Does Mafia attract intellectual curiosity and/or foster it?

[Marshmallow Marshall]

This question was sparked by a friend I have invited to play, and who said he did not like Mafia because he "doesn't like not knowing things". He then said he would also prefer RTS games without fog of war, since "not knowing things is very annoying". I then told him he must find life very annoying, since there are so many things one does not and cannot know, to which he replied "no, because I find out the things that I need to know", giving practical examples such as "where have I put my phone" or "what were our sales figures last month". Any questions of a more... existential nature did not seem to interest him - and this is not because he is not clever! He just doesn't care, and that seems to be specifically because he dislikes the state of simple ignorance, understood as the state of awareness of one's lack of knowledge on a specific matter. This exact distaste also was the cause of his distaste for Mafia (and Among Us, etc.).

Therefore, considering there is a common cause for disinterest in what I will broadly call "philosophy" and in Mafia, I wonder how much this filters who comes to play Mafia - and especially Forum Mafia, since it is the deepest and most accomplished form of the game - and stays to enjoy it. My hypothesis is that it does quite a lot. I also notice that most players on many sites seem to have at least some form of intellectual background (often associated with social class), moreso than your average person you would meet on the street, which could indicate that there is an significant filtering process going on.

Furthermore, and although I am aware this stretches beyond the range of my initial reasoning, could playing Mafia - and, again, especially FM - foster intellectual curiosity by forcing its practice?

[bakermir]

Not everyone enjoys the same type of games or pursuits. Starcraft, Chess, Music, Rock Climbing or whatever people are interested in. These pursuits are diverse and complex, just like Mafia.

Indeed, Mafia fosters intellectual curiosity while bringing people from different avenues of life, but not all people! These people probably have some things in common and others don't. Is a persons intellectual background the only determinant? It doesn't feel that way.

Once I came across an argument suggesting that FM might eventually fade away with the generations. However, I recently observed the opposite trend in another FM community where Gen Z are on majority and just as active as once us Millenials were. It seems that Forum Mafia concept isn't outdated and isn't the issue. It isn't the generational shift either. Millenials and older individuals may have moved on to different avenues vis-a-vis because they no longer found the same intellectual curiosity in FM like they once had, or perhaps life took them down different paths where they no longer can find time for FM.

Back to the main point, I think it is just the internet culture thing to some degree. You find yourself exploring the internet, chatting or trying different kinds of social experiences and it often leads to people to unexpected places online. Places you might end up such as some online board or community for what it could be for literally anything, or maybe some simple DnD campaign you found people to play with, or trying some deduction games like Blood on the Clocktower, or hell even Among Us lol my point is it often begins with a casual introduction by someone in the online community. i.e. My introduction to FM was by SuperYak after we met on Arcade.

I think your friend is not really an internet person. It seems normal they will never get into this type of games online? Even when I think offline, where your and your friends entire circle agrees on a game of Resistance at someones place, I doubt your friend will be there 100% or fully enjoy it. It is just differing preferences, where one person prefers black while another prefers yellow.

Nonetheless, I find myself intrigued by the possibility that there maybe deeper factors at play in this phenomenon. Probably, there is an analysis or a paper somewhere written years ago in some university or in someones head lol

[MartinGG99]

I think a good observation someone made that I heard recently, on a different topic but I feel is a good principle to keep in mind, is that our brains are evolved to develop certainty out of unavoidable unknowingness and so the path and way we develop certainty can vary and yet be very important to each individual. This is a core feature of our brains, and can be demonstrated by wondering how in the world would someone - millennia ago - figure out how to best search for food? How about specific places or movements? Exactly 1 mile or kilometer north and 2 miles or kilometers east? Trying to get an effective and consistently good answer while having a lack of information (of which we often cannot easily gather without cost in of itself, prompting more decisions) is a significant challenge and one that our brains must figure out some level of certainty from.

As such I think forum mafia and other games of deception tend to appeal to ourselves in that manner, whether it be for fun or actual intellectual challenge. At least for those who are interested in it. Human beings are a lot more complex than that, such as our ability to self-reflect and that tends to add extra layers onto everything.

I don't think forcing play though is going to work positively in any manner though lmao, we'd be seeing so many modkills day 1.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

It seems my intent has been misunderstood. My point is not to debate about this specific guy (who is an online friend who literally spams me to get Halo lol so he DEFINETLY isn't "not an internet person" btw lol), nor was it about forcing people to play FM; I don't have an FM dungeon to lock people in just yet xD. My example was there just to make my thought process apparent. I am well aware that this specific person can just not like mafia-like games and that's very much fine lol, and I'm probably never going to talk about it again with him... at least until that FM dungeon is ready : ]
That said, your reply is a very nice one, baker. You're cool :P

I rather wanted to analyze the correlation between "intellectual curiosity", understood very broadly as the desire to uncover truths, and the taste for Mafia, along with how Mafia influences intellectual curiosity when it is consistently played. I notice Martin said "whether it be for fun or actual intelectual challenge". I find those two elements go hand in hand, and wonder what other fun could be found in the game; of course, there's the social aspect that's also fun, but it seems to me that if you don't like the concept of stabbing your friends in the back, you'd rather just go play less evil social games, or even do other social activities if you're not much of a game person (apparently that exists...!). As for the pure trolling aspect, few people actually play the game on the long term with this in mind. This leaves us with intellectual curiosity as a core requirement for enjoying the game IMO.

And by the way, I am not trying to say Mafia players are inherently intellectually superior to other people: that would be extremely silly lol.

