[OLD] Open Setup Discussion and Nominations

[Yaw]

Question we need to answer: Should setups without fixed numbers for each role be considered open setups? For example, newbie games used to be a clearly open setup, with exactly 2 scum, 1 cop, 1 doc, and 3 townies. Because a breaking strategy was found, it was changed to the current C9 setup, where there's probability involved in the doc and cop roles existing. Since two C9 games could have different exact setups, is this open?

[Yaw]

This is personal opinion, but if you ever have a bulletproof role in the game, you

require

a decent understanding of how the game will play out if a really great scumhunter ends up in that role. Because right now in Blueberry Pancakes, I can see that role randomly going to someone like Jeep, and it being over for the scum before the game even begins.

[Yaw]

Again, bulletproof is much,

much

better than a doctor. It is the only role that scum

can't get rid of

using night actions. If you get a high quality player with a bulletproof vest, the role becomes quite broken. (I'm saying this from experience -- I've gotten the bulletproof role a few times and broken games because of it.)

[Yaw]

I'll admit there's more parity now than when Jeep went on a tear, but the point remains that you normally can't determine ahead of time who is going to sign up for your game. If you get a serious disparity in the quality of player that signs up, and the best player gets the bulletproof role, you've given him/her a

huge

advantage.

I've had bulletproof roles three times, twice as town and once as scum. Won two of them, and only lost the third because of a last minute scum/cult recruitment by IS -- after clearing the town of 6/7 scum. I'd have difficulty justifying a bulletproof role in any game, on any side. But at least in non-open games scum can work with the fact that nobody really knows what's out there. In Blueberry Pancakes, the bulletproof townie claims to start out day 1, and it puts the scum in a very difficult position to recover from.

[Yaw]

Not sure if this would work or not as a true open game, but...

Split Open

Alignment Stub

3 Mafia
1 SK
8 Pro-Town

Role Stub

1 Sane Cop
1 Doc
1 Roleblocker
1 Role Switcher
1 Role Re-Opener
2 Night Communicator
5 Unpowered

Roles and Alignments are assigned separately.
Mafia and SK are allowed one kill per "group".
Each Mafia member may kill or perform a Role night action, but not both.
SK may do both.

This is a first cut, so feel free to suggest changes.

[Yaw]

Essentially, a role re-opener makes the role accessible again, allowing the role-switcher to put a living player into an open role. It's a funky sort of resurrection.

Yes, mafia would have their own night communication.

After running this sort of thing as a large game, I found it to be a lot more resilient in terms of probability than I expected. Of course, anyone can try a few randomizations for themselves to see if there's any need for changes.

And yes, that's precisely the reason I'm not sure this is really open. It sort of is, but there's another level to the randomization that makes it so it sort of isn't. It's open for debate.

[Yaw]

Yaw's Split Open mafia is a neat idea, but I think the role switcher/re-opener/night communicator concepts are too complex for OG status.

Mostly agreed -- I even moved it to MoS's mod searching thread since posting it here. The worst part of it is that opens are randomly assigned and mostly to newbie mods, and the role switcher role is one of the most difficult things to mod ever. The paper trail to keep track of what's happened can very quickly spiral out of control. Sticking a newbie mod with that isn't fair.

That said, for the sake of argument, how is a night communicator too complex for OG status? It's just a mason group, and those are in line with normal games...