[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[Rob14]

Cult Vengeful:

5 players

Setup:
- 1 One-shot Cult Recruiter
- 4 Vanilla Townies

Mechanics:
- Day Start
- On Day 1, if a Vanilla Townie is lynched, they get a vengeful shot.
- The vengeful shot resolves BEFORE the cult recruitment. If the cult recruiter is killed, for instance, their recruitment does not go through.

I ran the numbers on chances of winning in this setup and, discounting the possibility of a no lynch, there is a 53.333% chance of a cult recruiter win. I play-tested this setup on Skype with some Scummers, and it was well-received. Any questions, just ask.

[Rob14]

Any questions, just ask.

Why one-shot?

(Or, to put it another way: does the recruiter win automatically if there is only one other player left alive? Because if the answer to that is "yes" then being one-shot doesn't seem to be a meaningful restriction (and if it's "no", then who does win?).

Cult recruiter wins if there is only one other player, but the 1-shot does come into play in the following scenario:

Day 1 No Lynch --> Someone is recruited (3 town, 2 cult)
Day 2 Lynch of the recruited person --> (3 town, 1 cult)
If there's another recruit from the cult leader --> (2 town, 2 cult) = cult win

If the cult leader could recruit again, then it would break the possibility of no lynching on the first day, because they would win even if town successfully lynched the recruited cult member. It would make no lynching always the worst choice for town, which I don't necessarily want to be the case.

Also, @Rural Juror, no that's not the case. Here's the breakdown of possibilities of things happening.

Spoiler: Boring Stuff

Game Start:
1/5 chance of lynching the cult recruiter (.20 chance of town win)
4/5 chance of lynching a VT (game continues)

If you lynch a VT Day 1:
1/4 chance that the cult recruiter dies (resolves first, so .20 chance of town win)
1/2 chance that the cult recruiter chooses someone to recruit that is NOT chosen to be venge-killed (.40 chance of scum win)
1/4 chance that the recruitment and the venge-kill fall on the same person (game continues)

If the recruitment and the venge-kill fall on the same person (3p LyLo with the original cult recruiter):
1/3 chance that the recruiter is lynched (.0667 chance of town win)
2/3 chance that a VT is lynched (.1333 chance of scum win)

Summing up all those probabilities from what is essentially a written out tree diagram:
Scum win: 53.333%
Town win: 46.667%

[Rob14]

My biggest concern with this is the possibility of a random townie winning when successfully recruited. I want to word win-cons in a way that only the cult recruiter wins in that situation, although I'm not sure how to do that. Should I bother being concerned about that?

[Rob14]

Town didn't ever choose not to lynch in play-testing, but the idea was floated many times by players. It just never gained traction. You would have to lynch all cult members in the case of no lynching, not just the leader. That is intended to be a non-ideal style of play, but it's still a possibility that I don't want to make horribly broken if it were to occur. Players should be responsible for figuring out that this is not best for multiple reasons (especially losing their venge-shot).

[Rob14]

Tree stumps are traditionally town-aligned. This is actually quite similar to an idea I had in MafiaChat a long time ago to incorporate non-players into a game in a "peanut gallery," where they can contribute however they want. You just did it better, since you figured out the solution to the problem of getting non-players involved in the setup (answer: make them sign up just like normal players). The only issue I see is that you may encounter situations where the stumps spam the thread and make it harder for the actual players to keep up with conversation. You might want to cap the number of tree stumps in a game - for instance X≤5.

[Rob14]

Matrix6B

	A	B	C
1	Town Tracker	Mafia Godfather	Town Doctor
2	Town 2-Shot Commuter	Town Cop	Mafia Roleblocker*
3	Mafia Goon	Vanilla Townie	Town Macho Watcher

Pick a row or column.

*Roleblocker resolves before Commuter.

This setup, co-designed by Amrun and myself, attempts to solve a few issues that we believe are inherent in the Matrix6 setup, especially considering that it is designed for newbie players.

1. The Cop is a role that inherently emphasizes night-play over day-play. Both setup designers believe that day-play should be emphasized in newbie games, so we wished to nerf the cop setups a bit to make that more the case. This was accomplished by putting in the possibility of a Mafia Godfather, to allow for the possibility of a "bad" result.

2. We believe the Cop/Doctor/Roleblocker setup in Matrix6 is town-sided, and it was given a small nerf in the form of a weaker protective role.

3. A 1-shot bulletproof role in the Matrix6 setup creates a situation where it is beneficial to the town for the bulletproof townie to either outright lie or restrict the information given in a role claim. This is a cool concept in a non-newbie game, but it's a bit overcomplicated and confusing for a newbie. We should be drilling "NEVER LIE AS TOWN" into the heads of new players on the site and letting them explore the exceptions as they gain experience, not trying to start them off by saying "Well, sometimes it's okay to lie as town."

4. The Jailkeeper/1-shot Bulletproof/Roleblocker setup doubles-up on protective roles, which is not very desirable, in our opinion. This setup has been entirely removed.

