Gaslighting

Gaslighting is a behavior often encountered in FM. This thread is here for people to discuss both the moral and strategic aspects of the topic.

First, to keep things clear : personally attacking a player, telling them they are "simply too dumb to play this game", etc. is NOT allowed on this site (and on most other sites). That being said, gaslighting does not stop there.

It is quite common to see townies, and more rarely, scums, question their own choices because of their own doubt; it is also common to see people (often the target of the victim's suspicions) try to make others doubt of their own reasoning without directly entering an argument with them. My question is : do you think that gaslighting is a valid strategy, both efficiency-wise and moral-wise (excluding the rule-breaking version of it)?

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Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

Gaslighting is a behavior often encountered in FM. This thread is here for people to discuss both the moral and strategic aspects of the topic.

First, to keep things clear : personally attacking a player, telling them they are "simply too dumb to play this game", etc. is NOT allowed on this site (and on most other sites). That being said, gaslighting does not stop there.

It is quite common to see townies, and more rarely, scums, question their own choices because of their own doubt; it is also common to see people (often the target of the victim's suspicions) try to make others doubt of their own reasoning without directly entering an argument with them. My question is : do you think that gaslighting is a valid strategy, both efficiency-wise and moral-wise (excluding the rule-breaking version of it)?

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I personally love this strategy, it's my #1 reason why I do fairly well on the mod and also here at times.

Think about it this way: You create doubt in a player who you think is scum as town, they are more likely to fumble and help the town's cause instead of their own, via exposing themselves as scum etc. It's even more effective on the scum side, because the more doubt you can plant in the town, the less likely you or your scummies will be found.


EDIT: I realize my post is a bit clunky, but I hope you get the point. Don't cross the line, and you're fine in all aspects, otherwise just don't do it.

EDIT #2: You don't need to cause a massive argument to put doubt in, just the phrase here and there that makes someone think "Hmm.... Am I right?"

I don't play forum mafia, just the battle.net version but I wanted to put my two cents in since I've had similar experiences.

In the battle.net version, there's something called "witch-hunting," which is when someone is targeted because of their in-game nickname (you can choose a unique nickname when you're in a Sc2Mafia game). The targeted person could be a troll, toxic, a moderator, or just someone using an HTML colored name (a special privilege awarded to players after they earn a certain number of points).

Mods recently decided to allow witch-hunting since players can just change their in-game nickname, which arguably allows for more toxic behavior. In general, "gaslighting" is extremely common between battle.net players. Every other lobby I'm in has people from a previous match arguing with each other or hosts kicking players for personal reasons. It's a shitshow. And guess what? I don't care, and I doubt most other battle.net players care since they're still playing. Trash talk is just a part of battle.net mafia, and I'm super grateful to have found a game that allows it.

If there's a personal vendetta between two players, I'd want them to settle it between themselves. If someone is basically spamming "I want THIS player to die," you can:

1. Ignore it if the gaslighter isn't providing adequate evidence for his claim.
2. Punish the gaslighter if he's working against his objective by targeting someone. For example, a doctor who pretends to be sheriff and claims the gaslightee is mafia just to get a lynch on the person he hates. However, this can be difficult to determine and comes down to opinion---which I believe should NOT influence a mod's decision---since part of the strategy in Mafia is pretending to be a role that you aren't.

There's also the issue of figuring out if the gaslighter is being malicious or a troll. I think the latter should be allowed, since I find trolls hilarious ;). Also, if town is stupid enough to lynch someone based off of a gaslighter making claims from day 1, that should be the town's problem. Gaslighters should be treated as executioners, jesters, potential evils trying to confuse town, or towns trying to fake jester so they don't get shot by mafia (since mafia shooting jester is basically a wasted night for mafia)---not as trolls who shouldn't play the game.

For example, I saw Efekann gaslighting Distorted in the Furry Potter game that just ended. Efekann claimed like five roles in the first day to "convince" town that Distorted is "scum." Obviously, Efekann wasn't being serious and as Varcron said, putting all that attention on Distorted could make him fumble or at least pressure him to vote with town if he IS scum.

I do realize forum mafia is more heavily moderated than battle.net mafia and that gaslightees can't hide their username on here. However, I believe moderators should try to regulate gameplay, not behavior. Regulating behavior requires using your opinion on what's right and wrong. What you consider as unacceptable behavior could be totally fine with another mod. No offense to you Marshmallow, but if there's one thing I hate, it's a site with mods who are inconsistent with punishments---and I would hate for Sc2Maf to become one of those sites.

