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

Rebuttals and Support: C1) LAL absolves the mafia members from responsibilty for the lynchC2) LAL gives the mafia free mislynches Both of these are basically of the same vein and only involve the bad consequences of lynching a townie that lies. Sure, I acknowledge that these situations would happen, but this is not a problem with LAL, it's a problem with the cavalier nature in which Townies lie. In HvV: Cartoon mafia, and twice in Tarantino mafia, we had townies that just up and decided to lie about their characters and they were lynched for their efforts. Why did they lie? Their lie was not a tactic designed to out mafia and help win the game. In short, they lied because they didn't like the claim that was given to them and that is a poor reason to lie. We should not be in the business of enabling poorly thought-out tactics. The point of LAL as a strategy is to affect the overall course of the game. In this regard it should discourage townies from making such frivolous lies and lie only when it is actually in the best interest of the town, not because they didn't get a character they liked. C3) Town Liars vs. Scum Liars Con takes the position of 3 townies lying and 2 scum lying. This is an absurd position. While I certainly accept that townies can lie as a deliberate tactic, I think these situations are few and far between. There shouldn't be so many lying townies in a single game; there is just no call for it. Yes, LAL can be detrimental when the Town lies with such ease and without good cause. This is not a problem with LAL, it is a problem with lying with such ease and without good case! C4) Overall Success The impression given here is wrong. With 10 town and 4 scum, the Town can afford 4 mislynches, all other things being equal. DP1 - 10/4 - ML - 9/4NP1 - 9/4 - NK - 8/4DP2 - 8/4 - ML - 7/4NP2 - 7/4 - NK - 6/4DP3 - 6/4 - ML - 5/4NP3 - 6/4 - NK - 5/4DP4 - 5/4 - ML - 4/4 - Town Loses Yes, this is not quite half (half being 5) but 4 is also not 1/3 of 14 either, which is what my statement was based on. Furthermore, my opponent is consistently only assuming the worst case scenario (many town members lie without good reason, all lying townies are necessarily lynched first). What he fails to consider is: 1. Lying should be done with a purpose. So when he is considering the lying townies in his situation, what are the potential gains? Did their lies out a mafia scum who would then be lynched? That is a good reason to lie and affects the scenario. My opponent only considers lynching lying Townies without factoring in what the Town gained through that lie. If the Town gains nothing, then it was a bad lie and should be discouraged, which is what LAL does. 2. Certainly mafia will push to lynch lying townies first, but with LAL in affect we lynch liars as they are caught, which can be in any order, and there is no reason to believe that Town liars would get caught before mafia liars. C5) "The only people in the game that have to lie are Mafia" My opponent says this is false, but does not show why. In the example mention, the town's people in question didn't have to lie. They just did because they wanted to. My opponent says that LAL almost cost the game. I say that pointless lying almost cost the game. With LAL in affect, such lying would be discouraged and such mislynches wouldn't happen. When such lynches do happen, the proper response should be criticizing the lying townies for lying, rather than LAL. Yes, of course if we do not use LAL we won't have such mislynches. We also won't have the lynches where we successfully lynch lying scum. Since all scum have to lie and since the number of lying scum should outnumber lying townies, it is clearly better to lynch liars than to let them go. C6) Lying vs. Misleading I've never seen a person lynched for refusing to give a claim. Most cave under the pressure. Furthermore, the town is usually not content with being lied to either. Even though LAL isn't an officially or widely accepted maxim, there is still a general suspicion of liars. While individuals may cite LAL as a personal philosophy it is, by far, not widely accepted. Yet. C7) Caution vs Lynching in response to lying Con says that not lynching all liars forces the town to be better, but the problem is, the examples used by Con are those of Town lying very poorly. Why should everyone else have to settle for that? Should not the appropriate response be to say: "Hey, that was a poor lie that only got you killed and served no purpose." LAL doesn't discourage or eliminate the need to be more discerning in lynching. Again, Con proposes extreme scenarios that either happen very rarely, or would happen very rarely if LAL was strictly enforced. Most lynches are not policy lynches and, therefore, still require the types of skills necessary to determine who is mafia.