[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[Nikanor]

I have not made up a name yet

Nikanor Mafia

.
-3 Mafia Goons
-1 Town Stalker (Tracker who dies if the person they target is killed)
-1 Town One-shot Vigilante
-1 Town Doctor
-6 Town Vanillae

It has been suggested that I put in a mafia power role, but with the possibility of day two lylo with the setup I have now, I think it might make my game a bit too scum-favoured (if it wasn't already).
Any thoughts?

[Nikanor]

@Yabba, about my game: No, the doc cannot protect the stalker from death-by-stalking, only targetted nightkills.

@Yabba, about his game: I think it sounds fun. Only thing that sounds like a problem to me is the four investigations town will have if the cops are allowed to live to day two. Sanities can be confirmed by the killing of a miller, which can happen by lynch or nightkill. Scum can falseclaim cop for as long as both cops stay alive, which is nice for them. Looks balanced to me, but someone with experience should probably take a look at it as well.

[Nikanor]

What interactions did you have in mind for your game, Nik? What I find interesting is that if the Tracker finds that someone's been targetted, and they die, the probability of them being scum is extremely high.

That's why I threw the vig in there.
I'm thinking of putting a Scum Roleblocker in as well, to balance out the power roles a little, and to help prevent a follow-the-cop situation.

Your setup looks really fun, Yabba. I'm looking forward to playing in it.

[Nikanor]

A nominate? Eh, what?

[Nikanor]

Psyciactrist Mafia

Mafia Group (1 Kill Between Them.):
1 Psychopath (Doesn’t know Serial Killer.)
1 Serial Killer (Knows Psychopath)

Psychopath can contact SK through a QuickTopic but the SK can not post in it.

Town:
2 Townies
1 Psychiatrist

No 50% rule.

If the SK dies then town automatically wins.

Psychopath+Psychiatrist claim and are cleared. SK can't counter-claim or he loses. It's brought down to 2 townies + SK with two days. Town has an 83% chance of winning.

[Nikanor]

Oh, I forgot that he would still lose D1 if the SK is lynched.

[Nikanor]

2 yuppies (selects one person at night, if mafia that person gets a gun, if town/jester a vest - the yuppie is not notified)
1 jester
3 vanilla town, each with a gun
2 mafia goons, each with a vest

Night start.
No reveal.

If you have a vest and you are shot, you (are/aren't) notified via PM
Only kills are announced in thread

UM OKAY THIS IS PROBABLY HORRIFICALLY IMBALANCED

People with guns can shoot, I imagine. How are you going to make it so that a yuppie doesn't know if he can shoot? Just make them send in a kill every night?
Town can lose n0, so yeah it's imbalanced.

[Nikanor]

Semi-Open setup idea:
1 Watcher, worth 3 points
1 Tracker, worth 2 points
3 Observers (Are only told if their target used an ability), worth 1 point each

3 Mafia
10 Town

Three points of power roles are assigned to the mafia.
Five points of power roles are assigned to the town.

Possible weakness: If a mafia watcher flips, all other power roles are confirmed town. Not sure how to work around this yet.

[Nikanor]

Semi-Open setup idea:
1 Watcher, worth 3 points
1 Tracker, worth 2 points
3 Reporters, worth 1 point each

3 Mafia
10 Town

Three points of power roles are assigned to the mafia.
Five points of power roles are assigned to the town.

Possible weakness: If a mafia watcher flips, all other power roles are confirmed town. Not sure how to work around this yet.

FTFY

1. What is the "3" doing in from "Reporters"?
2. How do you generate the set up?

1. Two reporters doesn't work because then I'd have to give only two points to the mafia, and then mafia wouldn't be able to get a watcher.
2. Roll 1d6. If a 1 or 2 is rolled, the mafia gets the watcher. If a 3, 4, or 5 is rolled, the mafia gets a tracker and a reporter. If a 6 is rolled, the mafia gets all three reporters. There's probably a better way to do this but this is the first method that comes to mind.

[Nikanor]

https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Conspiracy

[Nikanor]

So, if the Double Redirector picks two scum and one of them performs the kill the other will die.
If the double redirector picks one scum and one town (and selected scum performs the kill) the nominated townie will die.
If the double redirector picks two town, nothing happens (or, they have a nice chat. Thematically who cares, but as far as the game goes they do nothing)

The Double redirector is a very powerful role. Firstly, if two scum are selected as it is unlikely scum will target their own members (though in some cases this may be a valid strategy), one will die at night then one in the next day (Well, soon because there may be a claim/counter claim cycle). If one is selected and the nominated townie dies, it can be considered a weak investigative role.
If nothing happens with two town and there are few mafia remaining they can be confirmed or confirmed to an extent.
Earlier in the game the role is weaker. The role is stronger when two mafiates are alive. There's an incentive to use the role later.

What I don't know is how many town would be needed for it to be balanced

Let's say you use the 1sDRed role in a mini game, so nine townies.
The chances of the 1sDRed targeting the goon who makes the kill are 23/132 or 17.4%.
The chances of the 1sDRed targeting both the goon who makes the kill and another goon are 23/726 or 3.2%.
The chances of the 1sDRed targeting both the goon who makes the kill and a townie are 69/484 or 14.3%.
Basically I would treat the 1sDRed as having the same amount of power as a full tracker in an otherwise vanilla setup (who has only a 1/12 or 8.3% chance of getting a 'guilty' in the same situation), keeping in mind that 1sDRed can get false guilties if the scum happen to kill one of the two townies that the 1sDRed targets (the chances of this happening are 6/55 or 10.9%, I believe, so it's not negligible). This would mean that you want a weak power role in the setup to supplement the 1sDRed if you want to make the game feasibly small. Alternatively, you could remove one of the goons to make the game whiteflagish.

