[OLD] Open Setup Discussion and Nominations

[mith]

We will soon have a new administrative game category, Open Games.

Rather than being Moderator designed, Open Games will be chosen by the players. The signup thread will have a small number of games forming at any given time, and when a game is full the first Mod on the waiting list will take that game, and another setup will take its place.

This thread is for discussing potential setups and nominating them for the Queue thread.

Setup Guidelines

In order to be eligible for the Open Game list, a setup must fit the Normal Game definition.

In addition, Open Games will have standardized rules and role PMs (more on this later).

When a setup is designed, it can be posted here, and a list of setups will be maintained.

Nominations

Users may nominate posted setups for inclusion in the signup list. Whenever a new setup is needed, the setup with the most nominations will be taken, and nominations for it will be dropped.

If you are posting a new setup, please nominate in a separate post.

Initially, the Vanilla setup will have a "permanent" place in the signups; when a Vanilla game is ready to run, a new Vanilla signup will take its place on the forming games list. As such, the Vanilla setup does not need to be nominated. It is possible that other setups will be given permanent places as well, in addition to or instead of the Vanilla setup.

Setup List

To be revamped - 11/03/07

[mith]

Example Setup:

Vanilla Mafia, 13 Players

2 Mafia
11 Citizens
Day Start

[mith]

The 13 Player was given as an example. While the Vanilla setup will be "permanent", we will probably run it with different numbers of players and scum.

[mith]

But for the sake of argument:

I also think that the lower the scum:town ratio, the greater the feeling that there isn't much genuine information to work with. I think this hurts the town's motivation to do a good, thorough job.

People saying there isn't "genuine" information to work with in a Vanilla game = pet peeve.

Anyway, maybe, but isn't this a problem the townies need to deal with, rather than the mods or the setups? Players not playing their best because they aren't motivated is not just a problem in this type of game, and part of my hope with these basic games is that players will discover/rediscover the "pure" form of the game, rather than relying on the usual things they take for granted.

I also think it makes the game take longer, which seems like a concern if these games are intended to be modded by newbies.

I disagree. For one thing, part of the benefit of Open Games is that if a newbie mod flakes, it's easy for someone to step in. For another, I think if anything it's important that new mods learn right off that games on this site can take a while.

(There should probably be a standard deadline system in place, though, to keep these moving. Don't want someone stuck as a "new mod" for a year because of an indecisive town.)

Consider also what becomes of a game where one of the scum is new and inept and gets lynched D1. From there it's essentially an 11p game with 10 townies and one SK. To me that seems like a scenario to be avoided at all costs!

We've had a 1 scum game before, at least once, as a closed setup. It ran just fine.

Now, I'm not saying that our goal should be to take away as much information as possible and make the town rely solely on reading people individually. But sometimes the town does well to start the game, and sometimes there's not a lot to go on other than reading people, and that's not a bad thing. Having to deal with situations like this once every six games... that's not a big deal to me.

Even with 4:7 nightless, it isn't going to be a cakewalk for scum. They need at least three bad lynches. This is comparable to a standard mini. Minis usually start out with 3:8 or 3:9, meaning a random lynch is less likely to hit scum than it would here.

Three bad lynches is not that many in a nightless game. The town needs four good lynches, after all. And with over a third of the players scum, lynches certainly won't be random. There's a lot of room for the scum to steer the first lynch or two away from each other without being obvious about it.

[mith]

Yaw, I'm fine with "Semi-Open" games, as long as the randomness in the setup is simple and easy to understand. (And in the case of C9, I agree that we need to make it clear what the percentages are, whether 25-25-25-25 or something else. And to ensure the choice is random, I will likely just do all semi-open randomization myself and send the setup to the Mod, unless I happen to be playing.)

Fiasco, I don't think Vengeful is too complicated, and it fits all the current "Normal" definitions. C9++ on the other hand, I'm not so sure about. It's only Semi-Open in the sense that the setup generation is public knowledge, but there's so many possibilities that the play would likely be more similar to a Closed game; I'd prefer to see it run as a Mini Normal.

(Though the setup generation or something like it could also be used to generate purely Open setups.)

[mith]

Nominations?

I'll update the first post with a list of suggested setups tomorrow; I'm going to try to get any "polished" ones on the wiki as soon as possible, if they aren't already (by polished, I mean those that have been tried before, or have been discussed in this thread).

[mith]

My original intention was for each person to have one nomination (or some limited number); but I think this will work better anyway.

The setups thus far are listed in the opening post (I've assumed that anyone posting a setup here is nominating it as well). I haven't done links to them yet, mostly because I want the links to be to the wiki and since we'll be switching wiki software soon there's no point doing it twice.

Our first two to take signups will be Basic Twelve Player and Pie C9.

Speaking of which, any thoughts on names for some of these games? As I've mentioned to pie in chat, "Pie C9" isn't a particularly descriptive name, nor does it really make sense - the "C9" name is derived from the randomness in the setup, whereas the only thing Pie C9 has with C9 is the number of players/Mafia. Similarly with my use of Vanilla over Mountainous - Mountainous is less descriptive of what the setup actually is. I don't mind common nicknames being used for some of these, but I think it would be helpful to have "good" names for any of these setups that get run repeatedly.

