I think we also need to talk about how personal it's acceptable to be in a game... We definitely found the limits of that one in game #14.

I must admit mafia has given me quite a bit to consider over time. I first started playing as a sociological exercise. I have had forum games which gave me reason to quit playing. People were mean spirited and I didn't have the stomach for it. I have since adopted the don't take it personal approach and it has made so much difference.

At my age it's hard to process teenage emotions...

As far as mafia scruples, I've played with people who absolutely refused to lie, period, end of discussion. I think all's fair in love and mafia. When I'm town (which I always am) I read each post twice. Once assuming poster is mafia and again thinking they're town.

And always with the forgone conclusion they are lying about everything.

I am sorry for the raw emotions and potential hard feelings from game #14. I understand how these things happen, but as a potential grown-up I need to take responsibility for what I can tolerate and act accordingly.

Sometimes, as you probably saw in #14, you don't exactly have a choice about not taking it personally... It's not a matter of "taking" something personally, but of having a personal comment fired at you.

With respect flubb, you're suggesting that if I'm offended by something, it's my fault. To me, this seems totally backwards. It's not always about tolerance - as a mafia player (and even more so as a woman in a gaming community) I should not have to take responsibility for other people giving me the same respect I give them. I believe our average age in the mafia-playing community is well above the teenage threshold. We've had 13 games with no comparable issue (except maybe the explosion in #12).

I want to prevent players and mods from having to deal with that kind of thing in the future (because it's really unpleasant and nearly broke the game), but that may be impossible. I guess I could propose that Game 14's rule 18 be accepted into the general rules that can't be over-ridden by individual moderators? Thoughts?

I meant no direct correlation between my feelings and actual game events. If someone states to me, in the game, my actions or opinions are stupid...I used to take these things quite personally. I had a "teenage" desire to be liked and therefore had a problem processing the emotions. These are the things I believe I can control my reactions to and be responsible.

However if someone aims a personal attack at me..."All men are..." "All white/black/asian/martian people are ...", then it becomes an entirely different animal. It does become a bit dicey when engaged in a Role-Playing game of mafia. But shouldn't people expect potential over-the-top caricatures in such a scenario??

Here in America we are compelled to legislate morals and character into people (without positive results). Do I really stop myself from doing something bad because of a rule?? If someone commits an obvious flame/personal attack or other egregious act against another player....BAN THEM.

I personally think the death penalty is an excellent deterrent....it keeps me out of some trouble.

Yes I know, but we're not talking about people just being "mean". Or at least I'm not. :/

I don't think anyone in this community has the power to ban anyone, and I'm not sure that would be a constructive thing to introduce. Personally I'd like to see some sort of line drawn as to what is acceptable caricaturing / teasing / attacking. With at least gender, sexual orientation, and race firmly on the NO side.

Wow I posted (thought I did) something really obnoxious and it disappeared. Huh maybe it was for the best.

Well here's is my picture showing my open and contrite heart regarding all of this.

Yeah, I can't see any situation where they'd be in any way relevant to a game of mafia and therefore see no problems with saying they should be left alone.

Well, I am not really sure. I feel like I don't have not enough information on the personal attacks situation and I don'T know what was going on behind the scene. Maybe I am just insensitive man, but I didn't see anything offensive, before Damuna started to speak about it.. Of course, there shouldn't be personal attacks, it's big no no in real life, so it should come naturally and not as game rule. Problem is different people perceive different things as personal attacks and one people can consider thing as harmelss one the other feels offended by it. So I don't tihink it is something clear cut.

But of course, players should understand that it's just game, should be respectful and shouldn't insult other people. On the other hand they should understand the same thing when they are being attacked and shouldn't get offended by everything said.

About SPF problem, I am even less sure. I personally don't like it and wouldn't use it, but I am not sure I would ban it. I would need consensus of more people to do it and it, with amount people expressioning their opinion here won't probably happen.
Ok, now typing it, I quite changed my opinion. I wouldn't ban lying about real life but I am less in favour of lying about mod actions. Peope tend to assume others speaks truth about mod actions and it allows people to get out of troubles, because mods can't deny this without interfering with game. Hmm, but on the other hand, is it really different than lying about role PM, which is natural thing?

