Personality Mafia 2 - Page 224

Original Message From Foolishness:
Hey guys this is going to be long so bear with me.

Since I don't get to play mafia that much anymore I've always wanted to write about the game and my thought process as a "renowned" mafia hunter. Sort of as a way to pass down my information and teach others about how I think and why it works. As I was playing in this game and I'm still kinda following (though not thoroughly reading) I thought I would take this time to do a little write up about something in this game.

So today I'm going to focus on these two posts made by yamato right after night 2 ended.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessag...urrentpage=189#3761
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessag...urrentpage=189#3765

These types of posts are actually more common than you think so they make for a good topic of discussion.

First off, I want you to think back to a game where you were town, and someone was lynched who you thought was mafia (like you were 100% sure they were mafia) but ended up flipping town. For me I remember the first game of TL mafia I ever played years and years ago where the most suspicious, chaotic poster flipped town to everyone's dismay. I was so certain he was mafia, even though Ver read his filter and told me he was guaranteed town ("pfft", I thought, "Ver can't always be right and I'm certain this guy is scum"). Boy did that suck being so wrong about something that to an outsider was so obvious.

Think back to this moment in your mafia career. What was the very first thought that came into your mind after they flipped town? Most likely it was one of two things:
1) "Well fuuuuuuuuccckkk I really screwed that read up!"
2) "Well fuuuuuuuuccckkk that guy was so suspicious he deserved to be mafia anyways!"
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Now, as a side note, you never ever want to think number 2. The difference between these two thoughts is where you are attributing blame. In 1) it's towards yourself: "it was my fault for reading him wrong" and in number 2) it's towards the person who got lynched: "it is their fault for being so damn scummy". Let me explain further.

In the book "Hocus Pocus" by Kurt Vonnegut, a character says the following idea (I'm paraphrasing): "if you find the most patriotic man in America and follow him around with a tape recorder, it won't take you very long before you'll have proof he's a terrorist". What he meant is that sooner or later this man would say something that could be interpreted as being anti-American, even though it was obviously not his intention.

This same idea always, always, always applies to everyone in a game of mafia. If you give me a player in any game, I can find you evidence that points to them being mafia (no matter how town they are). You can't play perfect; there will always be something that can be misconstrued as being scummy (and obviously it's the mafia's job to do this). So if a player dies who you really really thought was mafia and they flipped town, the fault is on you for reading them wrong. Ask yourself, "why did I think they were mafia? What were they doing? What did I overlook about them?" Of course this player did scummy things, that's why they were lynched in the first place. The problem was you made an incorrect judgment because you didn't accurately assess that his town behavior was more important than his mafia behavior.

This is an important part about analyzing someone. If you thought someone was a certain alignment, chances are your reasons are entirely correct and logical! The problem isn't that you reasons are flawed, it's that you didn't consider reasons for being mafia AND reasons for being town, and then weighing them against each other. So always ask yourself before a final conclusion: "what has this person does that's scummy? And what has this person done that's pro-town?" Both lists will always have items, it's your job to weigh the two and determine which pile is stronger.
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That was a long tangent, so let's go back to my original point. You're town and someone has just flipped town who was the most scummiest person in the world. You're reaction? "Ahhhh fuck me!" Just like prphlz's post right after the flips. However take a look at the two posts yamato made. Now compare them to this post by Acrofales:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessag...urrentpage=189#3764

Now look at the differences. This is really important. Look at what Acrofales does. He basically goes, "ahhh fuck well let's go back and read his filter". Why would he say that? Because he's town and he was 100% sure I was mafia. He has realized he fucked up his read, he wants to reread my filter to see what went wrong and if there's any information to obtain from it. This is a very natural reaction for a townie to make.

However, yamato does not react the same way. In fact his reaction is completely contrary to what one might expect. His first post is the most damning in this case. Look specifically at what he says: "I do not trust that flip whatsoever". This is in actuality a very mafia thing to say and I will explain why. The first reason is because, as discussed above, he didn't react the way Acrofales reacted. Instead he's doubting the flip. He's doubting the information the hosts are giving him. Have you, as a townie, ever doubted a flip the host gave? No. As outlined above, when you see a flip opposite what you expected, your reaction is resolve: "ahhh fuck I messed up" or the worse case of "ahhh fuck that guy is so bad acting so scummy". But note in these two reactions you have already ACCEPTED the fact that he was actually town and you were wrong. Here, yamato has NOT ACCEPTED the fact he was wrong, and that's a problem.

Now again, you need to imagine yourself. In what scenario, as a townie, would you ever doubt a flip the hosts gave? I can think of an easy scenario. You are a DT, you check someone and get a mafia result. Then they flip town. Of course you will doubt the flip, and you will probably go straight to the hosts and say "wtf mate?" (Though you certainly wouldn't say anything in the thread). But other than that why would you? Have their been roles that alter flips in games? Maybe but they have never came up. The closest we have is janitor's but that hides the flip, not reverses it.

So then, why is yamato doubting the flip? Obviously he's not a DT with a check on me (at least probably not). Townies are always
forward-thinking. After the flip they think about what to do next, who to kill, what the flips mean for the future. They accept the flips and move on. Why linger over a mistake in the past? It doesn't help you catch mafia. You screwed up your read, move on and try to correct the situation.

