# Let's improve how we play "Mafia." **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 8, 2012, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501 "2012-06-08T14:34:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/61 "2012-06-08T18:36:10Z")
> [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > Please do this, and soon! > > Personally, I love ‘non-standard’ rulesets. Multiple locations, changing powers, lack of reveals, multiple recruitments…bring 'em on! I derive as much pleasure from figuring out the ‘secrets’ of the game as I do from ‘winning’…and I think it helps keep all of the players engaged when they all (regardless of faction) need to spend time and energy solving whatever mysteries the Mods have thrown at them. I think some people don’t like such mechanics because “it’s not Mafia”, but I don’t agree. I generally agree with you, Sub. There’s a definite joy in discovering the game mechanics. My primary objection to our most recent game is that those mechanics were undiscoverable. No mechanic would reveal the WISH ability. No mechanic could unravel the non-reveal of PetW. No mechanic could figure out the Mosier resurrection. No town player could, for sure, ever know if there was a scum team or not. That’s my frustration, not the new concepts. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/62 "2012-06-08T18:38:10Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > This is _brilliant_; it’s going directly into any game I design from now until eternity. I love it. I agree it’s a brilliant idea, but I’d never use it because of the moderator-introduced randomness. > [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t quite agree with this. Players should be able to give contingent orders based only on information that’s knowable strictly before the deadline, as if they were actually giving the order directly. If I submit my order one minute before the deadline, I don’t actually _know_ who the lynch is going to be, because there could be a literal last-minute vote swing. I can say I have a very strong belief in who the lynch is going to be, but that’s not something hard and objective. Who is going to be lynched as always strictly knowable before the end the Day (absent random tie-breakers). Because only votes that are made before the end of the Day count towards determining the lynch. In a Zeno-like way, there is always time between the last valid vote and the end of the Day. So a player (if they are online) always has some (maybe small) amount of time to change their Day orders to account for who is going to be lynched. I want to remove that online advantage. > [@](#): > > Personally, I think that the possibility of last-minute shenanigans is an important part of the game. It’s valid for the Scum to try to collaborate to openly lynch someone at the last minute, and if the game has gotten to the point where that can swing the outcome, then Town has earned the loss by allowing it to get that far. Just because Town worries about something doesn’t mean it’s a problem for the game: If it did, then we’d make games with no Scum at all and just declare everyone a winner. I agree with this, simply because players have an in-game way to counter it. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/63 "2012-06-08T18:57:10Z")
Some good tips above. Never get personal about the game, bear in mind that people are always going to be suspicious of you, and think in terms of probabilities. Luck certainly plays a major role in mafia, but there is a lot of scope for skilful play as well. As an individual player, the final outcome is largely out of your hands, but you can make a positive contribution for your team. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/64 "2012-06-08T19:08:07Z")
I used to play in the mafia games here often but, in time, got busy and didn’t really have the space for it. Since then I’ve tried to play in a couple games over the last few years, but ultimately found them much more frustrating than I remember. The biggest thing that I found frustrating in the changes were the excessive meta-gaming and that differences from the culture itself became a part of it. That is, I understand a certain amount of meta-gaming, it’s required to understand the mechanics of the game and there’s certainly a general amount of knowledge about how skilled a particular player is, but I’ve always been strongly against the idea of comparing one’s play from one game to the next along the lines of “he did this same move in a previous game and was scum, therefore he is scum” or “he usually does the opposite of this when he is town, therefore he is scum.” In fact, all it is a sign of is that a player is playing differently. Playing differently than one did previously as town doesn’t mean one isn’t town, it could mean he has a different pro-town role, could mean he has different interpretations of the rules, could mean he has a different sort of overall strategy. In fact, I’d always made a point to try to approach each game differently, with a general sort of style chosen before I even knew my role, to try to avoid that, but in the last two games that I’d played, I got lynched for “playing differently” and all the rest of the evidence being confirmation bias; once I was town and once I was scum. In fact, one of my strategies I was most proud of was a game where, somewhat with a reputation at the time of being very logical and even-headed, I decided to play very loud and aggressive. The idea was that, if I got scum, I’d dominate the conversation and be able to manipulate the vote, probably go out a little earlier, but leave no real information after me and if I came up town, the scum wouldn’t just kill me for having been a good player in the past and avoid nightkilling me because they figured I’d get lynched for being scummy. I ended up town, my “scumminess” got me an immediate investigation and the scum kept trying to use my “scumminess” to get me lynched. In the end, the cop revealed and I got confirmed townie status, and managed to catch at least one scum who had been driving for my lynch and we won. I’m not saying people need to completely reconsider their overall strategy