Final note, if someone tells me to fuck off or that I'm trash in a game, I tell that person to fuck off like a real man or hit them with the "no u UwU" Uno reverse card. I hate being flamed, but I also like to flame others. I wouldn't want a mod to get in the middle of that since I believe I should handle the repercussions of toxicity myself.

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Originally Posted by theoneceko

I don't play forum mafia, just the battle.net version but I wanted to put my two cents in since I've had similar experiences.

In the battle.net version, there's something called "witch-hunting," which is when someone is targeted because of their in-game nickname (you can choose a unique nickname when you're in a Sc2Mafia game). The targeted person could be a known troll, toxic, a moderator, or just someone using an HTML colored name (a special privilege awarded after earning a certain number of points).

Mods recently decided to allow witch-hunting since players can just change their in-game nickname, which you could argue allows for more toxic behavior. In general, there already is a ton of "gaslighting" between battle.net players. Every other lobby I'm in has people from a previous match arguing with each other or hosts kicking players for personal reasons. It's a shitshow. And guess what? I don't care, and I doubt most other battle.net players care since they're still playing. Trash talk is just a part of battle.net mafia, and I'm super grateful to have found a game that allows it.

If there's a personal vendetta between two players, I'd want them to settle it between themselves. If someone is basically spamming "I want THIS player to die," you can:

1. Ignore it if the gaslighter isn't providing evidence for his claim.
2. Punish the gaslighter if he's working against his objective by targeting someone. For example, a doctor who pretends to be sheriff and claims the gaslightee is mafia just to get a lynch on the person he hates.

There's also the issue of figuring how serious the gaslighter is being, if someone's trolling I also think that should be allowed. That's just my personal preference though. Also, if town is stupid enough to lynch someone based off of a gaslighter making claims from day 1, that should be the town's problem. Gaslighters should be treated as executioners, jesters, potential evils trying to confuse town, or towns trying to fake jester so they don't get shot by mafia (since mafia shooting jester is basically a wasted night for mafia)---not as trolls who shouldn't play the game.

#MakeMafiaToxicAgain

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Oh, I don't mean it like that at all, that's just griefing at that point.

I mean in the game, if you say something to instill doubt in someone, that is considered gaslighting as well, what you're going on is fully flaming/griefing.

Oh

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Originally Posted by theoneceko

For example, I saw Efekann gaslighting Distorted in the Furry Potter game that just ended. Efekann claimed like five roles in the first day to "convince" town that Distorted is "scum." Obviously, Efekann wasn't being serious and as Varcron said, putting all that attention on Distorted could make him fumble or at least pressure him to vote with town if he IS scum.

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This is the sort of gaslighting that I think is okay, as much as I believe it should be more subtle than just that

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Originally Posted by Varcron

I personally love this strategy, it's my #1 reason why I do fairly well on the mod and also here at times.

Think about it this way: You create doubt in a player who you think is scum as town, they are more likely to fumble and help the town's cause instead of their own, via exposing themselves as scum etc. It's even more effective on the scum side, because the more doubt you can plant in the town, the less likely you or your scummies will be found.


EDIT: I realize my post is a bit clunky, but I hope you get the point. Don't cross the line, and you're fine in all aspects, otherwise just don't do it.

EDIT #2: You don't need to cause a massive argument to put doubt in, just the phrase here and there that makes someone think "Hmm.... Am I right?"

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I definetly agree that this is the "basic gaslighting" that almost everyone uses. Do you think that it can be pushed farther? Also, how do you gaslight scumreads as town, exactly? Isn't it useless unless the scum is pushing you?

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Originally Posted by Varcron

Oh, I don't mean it like that at all, that's just griefing at that point.

I mean in the game, if you say something to instill doubt in someone, that is considered gaslighting as well, what you're going on is fully flaming/griefing.

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Exactly. Just saying "YOU'RE A FUCKING MORON, I HOPE YOU DIE IRL" isn't "proper" gaslighting, it's a personal insult, and that's not allowed in FM. That's exactly what I was excluding in the second line of the original post.