Yamato's choice of wording here, and his way of doubting the flip, is psychologically a defense mechanism. To expand on this, when a person does not want to accept a truth, or when they need to hide the truth, a common way to do so is by exaggerating the situation and your knowledge (this is a well-known psychological fact). For example, I remember a time where I forgot to tell my girlfriend something important, and when she got upset at me about it I tried to cover it up by saying that I did tell her and that she forgot. What I did was that I constantly insisted that I did: "you don't remember? I swore I told you. We were sitting in the car when I said it, don't you remember that?" I exaggerated the situation by constantly reinforcing what I wanted to hide. I emphasized and re-emphasized what I wanted to be true (also a defense mechanism).

Yamato here is reinforcing the idea that he thought I was mafia to cover up his lie (that he knew all along what I would flip). He's exaggerating the situation "he must have flipped the opposite because of some role". He's in denial. Now, it's not a problem that he's in denial about the flip (everyone gets shocked for a moment), it's a problem that he hasn't accepted it and is exaggerating the situation. He's still focusing on it. He wants us to believe that he really, REALLY thought I was mafia even though he knew the truth all along. If he's town why would he insist that there was an interference with my flip? That's not forward-thinking. He's instilling doubt in the town about my flip because he doesn't want people to realize I may have been right about my reads. He doesn't want the town to get organized and focus on the lynch.

Remember, a mafia isn't going to do what Acrofales did "ahhh fuck I messed up let's go reread his filter and figure out why", because they already know who is mafia and what the flip will be! They don't need to go back and fix their judgment, they already knew the truth! Of course, this doesn't mean yamato is 100% mafia, maybe he really is just that stubborn in this moment. But when you weigh in the whole situation it accounts for a lot. He's not focusing on the current lynch and instead instilling doubt in the town by making us question what the hosts are saying.

In summary, always put yourself in their shoes when thinking about what they are saying: "as a townie, what situation would I have to be in for me to type this post? How would I have to feel? What would be my motivation for writing this?" Yamato's posts don't make sense from a townie perspective, while Acrofales does. Scum points for yamato, town points for Acrofales. Also, if you misread a person, reread their filter! Figure out why you misread them! Chances are it's not because your reasoning was incorrect, but because you didn't weigh all the facts properly or you missed something obvious because you were only focused on the outcome.

It's more important to read a filter after the person has died than to read it while they are still alive. That will make you a better player.
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To expand on the overarching idea a little more, some of you may know that I have been able to catch mafia just by reading one post by them (this is when I'm observing, not actually playing the game as it's always much different being on the outside). One game in particular Incognito asked me to look at Liquid~Sheth's filter. I clicked his filter scrolled down to a random post, read it, thought for a moment and said he's mafia. I was right. How did I do that?

I did exactly what I said in my previous post. I looked at what he wrote and said "I'm a townie. What situation would I have to be in to write this post? What mood would I have to be in? What would I have to be thinking? What is my mindset? What would force me to write this post?" And after thinking I realized that there was no situation. If I was townie there is not a single scenario I can imagine where I would write this post, there is no motivation to whatsoever.

Of course this kinda thing should never be explicitly used in a game. You shouldn't judge someone off of one post. It's just negative points in their favor. And it's also hard to do; you need to practice it a lot. And when you are wrong you need to go back and figure out why you were wrong. More importantly, make sure you put yourself in their shoes. You need to imagine that you are that person. You need to become marvellosity or VE or whoever you are analyzing, like an actor. "I am VE, what situation am I in to write this post?" And you need a good understanding of how that person plays and thinks. That's why it's so important to read filters from past games as you are playing.

So try this exercise when you are reading someone's filter. Look at each one of their posts and ask yourself, "if I'm town why would I write this post/sentence? What's the scenario?" If a lot of a person's posts are drawing blanks, you should start looking into them.

When I start making a suspect list in a mafia game, this is how I go about doing it. I create a notepad document with all the players, and link posts they make that I don't like. After doing that for a day I look at which people in the game have the most posts on my list, and I analyze them further to see if there is something there or if I'm over-analyzing them. In this game, one of Vivax's posts irked me (I think it was his very first one of the game), which is why in my first story I was subtly accusing him.

Remember that scumhunting is a two fold process. First you have to figure out who is scum (which is what I'm focusing on). Second, which is just as important as the first, you have to convince the rest of the town that you are right. Figuring out the entire scum team is meaningless if nobody listens to you. I feel that I was every adequate in the first part this game, but obviously the second part I failed terribly. As mentioned there was a time before night ended where I hadn't read the thread. I was very demotivated to play at times because of the thread activity and I have only myself to blame for that. As well, I felt my long post during the day was good but not great. I had to rush it out because I had an impending research paper to do (grrrr) and I think if I had been active to follow up on my reads things may have turned out better.

The point of this all is to explain to you how I go about scumhunting and why it works. I realize where I failed and we talked about that in the QT, so that's not what I want to discuss here (but you too should realize where you failed. Did you vote to lynch Vivax? Why? What did you miss that made him more town than mafia? Read his filter and figure out why). After every death in the game I always go back and reread filters to see what I got right and what I misinterpreted. Not only does this help reinforce correct thinking, but also helps for future games as you have a better understanding of how they played.