In an effort not to hijack the Pokémon Mafia game thread with this discussion, I am deciding to give this topic it's own thread here. I think it might be a good idea for us to come up with a mafia "best practices" list of sorts that we expect all players to abide by in our mafia games.

 

There is nothing more frustrating to active players or mods than watching players sign up for games only to largely go MIA for the duration of the game.

This point was raised again in the Pokémon game thread and it is one that we have sort of been discussing off and on over the last year:

 

 

Just to be clear this isn't targeting anybody in particular or even this game in particular, it's a general statement for playing mafia as a whole. I honestly don't get how lurking, doing absolutely nothing but the bare minimum and baselessly pointing fingers when you actually do post, makes people 'more likely town'. If you refuse to play this game properly and only post minimally with absolute zero effort, then I don't see how you qualify more as town than as scum. I think it was pretty clear why TW in particular made this minimal post rule: so people actually play this game. If you honestly only think to do the bare minimum every single in game day, than why even bother playing at all. It's lazy, it's selfish and it's ultimately detrimental to town more than to scum. I agree with the sentiment that if we don't want this to be the standard every single game, we need to either vote off Rafay every D1 or mods need to stop letting him play in their games. What's stopping all of us just do to the same? Post 3 times with no contribution what so ever, people think you're 'more likely town', mafia probably wins most of the times, but at least you made it to the next day. Repeat and profit, whatever that looks like. 

 

Sorry for the rant, but this is honestly getting ridiculous 

 

I concocted the "3-Post Active Participation Rule" several games ago as a way to hopefully combat this issue and it has helped but only marginally. The minimum post requirement of 3 posts was my way of attempting to force participants to actually participate (a crazy idea I know) while simultaneously not burdening them too much with a large daily post requirement. Perhaps the 3 post minimum was set too low though. One would think that if someone signs up to play a mafia game that they would actually play the mafia game. This is not to discount the validity of anyone's individual playstyle per se as each player clearly has their own style. But the question is begged -- why sign up to play if you aren't going to actually play the game? How are you possibly having fun playing that way? It's not really fair to everyone who is actively playing the game that they get lynched/killed for actively contributing when there are players who are intentionally left alive or forgotten just because they post once every 6-7 days. It is also unfair to the game mods who spend a lot of time setting up and running a game that they think people will enjoy only to watch several players barely contribute to the end product. 

 

Imagine how great these games would be if 15 people signed up for a game and all 15 people actively participated. There would never be any more mafia team discussions of "let's kill this one person because they are clearly active and leading the town" or any town discussions of "let's lynch this person because he is a lurker and even if he's a townie he isn't helpful and won't help when needed".

 

How do we as a mafia community want to handle this moving forward? Should there be stricter post requirements? Should we do something else? Any suggestions?

 

Lol.

 

You know, game after game, i am always lynched Day 1 or Day 2.

I never make it past that point.

 

People come into the game with the pre-mindset that i am scum.

And most of the times, the reason is that i post a lot and most of my posts is not of use.

On Day 1, the day of nothingness, i am supposed to post meaningful content.

When others are posting bs.

Take the creator of this discussion, SBG,

Last few games, he comes and say, this is post 1, post 2,.

And that makes more sense and is more meaningful to everyone.

Whereas the one who is atleast trying to post something other than stating that this is a post, gets lynched. And most games, i am at the top of the post counts.

 

 

After someone pokes me, others jump on, saying that "Seeing that there is nothing else to go on/no one else to lynch, MK seems the most perfect lynch candidate."

 

And the people who do this, is labeled townish by everyone.

Yeah, like lynch MK and you are town.

Good luck on that.

 

 

And this happens every game i am in.

Give me a break.

 

And the funny thing, is that i am never scum.

I have been scum just twice in here.

But that's irrelevant for some.

 

Consider being in my situation,

I never get the chance to have a meaningful role in any game.

Because i never get the chance to survive past a certain point.

A few times, i got the role of cop, and before i could even investigate, i am lynched Day 1.

 

 

So i decided that if you guys don't give me room, i need to make room for myself.

I was so fed up that i decided that I need to get to Day 5 at least, one way or the other, even if that means town loses. Cause i had enough of your crap.

