The school of metagame: moves, arguments, shots, dynamics

The prefix "meta" means "between, after, through", and in everyday use, thought. The school of metagame deals with the analysis and manipulation of a person's thoughts, decisions and actions. Metagame techniques are used to create puzzles for the town: schemes, impossibilities, illogicalities. The mafia sets traps and false signposts, the civilians solve them. Whichever proves stronger, the blacks' puzzle or the civilians' thinking, brings the victory.

The basis of the school

Every civilian has his own vision of the situation, a kind of contour map of the game. Our task as reds is to understand the speaker's colour from this map. As mafia, to make sure that in the player's world map we are red. We manipulate not the person but his vision of the situation, and use it to explain things when we look for the mafia.

Mastery has two levels.

Ordinary. Direct influence: "I am red because... because of this... and since this was done." The player decides on the colour on the basis of your direct appeal.

Advanced. You need to make a person come to the conclusion, without hints, that you are a civilian, and start defending you. You do something knowing that on this basis he will himself reach the thought of your red role (even if it is not so).

Mastery includes the ability to adjust to the thinking of a player of any school: many are vulnerable to the assessment of a particular parameter and lean toward particular methods. Some look at moves, for others emotion is important. One of the simplest schemes for winning as mafia: adjust to the player being bought (the one you persuade to put his deciding hand and bring the mafia victory), keep him alive until the decisive round and kill the real sheriff before you are found.

An example of play by moves. At ten the table breaks into a red (one of the players did not put the fifth vote, six hands fly at the candidate nominated last). A black player saves him by adding the fifth vote, and kills the sheriff before he finds him to be mafia. It will be hard to raise such a player from the table for the rest of the game: he saved a civilian who was killed afterwards.

1. Play by moves

The most widespread kind of judgment: interpreting the moves a player has made. Black moves mean mafia, red moves mean civilian. But how do you tell what to count as a black move and what as a red one?

A weak but widespread variant. If an action is performed in more than 70 percent of cases by players with the role of only one of the teams at your tables, the move is considered unambiguously red or black. It does not work on visitors and guests of the club.

The correct variant. If an action increases the number of winning outcomes for the mafia team, it is a black move. If over the distance of games it helps the civilians, it is red. Such an assessment teaches play and raises the skills of those around: instead of traditions and misconceptions we assess what really helps or harms the team.

Examples of black moves

Breaking the vote at ten, eight and six players.
Announcing a crossfire that will happen on the current night.
Looking for the sheriff before the critical round, voicing the conclusions to the town.
Standing in a counterweight. (It is a black move, but civilians make it out of foolishness.)
Instead of a car crash, "finishing off" a player without weighty grounds. (A car crash, splitting the table, sawing: a vote with an equal number of votes for the leaving of candidates; it gives the chance to hear thirty seconds each and raise or leave the players.)

Examples of red moves

Saving a civilian player from removal in the vote.
Splitting the table so that the mafia cannot break the vote.
Covering the real sheriff so that he lives an extra night.
Making a car crash with the deciding vote.

In decisive votes we compare the moves of the whole team that one sheriff or another gives as black, and of the particular player against whom hands are gathered. The choice is made by the sum of who "blackened" more. The key vote is the one at which the line of play is determined; almost always it is the critical round.

2. The cast of moves

As with non-verbal manifestations, you can compare the moves of the same player in different games: what he does only as mafia or only as a civilian.

3. Play by arguments

In the first round alone a colossal number of notes and interpretations accumulates. One person cannot process it: most of the information does not reach consciousness, which is a protection against overload. Players pay attention to a certain range of things (emotions, moves, position, speech) and draw conclusions from them. By analysing what a person focused on and how he presented the information, one can judge his blackness.

An argument is an explanation to people of the reasons why a person thinks one way and not another: a conclusion that has verifiable ground under it. The ground is information.

Arguments:

Player no. 1 declared that he would sit this round out.
Player no. 7 put a hand against the mafia in the last vote.
No. 8's voice trembles.
Player no. 5 launched a vote between two civilians.
Player no. 7 always pulls out his own when he is black, instead of giving them up.

Opinions:

The player spoke well.
Player no. 5 is red.
By the dynamics of the game.
He spoke in such a way that I understood: mafia.
Such a team does not exist.

"Spoke well" can mean anything. A statement without ground is not an argument, nor are clever words whose meaning not everyone understands. If a player backs a position with reasons, an opinion turns into an argument and gains weight. The weightier the argument, the more attention it gets in the final decision. Just words are just words.

Speech links in play by arguments consist of two parts.

Information about the player who spoke earlier. For example: player no. 1 mixed up the slots, voted against a red check, played against me, finished off a civilian with the deciding hand at nine; player no. 2 spoke his minute evenly, without tension, and I agree with him on key points; the sheriff left him red; at nine there was a gathering of votes against each other.
The conclusion. Therefore I consider no. 1 black; therefore I consider no. 2 red; therefore we cannot consider the version that he is mafia; therefore there cannot be two blacks there.

By the first part we judge the one who spoke earlier, by the second the one whose minute is active. If a player proposes voting against a person without backing it with anything (even emotion), that is a serious reason to look carefully at him himself.

Training in assessment

"Player no. 5 spoke badly, I consider him black": not an argument, the speaker is probably mafia.
"Player no. 6 in round zero wanted to speak at the car crash, he cannot be the real sheriff": an argument of a red player about the mafia.
"He spoke not badly, but to me his card is black. Gut feeling": not an argument, but if the player judges by emotion and is right in 85 percent of cases, the information can be taken into account. Explaining the reasons neutralises potential blackness in play by arguments.

