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[doll]

Almost all players have it in their interest for their role not to be known by the opposing team.
All players have it in their interest for the opposing team to be lacking information.

Almost all players will immediately conclude that anyone lying about their role is scum. If this assumption doesn't hold the town is at a huge disadvantage.

You've given literally no justification for this and I'd love to leave my response at that since I don't know what your reasoning is to allow me to try to respond to it but I'll try to elaborate on my position re: fakeclaims.

Fakeclaims are one of the best ways to fish out information and confuse players who lack the information you do have.
A player who fakeclaims and retracts the claim has done nothing more than muddy the water and provoke discussion. This may or may not be good for the town depending on the current state of the game.

An extremely common example is a cop who lies about his initial report. At the time the cop is doing this he has not 'solved the game'; he is lacking information. Since mafia will know that he is actually the cop if the game has reached the point where it is usual for the cop to claim, his report is the only information advantage he has over the scumteam.
Similarly, since the cop knows from the outset that any player who claims cop is, in fact, not the cop, he has no particular reason to suspect a player who claims cop and later retracts.

Claiming cop and then retracting does nothing more than provoke discussion. Claiming cop and not retracting does nothing more than provoke discussion and reduce the clarity of information available to players in the game. In certain sections of the game, town is likely to have no information at all whereas mafia does, infact, have information. In these sections it is trivial to say that reducing the quality of all information in the game is strictly pro-town.

Just in case you missed my previous post since, again, I've got no idea what part of it you disagreed with:

It should be noted here that all bullshit information should be dropped at the first moment that real information comes to light, and that town should be prepared to accept the dropping of such information.

[Leafsnail]

Allowing falseclaiming like that does two things.
1. It draws out counterclaims. Let's say I (as vanilla town) claim I'm the cop, and that I found player A guilty. That may prompt the real cop to come out and say that they found player A innocent, so I must be lying. Even if I then retract my claim and the town accepts that, all I have achieved is outing the actual cop to the mafia.

Or if you're suggesting players shouldn't counterclaim when someone presents information they know is false that just gives more of an opening to lying mafia players.

2. It gives the mafia players way more room to work with when coming up with their fakeclaims. You can come up with one fakeclaim then change it if someone contradicts it.

Let's take the old beginner setup which had a 50% chance to have a cop in it. Generally claiming cop as mafia was risky because there's a 50% chance there's an actual cop in the game who can call you out on your bullshit and force a 1v1 fight for the lynch.  If town is prepared to accept retractions then I can just claim cop as mafia with no risk. Even if the real one comes out and challenges me I can just say "lol JK" and back off, having identified a key power role to kill.

Or in a more complex setup like the old Paranormal games, a big part of being scum is trying to create a fakeclaim that has the least chance of being contradicted by what other people did as possible. Let's say for example I'm mafia and I claim I'm a rolecop and I claim I visited Player A on night one. Unbeknownst to me Player B followed me that night, and saw I actually went to Player C's house. If the town doesn't accept retractions Player B knows I'm mafia, and the only way I can get out of being lynched is if I can convince the town that Player B is scum and making up their result.

If the town accepts retractions, I can just revise my claim to say I went to Player C's house. I am now in no trouble at all.

So what lying actually does is out the real power roles and allows scum to survive contradictions that would otherwise sink them. I don't accept the benefit you're claiming either - if nobody claims what their role is the mafia has no information about them anyway.

Claiming your actual role but fake results could be acceptable in some situations but I don't generally like it because it makes you look way more scummy if you have to modify your results when a mafia member counterclaims your role.

[doll]

I've written a response but even a cursory reading of your post would suggest it's unnecessary, since you seem to be arguing against "retracting a claim should instantly clear you of all suspicion and prevent town from ever questioning your motives, strategy or behavior", which, I urge you to understand, is not my claim.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Allowing falseclaiming like that does two things.
1. It draws out counterclaims. Let's say I (as vanilla town) claim I'm the cop, and that I found player A guilty. That may prompt the real cop to come out and say that they found player A innocent, so I must be lying. Even if I then retract my claim and the town accepts that, all I have achieved is outing the actual cop to the mafia.