 

 

 

Samus quit Mafia for a reason, you guys still do the things you did to make him quit.

You are like, "Samus is gone, now the default is MK"

So i decided that if you guys don't give me room, i need to make room for myself. I was so fed up that i decided that I need to get to Day 5 at least, one way or the other, even if that means town loses. Cause i had enough of your crap.

 

And this is exactly the reason why this discussion is in place. Because people are sick of some individuals playing (or in some cases not playing) the ball hog in a team game. You don't win mafia games on your own, but you can lose town a game on your own and I've seen it happen. Why? Because people for some reason want to make excuses to why people are playing a certain way. Sometimes it's valid, most of the time if it sounds scummy, smells scummy and acts scummy, you're probably scum. The Jester thing is a perfect example of that. Like if someone is playing scummy, why the fuck do we as town have to every single fucking time need to bring up the possibility that someone is a Jester. It's a waste of time and brainpower in a game that has limited time and if playing correctly requires a good amount of brainpower, which means both those things aren't a commodity and need to be used wisely. The moment people start to just say fuck it I'm doing whatever you are wasting both those resources on discussions town doesn't even have to have in the first place

 

Also if you really want to hate somebody for starting this discussion, it's my post that was quoted by TW in the OP. So if you want to accuse someone for starting this, at least accuse the right person

There is a world of difference btwn Samus publicly announcing dismay for how he was always early lynched, and refusing to play anymore vs. throwing a game because you are often lynched early. The former makes people want to fix the problem, the latter makes people say things like “he should be permanently banned.” I’m not playing the Pokémon Mafia game, but I’d be livid if I were playing and even more livid if I was the person who spent hours creating and moderating the game.

If you dont want to get lynched, dont act like scum.  end of story.  its ridiculous to act scummy, then get called out for it, and respond by game throwing.  maybe if you provided your honest defense, instead of making up a story that had so many holes in it swiss cheese would be jealous, you might have lived.   i can say if you never did your whole JOAT claim which had contradiction after contradiction, i never would have voted for you at the end and you would still be alive.  but you did that.  your death is on you.  And to throw the game intentionally to get back at people is just petty BS.   

 

i get being frustrated that people call you out for being scum a lot, but maybe that means you need to reevaluate your play style.  not throw the game and intentionally lie just to fuck people over

Is it really "game-throwing"?

 

Samus initially lied about his role last game but then gave his true role and was able to convince the town about the truth.

 

Lying about your role might be appropriate.  In the case of Lord MK, he was a commuter and if he came under lynch pressure, then maybe he might get a few players to change votes if they thought they were potentially saving a jack-of-all-trades rather than a commuter.  The problem was that he did a bad job of keeping his story straight so it was obvious that he was lying.

 

I can see a strategy where a vanilla townie will want to draw the night-kill from the scum.  This is actually addressed in the page on mafiascum.net "Lynch All Liars".

 

My real pet peeve is "If a veteran player was not night-killed, he must be scum" but there's not much we can do about that. (Although I gave Samus Day 1 and Night 1 immunity last game)

Lol.

 

You know, game after game, i am always lynched Day 1 or Day 2.

I never make it past that point.

 

People come into the game with the pre-mindset that i am scum.

And most of the times, the reason is that i post a lot and most of my posts is not of use.

On Day 1, the day of nothingness, i am supposed to post meaningful content.

When others are posting bs.

Take the creator of this discussion, SBG,

Last few games, he comes and say, this is post 1, post 2,.

And that makes more sense and is more meaningful to everyone.

Whereas the one who is atleast trying to post something other than stating that this is a post, gets lynched. And most games, i am at the top of the post counts.

 

 

After someone pokes me, others jump on, saying that "Seeing that there is nothing else to go on/no one else to lynch, MK seems the most perfect lynch candidate."

 

And the people who do this, is labeled townish by everyone.

Yeah, like lynch MK and you are town.

Good luck on that.

 

 

And this happens every game i am in.

Give me a break.

 

And the funny thing, is that i am never scum.

I have been scum just twice in here.

But that's irrelevant for some.

 

Consider being in my situation,

I never get the chance to have a meaningful role in any game.

Because i never get the chance to survive past a certain point.

A few times, i got the role of cop, and before i could even investigate, i am lynched Day 1.

