On Having Conviction

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Part of Mastin Academy.

Original Lecture: On having conviction

Tunnel without putting yourself in a position where you can't possibly change your read. If you get too rigid in your reads your destined to fail when the game progresses.
With that said ride that wagon all the way to a lynch, or at least until other players see your no doubt valid points.

--T-Bone

The problem with tunneling is thinking about tunneling. There is a good way to tunnel--and that's to not actively be tunneling!

You can show quite a bit of conviction in a read. But it should never be absolute. I have a golden rule I play by: "Fit the reads to the evidence, not the evidence to the reads." No matter how much it might appear I have violated it, I NEVER have, because I always keep it in mind. And this is how you avoid being in a tunnel. You can hold strong belief off of evidence...but the moment you morph the evidence to fit the read, you've gone too far.

One tip which is surprisingly effective in demonstrating you're not tunneling is acknowledging alternative viewpoints. It sounds counterintuitive: pointing out how you could be wrong? Isn't that leaving a door open for backtracking? Well, it could be, but if done correctly, your intentions leave no room for doubt. Instead of displaying a lack of confidence in your read (opening a back door), done properly, your acknowledgement of alternatives will emphasize exactly why you feel so strongly ABOUT your read.

The simplest way of thinking about this is presenting the alternative viewpoints, and then giving brief reasons for why you feel said viewpoints are not valid and why yours, compared to those possible ones, should be sheeped. I actually have a fairly good recent example! In Antihero Reboot mafia, I talked to EspeciallyTheLies. I explained the circumstances behind my scumread on her:

I laid out how it was possible she was town, but then laid out the explicit details behind precisely why I felt she was scum. It worked; I was able to show I did not hold confirmation bias on her. I wasn't writing her off without a second thought. I had her as scum because that's what the evidence told me. (Granted, I was a known mason, but nobody accused me of being wishy-washy, and it was entirely thanks to how I handled it.)

So the aim is to accentuate the strength of your case rather than degrading it. Now, I can't tell you how to replicate this 100% of the time. But I can give a few pointers. When you make a case, you have to make sure you actually believe that's what the evidence says. Be honest! Don't make up BS.

When you do make the case, look it over, pause for a second, and analyze it a bit with a critical, objective mind. Run through things with a mental checklist. "Am I emotional about this case?" (You need to step back and reassess; chances are your case was morphed by emotions.) "Is this actually possible, or even probable?" "Is this something I believe is a legitimate point?" If no to the latter two, reevaluate. If you think it's good, run through once more just to be sure, with this question:

"What's the other side?"

Believe me! No scum player's bad enough to lack another side. So run through the reverse. "Am I emotional enough that I can't see it?" "Is it possible or even probable they could be town?" "Is there anything about them being town that looks potentially legitimate?" And so on and so forth. Only after weighing both sides do you push forward with your findings. That way, you know you're providing thorough analysis, so you can confidently push with strength knowing you're not tunneling.

Most of all, know that you're never locked into a read; it's always possible to change it. That doesn't mean you need to alter it at the drop of a hat. If you believe it, strongly, because it's what you see...then you shouldn't let go of it so easily. But if your read does change as the game progresses (and what you see likely will, for better or worse), that's okay! Push your new read with the same process. With the level of confidence you reason is most appropriate. If your confidence your picture fits the pieces of the puzzle isn't arrogance distorting the narrative, then you're doing exactly what you need to.

Mastering this is, coincidentally enough, a great way to get people to listen to you. If they think your pushes are not insanely-stubborn, they'll be more willing to follow them, and work with you. It's something not even I have completely nailed down, but it's something which has definitely helped a lot. By being the voice of reason, you put yourself in a position where others will listen to that reason, and have it resonate with them.