The mafia almost never gives weighty, interesting or unusual arguments about its accomplice, at least until the round at five. Thanks to this one can conclude, if not about mixed colours, then that there are not two blacks in the link. This is important for a correct sheriff check and for the count of the game.

4. Thinking from a position

You watch a player keeping one of two thoughts in mind.

a) Does he think and speak like a civilian? For this, form in advance in your head a model of the red player in a vacuum: the more precise the model, the better the decisions. The signature phrase: "That is not the speech of a red player." Examples of speeches irregular for a red: reasoning about shots and logic built on them; unwillingness to deal with conflicts, ignoring them and dropping them from the speech; developing conflicts between others while remaining uninvolved himself; asking to check a player about whom the information will give the town nothing.

b) How would I have spoken with a red card in this place? You imagine yourself as red on the same slot and compare. This is a kind of hybrid of play by arguments.

5. Play by shots

The offline agreement (assigning three kills on the night of acquaintance before the speeches) is the last century. Usually people play offline only with beginners who do not understand dynamic agreements and beacons. By default the mafia shoots the reddest at the table, or the sheriff, or the checks (the leader of the blacks gives a beacon on them). Kills in another key show the mafia's goal or the don's plan, and a battle of minds goes on over this.

Ways of assessing:

If at nine a player who does not fit the criteria above played hard against someone and was killed, he was playing against the mafia. Otherwise the mafia has no sense in depriving itself of a winning hand for removing a civilian.
The mafia under stress uses first-level logic: it kills those who play against it and leaves those who play with it. If before the guessing round you press on a potentially inexperienced mafia, it may bite and kill you, and you leave the right testament. (A testament: the last word of the killed player with a call to vote or not to vote against certain candidates; a mere opinion without insistence is not a testament.)
"The team's hand". If a player has settled on a line and will not change his decision (bought), his killing signals that the choice was correct. Two such killed hands are an unambiguous indicator that they played against the mafia.

As mafia you can steer the course of the game by influencing those who like to play by testaments. As civilians, adjust to the mafia that plays to you, thereby stay alive and make the right choice.

These are the relations and actions between players. For the mafia this is one of the elements of quality play on mixed colours. For the red team, analysing the parameter helps use the count better.

The player being bought is red. If in the critical round one slot addresses another, he considers him a civilian. Example: there are five of you, two mafia. You are no. 4. No. 2 persuades no. 1 to put a hand against no. 3. No. 5 also wants to remove no. 3. In everyday terms it is simple: the blacks are nos. 2 and 5. But if the mafia adjusts to the count and plays mixed colours, it is more complicated.

Conflict. If at nine there is a pronounced conflict of two players, there is at least one red there. A black check on one gives the red colour of the second. If neither was removed in the current vote, there is one civilian in the link.

Being ignored means red. If a player is paid no attention (no accents in the speech, he is not interrupted, not addressed) and nobody plays against him, he is probably a red outside conflicts and, all else equal, will be killed. The principle is clearest in round zero with the first death assigned offline. The blacks have no sense in addressing him and wasting strength on buying his vote.

When not to apply metagame

The author names three gaps in which the logic, in his subjective view, is wrong and breeds more misconceptions than it helps.

Assessment by position toward the first one killed. If someone in round zero was sure that a player later shot was black, you cannot count him red by relying on a civilian's foolishness or the absence of a plan. If a player gave a bad speech, you can and should play against him, for example by pouring in the sheriff's check.
A mafia miss. Especially from experienced players or those sitting nearby: the blacks miss for many reasons (were distracted, slept through the order, did not understand the don). You cannot give experienced players a red colour because of a miss.
Adding hands in the vote. It is not critical for the mafia to lose one black: they can win by drawing a team of a sheriff and a civilian. So any adding of hands says nothing about colour. A black can count the hands and add the fifth vote; the mafia can put hands for raising each other and later declare that they cannot be black together, or not put the sixth vote for raising civilians, building an argument on it. The same with the vote for raising two at ten people.

Application

Interpret actions correctly.
Outplay the civilians.
Put yourself in another player's place to understand his actions.
Choose victims thoughtfully and build argumentation for buying votes.
Use social dynamics to count.
Win easily: separate the teams and kill the sheriff before he finds everyone. (To separate the teams means to lay into the civilians' world picture a link: if A is black, then B is red, although both are mafia.)
Use tactical misses as black to expose the inexperienced.
Pour in the check on the one you will kill on the first night.

Self-check questions

Read the chapter once more "in reverse": turn every item around and play it for the opposite team. Play it out in your head or write it down.
Which meta-level techniques do you have in your arsenal?
What is the concept of thinking from a position?
Whom to kill: the player you bought this round, or the one who doubts? Why?
Give at least five red and black moves not named in the lesson. Is a pass on opening the table a black move? And is nominating the round-closing no. 1, when no. 2 opens the table at nine?

Practice

Make a personal table of ten moves you make only as a civilian and five you would never make as mafia. After a week check whether you made even one of them with the other card.

Typical mistakes

Taking an opinion for an argument.
Building a conclusion on a miss or an added hand.
Copying other people's moves without understanding the reasons.

Source of the idea. The chapter "Play by the idea of the game: metagame" from Dmitry Novik's book "Mafia in the Style of Zen" (2020). The 70 and 85 percent figures and the subjective assessments belong to the author.