 

 

So i decided that if you guys don't give me room, i need to make room for myself.

I was so fed up that i decided that I need to get to Day 5 at least, one way or the other, even if that means town loses. Cause i had enough of your crap.

 

 

 

Samus quit Mafia for a reason, you guys still do the things you did to make him quit.

You are like, "Samus is gone, now the default is MK"

Is it really "game-throwing"?

 

Samus initially lied about his role last game but then gave his true role and was able to convince the town about the truth.

 

Lying about your role might be appropriate. In the case of Lord MK, he was a commuter and if he came under lynch pressure, then maybe he might get a few players to change votes if they thought they were potentially saving a jack-of-all-trades rather than a commuter. The problem was that he did a bad job of keeping his story straight so it was obvious that he was lying.

 

I can see a strategy where a vanilla townie will want to draw the night-kill from the scum. This is actually addressed in the page on mafiascum.net "Lynch All Liars".

 

My real pet peeve is "If a veteran player was not night-killed, he must be scum" but there's not much we can do about that. (Although I gave Samus Day 1 and Night 1 immunity last game)

If you look at the above post, Kev, he is proud to share that he deliberately threw the gam in an effort to take revenge upon those who have wronged him by lynching him when he acts scummy.

Well ill make this simple, one way other you will lose a mafia player, I refuse to play any games MK signs up for after him pulling this shit.

 

He is horrible at contradicting himself and somehow that's other players fault for calling him out. Don't want to be called out, don't put yourself in the limelight by constantly contradicting yourself.

 

O btw, it doesn't matter how many times someone has been scum, every game is different and everyone has the same amount of chance of being one. Just because you act scummy every game doesn't mean people are going to go, o that's just MK, he always acts scummy so we shouldn't pressure him.

You get lynched early in games because you never seem to keep your story straight or the very second someone pokes you, You blow up and overreact to a single person. That shines a spotlight on you.

 

Speaking of recent games, I don't understand how you think you're like Samus who was killed early every game for being good and would be dangerous. If he wasn't scum, scum killed him because they feared him.

 

Your last games?

The last Jedi you were killed at night. You were a scum faction anyhow.

 

Scale of Justice you survived to the end game. How does that equate to you ALWAYS being killed early when you literally survived to the very end?

 

The last Harry Potter game I believe we were scum together. You got caught in a lie and began blowing up on people and dragged everyone's attention. I mean I could read back to get an exact reason if you'd like.

 

It's mafia. We all come under heat. We all get poked. We all get lynched eventually on one game or another. We get night killed early on some games. It is not a reason to throw a game when we worked hard to finally get some action going on in it. Honestly it was fucked up and if you think because you died in previous games it excuses that, I just don't know how that logic works. That's bullshit plain and simple.

 

God forbid we all just started throwing games because we don't agree with something.

saw my name mentioned a few times, someone gimme a tl;dr

tl;dr - MK made elaborate/inconsistent lies as town, stuck to them till the end resulting in mislynch. Everyone is annoyed with him. He says he doesn't care because we always lynch him early and that is running him & you off from the game. SBG points out flaws with that arguement. Then you posted. 

 

Just to add, i've never been lynched in any mafia game - even when I was scum, it's only scum that have ever killed me early

MK, it's really not the whole world against you, it's just you making mistakes. If you're getting lynched then it's because you made wrong moves, not because people are bent on killing you (and lose the game in the process - no sane townie would do it).

 

I propose you start learning from your mistakes instead of blaming everyone else.

Well ill make this simple, one way other you will lose a mafia player, I refuse to play any games MK signs up for after him pulling this shit.

 

Don't fret. I decided to not play anymore on here. It's just not worth it, to keep getting excited game after game and finally getting lynched in d1 or d2.

 

So play all you want, crybabies.

The bad guy is out.

 

Well ill make this simple, one way other you will lose a mafia player, I refuse to play any games MK signs up for after him pulling this shit.

Don't fret. I decided to not play anymore on here. It's just not worth it, to keep getting excited game after game and finally getting lynched in d1 or d2.

 

So play all you want, crybabies.

The bad guy is out.

 

yeah.. you're really doing this to yourself.

 

i'm not even involved in this conversation but I can clearly see you're just clearly victimising your own self now.