Mafia Rule Updates Discussion Thread

[Zachrulez]

Imo, trust tells typically are something that are, explicitly, designed to gain an advantage

as town

, while

at the detriment

to your scumgame.

This is an important definition to not lose sight of IMO.

[Zachrulez]

I'm just thinking I do remember that I've been asked if I've ever fakeclaimed or fakeclaimed a guilty at some point in a distant past game and based on the arguments implosion is making if I got asked that in a 'modern' game if I happened to be playing one I'm not sure how I'd even go about beginning to deal with that.

It's kind of amusing that I'm arguing about this because self metaing on claims is the one thing I generally preferred to NOT do in a game. It was all the other players that wanted an overexplanation of my claim to 'validate' it.

[Zachrulez]

As a perhaps separate and discursive concern, Mafia is fundamentally not a game suited for competitive play, with a clearly dominant strategy, and there are inherent limitations to try and adapt it as one without a weighted point system. It is natural that there are limits to punishing poor play, as RC & Implosion have already addressed. I often get frustrated that certain players do not care to fix very simple issues in their scumplay, or arguably worse, sandbag as town to shore up mediocre scumplay, but recognize the limitations of enforcement in light of the above. Simultaneously, it makes it very frustrating to see that my approach-one alignment pushing the standard for the other to new heights in circular fashion, never once sacrificing so that a future game is easier-seems to be discouraged in this manner of restricting meta, while those approaches are instead borderline encouraged.

I think half of the problem is that people really like to be competitive in mafia and go as far as to define themselves and the quality of their play by their win/loss record. So whenever something 'unfair' happens it's the worst thing ever and needs to be immediately fixed.

[Zachrulez]

If everyone who has a read based on an ongoing game starts saying that their reads are based on “gut” or “feelings” or other vague reasons, then it becomes generally understood that saying any of these means that it’s based on an ongoing game, and once that happens, then there’s the potential for any of these reasons to compromise games. The same goes for everyone using votes without any explanation. If I put down a vote with no explanation, and everyone thinks that means it’s referring to an ongoing game, then all of a sudden people can compare play between ongoing games. I have effectively told everyone that they should look for similarities or differences in an ongoing game with the person, and if I’m also in those games, to compare how I’m treating that person in each game. That can compromise both my slot and theirs in the ongoing game. That’s why I think we need to be extremely cautious about using “gut,” votes without explanations, or other vague reasons to refer to an ongoing game and the best option is we don’t do it at all.

I think what's problematic isn't necissarily that someone's reads might be OGI centric and the player might be excusing their reads as gut or feelings... but rather that a player that has a legitimate game based gut or feeling read will end up having their read pegged by a list mod as an OGI based read and I think if you start doing that you're headed into a very bad place. (And no it's not acceptable to

assume

that a gut read is OGI.)

I do think that the rules on talking about ongoing games are good because it means less dependance on things outside of the game which you're currently playing. However, I think that it isn't entirely right to assume that somebody having a vague reason is referring to ongoing games because some people do genuinely play like that. On the other hand, I honestly think that vague reasons shouldn't be the primary option for SRs when there are good reasons to SR somebody other than them.

There is this school of thought that I vehemetely disagree with where scum reads necissarily need to be explained to the town or the player you are scum reading. It can be immensely more valuble to analyze their reactions to a read where they have to try to figure out the reason. Some players are way more comfortable getting into and looking better in logical arguments and the ability to win a logical argument isn't necissarily alignment indicitive. (These kind of players can also potentially be the type of players as scum who hate being caught for the 'wrong reasons.')

[Zachrulez]

why people play mafia to only win as 1 alignment is beyond me, I am proud of the fact I can hold my own as *both* alignments and not because I play poorly as 1, the game is so much more interesting from your pov if you play to win always

Some players just tend to find one alignment more natural to their playstyle. I don't even think some players are necessarily not trying as both alignments... just that they're generally just far better at one than the other.

[Zachrulez]

Spoiler:

Based on feedback we've received, we are making the following changes:

1. Language around having information that not all players have access to has been updated for clarity (added text is in
   green
   ):

   5. Players have a duty to report to game moderators and/or list moderators when they have acquired information that other players could not reasonably have acquired

   and that was not required to be provided to them by the setup

   , even if this information came from a game moderator or other player's mistake.