The real cop has no particular reason to counterclaim in this example, just as town have no particular reason to believe your claim.
All the cop is achieving by counterclaiming is A) exposing the fact that you are presenting a different narrative to what he would have town believe and B) drawing attention to the actual cop at a time when apparently the actual cop doesn't want to out. Continued below.

Or if you're suggesting players shouldn't counterclaim when someone presents information they know is false that just gives more of an opening to lying mafia players.

That's a bold statement to give without a lick of justification.
Players shouldn't counterclaim when counterclaiming does nothing to help them (i.e. town), just as players shouldn't do anything else which doesn't help them. As far as I can tell, in your cop example you are trying to present a situation where being hard-cleared and outed as cop would be bad for the cop and yet you are acting as if there is any reason to believe or counterclaim against cop claims at this time. In such a situation, a far more likely outcome to a falseclaim is that the town remains incredulous that cop would out themselves in such an obviously disadvantageous situation. In the common situation where whether or not cop should out depends on reports, the lack of a counterclaim is easily and usually interpreted as a 'counterclaim' by a cop who is in a situation where it is suboptimal to out.

2. It gives the mafia players way more room to work with when coming up with their fakeclaims. You can come up with one fakeclaim then change it if someone contradicts it.

Yes, and? An arbitrary restriction is going to reduce the sophistication of play all round.
It's not as if town lack the ability to review your behavior and question your motives. If you behave in a way which is ultimately anti-town, you will be regarded as anti-town by an active town.

Let's take the old beginner setup which had a 50% chance to have a cop in it. Generally claiming cop as mafia was risky because there's a 50% chance there's an actual cop in the game who can call you out on your bullshit and force a 1v1 fight for the lynch.  If town is prepared to accept retractions then I can just claim cop as mafia with no risk. Even if the real one comes out and challenges me I can just say "lol JK" and back off, having identified a key power role to kill.

So in your mind there is literally nothing suspicious about rolefishing out cop besides the fact that fakeclaims are a naughty, lynchable offense?

Or in a more complex setup like the old Paranormal games, a big part of being scum is trying to create a fakeclaim that has the least chance of being contradicted by what other people did as possible. Let's say for example I'm mafia and I claim I'm a rolecop and I claim I visited Player A on night one. Unbeknownst to me Player B followed me that night, and saw I actually went to Player C's house. If the town doesn't accept retractions Player B knows I'm mafia, and the only way I can get out of being lynched is if I can convince the town that Player B is scum and making up their result.

If the town accepts retractions, I can just revise my claim to say I went to Player C's house. I am now in no trouble at all.

A huge amount of power role generated information generally qualifies as "real information" in my book. Why would you be seen as town for trying to reduce the quality of information in the game at a time when there is actual information available to the town?

So what lying actually does is out the real power roles and allows scum to survive contradictions that would otherwise sink them.

Incorrect.
Rolefishing outs real power roles. Fakeclaiming is an efficient form of rolefishing, especially in a meta where very few players fakeclaim.
Contradicting yourself when you are trying to present a legitimate and coherent argument is hardly pro-town behavior. If you aren't trying to present a coherent argument (say, it's RVS, or some other time when there is relatively little information to work on), there is nothing wrong with contradicting yourself.

I don't accept the benefit you're claiming either - if nobody claims what their role is the mafia has no information about them anyway.

Precisely.
Infact, the best way to avoid having mafia develop any leads on PRs is to never post. This is optimal behavior in some contexts, but understandably arises rarely on B12.
I think I've covered in the early posts why inactivity is anti-town, but basically your main goal as pretty well any player in a conventional game is to generate as many leads as possible, including by allowing yourself to be read. Fakeclaiming is activity, which is objectively superior to inactivity at such a time where fakeclaiming does not carry an opportunity cost (e.g. confusing town).

Claiming your actual role but fake results could be acceptable in some situations but I don't generally like it because it makes you look way more scummy if you have to modify your results when a mafia member counterclaims your role.

