#1: A treatise on arguing in the game of mafia:

Yosarian2 · Post Post #12 (isolation #0) » Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:52 pm

There are situations where it's the right move for a townie to be in "convincing mode" in order to convince the other person, and the rest of the town, that they actually are town; this is somewhat different from "convincing the town the person you are debating with is scum". If you are doing this, it's important to not attack the other person just because he's attacking you; that restriction can make it harder to debate, but if you honestly think that the person attacking you is likely to be town (and you need to think about this in as calm and logical a way as you possibly can), then you need to defend yourself and try to disprove with his arguments against you without actually attacking either his alignment or attacking him personally.

Anyway, I really like the essay, shea.

Yosarian2 · Post Post #14 (isolation #1) » Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:03 pm

Vi wrote: One of the most common pitfalls in Mafia is trying to convince scum they are scum.

I've had that work before.

Yosarian2 · Post Post #18 (isolation #2) » Tue Sep 01, 2009 10:35 pm

Xylthixlm wrote:
Yosarian2 wrote:There are situations where it's the right move for a townie to be in "convincing mode" in order to convince the other person, and the rest of the town, that they actually are town; this is somewhat different from "convincing the town the person you are debating with is scum". If you are doing this, it's important to not attack the other person just because he's attacking you; that restriction can make it harder to debate, but if you honestly think that the person attacking you is likely to be town (and you need to think about this in as calm and logical a way as you possibly can), then you need to defend yourself and try to disprove with his arguments against you without actually attacking either his alignment or attacking him personally.
Usually if
I
do this the person I'm arguing with ends up more convinced I'm scum.

(shrug) Sometimes that happens. You can sometimes convince the person you're arguing with that you're town, if they are open minded and fair, but it's hard. More important in those situations is to convince the rest of the people in the game that the case against you is weak or incorrect.

Yosarian2 · Post Post #29 (isolation #3) » Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:11 am

(nods) Yeah, that's basically what I said, NN; there's a third valid mode Shea didn't mention here, which is "arguing with the goal of convincing others that you're town."