each time, but I never liked the idea of using those differences between games as reason in and of themselves largely independent of the current circumstance. Like with poker, yeah, you take notice that someone who is fast and loose suddenly tightens up, if you automatically assume it means he has a big hand, you’ve already lost. And yeah, the mention of personal attacks was also a big turn off. I’ve been in some pretty heated discussions, and that’s good, I enjoy the passion and the emotion; part of the fun is getting really angry at someone for being hardheaded or smelling your scumminess or whatever, but that level of sportsmanship and mutual respect should always be there. People will still step over the line a little here and there, but usually come back and apologize, but it did seem like in what I’d seen in some of the more recent games it had gotten a lot worse. I can’t really blame the board moderators for not following a fast moving massive thread to pick that stuff out, but that sort of stuff needs to be nipped in the bud by the game mod and players alike immediately. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/65 "2012-06-08T19:16:30Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > I generally agree with you, Sub. There’s a definite joy in discovering the game mechanics. My primary objection to our most recent game is that those mechanics were undiscoverable. No mechanic would reveal the WISH ability. No mechanic could unravel the non-reveal of PetW. No mechanic could figure out the Mosier resurrection. No town player could, for sure, ever know if there was a scum team or not. That’s my frustration, not the new concepts. I understand where you’re coming from here. I wasn’t really thinking so much about the most recent game, because I didn’t follow along terribly closely after I was killed. From what I can tell, Pizza’s games are “something else”; he seems to delight in giving the Town as little information as he can get away with. I recall in his Little Mermaid game that he left what he thought were ample clues in the Color (this based on his comments in the spoiled thread for that game) and was somewhat frustrated that nobody picked up on them: the reason for that would likely be because we are used to color being “only color” around here. I haven’t looked to see if the same might have been true in this recent game, but I suspect there may have been more information there than we thought; the trick being the ability to distinguish the “information” from the “color”. Now, we can debate whether or not it’s a ‘good thing’ for a Mod to require that of their players, but I think it’s a valid concept, though perhaps one that should be highlighted if it’s going to be in use. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/66 "2012-06-08T19:19:50Z")
Remember, if the game is getting personal, you can always use the report post button. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/67 "2012-06-08T19:24:54Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > That said, I think the best answer to the personal attack problem is to develop a game culture that lynches people who make personal attacks. I don’t particularly feel like playing with someone who takes the game so personally that their emotions take over like that. At the same time, we need to be realistic and recognize that feeling frustrated and getting annoyed is also part of the game. Complete meltdowns like what happened at least once in the last game cross that line though. We can name that voting strategy “Lynch the Spoilsport.” This is an interesting idea. I’ve been consciously and deliberately avoiding doing this very thing, thinking “sure, this person is being an ass, but that’s a ‘personal’ issue, and I should place my votes based upon ‘game’ issues”…but perhaps that’s the wrong way to address it. “We’re lynching you because you’re being a jerk” may be a bad strategy in the short-term (read: in that particular game), but it may be a better solution for the long-term health of the community. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/68 "2012-06-08T19:39:23Z")
In my experience, people who get genuinely frustrated in game are \>rand to be townies, by and large. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/69 "2012-06-08T19:44:22Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > Are there strategies town can employ to improve their play? Same question for scum? I think it would be extremely helpful if everyone could remember not “Town” =/= “Anti-Town” =/= “Pro-Scum” Most “anti-Town behavior” is really just “bad Town behavior”. Sometimes Scum do make stupid blunders that give themselves away. At least as often, Town make stupid blunders that make them look Scummy. Far more often Scum make not-so-obvious mistakes that don’t stand out by themselves, but paint a clear picture over time. It’s all too common for someone to be mislynched because of a single ‘mistake’ even though the bulk of the evidence suggests they are Town. We need to look more at the ‘body of evidence’ and less at singular happenings. For Scum…I don’t recall who it was but I recall someone around here saying once that when they’re Scum, they don’t look at the Scum boards at the beginning of the game so that they don’t even know who the other Scum are; that way their play won’t be influenced by that knowledge. Obviously, such a strategy only works for a limited time, but the underlying concept is sound. Scum need to play the same way they would as Town, to as great an extent as is possible. If a fellow Scum does something suspicious, go after them. Vote for them. Lynch them if need be. Don’t ‘save’ them. All within limits, of course 🙂 Also, don’t be afraid to lynch Townies. Sure, you know it’s a mislynch, but you wouldn’t know that if you were Town. If a Townie does something suspicious, go after them. Vote for them. Lynch them if need be. Don’t ‘save’ them. All within limits, of course 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/70 "2012-06-08T19:51:09Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > I used to play in the mafia games here often but, in time, got busy and didn’t really have the