Thoughts and feedback? While it's unlikely the official newbie setup will receive an update anytime soon, it's certainly worth discussing how the matrix format could be used to produce the best and simplest semi-open setup possible.

[Rob14]

Godfather is an extremely standard and normal role. It's not lying to a player, especially when you open up the setup so they KNOW it's a possibility. It means they have to analyze their results with what they know from day-play.

A watcher is super powerful. They give incredible incentive for the mafia NOT to kill someone who's incredibly town and seen as such by a lot of people in the game, which is a massive power for the town. What do you think is massively over-powered for scum about it?

B: Originally, Amrun pushed for a cop to not be included in Matrix6B at all. The reasoning behind that is that newbie setups should emphasize day play, which we both agree on, and a Cop is the top-of-the-ladder of night-play heavy roles. The alternative was the Godfather. I wouldn't be horribly opposed to turning the Godfather into a RoleCop, though, with the understanding that it affects Setup #1.

C: The alternative to Doc/Macho Watcher/Roleblocker is to take the Macho modifier off the Macho Watcher and change the Doctor to a lesser protective role. We considered this, but the only role we could think of that would balance and have the intended effects would be a Bodyguard, which we both agreed has no place in a newbie setup. A successful protect would lead to death, which would be bitter sweet for someone playing their first game. Does anyone have any other alternatives we may have missed?

[Rob14]

Again, why? I'm going to need more specifics than "I vaguely dislike this setup." Especially when you just added a setup which was one of the ones I considered to be least controversial.

[Rob14]

Another problem i see is the fact that, Mafia basically have full knowledge of the setup from the start.

Not true. They know that the setup is one of two potential things, which is the same as the current Matrix6 more-or-less, where the mafia either has 2 choices or 4 choices for what the setup could be, depending on whether or not they have a roleblocker.

[Rob14]

Again, why? I'm going to need more specifics than "I vaguely dislike this setup." Especially when you just added a setup which was one of the ones I considered to be least controversial.

For the same reason 2of4's only town power is the doctor was bad.
Yes it gets you a confirmed scum rather than a 99% confirmed town by being on the night kill, but the premise still feels the same to me.

This sounds like really silly reasoning. You're basically saying that the Watcher in a setup as the only PR is bad because sometimes it will accomplish its goal.

[Rob14]

Agreed. Change made.

[Rob14]

Another Matrix proposition:

Vanilla Townie	Mafia Goon	Town Cop
Town Jailkeeper	Town Bodyguard	Mafia Roleblocker
Mafia Rolecop	Town Tracker	Town Doctor

Pick any row or column and add 1 Mafia Goon and 5 Vanilla Townies.

Don't like a bodyguard in a newbie setup at all, because it leads to a situation where a "successful" night action results in death. This is not desirable, because newbies would be left with the feeling that they "lost" by dying, even if they did a successful night action. The idea that they're participating for the "greater good" of town is foreign to them, since they're new, so they wouldn't feel good about a successful use of their role.

Not a fan of Jailkeeper/Roleblocker in the same setup for a newbie.

Cop/Doctor/Roleblocker is town-sided.

[Rob14]

Let's take a step back for a sec, since I just read some of these insane propositions. The goal of a setup designed for newbies is simplicity. We're not just looking for balance, we're looking for a lack of swingy-ness (meaning hiders are bad, for instance) and a lack of instances that could cause confusion (meaning double roleblockers are bad). Modifiers should also be kept to a minimum, in my opinion, although they are sometime necessary to balance. I'd keep modifiers to nothing more complicated than Macho or X-Shot, though.

[Rob14]

Tracker/Cop/Roleblocker is kind of eww.

Also, this is about a newbie setup and it isn't at the same time. I brought up Matrix6B as an exercise in making an improvement on Matrix6, with the understanding that Matrix6 is catered to newbies. While I would love to have an improved Matrix6 become the official setup, that is unrealistic because we JUST got a change in setup not too long ago.

[Rob14]

A 1-shot or full bulletproof townie shouldn't be in this setup at all. We get enough problems with newbies trying gambits or lying as town without experience or knowing how to do so already. Do we want to start their first game by having the IC say "Ok, while SOMETIMES it's ok to lie as town...."

[Rob14]

How is 1 scum-sided CES? Tracker, 6 VTs, 2 goons is not scum-sided. It's 9p mountainous plus a town PR.

[Rob14]

I've starting running numbers on the current newbie setup. I'll release preliminary results on each potential sample setup once I have a sample size of at least 10 in that setup. Once I have a sample size of 10 in EACH setup, then I'll probably make a standalone thread that I keep updated regularly.

3:1-shot BP/Goon/Tracker

Sample Size: 11
Town Win Ratio: 3:11 (0.2727)

This is a really weird result, in my opinion, and is likely a result of low sample size.

[Rob14]

Yeah, but there's not a large enough sample size yet to bother running a statistical test on my results to determine if any are unbalanced. Maybe in a half year.