get my drift? like even if they lie about the reason and are actually attempting to get a reputation for not doing x, if they give a non trust-telly reason for doing it then there's room for doubt in the players' heads too and it loses the unfair advantage as it's open to being questioned.

thing is sometimes i'm feeling like i'm saying the same points as the new ban rule but sometimes it feels like i'm not and that's a testament to how, compared to the other rules, it's pretty vague and confusingly written.

i want to state that everything else seems good to me and i'm happy to see further detail and clarification on certain things. i know trust telling is probably the hardest thing to write rules about which probably doesn't help but yeah i struggle to see where the line is in the rules that are written

[implosion]

What is the purpose for the new rule on trust tells? Was there an influx of reports?

More or less, yeah. I'd say the impetus for this is essentially that there have been multiple cases recently that, in our opinion, pass the "smell test" for being trust tells (in particular, we think they are harmful to game integrity) but that the previous rules on trust tells didn't adequately address. So elucidating the existing rules is an attempt to better clarify how they're problematic so that people can avoid them and so that we have something to point to when calling something that we believe hurts the game, a trust tell. As Davsto correctly pointed out this is very tricky to get right because there's a lot of subtlety and potential for disagreement in regards to what a trust tell is. As a result, if something is not extremely obvious or if we think the person in question doesn't think they're committing a trust tell, we're unlikely to jump straight to a ban, since a warning should be enough to help course-correct.

Trying to distill the points that are being made here, I think the core issue is essentially at what point a trust tell becomes a problem. The new rule attempts to address this here:

There are a variety of factors that each push something toward being an unfair trust tell: history of having followed the tell, specifically stating that the tell will never be broken in the future rather than merely stating that it's been followed up until now, an explicit advantage (such as being more plausibly town) being gained by people believing the tell, the tell being about very specific behavior, and so on. However, none of these individually are necessary for something to be a trust tell.

You could add "the tell being detrimental as one alignment" and "the reason for committing the tell specifically being to try to gain a meta advantage" to that list. Yes, it's very wishy-washy about where the line is: this is because the concept of trust tells can't really be nailed down very well. In practice, the way that we're going to enforce this is to look at something and ask ourselves, "is this harming the integrity of the game, or is it likely to do so if it continues". The contradictions in the post about what is or is not a trust tell are because the examples are things that

could

be trust tells if they're in a context where they have a lot of these features.

To look at some of the examples that people listed:

A perfect example of this is the recently completed subreddit uPick.

In that game, I pointed out that in three years, I'd never been active as scum before.
If I was town, then by the revised rules that'd be considered a trust tell.
Because it was pointing out a truthful thing about my play that has a long long history of having been true.

As town, in the last three years, I've been rather passionate and incredibly invested in my towngames;
As scum, in the last three years, I've had fuckall of anything done--but not because of any deliberate effort.
It's just that I was struggling in those scumgames and not struggling in those towngames. But it was still a very very very strong trend, lasting over the course of MULTIPLE years.

Like, I personally believe that hard bussing is bad for Mafia. Therefore, except under extreme circumstances, I'm not gonna do it. And I don't see it as a threat to the game's integrity to say as much.

I understand that establishing a track record of not bussing then gives me more credibility on a scum wagon than someone without such a record, but that's just a natural consequence of playing a game many times with the same people, and that advantage will remain regardless of whether I'm allowed to say it or not. It's not something that can just be legislated away, unfortunate though that may be, and attempts to do so just restrict legitimate arguments from being made.

The examples described here are solidly okay to do, and to talk about in the context of self-meta. For the former, there's no implication that the behavior is going to continue forever (or even for any length of time) because it's basically being framed as an incidental observation about one's own play. For the latter, the "except under extreme circumstances" implies it may be broken, and (as far as I'm aware, though I could be wrong) you haven't argued that you

can't

be scum because you'd have to have been bussing across multiple games. Framing can matter.

To address mastina's never-fakeclaiming-as-scum tell specifically, and why we believe it is an example that's over the line: it is a tell with a long history across a huge number of games, that it is claimed will, at least in some sense, never be broken. It is very centralizing because it is brought up so frequently. It is typically framed (or we've seen it framed) as intentionally avoiding certain options, rather than an incidental observation about how you play the game. It is typically framed as "I will never do this". Ultimately, we've looked at examples of it happening and we believe that on net, over time, it is harmful to game integrity. Avoiding these aspects of it (i.e. not framing it in this way, essentially treating it as an incidental aspect of the way you play the game that has no guarantee of categorically being true) would significantly lower the negative impact on game integrity that we believe it has.