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Originally Posted by Varcron

This is the sort of gaslighting that I think is okay, as much as I believe it should be more subtle than just that

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Indeed, it's okay. Something interesting you are bringing up, though, is that if the gaslighting lacks subtility or if the player who's gaslighting lacks ethos, the attempt will most likely fail. It was Efekann's case in Furry Potter.

As people play this game, they accumulate lots of baggage, like insecurities and weaknesses. Many of those insecurities are very easy to exploit in a way that seems natural.

One obvious example: if a player is just generally insecure and seems to look up to you, then you can really damage their reads by saying something like "I can't believe we're 24 hours into day 1 and all you've just got is some superficial read on a player obviously playing to their day 1 town meta. Pull your head out of your ass and take this game seriously ffs. You told me you wanted to get better." - this can be easily played off as a heated moment, depending on your persona.

You see some experienced players doing it a LOT. Not just neccesarily the above, but generally trying to get in people's head and figure out what their weaknesses are. But it's also easy to misinterpret one person's tactless remark as some deliberate, calculated attack on your psyche. If you're suspicious it's happening, try to find examples of your suspect doing it to others as opposed to you, because you can probably make a much more objective assessment of other's weaknesses.

I think the morality of it is very case-by-case, but you should generally have faith in people to overcome their problems. I've personally found it to be very beneficial to my self-awareness to have those sorts of plays used on me. However, just remember the game is supposed to be fun and you're not trying to scar people lmao.

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Originally Posted by yzb25

As people play this game, they accumulate lots of baggage, like insecurities and weaknesses. Many of those insecurities are very easy to exploit in a way that seems natural.

One obvious example: if a player is just generally insecure and seems to look up to you, then you can really damage their reads by saying something like "I can't believe we're 24 hours into day 1 and all you've just got is some superficial read on a player obviously playing to their day 1 town meta. Pull your head out of your ass and take this game seriously ffs. You told me you wanted to get better." - this can be easily played off as a heated moment, depending on your persona.

You see some experienced players doing it a LOT. Not just neccesarily the above, but generally trying to get in people's head and figure out what their weaknesses are. But it's also easy to misinterpret one person's tactless remark as some deliberate, calculated attack on your psyche. If you're suspicious it's happening, try to find examples of your suspect doing it to others as opposed to you, because you can probably make a much more objective assessment of other's weaknesses.

I think the morality of it is very case-by-case, but you should generally have faith in people to overcome their problems. I've personally found it to be very beneficial to my self-awareness to have those sorts of plays used on me. However, just remember the game is supposed to be fun and you're not trying to scar people lmao.

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I should also mention I've seen a lot of plays that were clearly just an outburst retroactively justified with nonsense reasoning. Don't be a dipshit. MM appears to be taking great caution to make that distinction.

This could be a good thread to point fingers at everyone including the person above me, but I think gaslighting is a good tool that generally makes people look influential in games.

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Originally Posted by Kenny

This could be a good thread to point fingers at everyone including the person above me, but I think gaslighting is a good tool that generally makes people look influential in games.

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I agree, it is a reason why some of the high point players on the mod are able to influence the game in conversation, because they use stuff like this. This could work in FM as well, as I said previously, it would just take a bit more effort in it to be subtle.

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Originally Posted by Kenny

This could be a good thread to point fingers at everyone including the person above me, but I think gaslighting is a good tool that generally makes people look influential in games.

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Nope, it couldn't be a good thread to point fingers at everyone lol, that's not the point. Gaslighting, when done "to have fun and to win the game, not to scar people" as Yzb said, is good IMO (I like that definition).
You think that by making others look bad, you make yourself look better? That is... debatable. It has to be really subtle, else the opposite happens : people start thinking you're being a scum mastermind trying to control everyone.

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Originally Posted by Varcron

I agree, it is a reason why some of the high point players on the mod are able to influence the game in conversation, because they use stuff like this. This could work in FM as well, as I said previously, it would just take a bit more effort in it to be subtle.

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I believe gaslighting appears much more in FM than on the mod, though. On the mod, it's mostly flaming that people sometimes actually believe to be "right" and follow, sadly. Theoneceko gave examples of it above (not saying he's guilty of it himself, but what he put in his post is a good picture of the general way to discredit there).

Im A Unkillable Beguiler And "Obviously Not" Gaslighting
Everyone Who Thought I Was Lying Was Foolish

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Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

I believe gaslighting appears much more in FM than on the mod, though. On the mod, it's mostly flaming that people sometimes actually believe to be "right" and follow, sadly. Theoneceko gave examples of it above (not saying he's guilty of it himself, but what he put in his post is a good picture of the general way to discredit there).

