Resolved: In the game "Mafia," the Town should abide by the Policy, "Lynch All Liars"

I thank Drafterman for his detailed and interesring arguments. I am going to present my arguments first and then rebut Pro's arguments. My position is that town should not lynch all liars because doing so would decrease the likelihood of a town win which is the ultimate goal for town.C1) LAL absolves the mafia members from responsibilty for the lynchWhen a player is lynched based on a "policy" or a "theory," the mafia members no doubt will pile on to ensure that the lynch happens especially if the lynched player has a powerful role. After the alignment is revealed, the usual response would be to say that the lynched player "deserved" to be lynched for lying and move on. This robs the town of information that is revealed in a normal (non-policy) mislynch. This is because the response of all the mafia members to the mislynch would be to say "Lynch all Liars." This distances the mafia members from being accountable for the mislynch and allow them to blame it either on the policy or on the lynched player. If LAL is avoided however, lynch bandwagons would be more carefully scrutinized and the mafia cannot say that they contributed to the mislynch based on a policy. They will have to own up and give more detailed explanation which can in turn be scrutinized to assess their guilt. C2) LAL gives the mafia free mislynchesPro's argument here is that he doesn't advocate forbidding all lies but rather says that when a player lies, they should do so with the understanding that they will be lynched. However, this strategy causes unnecessary lynches and has the potential games due to the fact that most games allow approximately about 2 to 3 mislynches before the town loses. If Pro finds out that 4 players lied, he would not be able to lynch all 4 players with the certainty of finding scum because the game may well be over before he has the chance to actually reach the scum. Townies lives are scarce and important. Mislynches are how the mafia wins the game and must be kept to a minimum. Lynching based on a "policy" is likely to give mafia a "free" lynch whenever a townie lies. This moves the mafia that much closer to their win as they can all bandwagon onto a lying townie and focus on getting those townies lynched.C3) Town Liars vs. Scum LiarsPro advocates finding out the subset of players who lied and lynching them all. However, town liars are far more likely to be lynched first than scum liars. The reason for this is that the scum are an informed minority. They can work together to move the town's focus onto a lying townie. Assuming my opponent is a townie, player A and B are lying scum, and players X, Y, and Z are lying townies, my opponent would have no preference over who to lynch first, and neither would the other townies since the important point is to lynch all liars. The town players will not be able to work together privately to determine who they will lynch first. The scum on the other hand would be able to work together, make a coherent plan and ensure that the lying townies are lynched first. If enough lying townies are lynched in order to allow scum to gain voting majority, the scum will have already won. Pro asks "what qualities distinguish a scum liar from a townie liar?" If such qualities existed, wouldn't scum adopt those qualities? Mafia as played at DDO is highly dependent on character and role claims and the theme of the game. In most games, the town players would have a character that is a relatively major character or one that is considered "good." The role of that player in most games matches the character and mods go so far as to explain why that character has that role. Mafia members on the other hand have to choose a character and a role and somehow have to make it fit into the game lying along the way. When a town player is caught lying, they can backtrack and give up their real character and role which will fit into the game. Scum on the other hand have no real character or role to rely on if things get rough and they are caught lying. Using information such as this and factoring it into the decision to lynch or not lynch a liar will yield more productive results than indescriminately lynching all liars. C4) Overall SuccessPro says that the only way town loses is if half the town lies. This isn't true. Consider a 14 player game with 4 scum. It affords town approximately 2 to 3 mislynches based on other factors such as the number of no lynches. All that has to happen for the town to lose if LAL is followed is that two to three townies need to lie. It is not true that half the townshould lie. Of course, those 2 to 3 townies need not be lynched before any scum that were caught lying. They can be lynched at any point. Unless every single scum is lynched (even the ones that flew below the radar and weren't caught lying) beforethose few lying townies are lynched, town is assured a loss unless they try to distinguish town lies from scum lies and follow a more refined strategy than indescriminately lynching every liar.C5) Pro's examples"The only people in the game that have to lie are Mafia"However, we know that this is not true. Firstly, townies lie as can be evidenced from the two examples that my opponent provided under this section. Both examples show mislynches where townies lied and got lynched. It is also interesting to note that his examples are both from the same game. If my strategy of not lynching every liar was used in that game instead of Pro's strategy of LAL, then two mislynches could have been avoided. My opponent's strategy in that game put town on the verge of defeat where if only the mafia were more active, they could have won. This is one example of how Lynching all Liars loses games for town. It is also not easy to catch a player lying. In the example Pro cites, for instance, the town was only able to catch other townies lying and through process of elimination found out the mafia. They found 2 players that lied and eliminated both those players. However, 100% of the players who lied ended up being town. Pro's strategy only works if you find allthe liars and eliminate the scum liars BEFORE the town liars.C6) Lying vs. MisleadingPro advocates misleading the mafia as opposed to unambiguously lying. However, due to the way the game of mafia is played, players need to make unambiguous statements. When pressured for a claim, it is generally not enough to make ambiguous statements and hints that discourage the mafia from targeting the player in question. Players pressure another player with the explicit purpose of getting a claim and are usually not content with ambigious statements. Misleading therefore is not a viable alternative to lying.C7) Caution vs Lynching in response to lyingPro says that if the town's response to lying is caution as opposed to lynching, the scum will be more "bold" in lying. It still doesn't change anything as the scum have to lie regardless. He also says that it will force the town to play better. However, as I have shown through the course of this round, NOT lynching all liars is what makes the town play better by forcing them to be more discerning in who to lynch as opposed to making a broad susbset "liars" and lynching everyone within that category which all but assures a town loss.I look forward to my opponent's response.