To take this conversation back to game-related issues, here's the infamous Emperor role card, which I will dissect:
While the Empress is alive you can't be hung. You can blackmail a player at night, forcing them to do one of the following things the next day:
- Say a specific sentence / post.
- Talk in a specific way
- Claim false night feedback
- The player can't reveal that he was blackmailed at anytime (ALL GAME) neither he can give hints about it or he will automatically die. (If someone has given hints or not is decided by the host)
If the player doesn't follow the orders, he will die at the end of the day.
Here's the problem: the card is ambiguous with respect to "automatically die" -- i.e. it's unclear whether Gyrlander meant "immediately", "without warning", or something else. In contrast, the last line says what happens if the player does not follow the instructions. It's similarly unclear whether the instructions include what I will call Rule #4 (the line with automatically die in it). I.e. you could very reasonably conclude that since the last line speaks to what happens in the event of the orders being disobeyed, it trumps the death point in Rule #4. In other words, Rule #4 is one of the four orders so it perhaps should subject to the bolded line.
Basically, there's big time ambiguity here which could be interpreted regarding a player's revealing of being BMed -- either in a pro-Town way (i.e. death at the end of the day) or a pro-scum way (immediate death).
Personally, given the BM mechanic had been buffed pre-game to remove any veto right by the host (ironically, at the suggestion of ika himself, who ended up rolling Emperor), I would have gone with the pro-Town way, especially given the somewhat marginal advantage of a player dying mid-day vs. end of day. Also, as previously mentioned, it's more harmful for a Town player to die mid-day because that results in all the Town's votes being wiped out and the Town needing to start over.
At the very least, I understand that the scum team had complained about the BM mechanic being enforced to the stricter standard. In these types of situations in the future, I feel like the host should examine the totality of the situation and try to come to the resolution that affects the game the least. In sports situations, where there is a borderline call that could result in a penalty, typically the referees will allow the players to continue because people tend to be far saltier when the game is being decide by the game overseer vs. by the players in the game.