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L U L I FLAME UWU. OWOFLAMESUWUFLAEMS. IM NOT ABOVE FLAMING IM A FUCKIN DEGENERATE!!!!

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Originally Posted by yzb25

As people play this game, they accumulate lots of baggage, like insecurities and weaknesses. Many of those insecurities are very easy to exploit in a way that seems natural.

One obvious example: if a player is just generally insecure and seems to look up to you, then you can really damage their reads by saying something like "I can't believe we're 24 hours into day 1 and all you've just got is some superficial read on a player obviously playing to their day 1 town meta. Pull your head out of your ass and take this game seriously ffs. You told me you wanted to get better." - this can be easily played off as a heated moment, depending on your persona.

You see some experienced players doing it a LOT. Not just neccesarily the above, but generally trying to get in people's head and figure out what their weaknesses are. But it's also easy to misinterpret one person's tactless remark as some deliberate, calculated attack on your psyche. If you're suspicious it's happening, try to find examples of your suspect doing it to others as opposed to you, because you can probably make a much more objective assessment of other's weaknesses.

I think the morality of it is very case-by-case, but you should generally have faith in people to overcome their problems. I've personally found it to be very beneficial to my self-awareness to have those sorts of plays used on me. However, just remember the game is supposed to be fun and you're not trying to scar people lmao.

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I actually really like when you said "generally have faith in people to overcome their problems." makes me UWU.

No seriously, when people flame me in the mod I learn to get used to it and learn from my stupid mistakes. Also, when people are flaming me even though they're the ones who fucked up (they just want some1 to dump their salt on) I'm learnING to deal.

I've only seen one report on "flaming"/cyberbullying. Not to discredit cyberbullying, in some cases it maeks ppl commit non-living UWU. But in a video game if ur raging, like who honestly gives a fuck.
UWUUWJU!
I havb 900IQ

@theoneceko We're not talking about the same world. Forum mafia and the mod are two different mindsets for a similar game principle. I play the mod and enjoy its atmosphere (toxicity is never really fun though), but toxicity is definetly not welcome in FM, and can and will be met with punishments. Note that I'm not saying that being toxic is alright on the mod, but that the definition of punishable toxicity is larger in FM.

Where do you draw the line between 'gaslighting' and flaming someone?
I don't really understand the difference all that well (at least in practice. In theory, I understand what gaslighting is supposed to be).

For me, the issue is when you try to take advantage of someone's hard to break (maladaptive) personality traits, trait that they are well aware of themselves.
I've experienced this personally and it's not fun when it happens.

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Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

It is quite common to see townies, and more rarely, scums, question their own choices because of their own doubt; it is also common to see people (often the target of the victim's suspicions) try to make others doubt of their own reasoning without directly entering an argument with them. My question is : do you think that gaslighting is a valid strategy, both efficiency-wise and moral-wise (excluding the rule-breaking version of it)?

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I believe this is a psychological game and fostering doubt or even flat out calling someones logic bad is absolutely acceptable. My personal ethical line is that it be slot directed or play critiquing as opposed to attacking the player. There is a difference between attacking an argument or the approach being taken and attacking the person themselves. Many people loose that difference and take it personally. But who's fault is that? If I scum read you and it makes you feel bad is it my fault for scum reading your play or yours for taking personal offence that your slot is scum read?

I played a game 2 days ago where a guy accused the town of gaslighting him and made a massive guilttrip post. I knew nobody had personally attacked him in any way that entire day and he was just making a massive ATE appeal because of the heavy pressure he was taking but it still made me uncomfortable. He took the game from being a fun and turned it into some kind of personal violation in order to gain an in game advantage. The funny thing was that he was so prone to doing it 2 people in the game literally posted something like "Here comes his ATE" before he even posted it. Actually.. I will just grab semi-quotes.

Spoiler : quote :

"-------- is preparing his ate"
"Perhaps it's because I know my own alignment and I'm autistic, but to me it's so obvious I'm town, other people not seeing that feels like a personal attack.

People have been gaslighting me today, and I know it's just a game, but it's crossing the border to emotional abuse. It's in a real fucked up territory where I have to get on the good side of some of the abusers to survive because they're allies, but I don't even fucking know who my allies are.

