# Titus's Treatises On Mafia Play - #1 Role Deception



## ScarletRage

Lying is something that occurs all the time in mafia. This treatise won't discuss how to determine if someone is lying but rather how to deduce alignment. Once you have discovered a player lied, that is only half the battle. You also need to look at why they are lying.

If someone is lying to help the town, they are likely town. If the lie serves a scum wincon, then the player is scum.

For instance, if you are a town PR such as a cop, you do not claim it immediately unless you are sure you can get a guilty. Sometimes, even PRs find it appropriate to lie during massclaim. Dead PRs tell no tales. If you cannot selectively tell a player who you know is town, do not tell anyone unless forced to claim.

Lying about bulletproof status. In games where you are reasonably confident there is no vigilante or other town killing role, you should always claim one shot bulletproof if you have reason to believe you took a bullet and that role can plausibly exist. This is because if scum killed you, they think they can merely repeat the kill again. Such a claim also works perfectly if you are macho and cannot take a bullet at all. By making the scum think they cannot kill you, they are much less likely to kill you which leaves you available to take your PR action. This gambit worked particularly well in Game 6 because town wasn't as aware. Both scumteams knew there was a missing kill and suspected I was related to it, despite the fire team knowing they didn't shoot me.

If Mathblade had understood the gambit, then it would have saved a lot of time.


Scum on the other hand lie to manipulate. Fake claims tend to be structured for survival. Memories adjusted to encourage T v T fights. Wolf v Aye and Mertex v Grandma were both supported behind the scenes by scum by selectively highlighting certain things. This game had very little fake claim construction. Fake claims tend to over explain rather than under explain though. The more words a person uses, that's generally where they are the least secure on their claim.


To look and see if someone is lying, their alignment can be determined by who they are trying to fool and why they are trying to fool them. Look there.


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