Yeah, actually, you did have a choice - more than once. I tried giving you a very simple Out called, 'saying "No. I don't want the Crown." (which was a topic -long- before the "word" matter.) True, fear of the Crown would've likely led to you being lynched but, hey, Thawmus and DF would've been okay. The fact is, it was an escalating game of chicken and you decided to run the car off the cliff. (Heck, the bit about the "word" was as much a warning of "You give your word and back out on it, don't expect to ever be able to use your word as a tool again in a game." and I even said that I would hardly despise you as a person. Thawmus trying to put my back to the wall didn't help you; as TBB points out I won't agree to any absolute for an unforeseeable future).

I hate to break the news to folks who hate "truth" being used as a weapon in these games, but Mafia isn't a game of lies, it's a game of words. Sometimes the better words are lies and sometimes the better words are truths or some combo.

If you're playing against a West Coast Offense do you refuse to use, say a Tampa Two Defense? If you're FPS'ing and know a spot a person likes to snipe from, do you not try to head them off and blast them from the spot? If you're playing against a CCG deck and have a silver bullet for it, don't you consider using it? Same deal with Mafia - if there's a technique you know that works as a good counter, you use it.

Also, we all meta - even those who gripe they don't. It may be "overt" - like DF or Mal trying to get me to straight out claim - or it may be subtle, such as RT'ing a popular N1 target. It may be lynching a tough-to-lynch individual when you know he's gone or it may be ignoring a target for NK because you know he's terrible at participating. We all look for tell, habits, etc. End of the day, unless each game was a fresh set of players, meta happens.

you lost me at sports

Oddly, I'm almost proud of that as that's how I feel when you guys discuss wrasslin'.

You lost me at choice

Tl;dr

Totally

I never said anything about telling the truth in games. That's your strawman. You beat the hell out of it to your heart's content.

True enough. If I'm looking at a player list and you're on it, I don't play. That way I can ensure I won't have to deal with someone who's given themselves a significant advantage by inventing a bunch of metagame rules to assist their play. See, I know what you're talking about! Counters!

Sorry, but my standard is that if I wouldn't do it to my worst enemy, I don't take kindly to seeing others do it. I would never ever make someone put their personal character on the line in Mafia. It wouldn't even get brought up as a possibility. Not for them to engage in, nor back out of. Because it's just plain wrong and unethical. Doing so is making the game personal, and that's not right. I don't appreciate you trying to backtrack with this "I was RPing" and "Well it wasn't actually his personal word" when we all saw you throw the possibility of hurt feelings into the pot.

And hey, if it is Silver's Metagame, why the hell are you playing it? You just helped him enforce it. Everyone now knows that if he gives his word, he'll throw the game away and even kill teammates. That has now made it pretty much ####ing impossible to lynch him if he plays as a townie in any game now. How is that fair to all the other players? How is that fair to newbies?


This is true, we all meta to some degree, and a lot of it is uncontrollable. What I have a problem with is gross meta that is used intentionally to gain an advantage, which there is a lot of now. The "TAK clause" is right up there on the "Game breaking bull####" list. Putting personal feelings on the line is up there. Silver's admitted himself now that he's done a lot of metagaming, and it sounds like this wasn't the first time his "word" was on the line in a game.

There's some of it that I wouldn't even mind so long as people just ignored it, like JoH does. But I've been present for some of the tantrums when people do ignore them, soooooo, yeah, still feeling that blame lies at the feet of those who use that garbage.

JoH makes a good point that this stuff wouldn't be a problem if people ignored it. But I know they won't, so therefore the path of least resistance for me is to just not play with people who utilize it in such a manner. And, contrary to what you think, that's a very short list.

Funny, because you've backed some pretty rotten plays in the past - things people shouldn't do to their worst enemy.

Then again, this play cost you so guess it's harder to stomach.

Um, I'm going to request a cease fire on this one now please.

Now we've moved passed the discussion of what's appropriate in Mafia games and into hurt feelings and words that should be kept offline.

What's done is done. If you have a personal opinion about what is appropriate and what isn't, np. Opinions are like @$$holes, everyone has one. But this conversation is about to go from discussion to flame war, and I request that goes to PM and off the main boards.

Sorry SP. I'll stop. Just felt there'd been pages of slams - talking outright insults of me as a person - while I was absent and wished to address. I've done that and don't wish to go past it, so done.

I've taken it to PM.

Going to PMs. Will copy Darq & Thawmus.

I remember, and you're right. I thought in my mind that because I was being truthful at the time, that it was okay to do. After all, to me the principle of not being truthful with my word is the harm, not breaking a meta rule about mafia, which is obviously not important to me.
But I see the problem with it. You can't use it as a shield and then not expect others to use it as a sword against you. It has to go both ways, otherwise it does exactly what we say is bad about meta gaming, give the player an unfair advantage, and I'm all for that.

I think that to counter the idea that your word means something in mafia, you make an effort to give you word on complete falsehoods at random.

I just use the meta rule of: The more angry/indignant SL is, the more scummy he is.

Seems to work pretty well.