It is the duty of every player to appear to be town. The goal of the mafia is, in brief, to have a member of the mafia be one of the two 'most town' players, or two of the top four, or three of the top six, etc. The goals of the town is to prevent that, by having enough town players appear more towny than the scum players that the scum are lynched rather than the town.
With that in mind, a falsified report, the purpose of which is to generate targeted activity (specifically, to generate reactions to the report claimed), is generally going to be chosen is such a way that the scum team (who know whether or not the report is accurate, whereas no other players except those mentioned therein do) will slip in some way as to whether or not the report is accurate.

[Persus13]

What advantage is there to fakeclaiming as town, when there are much less risky ways to stir up discussion? The worst consequences of a fakeclaim could be outing the real power role and the lynch of the fakeclaiming town player, or death by mafiakill, or cause confusion that masks the mafia's true goals.

Secondly, the whole point of Mafia is that there are people who are liers. They lie about who they are. And one way to catch mafia is by calling them out on lies, especially in power heavy games like Supernatural. This means that there's a stigma about lying that's pretty deeply ingrained. Which means that town lies causes more undue suspicion and confusion and its not worth it.

I've have seen a town player lie about their role once without getting lynched over it. They had a good reason to do so, and told the truth as soon as possible, and it still caused problems. And that has happened only once.

[doll]

What advantage is there to fakeclaiming as town, when there are much less risky ways to stir up discussion? The worst consequences of a fakeclaim could be outing the real power role and the lynch of the fakeclaiming town player

Only if the real power role claims for no reason and town acts in an unreasonable manner.
In other words, the same risk that any activity (or inactivity) has.

, or death by mafiakill, or cause confusion that masks the mafia's true goals.

Death by mafiakill is objectively a good outcome for an unclear vanillla townie. You are literally covering for the actual power role, which is one of the biggest uses of fakeclaims; making mafia lose their reads on the power role. Since retracting as soon as the power role claims clears them to the extent that they remain uncc'd and clears in town's minds who the PR is, the only time you can't clear up the situation is at night i.e. when mafia are making their decision.
Causing confusion is the actual purpose of the fakeclaim in most cases. The mafia rarely have 'true goals'; besides the hugely ineffective nature of co-ordinated strategies in the long run in most cases, for mafia to have 'goals' they need to have specific objectives, which besides trying to appear to be town consist only of rolefishing for PR's.
Note that 'having mafia lose their leads on power roles' is a good way to generate slips, because scum need to keep track not only of what information they have, but also what information they shouldn't have, and making the situation more complex is always advantageous there.

Secondly, the whole point of Mafia is that there are people who are liers. They lie about who they are.

This is wrong.

And one way to catch mafia is by calling them out on lies, especially in power heavy games like Supernatural. This means that there's a stigma about lying that's pretty deeply ingrained. Which means that town lies causes more undue suspicion and confusion and its not worth it.

Lying is anti-information. Anti-information activity is anti-town where town has information to work on. However, it is irrational and wrong to think that a lying player is suspicious if his lying has worked towards town objectives. This is why fakeclaims and lies about reports usually occur before the real power role has claimed (and often before they would) rather than during the period where the actual town (rather than the mafia) has particular interest in knowing who the power roles are.

I've have seen a town player lie about their role once without getting lynched over it. They had a good reason to do so, and told the truth as soon as possible, and it still caused problems. And that has happened only once.

Yes, and?

[webadict]

Doll's got a good grasp on the underlying concepts here. I can't see any real mistakes in their reasoning. I agree with most of it.

That said... it is purely theoretical, and would work best on the assumption that this information is known by all participants. But, that doesn't happen often.

[Leafsnail]

1. Townies always tell the truth unless there's no chance of them being caught lying
2. Therefore, anyone caught lying is scum

This reasoning is a very powerful tool. Many games have been won on the back of it - quite simply, as a mafia member it's much harder to make a fakeclaim when any contradiction in it will be fatal. So the question becomes: how do you make it so that assumption 1 holds, allowing for the devastatingly powerful conclusion 2 to work for you?

Answer: Don't lie as town. Don't let people get away with lying - make sure anyone else who lies regrets it. If you lie or allow other people to lie the assumption breaks down and you lose that extremely powerful second tool.

Counterclaiming is a good example of the power of the "anyone caught lying is scum" principle. If you see information you know is false, you usually counterclaim because you can get that person lynched. At worst the town lynches you first, sees you were telling the truth then lynches the other guy - still a good deal. Under your model town loses this.