[OzyWho]

Is the question subjective in nature? It feels like such.
How much are you willing to accept or what falls under "intellectual curiosity"? I have trouble distinguishing it from "any curiosity", in which case it'd always be present.

I want to address the fostering side of the topic instead, that part is more interesting to me because it reminds me of something.
You know what is funny? I mean actual "funny" and what that is in our brain? We laugh when something goes not the way our brain expected it to (similarly to when someone's being tickled and their laughter is new brain pathways forming as they learn to defend themselves). This short video explains better than I could anyways: https://youtu.be/ddV6jyDeCKA?si=ZmaIiRxEanqTIBbe
It's similar to what Martin said in that this "what we find funny" business is centered around our brains learning new ways to predict the world, which isn't much different from saying that our brains crave certainty.
I think we can all intuitively see the connection this has to Mafia in particular, right? Although I can't put it into words.
It's like: someone flipping different alignment than you thought they would gives your brain dopamine, just not so much as to laugh but rather more similar to learning new skill from playing game. (I feel like this makes more sense in my brain than on paper? )

Can I ask you guys something? I'd think that in this sort of topic the first thing everyone challenges the question to is themselves: "Is it the case for ME?". Instead I see the posts talking about people in general. Why is that?
Speaking of which, would MM fall my case under "intellectual curiosity"? I seem to have an annual wish for a reality check. I know how bad I am at FM and all that, but once in a while I'm like "I can TOTALLY be good at the game!", so I go in a FM game and get brought right back down to reality. That's my thing. I don't know why I love the realization of "Ohh my god, I suck so much at this!", but I do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Is the question subjective in nature? It feels like such.
How much are you willing to accept or what falls under "intellectual curiosity"? I have trouble distinguishing it from "any curiosity", in which case it'd always be present.

I want to address the fostering side of the topic instead, that part is more interesting to me because it reminds me of something.
You know what is funny? I mean actual "funny" and what that is in our brain? We laugh when something goes not the way our brain expected it to (similarly to when someone's being tickled and their laughter is new brain pathways forming as they learn to defend themselves). This short video explains better than I could anyways: https://youtu.be/ddV6jyDeCKA?si=ZmaIiRxEanqTIBbe
It's similar to what Martin said in that this "what we find funny" business is centered around our brains learning new ways to predict the world, which isn't much different from saying that our brains crave certainty.
I think we can all intuitively see the connection this has to Mafia in particular, right? Although I can't put it into words.
It's like: someone flipping different alignment than you thought they would gives your brain dopamine, just not so much as to laugh but rather more similar to learning new skill from playing game. (I feel like this makes more sense in my brain than on paper? )

Can I ask you guys something? I'd think that in this sort of topic the first thing everyone challenges the question to is themselves: "Is it the case for ME?". Instead I see the posts talking about people in general. Why is that?
Speaking of which, would MM fall my case under "intellectual curiosity"? I seem to have an annual wish for a reality check. I know how bad I am at FM and all that, but once in a while I'm like "I can TOTALLY be good at the game!", so I go in a FM game and get brought right back down to reality. That's my thing. I don't know why I love the realization of "Ohh my god, I suck so much at this!", but I do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"Intellectual curiosity" is kind of a pleonasm if you agree to take "intellectual" in the broadest meaning possible, but I meant curiosity that is related to actually furthering one's knowledge of the world, as opposed to, say, spying other people, or sticking your tongue in a power outlet to see what it does... I also had philosophy-related topics in mind moreso than "mechanical" topics that are solvable through math, considering math kinda purges the "I'm asking myself an important question and I do not know the answer" to leave only a method to follow and not too bothersome questions such as "what is the value of this variable". I don't think such questions make anyone feel the discomfort of simple ignorance lol - but perhaps I am wrong, and more math-oriented people will show it, who knows.

My interest was about people in general, although general conclusions are absolutely liable to be applied to particular cases. I don't think individualizing it has much value outside of a very personal approach (which is perfectly fine, but doesn't further everyone's knowledge).

Also, we already kinda talked a bit on discord lol but I don't understand the "speaking of which, would MM fall my case..." part. I looked up "fall" in the dictionary just in case, and found nothing. Perhaps I'm blind or it's some kind of language barrier o.O

[OzyWho]

Also, we already kinda talked a bit on discord lol but I don't understand the "speaking of which, would MM fall my case..." part. I looked up "fall" in the dictionary just in case, and found nothing. Perhaps I'm blind or it's some kind of language barrier o.O

I wanted re-post my thoughts in the thread.
It's possible the expression I used was American English and that's why it could be unfamiliar to some

[Marshmallow Marshall]

I wanted re-post my thoughts in the thread.
It's possible the expression I used was American English and that's why it could be unfamiliar to some

OOOOOH, I get it now! I had just never seen the "to fall something under" formulation, and couldn't find it anywhere. Sorry XD.

Spoiler : Off-topic grammar stuff :

Terribly off-topic, but I actually wonder if this formulation is correct, i.e. if "fall" can have a direct object in "fall under". I have some doubts, considering you can't fall something normally, except under the "to fall a tree" meaning actually it's to FELL a tree, my bad, so yeah I don't think you can fall something. Looking up "to fall something under", meaning "to classify something as", also happens to yield no good results (only "to fall under" comes up).
...is there a native speaker who could confirm any of this? Pwetty pwease uwu owo?

I don't think that falls under curiosity, but perhaps even under a lack of curiosity (as in, you'd rather say that instead of trying to figure out how to "get good"/perceive yourself as good)... but I'm not in your brain, and no matter how I rephrase this, I always feel like I'm being a condescending annoying guy xD, meaning no offense.

Edit: dead thread rip