[Nikanor]

You see. Initially I thought that 1 DR might be too heavy without the one shot because scum could easily get screwed over.

Also, the chance of a false negative with the role played properly would be much lower.

Scum -> Townie looking players
DR -> Scummie looking players.

Though it might encourage some interesting night kills.

If the DR was not a one-shot would you feel the mini-size would be appropriate?

If it wasn't one-shot, I think that, in theory, it would fit in an otherwise mountainous game nicely balance-wise. In practice, it would be very swingy to the point of being imbalanced. You run the risk of running into the same problem as that of a town roleblocker (that is, the DRed can claim d1 and still catch all of the scum without being killed, because he's redirecting the kills), but at more than double the risk. Perhaps you could include two one-shot DReds in a mini open? I think that would be balanced, but redirection paradoxes would be fairly common.

[Nikanor]

1 Shot Cop
1 Shot Doctor
1 Shot Jail Keeper
1 Shot Blacksmith
2 Universal Back Ups
4 VTs

1 Mafia Night Roll Cop
1 Mafia Day Roll Cop
1 Mafia Goon

All the town PRs claim d1. The 1sCop and 1sDoc use their abilities n1 while the 1sJK and 1sBS hold onto theirs for n2. Worst Case Scenario: the town lynches a UB d1 and the 1sCop inspects the other UB n1 and the scum shoot the other UB. You now have 4 townies, 2 confirmed townies and 2 confirmed one-shot PRs. Scum need to secure three more mislynches to win. In any other scenario, scum loses.
I suggest you either a) make this game semi-open, or b) remove at least two town power roles. In an open game, at least 50% of the town should be townies.

[Nikanor]

What if the mafia have a one-shot unredirectable kill to counter that strategy?

So kind of like a one-shot tailor. That wouldn't be bad. As soon as the DRed claims, he's dead without hope.

And the DR would have to be VERY lucky to claim and redirect scum successfully.

Such is swinginess.

[Nikanor]

Mafia's a team game, though. One townie shouldn't be able to pull a win by himself.

[Nikanor]

*Hide and Seek*

13 Players

2 Goons
1 Rolecop
3 Day Talking Neighbors
2 Lovers
1 Roleblocker
1 Jailkeeper
3 Day talking Neighbors

(2 Traitors to be assigned roles)

Now, the extra twist comes in that the traitors are randomly assigned to the pool of not mafia goons. It's rather swingy, if the traitors hit on the power roles, but I think it could be interesting.

You're right that it's too swingy as-is. If you're going to be doing a semi-smalltown game, you should make all of the smalltown roles different with about the same power. Start by taking out the neighbors and lovers, obviously.
Other than that I like the idea and think that you should work on it a bit more.

[Nikanor]

2 Traitors
6 Vanilla Townies
1 Elite Bodyguard

2 Mafia One-Shot Role Cops

How is the town supposed to win?

[Nikanor]

The problem is that town will lose if they don't lynch scum before n2. Replacing a traitor with a townie might fix this a bit, but I'm too lazy to actually do the math atm.

[Nikanor]

Source Code

Nightless

1 Kingpin (Scum lose if he's lynched.)
1 Goon

4 Townies

Lynching townie->townie->goon and losing would be pretty lame.
I'm just going to pretend that I'm telling you that the town's EV is 0.5 when I'm really directing that at the other people commenting on your setup.

[Nikanor]

It's actually slightly more, because if the goon is lynched then there's a higher chance of hitting the Kingpin. Especially with voting patterns and whatnot.

In practice? Sure. The goon isn't going to vote his kingpin either. EV is all about theory, however.

The odds of hitting the Kingpin, with these things in mind and assuming random lynching, is 1/6 + 1/5 + 1/4, about 0.62.

The odds of town winning are as follows:
d1: 1/6 chance of lynching the kingpin d1 = 1/6
d2: 5/6 chance of not lynching the kingpin d1 multiplied by a 1/5 chance of lynching the kingpin d2 = 1/6
d3: 5/6 chance of not lynching the kingpin d1 multiplied by a 4/5 chance of not lynching the kingpin d2 multiplied by a 1/4 chance of lynching the kingpin d3 = 1/6
So actually the town's EV increases by 1/6 for each game day, giving us a total EV of 3/6 or 0.5.

[Nikanor]

(Also (unless I'm missing something) the EV for this sort of set up is (# Days/ # Players).)

Yes, keeping in mind that there should only be just enough townies to lynch the kingpin.

[Nikanor]

How does 3rd party

win

lose?

ftfy

[Nikanor]

What if the SK makes a Mafia goon into his guard?
No.

Then the Mafia is lynched instead and the SK is confirmed scum.
Too bad town has no way of knowing whether lynching the SK will ever actually work.
They'll just have to lynch him every day and hope he hits a non-vt one time.

[Nikanor]

If the SK is lynched day one, it becomes 2/5 nightless which I think is balanced? If not a little scum-sided already.
I think a one-shot shared BP would work well for the mafia. It's less swingy at least.