You're arguing that town could still get you by scumhunting even without this principle, and that is true. But that's less good than catching someone in a lie and knowing they're scum for sure.

[doll]

This reasoning is a very powerful tool.

The reasoning is a powerful tool for badscum who have restricted themselves to an arbitrary meta to throw the game. It is useful to them in achieving this objective but not inherently valuable to town.
It is true that if enough scum players in the local meta are ingrained in these sets of bad habits, then they will give the advantage to a town which habitually exploits these failings.
However, the more general case is less forgiving of this sort of over-reliance on an automatic response, as it is very easy to mimic the situation in which you would respond to great general embarrassment.

Many games have been won on the back of it - quite simply, as a mafia member it's much harder to make a fakeclaim when any contradiction in it will be fatal.

Incorrect. Lying and not being caught is very easy indeed.
Since we're in the business of unjustified assertions, I'll offer the following; one of the strongest signs of noob/badscum is that they lie less than they do as town, as they are more concerned about creating a 'towny' image. Of course, experienced players know that town have at least as much reason to try to appear town as scum do, and the way to do that is to hunt for scum.

So the question becomes: how do you make it so that assumption 1 holds, allowing for the devastatingly powerful conclusion 2 to work for you?

I'll note here that your assumptions do not follow, anyhow, because they are based on a third, incorrect assumption; that the nature of language is a collection of fixed and objective truth statements.
Townies are not always as honest as they could be because it is invariably in the favor of town for much of most games that 'anti-town' players do not know their role.
If townies were 'always telling the truth' in an extreme example, that would involve the unavoidable leaking of all information available to them; the information available to them influences their reasoning, and posting in honest form your entire reasoning is generally the most truthful action available for one to take.
Townies therefore are not interested in telling the truth most of the time, because the only people who can (partially) verify it are anti-town.

To labor this point to be as clear as absolutely possible; (generally) every player knows something (their role) which other players (including, importantly, the other team) do not.
What you know influences how you think.
To be honest in explaining your reasoning, you must reveal how you think.
Revealing how you think reveals (in part) what you know.
This is not necessarily in your interest.

Answer: Don't lie as town. Don't let people get away with lying - make sure anyone else who lies regrets it. If you lie or allow other people to lie the assumption breaks down and you lose that extremely powerful second tool.

I'm real glad you added that link, because it reassures me that I'm not missing something and that you did indeed fail to address the main point (players should do what benefits them, rather than follow arbitrary rules) to the point where you linked to someone else using the same example that I have already responded to, without elaborating on why you might disagree with my thoughts around the actions of the players in that instance.

For example, Vanilla Townies who try to roleclaim Doctor in an attempt to draw the Mafia's Night-kill tend to cause the real Doctor to counterclaim them, thus definitely causing the Mafia to target them. In addition to this, scum have been known to deliberately fakeclaim Doctor with the express purpose of drawing a counterclaim for this reason. The lynch of the Vanilla Townie is then justified.

Allowing falseclaiming like that does two things.
1. It draws out counterclaims. Let's say I (as vanilla town) claim I'm the cop, and that I found player A guilty. That may prompt the real cop to come out and say that they found player A innocent, so I must be lying. Even if I then retract my claim and the town accepts that, all I have achieved is outing the actual cop to the mafia.

The real cop has no particular reason to counterclaim in this example, just as town have no particular reason to believe your claim.
All the cop is achieving by counterclaiming is A) exposing the fact that you are presenting a different narrative to what he would have town believe and B) drawing attention to the actual cop at a time when apparently the actual cop doesn't want to out. Continued below.

Or if you're suggesting players shouldn't counterclaim when someone presents information they know is false that just gives more of an opening to lying mafia players.

That's a bold statement to give without a lick of justification.
Players shouldn't counterclaim when counterclaiming does nothing to help them (i.e. town), just as players shouldn't do anything else which doesn't help them. As far as I can tell, in your cop example you are trying to present a situation where being hard-cleared and outed as cop would be bad for the cop and yet you are acting as if there is any reason to believe or counterclaim against cop claims at this time. In such a situation, a far more likely outcome to a falseclaim is that the town remains incredulous that cop would out themselves in such an obviously disadvantageous situation. In the common situation where whether or not cop should out depends on reports, the lack of a counterclaim is easily and usually interpreted as a 'counterclaim' by a cop who is in a situation where it is suboptimal to out.