I mean.. The guy even admits in his own post that people scum reading him is not personal but he calls them abusers and positions himself as a victim to make others feel bad? Fuck that..

Why is it considered so ok to manipulate others from the victim position? I see the same thing in real life especially with would be 'nice guys,' where they guilt trip a kind girl into whatever by leveraging the girls empathy. Its like a different kind of predator just waiting to prey on kindness to get what they want. On a larger society level we fail to hold people accountable for masquerading as a victim regardless of the damage it causes others. Its like we use hit words that gives a blanket vindication for rude behavior. Some level of thick skin is required to sit around for 8 hours in a day and defend yourself from people calling your play scummy when in your head as a townie that equates to 'you preformed poorly.'

I think the fact we use the term 'Gaslighting' is in itself a reflection of this problem. The etymology is pretty dark representing a time when women couldent divorce and sadistic husbands would psychologically abuse them until their minds were so broken they questioned their own sanity. I mean.. Does that compare to someone saying 'you play a video game like shit' at all?

I dont think its ok to make someone feel bad regardless of if its done by being mean or making them feel responsible for causing you pain.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

If that dude is autistic, he's pathetic. If not, even worse L U L PogChamp

I agree, Helz.
One thing I've noticed, that (for some reason) seems to very common in the Mafia community (especially on other sites like e.g. MafiaUniverse), is that quite a few players like to make others feel bad about themselves (for fucking up?). This isn't the case on SC2Mafia fortunately, as far as I can tell (we are guilty of other things, but this is not one of them). What bothers me is that this behaviour seems to be extremely common in the Mafia community - why is that? Why is it acceptable to call someone an idiot for being wrong?

I've been banned from sites for calling myself (!) retarded, or for even merely using the word retarded (!) in a sentence, (without referring to someone specifically).
Yet calling others dumb seems to be totally acceptable. Priorities, I guess.

I myself am not completely sure where to draw the line between calling someone's logic bad and calling someone bad - when does criticising someone's logic become an ad hominem? I suspect its possible for seemingly 'valid' arguments to also be ad hominems.

I can probably give the game where I instantly shut down Frog's 'scummy syntax' suggestion as an example (regrettable, I did apologise later) - it was definitely aimed at the person in that context, and yet also seemingly valid.

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Originally Posted by theoneceko

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

If that dude is autistic, he's pathetic. If not, even worse L U L PogChamp

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That does not look like autism to me.

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Originally Posted by Ganelon

Where do you draw the line between 'gaslighting' and flaming someone?
I don't really understand the difference all that well (at least in practice. In theory, I understand what gaslighting is supposed to be).

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I could've sworn I had replied to this a week ago... Strange. Anyway, my reply was along the lines of Helz's first sentences : attacking slots and reasonings is part of the game and perfectly acceptable, but attacking persons behind the slots and intentionally making them "question their sanity" to toxic extents is not. I'm sure you know what I mean, we played some game at some other place together... :P

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Originally Posted by Helz

I believe this is a psychological game and fostering doubt or even flat out calling someones logic bad is absolutely acceptable. My personal ethical line is that it be slot directed or play critiquing as opposed to attacking the player. There is a difference between attacking an argument or the approach being taken and attacking the person themselves. Many people loose that difference and take it personally. But who's fault is that? If I scum read you and it makes you feel bad is it my fault for scum reading your play or yours for taking personal offence that your slot is scum read?

I played a game 2 days ago where a guy accused the town of gaslighting him and made a massive guilttrip post. I knew nobody had personally attacked him in any way that entire day and he was just making a massive ATE appeal because of the heavy pressure he was taking but it still made me uncomfortable. He took the game from being a fun and turned it into some kind of personal violation in order to gain an in game advantage. The funny thing was that he was so prone to doing it 2 people in the game literally posted something like "Here comes his ATE" before he even posted it. Actually.. I will just grab semi-quotes.

Spoiler : quote :

"-------- is preparing his ate"
"Perhaps it's because I know my own alignment and I'm autistic, but to me it's so obvious I'm town, other people not seeing that feels like a personal attack.

People have been gaslighting me today, and I know it's just a game, but it's crossing the border to emotional abuse. It's in a real fucked up territory where I have to get on the good side of some of the abusers to survive because they're allies, but I don't even fucking know who my allies are.

I mean.. The guy even admits in his own post that people scum reading him is not personal but he calls them abusers and positions himself as a victim to make others feel bad? Fuck that..

