GG, everyone.

This game was somewhat frustrating to me, although I'm not sure if there was a single cause to make me feel that way.

Zinger wasn't allowed to send PMs at all. So when I heard he sent cryptic ones to other people where they could get game info from, I consider that breaking the rules.

Note that I heard about that after he was already modkilled. It also made it nigh-impossible for me to ally with Rome after that, so I guess it worked out for the better <_<

Oh, I also don't think the meta-rule is really that necessary. At least not regarding to other players.

It was possible, and used, to get players to read 'private' PMs by BCC-ing them. It's just another way of establishing trust by proving you're speaking the truth about contact with a 3rd player. So I could get the rule about mod-PMs being unusable, but I feel like screenshotting player PMs lies on the same level as the BCC-ing and should either both be banned or both be allowed (myself leaning more towards the latter because it gives that extra dimension of trust games).

Context is important. He's allowed to pm you during the night. Just not about the game. And given how zinger acted in the game and by pm, I can only imagine he was careful with what he said to not literally break the rules like you did.

Also you'll get over it Mown. Besides, how exactly did I cheat? By using CC/BCC in private messages? Unlike the screenshotting Cato specifically mentioned, neither of these pm-ing options were explicitly mentioned. Not to mention it doesn't stop me from doing the same thing by copying and pasting messages to send. If anything, this is just something that should be taken into account when allowing players to pm in a game.

Edit:

Scar, the context of the PMs matter. For instance I pmed zinger concerning the game, in a subtle way, and he didn't actually give anything directly to me.

Let me put it this way. Zinger is told he can't communicate with players (in the framework of the game). OK. That's straight forward. But if I contact him and we strike up a conversation about 300, then where is the harm? Don't get me wrong, I understand it goes against the spirit of the game since people will look at the subtleties of what is being said, but at least he isn't directly (or indirectly for that matter) breaking any stated rules. Obviously just because the game says he can't communicate with players by PM doesn't mean he can't do so outside the context of the game (a fault with the development of the game).

He can't communicate with players. Period.
It didn't say he couldn't talk about the game. He couldn't talk at all.

Also, the moment he willingly gave subtext about the game, the gig was up as far as I'm concerned.
Heck, one read of his non-thread made it obvious he was Greek when he suddenly started talking about the Greek gods in there.

He had the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It doesn't make a difference if you tell me I'm Persian or my favorite Pokémon is Persian, people understand. (Just to use a public example.)

You're still a poor judge of character I see.

Not being explicitly mentioned doesn't make it okay. "such as screenshots" means "including, but not necessarily limited to." I can fabricate a screenshot saying whatever I want it to as easily as I can fabricate a quote, but that doesn't make it okay.

Anyway, the game was quite a rollercoaster for me. Going from 'how the heck am I supposed to win this without a form of protection' to 'Holy crap I messed up in my first post' to 'Sure, let's go ally with KoD' to 'Holy crap if we pull this off it will be glorious' to 'KoD didn't suspect a thing, just calmly ride this out now'

@Scar:

Matter of perspective. From your perspective, the moment he did it that was it. Ok. Understandable.

My entire issue is with how the modding is handled with this. Cato gave Zinger a warning despite his breaking of the "rules" a first time. The moment another situation arises with a player breaking the rules, there is no warning given. And this directly impacted my ability to win the game which is my issue.

Consistency as a mod is a good thing. Cato wasn't consistent here and I do honestly wonder if he wanted to see a different outcome for the game. His pm ruling to me and this hint at it.

It is his game, but why should I be punished due to someone playing outside the rules? And not in a way that directly affects everyone since it only affects me.

As a teacher I get in situations like that on a daily basis. But the moment you kick a student out of class after a warning, the rest of the class knows they have to behave or they'll be kicked out immediately as well without the warning.

So I don't really see that problem from a GO's perspective, though I understand where you come from seeing how it affected your ending.

HW said he literally told cato he was going to break the rules to get modkilled. It doesn't really make sense to give someone a warning when they're telling you they're breaking the rules for the sake of breaking the rules.

Zinger showed the design document to Rag, and publicly communicated information after I specified that he was in no way allowed to communicate in-game information other than in his one word per day. Making his role was a mistake on my part, but he repeatedly broke the rules in a blatant fashion.

I consider use of BCC to be cheating. I won't penalize anyone because I didn't specify it, but I will penalize anyone who does it in my future mafia games.

This was certainly a learning experience for me. The two big things I learned were that I shouldn't create roles like what numbers and zinger had, and I need to be be ultraspecific with the rules to clarify what is and isn't legal.

As for why I didn't give HW a warning, it was because he PM'd me to let me know what he was doing. I could have given him a warning, but he would have kept breaking the rules until he was modkilled, so I just pulled the trigger.

And Mown, it wasn't mentioned period. So whether it was or wasn't allowed isn't my problem. As far as the stated rules went it wasn't mentioned. That is something to be taken into consideration long before it becomes a problem in a live game.

That just circles back to what to what I said earlier then. You condone breaking of the rules to benefit players. Perhaps there is a difference philosophically when it comes to viewing rules. The point of rules is to prevent what I will call negative behavior.

But what is the point of rules if you allow people to benefit from breaking them?

BCC quotes seem a lot like metagame information.

For more 'normal' mafia games I'd agree. But a big issue in this game was trust and forging alliances. And the BCC is the best way to establish trust between people. The fact I got silently added in messages made me realize that I could ride with him until the ending.
It also gave me the information that I needed to give to HW/numbers so we could try our plan with a bit more direction.
To be honest, I never read what the messages were about. Just the fact that I got them told me enough.

Heck, if I was evil I could've contacted Mown and told him that KoD secretly added me. But Mown didn't trust me and I figured I had a better shot at winning with KoD <_<

BCC are also not screenshots of other players or the mod. They're your own messages you share with someone else without the others knowing.

Want to argue the definition of a 'screenshot' as well? Can I take a picture with my phone and give it to Rag? Maybe share screens over Skype? Hell, let me drive to his house and show him on my own computer. Why don't you apply some RAI instead of RAW, you munchkin?

You're missing that a BCC does not show your message. It only gave me KoDs message.
I read the rule as 'you cannot give definitive stuff other players made'.
But if I made a message of my own, I can choose who to share it with, right?
And instead of sending them one by one, I use BCC to send the message to everyone, whilst those other people do not know from each other that they got the same message.

If I had a teammate I would've abused the heck out of that. Faking an argument, warning my teammate beforehand that I would send a fake argument to the loner and BCC-ing the loner only when sending the fake argument.
They can be manipulated on the same scale as a simple quote can be used. It just takes a bit more work.

Oh, I thought you meant, like BCCing someone into a reply PM or something to let them see it. If it's *just* sending the same PM to multiple people, that's OK.