Counterclaiming is a good example of the power of the "anyone caught lying is scum" principle. If you see information you know is false, you usually counterclaim because you can get that person lynched. At worst the town lynches you first, sees you were telling the truth then lynches the other guy - still a good deal. Under your model town loses this.

Sure, it's a great deal if mafscum decide to throw the game.
However, it is generally not a good deal, on account of mafia in the general case not being evaluated on their likelyhood of throwing the game.
Instead, we have to consider why they would fakeclaim, and indeed that is because it furthers their objectives. This is why like clockwork two cops will claim any time you reach lylo with cop not out, and why disrupting this clockwork is an avenue for town to attack scum (rather than the converse).

You're arguing that town could still get you by scumhunting even without this principle, and that is true. But that's less good than catching someone in a lie and knowing they're scum for sure.

You'll never catch anything but gamethrowing scum in a lie which isn't statistically in their favor.
You'll never catch anything but gamethrowing town in a lie which isn't statistically in their favor.
Generally, you are better off using your reasoning and seeing lies which act in the favor of the scum as scummy and acting accordingly, than you would be if you blindly reacted in kneejerk spasms as soon as an arbitrary rule is broken.

[Mephansteras]

You're arguing that town could still get you by scumhunting even without this principle, and that is true. But that's less good than catching someone in a lie and knowing they're scum for sure.

You'll never catch anything but gamethrowing scum in a lie which isn't statistically in their favor.
You'll never catch anything but gamethrowing town in a lie which isn't statistically in their favor.
Generally, you are better off using your reasoning and seeing lies which act in the favor of the scum as scummy and acting accordingly, than you would be if you blindly reacted in kneejerk spasms as soon as an arbitrary rule is broken.

Based on the games I've run, I'm going to have to disagree with you there. I've seen scum get caught out in lies plenty of time that they thought would help them. I've seen scum lose games they should have won because someone caught them in a lie they never should have told. I've seen town lose games because someone tried some tricky gambit that relied on lying, only to get important power roles killed/lynched because of it. None of these people were attempting to throw the game.

Your argument seems based on a set of master mafia players who all know the risks and probabilities of how their actions could effect the game and how the other players will react. And might be true in those cases, but for your average game it just doesn't hold up. Lynch all Liars is particularly effective when dealing with a game made up of generally experienced mafia players. Because theydo try weird, risky maneuvers.

[doll]

Based on the games I've run, I'm going to have to disagree with you there. I've seen scum get caught out in lies plenty of time that they thought would help them. I've seen scum lose games they should have won because someone caught them in a lie they never should have told. I've seen town lose games because someone tried some tricky gambit that relied on lying, only to get important power roles killed/lynched because of it. None of these people were attempting to throw the game.

Again, reality is a spectrum. These players could easily have considered whether or not telling that lie advanced their objectives, and they did so they went forward because what they wanted was to have fun (often in a restricted amount of time) rather than to win.
Knowledgeable negligence is a form of intentional incompetence, after all.

Your argument seems based on a set of master mafia players who all know the risks and probabilities of how their actions could effect the game and how the other players will react.

The only requirement of my arguments is that players are aware of the probability of various outcomes within a vacuum.
This is due diligence. Not knowing this is throwing the game, because this information is available to you and does help you win.
The ability to predict the reactions of other players would allow any player to win from virtually any situation though, including after being outed as the last scum etc.

And might be true in those cases, but for your average game it just doesn't hold up. Lynch all Liars is particularly effective when dealing with a game made up of generally experienced mafia players. Because theydo try weird, risky maneuvers.

The way I'm reading this you're contradicting your above point.
Isn't LAL less effective among more experienced players because they lie more? Isn't this what you've just said?

[Mephansteras]

For point #1, they didn't throw the game 'to have fun', they tried gambits because they thought those gambits would let them win the game. Huge difference.

