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

As stated, Lynch All Liars is "a policy in which, when a player has been caught in a lie, the Town, in response, should lynch them, removing them from the game. Lynch All Liars is commonly abbreviated as: LAL."To get into further detail (1):"Quite simply, most Townies have no reason to lie about their actions, motivations, or roles. Many newish Townies will attempt to lie in attempts to gambit, and fail miserably by hurting the Town in the process. These lies can be indistinguishable from deliberate scum gambits, and leaving them unpunished reinforces the behavior as a viable option for scum."The only people in the game that have to lie are Mafia. At the very least, they have to lie about the fact that they are Mafia. Thus, if you were to take from the set of all players a subset of lying players, and then lynched each member of that subset, you would be guaranteed to win, as you would have lynched all mafia. This simple mathematical illustration is, essentially, the core of the argument.Yes, you will lynch townies in the process but to strictly avoid town deaths, even by lynching, is an unreasonable ideal to hold.The primary objection to LAL is to cite specific instances where a Town-sided player had a good reason to lie. The problem is, this doesn't actually refute or undermine LAL. The policy here is: "Lynch All Liars" not "Never Lie." Indeed, I will concede immediately that, in some circumstances it is, indeed, beneficial for a Town-sided player to lie; I am not suggesting that Town-sided players never lie. Rather, I am arguing that, once caught in a lie, the response of the Town, as a whole, should be to lynch that person.Contentions:C1: Strategies vs. TacticsTactics and Strategies are both ways of handling certain situations, specifically in the military arena, but also in the arena of competitive games. Tactics are plans for securing immediate, short-term goals. Strategies, however, are broader plans for achieving long-term goals. With this in mind, the decision of an individual Town-sided player to lie, to achieve some goal in a specific game (such as avoiding or drawing the Mafia night kill), is a tactic. The overall response of Town to lynch liars in any game is a strategy. Classified as such, we can see that lying and LAL are not in competition with each other. They are not mutually exclusive choices. In fact, lying, if used, should be used in light of the strategy of LAL. Consider, "rather than wind up on the receiving end of Lynch All Liars, it is best not trying to gambit unless you fully understand the implications of your actions." So I say lie, but lie with the notion that, if caught, you will die.This may seem counter-intuitive, but sacrificial tactics are common in all areas of competition. In chess you may sacrifice a piece to capture a more valuable piece or to achieve are better position on the board; baseball has a number of sacrificial plays in order to earn runs; the entire phrase "lose the battle but win the war" is based around this notion. The game of Mafia has a number of roles that deliberately exploit and support sacrificial tactics: Bomb, Hunter/Vengeful, and Oracle are three.C2: Town Lies vs. Scum LiesOne way of looking at the strategy is to consider the state of the game if it was not employed. If we eschewed LAL, then we have no guiding strategy for what to do with liars. On what basis, on what criteria, would lying get a player lynched? Obviously the opposite contention, that we lynch no liars, is not viable. That leaves us with lynching some liars. But who? What qualities distinguish a lying Town-sided player from a lying Scum?If such qualities existed, then the Scum players would simply adopt those qualities or make sure they only lie in those situations, thus closing the gap. Furthermore, this puts the judgment into the subjective hands of individuals. This is, essentially, the status quo, as everyone already assesses existing situations using personal judgment to distinguish Town from Scum. Since the status quo of any balanced game favors no side, Scum can lie with impunity, fearing a lynch no more than normal. By lynching all liars, we are guaranteed to catch scum. We remove the window in which lying scum can pose as lying townies.C3: Overall SuccessAnother way of looking at a strategy is to consider the situations it is employed, and to evaluate the overall success. Now, we may be tempted to say that lynching a Town-sided player (a mislynch) is a failure, but this is not the case. In this game, the Town always outnumber the Scum. Ratios of Town to Scum almost never exceed 2:1. With twice as many Town as Scum the only way LAL fails, on the whole, is if half the Town lies. Even then, it only fails to win the game if the lying Town-sided players are lynched before the Scum players.Unfortunately, since LAL is not consistently used in the Mafia games of DDO, we cannot perform, in actuality, this type of analysis.C4: Changing how the Game is playedSince LAL is a strategy, one must look at behavior across games. If the overall Town response to lies is caution, rather than lynching, the Scum, over the course of the games will be more bold in lying, giving them an advantage as they have less to fear from doing it. However, a strong stance on LAL puts the mafia in a worse position. They have to be more careful with their lies. It also forces the Town to play better. There are many instances of Town lying for no foreseeable goal. Town have lied about their characters simply because they felt their given character or role would have drawn suspicion (2) (3).C5: Lying vs. MisleadingI'll reiterate that I am not saying that Town-sided players shouldn't lie, but rather they should lie as a tactic with the understanding and acceptance that they will be lynched if they are caught. This outcome should be factored into their decision when weighing the pros and cons of lying as a tactic.However, there are other alternatives to lying. As stated, the reasons a Town-sided player may lie usually involve either avoiding or attracting mafia attention. One need not lie to do to this. There are a number of behaviors or statements that a person can make that imply, or allude, to roles or abilities which can make people think the person has a role worth killing or avoiding in the night. This is perfectly acceptable, and expected, game play.While this may seem like splitting hairs, there is a clear distinction here. The Mafia are still the only players that have to unambiguously lie during the course of the game. The Town-sided players do not have to lie to win the game, even if they wish to mislead as part of a tactic.Summary:All mafia have to lie. Town does not have to lie and, even if Town-sided players choose to lie as a tactic, they are still less than the Mafia. Ergo, Lynching all Liars effectively lynches all the mafia.[1] http://mafiascum.net...[2] http://www.debate.org...[3] http://www.debate.org...