[implosion]

Do not use cryptography, invisible text, or otherwise take any action that attempts to create a private communication channel in plain sight to communicate with some but not all players in a mafia game.

What is the intent behind this rule change? What kinds of posts are now not okay? Is vaguely referring to things now not ok?

Example: "Hey, remember how we got that person eliminated in game x? I think we're seeing the same thing here"

Would that post be allowed? Is it near the line?

Nah I think this is literally just finding ways to communicate in the game thread that can’t be fully parsed as English things being said unless you have specific information that’s private.

For example, sending messages with a cipher that only one player knows the key for, or telling someone like “we should push a vote against the player whose name ends with the 15th letter in the PM that I sent you nine days ago”. Your example is obtainable by someone else that looks at that other game, so it should be fine.

And for what it’s worth, that was on the list of things that the majority of mods had on their individual rulesets already (in fact, I know that I have it on mine and have force replaced a player for it).

Generally yes, this. What Dunnstral posted is fine, these examples violate the rule because they're trying to convey something to another player in a way that no one else could possibly figure out what is being said.

now on the size limit for large games, i would prefer if the option to run games at high player counts was still available, but perhaps qualifying under Special Games? as far as where that limit goes, would 25-28 be an acceptable limit?

I think we'll wait for the thread specific to that change to discuss this, just to limit the scope of this thread a bit.

Exploiting or attempting to gain an in-game advantage by exploiting forum software.

Similar to exploiting game/site rules, forum software is not meant to be used as an in-game tactic. Using any aspect of the forum software to attempt to prove or confirm yourself or your statements can also hold more weight than regular gameplay arguments and harm game integrity. This includes tactics such as: setting your online status to show your most recent login and not logging in for the entirety of the night phase to "prove" that you did not submit any night actions; registering with a username with non-alphanumeric characters and using this to "prove" that you could not be mafia because you would not be able to be added to a mafia PT; etc. You are allowed to make statements about when you or other players were or were not online, as long as you do not attempt to use the forum software to prove it.

To clarify, is using the Online status of other players as proof that you aren't scum with them, unacceptable?
(In my opinion, it should be.)

Not certain what's being asked here - how would online status be used as proof of this?

Thank you to the Listmod team for their work on these updates. They look great besides one small thing:

Can my name be replaced in the outdated ongoing game discussion examples?

Done.

[fferyllt]

Generally yes, this. What Dunnstral posted is fine, these examples violate the rule because they're trying to convey something to another player in a way that no one else could possibly figure out what is being said.

I sometimes refer to incidents, night actions or roles from previous games that I share with some of the players in the game I'm playing now as a way to convey something about my role or about my thoughts on a player in the game, etc. The references are obscure-ish, but are in public threads. And often enough players I might not have thought would get the references do get them.

Would references like this be considered ciphers, codes, etc. under the new rules?

[RH9]

Exploiting or attempting to gain an in-game advantage by exploiting forum software.

Similar to exploiting game/site rules, forum software is not meant to be used as an in-game tactic. Using any aspect of the forum software to attempt to prove or confirm yourself or your statements can also hold more weight than regular gameplay arguments and harm game integrity. This includes tactics such as: setting your online status to show your most recent login and not logging in for the entirety of the night phase to "prove" that you did not submit any night actions; registering with a username with non-alphanumeric characters and using this to "prove" that you could not be mafia because you would not be able to be added to a mafia PT; etc. You are allowed to make statements about when you or other players were or were not online, as long as you do not attempt to use the forum software to prove it.

To clarify, is using the Online status of other players as proof that you aren't scum with them, unacceptable?
(In my opinion, it should be.)

Not certain what's being asked here - how would online status be used as proof of this?

Like saying that you could have quickhammered when this other player was online. And because a quickhammer did not occur, you two aren't scum together.

(This is purely hypothetical.)

[TemporalLich]

can we get a ruling on whether V/LA declarations are outside of the game or not? (probably better for site health if it is outside of the game)

edit: this post used to say OGI, but V/LA declarations themselves don't provide an undue influence, speculating on them does

[Korina]

Why would they be

[Ircher]

Why would they be

+1

[TemporalLich]

Why would they be

V/LA is outside the confines of Mafia game mechanics, and most V/LAs have reasons that are outside of the game.