Why is it considered so ok to manipulate others from the victim position? I see the same thing in real life especially with would be 'nice guys,' where they guilt trip a kind girl into whatever by leveraging the girls empathy. Its like a different kind of predator just waiting to prey on kindness to get what they want. On a larger society level we fail to hold people accountable for masquerading as a victim regardless of the damage it causes others. Its like we use hit words that gives a blanket vindication for rude behavior. Some level of thick skin is required to sit around for 8 hours in a day and defend yourself from people calling your play scummy when in your head as a townie that equates to 'you preformed poorly.'

I think the fact we use the term 'Gaslighting' is in itself a reflection of this problem. The etymology is pretty dark representing a time when women couldent divorce and sadistic husbands would psychologically abuse them until their minds were so broken they questioned their own sanity. I mean.. Does that compare to someone saying 'you play a video game like shit' at all?

I dont think its ok to make someone feel bad regardless of if its done by being mean or making them feel responsible for causing you pain.

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This reversed vision of the problem is intriguing. Playing victim is a common manipulation strategy, and it can be very toxic, indeed, or just be an appeal to emotion, like in the example you have given. I think what this guy did is ethically acceptable, and is a pushed form of AtE. However, there is a grey zone between AtE and actual gaslighting (in this case, literal reverse gaslighting, since he's basically inducing the thought that others are gaslighting him to make them feel bad). That being said, I personally dislike people who push manipulation this far (at least unless they keep things perfectly clearly in the game and say that did not mean it at all afterwards, but even then, it's going too far imo).
Also, as Ganelon said, this post really didn't look like an autist's. It expresses emotions (mostly fake on the top of it) in a way I doubt actually autistic people would express them.

About the term of gaslighting itself, I don't think it's wrong. Of course, it's nowhere near the movie's situation when it's applied to Mafia, and that is for a very simple reason: it's not real life, it's a game. Of course it's exaggerated. Killing people in Mafia and in real life are two very different things. It doesn't mean we need to change the word for killing people in Mafia.
Heavy attacks at persons (not slots) who had a bad day, who are weakened emotionally because of real life stress or whatever can actually affect people to the point of them questioning their own logical capabilities. I'm not saying they'll have a post-traumatic stress disorder because of it, but it's just not moral in my eyes, and surely doesn't have its place in FM. Plus, new players will very often leave the game if that happens to them. And, most importantly, it's not fun, whether you are playing victim or are attacking people directly.

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Originally Posted by Ganelon

I agree, Helz.
One thing I've noticed, that (for some reason) seems to very common in the Mafia community (especially on other sites like e.g. MafiaUniverse), is that quite a few players like to make others feel bad about themselves (for fucking up?). This isn't the case on SC2Mafia fortunately, as far as I can tell (we are guilty of other things, but this is not one of them). What bothers me is that this behaviour seems to be extremely common in the Mafia community - why is that? Why is it acceptable to call someone an idiot for being wrong?

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Dude wdym. I see flaming in almost every lobby. I also flame too since most of the time town just trolls and never follows leads. Personal attacks are used too. They tend to insult a player's apparent lack of IQ or consist of random slurs. Again, I usually partake if the target was truly stupid (minus the slurs part UwU).

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Originally Posted by theoneceko

Dude wdym. I see flaming in almost every lobby. I also flame too since most of the time town just trolls and never follows leads. Personal attacks are used too. They tend to insult a player's apparent lack of IQ or consist of random slurs. Again, I usually partake if the target was truly stupid (minus the slurs part UwU).

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ganelon means forum mafia, not the arcade.

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Originally Posted by Voss

ganelon means forum mafia, not the arcade.

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Oh I thought he was referencing the mod since he said "Sc2Mafia." That term can mean forum and the mod, I know UwU. I was wondering what planet Ganelon was living in lol uWu

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Originally Posted by Ganelon

I myself am not completely sure where to draw the line between calling someone's logic bad and calling someone bad - when does criticising someone's logic become an ad hominem? I suspect its possible for seemingly 'valid' arguments to also be ad hominems.

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Gaslighting and whether someone is attacking a person instead of a play or not aren't directly related. I'd say most of the time attacks on players are unplanned or just there to vent even.

