Garry's Mod

Garry's Mod

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TTT - The Psychology of Traitors
By Critical Failure
Advanced TTT Tactics – Spotting the behavioral change that takes place when players are selected as Traitors.
   
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Basic Concepts
When a player is finally selected as a traitor, there is a fundamental change in the mentality required to play the game. This often causes noticeable behavioral changes during players T rounds. When playing as an innocent, spotting these behavioral changes is your strongest tool.

When that T round finally arrives, the first thing that happens is the player realizes that they can stop looking for the traitors. This often causes the player to relax. As they relax, changes set in. How their behavior changes depends on what kind of player they are. From this, the key tactic in using behavioral observation is to learn from each death. When a traitor kills you, it’s important to ask the question: “How did he or she behave differently that round?”.

The key is looking for behavioral changes.

To do that you must understand the common player archetypes.
Innocents
The kos kos kos guy – The kos kos kos guy tends to call out KOS at the first sign of suspicion. The best way to deal with these guys is constantly try to discredit them even when you are an inno. Then when your T round comes, people will tend to believe you over them. When he is selected as a T, you can often notice the lack of "KOS" on the voice chat.

The lone wolf – The lone wolf doesn’t use a microphone. This could be for all sorts of reasons. FIGURE OUT WHO THESE GUYS ARE FIRST. Once you know who isn’t talking, you can murder someone right in front of them and get away with it.

The common bully – Mouthy mouthy mouthy. Their biggest weakness is that if you call them out, “{so and so} is a traitor!”, they will often laugh. These guys like to laugh at their victims so if you can get them to laugh, you know they are a traitor. They are also useless as T buddies since they tend to want to do everything alone.
Traitors
The Showoff – The show off is generally the mouthy jaded guy in the server who often comes off as unfriendly for no reason. When this guy has a T round, he tends to get more mouthy than usual.

Knife Man – Every round they buy a knife. When you can pin down a knife man, don’t let them near you. Knife men have a tendency to gloat as well. If someone has “something they want to show you,” odds are, they are a knife man.

The Bomber – C4 C4 C4!! Bombers are fairly easy to spot. One folly of amateur bombers is to look at a bomb from a safe distance before it explodes. If you survive a detonation and witness another player standing still watching, he is a T.
A Few Notes about Detectives
Some servers allow you to opt out of being selected as detective. If this is the case, press F1 and scroll down in the options tab. There is a check box.

The DNA mechanic of TTT is fairly unintuitive. The vast majority of detectives are not any good with it. One common mistake is when a detective gets DNA and they will exclaim: “Everyone stand still while I figure out who it is.” Don’t do it. You are making yourself a target.
Tips
  • Run from firefights.

  • The words “I am proven.” mean nothing. “Proven” only matters if either A) you see it happen, or B) one player says it about another player.

  • Practice lying

  • Take notes of how you act when you are inno. Try and emulate that behavior when you are a T. Remember: You have these tells just like everyone else does. Knowing they exist gives you the upper hand. Try to hide them.
What to do When You Spot a Traitor
The most important thing to remember is that when you spot the telltale shift in behavior, it qualifies as a suspicion. Therefore, if you kill a T based on a behavioral change in the early round, some admins may consider this RDM despite what your observations reveal. Remember, no one else sees what you see. This includes the admins.

The best thing to do is press tab and click on the players name to mark them as “KILL”. That way, you will always see those four red letters around their name and you’ll know to avoid them.

If you share your suspicions’ with the group, that means sharing the “tell” which let you know they were a traitor. There are pros and cons to this.

If you voice your observations, you have let people know of the tell and it’s liable to disappear. However, people may start to trust your instinct.

If however, you decide to withhold what you see, you can spot when specific players are selected as T’s again and again. The concern here is that your success rate will be very high and on occasion, this can lead to accusations of ghosting.

“How did you know it was me? You’re ghosting.”

“Nope. You just act way different when you’re a traitor. You get very mouthy.”

Or

“Nope. I know you are a T because you never concern yourself with the tester when you are inno.”

Or

“Nope. I know you are a T because you tell jokes and get loud during your T rounds so you can privately laugh at everyone. Who is laughing now?”

The dump trucks full of butthurt that come along with traitors knowing you figured out their head is one of the best feelings in TTT.
87 Comments
Yupiel Mar 15, 2022 @ 12:31pm 
wtf am i reading
Gekas God of War Feb 3, 2021 @ 4:16pm 
i claim this post as mine
Buddy Holly - Weezer Oct 9, 2019 @ 3:23pm 
the thing is: most servers consider killing out of suspicion RDM
Burninelmo velk.ca Oct 1, 2018 @ 6:22pm 
Do you study people or something.good guied tho
bep Jun 16, 2018 @ 4:36am 
nice guide it really helps thank u!!!:steamhappy:
Jar Of Flies Apr 3, 2018 @ 7:40pm 
Good guide!!!
sluggies Nov 12, 2017 @ 5:36pm 
for fucks sake kroden it's a two year old post.
Krodeon Nov 12, 2017 @ 3:56pm 
This is a really great idea, but killing people off of this will most likely get you slayed on suspicion, so high warning when using this as a basis to KoS. There is no concrete proof and most admins/mods will and should slay you for this. At the very most, this should be used for high suspicion.
ContrarianSon Aug 12, 2015 @ 11:57am 
I LIKE IT A LOT
Critical Failure  [author] Jul 16, 2015 @ 6:02pm 
I played yesterday morning. Let's play again bro.