space for it. Since then I’ve tried to play in a couple games over the last few years, but ultimately found them much more frustrating than I remember. The biggest thing that I found frustrating in the changes were the excessive meta-gaming and that differences from the culture itself became a part of it. I hope you can find time to play again. You’re one of the old-timers I definitely miss seeing. And we need more players with experience and diversity in play style. Half the problem with “lynching the newbies” is that the play here has stagnated too much. > [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > I recall in his Little Mermaid game that he left what he thought were ample clues in the Color (this based on his comments in the spoiled thread for that game) and was somewhat frustrated that nobody picked up on them: the reason for that would likely be because we are used to color being “only color” around here. As someone who routinely skips over the color (because if it were important, it’d be in the rules), it’s probably for the better that I wasn’t in that game. 😃 > [@Gadarene](#): > > In my experience, people who get genuinely frustrated in game are \>rand to be townies, by and large. In my experience, players who get frustrated in-game are people who get frustrated. That is, it’s the player that’s correlated, not the role. ( **Idle Thoughts** is the classic example of a player who can do over-the-top reactions as both town and scum.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/71 "2012-06-08T20:00:39Z")
> [@](#): > > I think it would be extremely helpful if everyone could remember > > not “Town” =/= “Anti-Town” =/= “Pro-Scum” > > Most “anti-Town behavior” is really just “bad Town behavior”. This is another contentious point for me. To the extent that “anti-Town” is different from “pro-Scum” (such as with PFK factions), Town’s goal is actually to lynch anti-Town. In a straight, two-faction game, everything that hurts Town helps Scum, and vice-versa. And while it’s true that Townies will do stupid things sometimes that hurt Town, we still have to punish such behavior, lest we end up allowing those same behaviors from Scum where it’s not a mistake. Similarly, the question of “Look at the motivation”. I think that’s silly, for two reasons. First, you can never know anyone’s motivations until after you know their alignment: Before that, all you can know is their actions. Second, _every_ action can have a Scum motivation: If the action is one that hurts Town, then the Scum motivation is hurting Town, and if the action is one that helps Town, then the Scum motivation is in looking more like a Townie. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/72 "2012-06-08T20:10:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think that the possibility of last-minute shenanigans is an important part of the game. End of Day shenanigans are still possible with Sachertorte’s protocol. They become more dare-devil and more exciting! My complaint upthread was less about possible shenanigans than the simple fact that players may not be available at EOD. In the recent game I often went to bed not knowing who would be Lynched and thus unable to optimize my Day action. It might be simple to reduce this problem; e.g. allow multiple votes only one of which could be used in the last 12 hours. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/73 "2012-06-08T20:17:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > This is another contentious point for me. To the extent that “anti-Town” is different from “pro-Scum” (such as with PFK factions), Town’s goal is actually to lynch anti-Town. In a straight, two-faction game, everything that hurts Town helps Scum, and vice-versa. And while it’s true that Townies will do stupid things sometimes that hurt Town, we still have to punish such behavior, lest we end up allowing those same behaviors from Scum where it’s not a mistake. No, the town’s goal is to lynch scum. Lynching town for anti-town actions is a mislynch. But I agree that anti-town behavior must be punished because it does hurt town. And gives scum an out for doing anti-town (and pro-scum) things themselves. The trick is doing that without being anti-town (like mislynching town) yourself. I’d call that the central problem of mafia game-theory. > [@](#): > > Similarly, the question of “Look at the motivation”. I think that’s silly, for two reasons. First, you can never know anyone’s motivations until after you know their alignment: Before that, all you can know is their actions. Second, _every_ action can have a Scum motivation: If the action is one that hurts Town, then the Scum motivation is hurting Town, and if the action is one that helps Town, then the Scum motivation is in looking more like a Townie. I think you’re missing the point of looking at the motivation. True that you can’t know someone’s motivation until you know their alignment. But it works the other way–if you can discern their motivation, you will know their alignment. Of course, in practice, it’s extremely hard to discern motivation. There will be a lot of mistakes. But motivation necessarily leads to alignment, unlike looking at actions (which could be town doing anti-town things, or scum doing pro-town things). ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/74 "2012-06-08T20:29:53Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > The trick is doing that without being anti-town (like mislynching town) yourself. I’d call that the central problem of mafia game-theory. The other great problem of mafia game-theory is “what is anti-town?”. There’s no simple answer. Even “don’t lynch town” has exceptions. Which makes punishing players for anti-town behavior even more problematic when there is honest disagreement about what is or isn’t anti-town. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/75 "2012-06-08T20:39:15Z")