For the second point, those guidelines are available and useful for basic mafia set-ups. However, the more rule changes and power roles a set-up has the less those guidelines help. Since bay 12 generally does more...gimmicky and power-role heavy games, those guidelines are less useful.

For the last part, that's my mistake, that was supposed to be "generally mid-level experience players", but it seems that got lost in some edits.



To add some clarity to my point: I do not feel that Lynch All Liars is optimal town play. It is however, a very solid baseline that town can use and is generally quite effective as a baseline. You can do better and there are tactics that involve lying as town that can do better, but in the wrong hands those tactics will generally do worse than LAL.

Much like in a lot of competitive computer games, there are basic strategies that are considered sound at low-mid levels of play. High levels of play can break those strategies, but you have to really know what you're doing if you're going to break them because breaking them wrongly is much worse than sticking to them.

[doll]

Much like in a lot of competitive computer games, there are basic strategies that are considered sound at low-mid levels of play. High levels of play can break those strategies, but you have to really know what you're doing if you're going to break them because breaking them wrongly is much worse than sticking to them.

You are quite correct, or at least I don't disagree with you here.

However, I will say the following: though relying on rules of thumb passed down from on high allows players to function at a higher level than they might otherwise during the application of that rule, it does not help them develop the understanding of the fundamentals which will allow them to advance to that higher level or beyond.
Using hard and fast rules might improve the winrate of a poor player for that game but it does not improve the winrate of that player for future games, whereas legitimate (that is, unlimited) play does.

For point #1, they didn't throw the game 'to have fun', they tried gambits because they thought those gambits would let them win the game. Huge difference.

I'll add a note here: they tried "to have fun" by not doing the due diligence which would have allowed them to reconsider the gambit, regardless of whether or not they could divine the actual specifics of the setup.

You are right that the strong tendency towards closed setups makes everything a little more chaotic on B12. That's not and should not be an inducement to introduce arbitrary rules to one's own play, however.

Like all communities, bay12 has a range of levels of player, and encouraging reactive play based on general rules limits the ability of the metagame to develop. I personally am interested in mafia (like most competitive games) from a personal growth perspective, and the more developed and faster developing the metagame (the better and more open to change the players in the community) the easier it is to improve one's own play.

[Mephansteras]

However, I will say the following: though relying on rules of thumb passed down from on high allows players to function at a higher level than they might otherwise during the application of that rule, it does not help them develop the understanding of the fundamentals which will allow them to advance to that higher level or beyond.
Using hard and fast rules might improve the winrate of a poor player for that game but it does not improve the winrate of that player for future games, whereas legitimate (that is, unlimited) play does.

That I'll agree with.

For point #1, they didn't throw the game 'to have fun', they tried gambits because they thought those gambits would let them win the game. Huge difference.

I'll add a note here: they tried "to have fun" by not doing the due diligence which would have allowed them to reconsider the gambit, regardless of whether or not they could divine the actual specifics of the setup.

I see where you're coming from, but I will note that this is a very...discouraging way of putting it for new players. It's the sort of phrasing that puts people off on playing things. Kind of like the people who complain in SC2 if someone wants to play competitive and hasn't read every single guide and memorized every single unit counter before jumping in that they are 'doing it wrong'.

While doing all that research beforehand is quite useful, being told you have to do it before you can possibly be a good player tends to sit poorly with people. Especially with a 'If you're doing stuff to have fun you are basically throwing the game' statement.

The underlying sentiment is ok, but the delivery is the sort of thing that makes people not bother trying a game. Given our rather low participation lately, I'm a bit worried about that sort of thing.

[doll]

The underlying sentiment is ok, but the delivery is the sort of thing that makes people not bother trying a game. Given our rather low participation lately, I'm a bit worried about that sort of thing.

You're right, it's an attitude coming from places (mafia related or otherwise) with a surfeit of players where discouraging 'bad' players from participating does actually raise the level of play, and it doesn't belong here.
Indeed, in a community of this size it's relatively easy to attempt to interface with every player personally to try and mutually develop the level of play and increase participation.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah. It's nice to be able to say "Here, go look at these things if you want to improve!" It's bad to give people the impression that if they just want to play and have fun that they're not welcome. After all, it is a game.