Gaslighting often comes with attacks on plays, or specific actions, and with a suggestion of the gaslighted player being capable of doing better, sometimes directly with meta arguments, or other times not as obviously. But even compliments can be gaslighting if the intent is to matipulate the victim's playstyle into something the gaslighter doesn't actually believe himself to be right.

I think a common and obvious form of gaslighting is powerwolfing. As scum take on a role of a lecturer, maybe even have your teammate join you, and continuously compliment others whenever their decisions are bad for themselves. Encourage the town to play poorly, tell them to look at the scum's towny balls and have them interpret the differences to actual town in reverse. There are certain players who fall for that, and others who don't.

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Originally Posted by Kenny

I think a common and obvious form of gaslighting is powerwolfing. As scum take on a role of a lecturer, maybe even have your teammate join you, and continuously compliment others whenever their decisions are bad for themselves. Encourage the town to play poorly, tell them to look at the scum's towny balls and have them interpret the differences to actual town in reverse. There are certain players who fall for that, and others who don't.

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@blinkskater

DO YOU NOT SEE MY BIG GREEN TOWNY BALLS?

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Originally Posted by Kenny

Gaslighting and whether someone is attacking a person instead of a play or not aren't directly related. I'd say most of the time attacks on players are unplanned or just there to vent even.

Gaslighting often comes with attacks on plays, or specific actions, and with a suggestion of the gaslighted player being capable of doing better, sometimes directly with meta arguments, or other times not as obviously. But even compliments can be gaslighting if the intent is to matipulate the victim's playstyle into something the gaslighter doesn't actually believe himself to be right.

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Originally Posted by Kenny

I think a common and obvious form of gaslighting is powerwolfing. As scum take on a role of a lecturer, maybe even have your teammate join you, and continuously compliment others whenever their decisions are bad for themselves. Encourage the town to play poorly, tell them to look at the scum's towny balls and have them interpret the differences to actual town in reverse. There are certain players who fall for that, and others who don't.

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I think you're heavily distorting the original meaning of the word. Complimenting people on bad plays is does not infer that they are failing something to make them change their playstyle; it's the exact opposite.
Also, serious personal attacks "to vent" are just bad, really. If you need to vent, you should be doing it by going off for a little bit, not by hurling insults at others. It's bad both for the fun and for your own credibility in the game.

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Originally Posted by aamirus

@blinkskater

DO YOU NOT SEE MY BIG GREEN TOWNY BALLS?

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Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

I think you're heavily distorting the original meaning of the word. Complimenting people on bad plays is does not infer that they are failing something to make them change their playstyle; it's the exact opposite.
Also, serious personal attacks "to vent" are just bad, really. If you need to vent, you should be doing it by going off for a little bit, not by hurling insults at others. It's bad both for the fun and for your own credibility in the game.



:>

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There's a section with examples starting at "in personality disorders" and ending with "in popular culture", tho most of them being in "in romantic relationships" in the wikipedia article you linked in your opening post. What I described fits the wikipedia description.

Complimenting bad plays is done with the intent of manipulating victims to continue doing bad plays, and maybe start going for even worse plays. That is gaslighting, as it's manipulation that changes a victim's beliefs to obviously bad ones which they wouldn't be able to hold up without the gaslighter's help.

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Originally Posted by Kenny

There's a section with examples starting at "in personality disorders" and ending with "in popular culture", tho most of them being in "in romantic relationships" in the wikipedia article you linked in your opening post. What I described fits the wikipedia description.

Complimenting bad plays is done with the intent of manipulating victims to continue doing bad plays, and maybe start going for even worse plays. That is gaslighting, as it's manipulation that changes a victim's beliefs to obviously bad ones which they wouldn't be able to hold up without the gaslighter's help.

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Isn't that just manipulation, though? I feel like I'm going on Helz's side of things now...

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Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

Isn't that just manipulation, though? I feel like I'm going on Helz's side of things now...

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As scum, encouraging players to play bad is a-okay in my book. Like, how else are you supposed to manipulate players?
I think the ethical thing to do is point out exactly when you were encouraging bad play in the post-game. We should be striving for higher quality players overall, and encouraging bad play without pointing out when such bad advice is being given out in the post-game is detrimental to that.

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Originally Posted by deathworlds

As scum, encouraging players to play bad is a-okay in my book. Like, how else are you supposed to manipulate players?
I think the ethical thing to do is point out exactly when you were encouraging bad play in the post-game. We should be striving for higher quality players overall, and encouraging bad play without pointing out when such bad advice is being given out in the post-game is detrimental to that.