> [@](#): > > No, the town’s goal is to lynch scum. Lynching town for anti-town actions is a mislynch. If there’s only two factions. But if there are three or more mutually-exclusive factions (say, Town, Scum, and SK), then each faction’s goal is to kill the other two. Folks like to say “It’s the Scum’s job to kill the SK”, and of course it’s great for Town when that happens, but really, the Scum could just as easily say “It’s the Town’s job to kill the SK”, or Town could say “It’s the SK’s job to kill Scum”. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/76 "2012-06-08T20:48:03Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If there’s only two factions. But if there are three or more mutually-exclusive factions (say, Town, Scum, and SK), then each faction’s goal is to kill the other two. Folks like to say “It’s the Scum’s job to kill the SK”, and of course it’s great for Town when that happens, but really, the Scum could just as easily say “It’s the Town’s job to kill the SK”, or Town could say “It’s the SK’s job to kill Scum”. Very true. I find “It’s the Scum’s job to kill the SK” to be rather silly. Extra deaths shorten the game, which means town has less time to gather information. So unless the SK is killing scum grossly out of proportion to their numbers, town benefits from removing the SK far more than scum do. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/77 "2012-06-08T20:54:57Z")
This is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping for when I opened this thread. Even if we all agree to disagree about things, I’m enjoying seeing (and thus, understanding) different viewpoints. For the record, I _hate_ metagaming, and will generally never use it to justify a lynch. I also hate hash tags and stuff like that, because it feels against the spirit of the game. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/78 "2012-06-08T21:11:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > This is another contentious point for me. To the extent that “anti-Town” is different from “pro-Scum” (such as with PFK factions), Town’s goal is actually to lynch anti-Town. In a straight, two-faction game, everything that hurts Town helps Scum, and vice-versa. And while it’s true that Townies will do stupid things sometimes that hurt Town, we still have to punish such behavior, lest we end up allowing those same behaviors from Scum where it’s not a mistake. > > Similarly, the question of “Look at the motivation”. I think that’s silly, for two reasons. First, you can never know anyone’s motivations until after you know their alignment: Before that, all you can know is their actions. Second, _every_ action can have a Scum motivation: If the action is one that hurts Town, then the Scum motivation is hurting Town, and if the action is one that helps Town, then the Scum motivation is in looking more like a Townie. I’d say this is probably part of the reason I found the games I did play in more recently so much more frustrating. I think the very crux of the game is in sussing out motivation. That is, role is unknowable (aside from power role reveals) but motivation is roughly equivalent to role. Actions in and of themselves, even a series of actions that overall hurt the town don’t necessarily mean the actor is scum, as that series of actions could be based on simple bad logic. However, even moves with bad logic still have motivation. So when I’m assessing a particular player and I see a move, I actually think the ultimate outcome of the action is more or less irrelevant but, instead, I want to know why a pro-town player might have been motivated to behave that way and why a scum player might have been motivated to behave that way. Once we have a good idea of that, then we can work it out. I’d write out all the formulae or something but I’m kind of lazy right now. But the point is, simply punishing anti-town behavior ends up being anti-town itself. The only way to really avoid behavior that damages the town is to simply do nothing or play it safe. That leaves the town with little effort or activity through with to generate information. People doing things, even anti-town, creates actions and reactions through which motivations can be derived to gain information. ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/79 "2012-06-09T00:12:20Z")
I think Mafia is definitely a game of skill, but it’s also a very hard game. Even good players will be wrong a lot of the time. That’s why Town has all those extra lynches. In game theory terms, Scum never looking at their role PMs, or perfectly mimicking their Town game is the reason why Cops exist. There is no point bussing your whole team if the Cop might still investigate you/enough Townies to lock the game. The most successful Scum that I have seen are not ones that can mimic their Town game perfectly. It’s ones who can deflect heat and mislead the village. It is much more about manipulating people than being logically perfect. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2012, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/80 "2012-06-09T00:59:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Blaster Master** : > > But the point is, simply punishing anti-town behavior ends up being anti-town itself. The only way to really avoid behavior that damages the town is to simply do nothing or play it safe. That leaves the town with little effort or activity through with to generate information. People doing things, even anti-town, creates actions and reactions through which motivations can be derived to gain information. Doing nothing or playing it safe are _not_ ways to avoid behavior that damages the Town, because that in itself is a behavior that damages the Town. Aggressively pursuing someone who happens to be Townie, but for good reasons, does end up hurting the Town, but not nearly as much as a lack of aggression does. And of course, aggressively pursuing someone who happens to be Scum helps Town tremendously. And since you don’t know which it is at the time, aggressively pursuing someone that you suspect of being Scum for good reasons is, overall, an act which helps Town. I would never lynch someone just because they killed a Townie, because so far as they knew, that may well have been a pro-Town act. I will, however, lynch someone for killing a Townie for bad stated reasons, since that is something they could have known at the time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501.md?page=5)