# Forbidden thread for Hawkeye's mafia game.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-thread-for-hawkeyes-mafia-game/470457>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [October 31, 2008, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-thread-for-hawkeyes-mafia-game/470457 "2008-10-31T16:49:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 54

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**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-thread-for-hawkeyes-mafia-game/470457/54 "2008-11-11T13:03:41Z")

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> [@NAF1138](#):
>
> BTW, the above Boozy, is oh so very wrong. This sort of logic is terrible. I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but it is universally true that EVERY player will do something anti town during the game. Only some will do things that are actively pro scum. Pro-scum != Anti-town. They aren’t the same. You can’t look for lack of pro town motivation, or look for something as being anti-town. You have to look for how something will actively further the scum cause. Scum will ALWAYS do pro scum things or they will lose the game. Being able to effectively tell the difference between anti town and pro scum IS the game.

And that’s what JSexton is getting at:

> [@Sdmb mafia](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-mafia/470198/781):
>
> But that’s not what I was getting at at all, actually just the inverse. There is no point in doing this as scum. None. It draws heat and attention, something scum avoid. And what’s the upside? I _might_ learn one player’s ability? There’s better ways to fish for abilities than something like that. I’m certainly not getting any town cred out of it. And I run the risk of simply getting lynched, either from angry players or from the sudden deadline.

That’s the gist of what people aren’t realizing. Now its been mentioned many times that the whole “scum would never do that” thing is a weak argument. And it is as far as determing if someone is pro-town. (Now I will concede sachertorte’s point that in this group is still seems to hold fairly frequently that scum doesn’t do the things that “scum would never do”. But the argument is only good until scum decides to finally do them just to shake things up. And you never know when that will happen, so it’s not good to use it for determining towniness.)

However, “scum would never do this” is not a weak argument when it comes to determining if someone is pro-scum. JSexton’s actions are not pro-scum. This doesn’t mean he’s necessarily _not_ scum, but it means that his actions are a lousy reason to vote for him in this case.

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