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Oh, it's definetly ok in my book, but it's not gaslighting and therefore it is off-topic. I agree about the post-game part, too, and big lies should most of the time be explained at the end of games by the liars.

I don't particularly like the Wiki Article because it gives the impression that gaslighting is nothing more than a synonym or form of manipulation.
While technically true, it's missing the other half.
Gaslighting is(imo), above all, a form of emotional abuse. Emotional abuse that's designed to make the victim more susceptible to getting controlled by the perpetrator.

The source of the definition in the Wiki Article is a blog post "11 signs of gaslighting". I wish to quote that list and color in this color the ones that I've personally seen or experienced in FM:

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1. They tell blatant lies.

You know it's an outright lie. Yet they are telling you this lie with a straight face. Why are they so blatant? Because they're setting up a precedent. Once they tell you a huge lie, you're not sure if anything they say is true. Keeping you unsteady and off-kilter is the goal.

2. They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.

You know they said they would do something; you know you heard it. But they out and out deny it. It makes you start questioning your reality—maybe they never said that thing. And the more they do this, the more you question your reality and start accepting theirs.

3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.

They know how important your kids are to you, and they know how important your identity is to you. So those may be one of the first things they attack. If you have kids, they tell you that you should not have had those children. They will tell you'd be a worthy person if only you didn't have a long list of negative traits. They attack the foundation of your being.

4. They wear you down over time.

This is one of the insidious things about gaslighting—it is done gradually, over time. A lie here, a lie there, a snide comment every so often...and then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self-aware people can be sucked into gaslighting—it is that effective. It's the "frog in the frying pan" analogy: The heat is turned up slowly, so the frog never realizes what's happening to it.

5. Their actions do not match their words.

When dealing with a person or entity that gaslights, look at what they are doing rather than what they are saying. What they are saying means nothing; it is just talk. What they are doing is the issue.

6. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.

This person or entity that is cutting you down, telling you that you don't have value, is now praising you for something you did. This adds an additional sense of uneasiness. You think, "Well maybe they aren't so bad." Yes, they are. This is a calculated attempt to keep you off-kilter—and again, to question your reality. Also look at what you were praised for; it is probably something that served the gaslighter.

7. They know confusion weakens people.

Gaslighters know that people like having a sense of stability and normalcy. Their goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything. And humans' natural tendency is to look to the person or entity that will help you feel more stable—and that happens to be the gaslighter.

8. They project.

They are a drug user or a cheater, yet they are constantly accusing you of that. This is done so often that you start trying to defend yourself, and are distracted from the gaslighter's own behavior.

9. They try to align people against you.

Gaslighters are masters at manipulating and finding the people they know will stand by them no matter what—and they use these people against you. They will make comments such as, "This person knows that you're not right," or "This person knows you're useless too." Keep in mind it does not mean that these people actually said these things. A gaslighter is a constant liar. When the gaslighter uses this tactic it makes you feel like you don't know who to trust or turn to—and that leads you right back to the gaslighter. And that's exactly what they want: Isolation gives them more control.


10. They tell you or others that you are crazy.

This is one of the most effective tools of the gaslighter, because it's dismissive. The gaslighter knows if they question your sanity, people will not believe you when you tell them the gaslighter is abusive or out-of-control. It's a master technique.

11. They tell you everyone else is a liar.

By telling you that everyone else (your family, the media) is a liar, it again makes you question your reality. You've never known someone with the audacity to do this, so they must be telling the truth, right? No. It's a manipulation technique. It makes people turn to the gaslighter for the "correct" information—which isn't correct information at all.

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Gaslighting IRL is unhealthy, abusive, narcissistic.
But, to be fair, in FM I think it's fair game. For example, what harm (in FM) does wearing someone down? Worst case scenario, you can just not play with them anymore if you don't like. Or perhaps they themselves will get cancel culture'd by the community if they become too intolerable.

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Originally Posted by yzb25

One obvious example: if a player is just generally insecure and seems to look up to you, then you can really damage their reads by saying something like "I can't believe we're 24 hours into day 1 and all you've just got is some superficial read on a player obviously playing to their day 1 town meta. Pull your head out of your ass and take this game seriously ffs. You told me you wanted to get better." - this can be easily played off as a heated moment, depending on your persona.

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This feels illegal.