Eh, what a mess of post. I think I communicated no information at all.

Frenchie, you were the mod who was hit by the Rodzaju situation, how do you feel about it?

Its pretty simple as I see it...


'You have made a stupid comment in this Mafia game because of (IN game reasons)' is perfectly fine

'You have made a stupid comment in this Mafia game because of (OUTSIDE , personal or otherwise reasons) is unacceptable.

Lying about what the MOD has told you - a no-no and modkill is acceptable.



That doesn't perhaps come across quite as I would like it to, but you get my drift....

Technically a false-claim is then punishable by mod-kill though though this. I agree by leaving the mod on the edge of the game (And not putting the players in a position to doubt what the mod has said), I'm just not sure how to do that without making the wording affect the mafia too much. This might have to just be an agreement between players not to do that.

As far as the offensive remarks. I think we can all agree that bringing personal matters into the game as insults isn't a good idea. It puts the players who aren't involved in the argument in an uncomfortable position, and has a chance to really hit a nerve (everyone has those few things that make them snap).

That would kind of ruin the point of the game, no?

I think it's just 'too broad' a wording on Robbeasy's part. I'm pretty sure he just meant the type of situation we're talking about, i.e. being caught lying and then getting out of it by blaming it on a non-existent mod mistake.

Allowing that basically allows any mafia to get out of any inconsistency by going "Oh, well I said that earlier because the mod told me the wrong thing at that point".

In my opinion, the mod is outside the game and therefore shouldn't be included in the lies. Especially since the mod is the ultimate source of truth in the game (unless it's a bastard game).

Well... firstly I was amused, to be quite honest, then I realised what a delicate situation it really was. My feelings are that while it's a very dirty trick, it's not game-breaking. However, I'm not sure it's a mod's opinion that really counts here - I was barely affected by it, whereas I think the players felt betrayed (though I'm not sure who by...)

On the one hand people tend to assume anything from the mod is gospel truth. On the other, if a scum player is permitted (and indeed expected) to lie about their role PM, are other mod messages any different? If so which ones and why? Essentially as soon as someone invokes the mod for game mechanic reasons, it becomes impossible for them to intervene.

There was a similar situation in that game when Pilot, I think, accidentally directly quoted his PM. I couldn't openly tell him off for it because that would be confirming that he did quote correctly. But since even claiming to directly quote is a rule-violation I couldn't just let it slide without comment. (Unless you're a Cop/Princess/Gossip, but that's another debate!) I got around it by a PM warning and having the flavour-cat slap him. >.>

I know, which is why I decided not to leave a slightly more sarcastic reply.

But trying to regulate it will only yield the opposite problem. If certain communications with the mod is not allowed to lie about, any such communications becomes de facto modconfirmed. Once a game has started, the mod should meddle as little as possible, imo.

In my opinion, it would be best not to make any legislation about it in one way or another, but treat any unverifiable claims about communications with the mod with suspicion - as you would any other unverifiable claims. If the only thing keeping a player from being lynched is that the he claims the mod must have made some sort of mistake, it's probably best to just lynch them.

Further, I think you will have a hard time wording any such rule to the point where it limits the kind of lying some would find objectable, without infringing on the tools needed for the game to function.

And finally, this has only come up in one game so far, correct? I wouldn't think it worth to make specific rules targeting behaviour that has popped up in a single game, out of 14. Unless said behaviour could easily and reliably ruin/break the game as a whole, of course (see the rule about cryptoclaiming as an example).

My suggestion would be to treat it as a learning experience. Think "you got us this time, but next time we won't be as gullible", if you will.
Which is a really important distinction here.

If you as mod say X, then it is reasonable to believe that X is correct.
If I, as a player, say that the mod told me X, then there's no reason to take X at face value.