Speculating on V/LAs should be considered OGI.

[Korina]

Speculating why someone’s V/LA doesn’t equal declaring a V/LA

[TemporalLich]

yeah I edited the post because I misspoke

[Korina]

Speculating why someone went V/LA is just kinda a dick move and angleshooty, which is already against the rules, (or in most mod rulesets?)

[Ythan]

I don't think it's about referencing things outside the game as data. I think it's about using things outside the game as leverage.

[TemporalLich]

I don't think it's about referencing things outside the game as data. I think it's about using things outside the game as leverage.

yeah, saying someone repped out or went V/LA is the former and not undue influence, speculating on replacements or V/LA is angleshooting (but should be explicitly against the rules) and a use of OGI.

note to self: OGI means Outside of Game

Influence

, don't forget the third letter.

[TemporalLich]

also note: the new rules state that replacements in and of itself are OGI

Replacements are an unavoidable out-of-game influence.

To minimize the impact of replacements on game integrity, do not tell other players to replace out. Do not publicly consider or publicly announce a choice to replace out. PM your game moderator if you are considering replacing out or have concerns and believe another player should be replaced. Once you have requested to replace out, you are no longer a player in that game. More information on this rule can be found here.

[Greeting]

Speculating why someone went V/LA is just kinda a dick move and angleshooty, which is already against the rules, (or in most mod rulesets?)

I don't think there's anything wrong in speculating on someone's reasons for V/LA, considering no reason needs to be stated in game threads by the person going V/LA.

[Gamma Emerald]

Is replacing back into a slot still permitted if the ruleset says so?

[lilith2013]

Generally yes, this. What Dunnstral posted is fine, these examples violate the rule because they're trying to convey something to another player in a way that no one else could possibly figure out what is being said.

I sometimes refer to incidents, night actions or roles from previous games that I share with some of the players in the game I'm playing now as a way to convey something about my role or about my thoughts on a player in the game, etc. The references are obscure-ish, but are in public threads. And often enough players I might not have thought would get the references do get them.

Would references like this be considered ciphers, codes, etc. under the new rules?

As long as the references could be understood and found by anyone in the game, it's okay. For example, this would be fine because it's clear what you're referencing and could be found by someone even if they didn't know the specific event previously:

Do you remember how I felt about Lilith in FGO when I was scumreading her for claiming JK in an already townsided setup?

Even if someone hasn't read the game, I think it's a reasonable amount of effort to look up a specifically named game, a specific player, and a specific event that they could go do that if they wanted. So this doesn't seem like it's attempting to communicate something privately to some players.

But something like this would be against the rules:

Let's do the same strategy from my least favorite Open setup that I played right before I graduated college

because only people who know what my least favorite Open setup is and when I graduated would know where to look - that wouldn't really be reasonable for someone to do offhand, so I would consider this an attempt to communicate privately to some players.

or.. say I'm going to crumb my role to you by using timestamp references to the songs in my spotify playlist that I sent you last week and the lyrics at each timestamp correspond to posts from different games, but only you understand that that's what I'm doing because you're the only one in the game who knows about my spotify playlist. That's definitely an attempt to communicate privately to certain players.

sorry if these examples are lackluster, it's very difficult to come up with imaginative examples! I think generally, as long as you are not deliberately attempting to only communicate with specific players via a public post, you would be fine. if you want to talk through any specific examples or feel like you still have questions on this rule, let me know.

[lilith2013]

Exploiting or attempting to gain an in-game advantage by exploiting forum software.

Similar to exploiting game/site rules, forum software is not meant to be used as an in-game tactic. Using any aspect of the forum software to attempt to prove or confirm yourself or your statements can also hold more weight than regular gameplay arguments and harm game integrity. This includes tactics such as: setting your online status to show your most recent login and not logging in for the entirety of the night phase to "prove" that you did not submit any night actions; registering with a username with non-alphanumeric characters and using this to "prove" that you could not be mafia because you would not be able to be added to a mafia PT; etc. You are allowed to make statements about when you or other players were or were not online, as long as you do not attempt to use the forum software to prove it.

To clarify, is using the Online status of other players as proof that you aren't scum with them, unacceptable?
(In my opinion, it should be.)

Not certain what's being asked here - how would online status be used as proof of this?

