PookaMustard: Meta is more like your character, playstyle and thought processes across several Mafia games. You'll see it come up very often.
Catventurer: I still don't quite understand what you're getting at. I don't understand how you tell if Lift is town or not... nor do I understand what you mean by scene tends to focus too much on game mechanics.
See Vitek's post above. You can look for inconsistencies across games just as you would across days.
Let's go for an oversimplified example and say you played with Guyus for about 5 games. Each time you play with him, he was Town and he voted for someone he thought was the most scummy, always the guy at #1 in his scum list. In the 6th game, he votes #2 or #3 instead. This change of behavior may imply he's not Town this time.
It's something you acquire by playing several games with the same players.
Catventurer: You misunderstand me, but I think that it was entirely my fault. What I mean is "should not have been playing in the first place" - go get some more experience elsewhere with other less experienced people. Don't be playing with people that have played over 70 games now as it cannot be fun for them to have to explain things to someone that clearly doesn't know what they're doing.
With this logic you wouldn't gain any Mafia experience. My first game in this community was
Secret Hitler #2 where I subbed someone else and my first game proper
#57. By then I had zero experience with either game and had to face off with people who played at least 25 games more or less. That didn't stop me from enjoying the game and everything afterwards minus some exceptions.
You'll also find each Mafia community does things differently. Here you have to hammer to get a lynch. In other places the day usually ends without a hammer and the person with the most votes gets lynched. In fact, the hammerer can be viewed as scummy or suspicious while here it's a necessary evil. Yeah some people here can be pretty harsh on newbies but ultimately you have to remember they're doing what they can to achieve their win condition, as should you.
I'm sorry about the kitchen fire. I must have missed it happening in the previous game.