Many years back I had a conversation with Thingyman about some of the underlying flow of how games work in a few respects. Sense then I have questioned the morality of using some aspects where as they can be very useful 'if' they are appropriate to use as opposed to 'if' they provide an advantage. Dual meaning with the title the first that comes to mind is moral. Specifically in MMA I consider breaking your opponents will to win as an absolutely massive advantage independent of performance but is it ethical in mafia?
In concept breaking the will of your opponents to even try to win absolutely gives massive advantage and can be done without even knowing who your opponents are. You can make players feel excluded and unwanted. Demoralizing them individually to decrease their desire to try. Making them feel excluded or like they are hopeless and there is no point in trying; (or alternatively) making them feel like they have already won so they stop putting in effort. I coined the term 'game tempo' to place this and another concept in a category of strategy but where do we draw the line between whats ok and what is not?
I have played somewhere between 15-20 games where I made the opposing team feel so helpless they straight up surrendered. I found that in post game regardless of if I actually made my opponents helpless or if I just made them feel that way, they felt bad about the game. They often felt the game was imbalanced even if I felt the game was slanted in their favor or if they were not in as bad of shape as I made them feel they were.
When I first started playing mafia I worked hard at getting better but at some point I started questioning if being 'good' should even be the objective of playing. Maybe the question is between the balance of fun vs winning or between how you win vs if you win but I figure its worth discussing; but maybe its really just a question of how much fun everyone has in the community playing a game.
Where would you guys land on the subject and what other issues do you feel like cross that boundary? I could probably rattle off quite a few other concepts I struggled with this line but at the end of the day I even question where community management should land on the issue. Should we focus on individuals creating a good experience for themselves or should we focus on a larger amount of people having a good experience? Basic function of hedonism vs utilitarianism there but as an approach for moderators and community managers its an interesting concept..