   4.

   Having information that not all players have access to

   and is not required to be provided to you by the setup

   .

   
   
   If you have information related to the game you're playing that is not publicly available

   and was not required to be provided to you by the setup

   , you must tell the moderator and request replacement.

   
   
2. The following exception in the discussion of ongoing games rule has been
   removed
   :

   Discussions about Activity

   
   Players may discuss activity in other games in a general sense, including counting how many games a player is alive in. However, this may not mention ANYTHING of substance.
   
   

   OKAY:

   "Zoraster is alive in 4 games and is posting in those games, but he hasn't posted here in 3 days."
   

   NOT OKAY:

   "Zoraster is alive in 4 games where he's posting lengthy posts. <The violation here is mentioning that the posts are LONG. This is a substantive statement.>
   

   OKAY:

   "I'm alive in 3 games, and I'm having trouble keeping up with all of them."
   

   NOT OKAY:

   "I'm in the final day in a game, so that's taking a lot of my time." <The violation here is mentioning that you're in final day. This is a substantive statement.>

   The updated guideline, "Players are not allowed to reference ongoing games as a reason for a read," continues to be the principal guideline for this rule.

These changes have been reflected in the appropriate rules/threads and noted in the moderation update post, but we wanted to disclose these changes in this thread as well (also noted in the OP).

Are you allowed or to reference ellitelling as a reason for a read, so long as you do not specifically reference any other games, such as “X is posting/not posting elsewhere onsite (if not explicitly other games)?

I've definitely called out and scumread players for specifically avoiding the game while posting content in others. It was definitely ok when I was playing but I'm not sure what the rule on it is now.

[Zachrulez]

I think it depends on the reasoning you're using to explain the claim. Saying or implying "Lilith is avoiding the thread because she's posting elsewhere," when "elsewhere" is only in ongoing games, would be considered discussing ongoing games. It would be okay if you only talked about whether they are posting in your game, like "Lilith is avoiding the thread because she hasn't posted in this game in 2 days" would be fine.

So players should be allowed to get away with selective lurking as long as they do it exactly in the right way? Because that's basically what this interpretation of the rules allows.

I'm not just arguing this to be pedantic. I've played in games where players have not posted well beyond the period of time that they should be replaced because the mod knows they're actually still playing the game but just not interacting with it. If you have no tools to point out that a scum player is deliberately doing this because they are tactically not posting outside of games on the site they can basically get away with murder because by the letter of your rules no one can point that out.

[Zachrulez]

So players should be allowed to get away with selective lurking as long as they do it exactly in the right way?

That's on players imo.

Lurking persay is not scummy unless it's deliberate and tactical and there's no way to prove that otherwise. (I definitely feel strongly that being able to use a player's general activity to make that case has and should always be fair game.)

[Zachrulez]

Also, if a mod is doing this (not replacing a player because they know the player is "still playing but not interacting"), that is very bad modding practice. If a mod does not search for a replacement for a slot in a timely manner after they fail to respond to a prod, or not prodding in a timely manner, and especially if you think that they're doing it because they know that player is lurking scum, that's an issue that you should let us know about because they may be leaking alignment info. And even if they aren't, it's still bad practice.

I mean the last time I played a game was in 2015 so this would have happened too long ago for you to do anything about it but I'm just attesting to the fact that I've actually experienced it before.

[Zachrulez]

in a situation where you are potentially modkilling a slot, you are going to have your game thread locked anyways so eh

As a mod I just prefer to have the power to be able to make that decision myself. I don't think I've ever actually needed to do a modkill on MS like... ever though. It actually does generally bother me a bit that the site in general no longer trusts a mod to actually make a good judgement call.

I'm actually wondering what happened because I assume there was actually a triggering event to that rule change?

[Zachrulez]

To be fair I would want the onus and responsibility for the decision to do a modkill. It's also something I would not come to lightly... but I just really dislike ceding the authority to make that decision to someone else.

I assume the theme game arena is the only place mods can explicetely give themselves that power without listmod approval? (Because I assume there are theme related allowances for it?)

[Zachrulez]

Maybe that was the exception. Game mechanic kills that weren't alignment changing.