Like saying that you could have quickhammered when this other player was online. And because a quickhammer did not occur, you two aren't scum together.

(This is purely hypothetical.)

I'd consider "proving it" to be something like sending screenshots of the list of people who are online, but I can see why you're thinking this. I also want to point out that the online list doesn't actually constitute proof of alignment because users can hide their online status and wouldn't show up on the list, but attempting to prove it would still be against the rules. Ultimately we'd probably decide on a case by case basis whether we believe game integrity was impacted, which is our primary metric for taking action on OGI.

---

also note: the new rules state that replacements in and of itself are OGI

Replacements are an unavoidable out-of-game influence.

To minimize the impact of replacements on game integrity, do not tell other players to replace out. Do not publicly consider or publicly announce a choice to replace out. PM your game moderator if you are considering replacing out or have concerns and believe another player should be replaced. Once you have requested to replace out, you are no longer a player in that game. More information on this rule can be found here.

This isn't new, just rephrased differently:

Replacements, while sometimes necessary, also serve as an outside influence. As such, do not tell other players to replace out. Do not publicly threaten to replace out of a game. If you do need to replace out, do not publicly discuss your reasons or anything else, as you are no longer a player in the game. PM your game moderator if you are considering replacing out or have concerns and believe another player should be replaced out.

---

Is replacing back into a slot still permitted if the ruleset says so?

Yes, except the approach has changed slightly. Instead of this particular rule being specifically noted as supsersedeable by game mods, now all (or at least, most) of the player rules can be superseded by game mods if they have listmod approval. The replacement rule would fall under that umbrella.

[RH9]

Exploiting or attempting to gain an in-game advantage by exploiting forum software.

Similar to exploiting game/site rules, forum software is not meant to be used as an in-game tactic. Using any aspect of the forum software to attempt to prove or confirm yourself or your statements can also hold more weight than regular gameplay arguments and harm game integrity. This includes tactics such as: setting your online status to show your most recent login and not logging in for the entirety of the night phase to "prove" that you did not submit any night actions; registering with a username with non-alphanumeric characters and using this to "prove" that you could not be mafia because you would not be able to be added to a mafia PT; etc. You are allowed to make statements about when you or other players were or were not online, as long as you do not attempt to use the forum software to prove it.

To clarify, is using the Online status of other players as proof that you aren't scum with them, unacceptable?
(In my opinion, it should be.)

Not certain what's being asked here - how would online status be used as proof of this?

Like saying that you could have quickhammered when this other player was online. And because a quickhammer did not occur, you two aren't scum together.

(This is purely hypothetical.)

I'd consider "proving it" to be something like sending screenshots of the list of people who are online, but I can see why you're thinking this. I also want to point out that the online list doesn't actually constitute proof of alignment because users can hide their online status and wouldn't show up on the list, but attempting to prove it would still be against the rules. Ultimately we'd probably decide on a case by case basis whether we believe game integrity was impacted, which is our primary metric for taking action on OGI.

Thanks for the clarification, Lilith!

[ɀefiend]

Ego, also a tangential question about all these rules:

Is there any new/obscure rules that aren't obvious that I should watch out for as a long-returning player that would randomly get me banned or something? I'd like to think I've never acted to "violate game integrity" but what's the normal penalty for violating these gray-area rules "accidentally?"

What about "policies" that don't strictly relate to being aligned any type of way? For example, if I say "Lim all liars, no matter what." in 10 games as Town and then play another 10 games as Town where I don't ever need to say that line. I also play 10 games as Scum where I don't say that line. In my next game I say, "Lim all liars, no matter what." and then later in ELO I say,

"look at every game I say 'Lim all liars' in". OR
"I have never said 'Lim all liars' as scum" OR
"By pure chance and observation it would appear that a policy I adhere to has taken place only in games where I am Town, including this game"

Etc. Etc.

None of these statements preclude the possibility that I

could

or

would

ever say "Lim all liars" as Scum.

[Datisi]

Game moderators may not use individual users of the site as flavor in the game without obtaining list moderator approval and review of the text.

i'm a bit confused on what the point of this rule is, since i can't recall any issues related to it in recent times. i'd understand if there was approval needed from the person whose name was being used as flavour. why listmod approval + review?

does this mean that any games that use player names in the "story" of the game can't do that anymore, since that text can't really be written pregame? or will we have to have a listmod on standby to review the text before flips etc. are posted?