I'll have some comments on balance and whatnot when I'm back in England and wikiing.

[mith]

My gut says it wouldn't be balanced anyway, even if it were just a 2 person Mafia group with 2 kills per night.

(Also, it doesn't qualify as a normal.)

Update to the nominations coming later.

[mith]

Ok, Pie C9 filled a few days ago and is running, so nominations for that are open again.

To take its place, I've thrown in a nomination for "Cop C9", mostly on the basis that it was the only seven player game that had been seconded.

Fiasco, I know where the Walrus name comes from. What I meant by that is essentially that, as with the setup names, while obviously some role names are going to have been around so long/be popular for some reason/just be cool, I very much prefer descriptive names. Theme-ing it up for the sake of it is something I am trying to avoid.

(As for suggestions: Controller or Handler, perhaps?)

[mith]

That's a pretty big rule change...

Good idea though. Definitely should be tried sometime.

[mith]

I should look at the rest of page 3, huh.

I guess that a simple HP-based game (like 3 vs 6, nightless, HP start at 10, no HP gain, hits every 48 hours) would be too experimental to play it as an open game? Or what about a simple Kingmaker game?

Yes on the first, Kingmaker is a bit more established as a role so I'd be more ok with that.

And the first Vanilla on Brunchma was won by the town.

[mith]

I've thrown in a couple noms, to Vengeful and the tentatively remaned Switch.

Basic Twelve Player is full, so I'll be grabbing a new game from here in the next day or two - this is a prod for nominations. I'll do a more complete update at that time.

I may also start work soon on an Open section for the wiki, so we have a quick reference in the OP.

[mith]

I still think Loser/Reverse should be run as a Theme, not as an Open Normal.

Cop C9 is almost full, so I'll grab two games today: Nightless 4:8 and Switch.

[mith]

Oh, Fiasco: I am assuming that the SK is not meant to have any immunities; is this correct?

[mith]

Or perhaps no immunities, but the switch acts on that Mafia's kill ability as well as the blocking. Or acts on

either

the kill or the block.

Think I'll just leave it as is this time, and we can tweak it later. The SK shouldn't be worse off than a 3-1-8 (definitely less chance of winning than the Mafia, but not a completely hopeless cause either), and the switch can potentially be used to help out (I'll leave futher strategy discussion for the players).

[mith]

Hmm, I am a bit worried about the fact that a newbie could end up being asked to mod one of these unusual setups, without them ever having read of them.

With e.g. Vengeful the rule that the town autowins if the godfather is lynched, but not if he's vigged, seems to be one that has to be repeated due to not being intuitively obvious... Surely the Switch setup could raise more questions than that.

I'm keeping an eye on all the Open games for now, and in the case of weird setups I'll elaborate on them in my PM to the Mod. Experience co-mods would be ideal, though. And there's also room for restricting some of the setups, like Switch, to Mods with some experience.

Could a split role/alignment setup fit here?

Sure, as long as the roles aren't too crazy. And, as you say, balance can be an issue.

[mith]

Does this mean the SK can say "I want to block the vig-blocker and the cop-blocker, but not the doc-blocker"? I didn't intend it that way, but I could see it working as well.

That's the way I interpreted it, but I can correct it if you like. It would give the SK a bit more flexibility though.

[mith]

More nominations would be good. Thinking a small (5-8) game would be best for the next signup, if it's a choice between several tied in nominations.

Thoughts on how the Open list is going so far?

[mith]

There's a list in the first post of games that have been nominated at least once and are roughly balanced. I'm going to work on the nomination process at some point in the near future, but that's a starting place.

I've nominated and grabbed 5p Vengeful for a second run. More in the next couple days...

[mith]

Questions for Fiasco:

I grabbed Masons and Monks for an Open signup. Is Masonhood/Monkhood meant to be revealed on death? Can a player be both a Mason and a Monk? Can both Mafia be Monks (or both Wolves be Masons)?

[mith]

The first probably doesn't make all that much difference either way, so I'm inclined to say yes for that too.

The second (if it happened) would help the town, with a confirmed innocent (or even two, in the unlikely event that both were doubled up). And confirmed innocents are a bit safer in two group games.

The third would hurt the town, of course.

From a balance standpoint, it probably doesn't matter. It's pretty much equivalent to asking how much variance we want; answering no to each rules out the extreme cases on either side, but probably doesn't affect the overall (pre-assignment) probabilities much vs. leaving the extreme cases as possibilities.

(But from a gameplay standpoint, it might be more

interesting

if the answers were no, if the goal is to have partially confirmed roles.)

[mith]

It could be assumed that there is just a no lynch in the endgame days. The choice of who gets lynched in such a situation would be pretty much entirely arbitrary (with the Mafia not caring and acting as kingmaker), and besides, why would the Mafia want anyone else to win? NL, kill, NL, kill is a more natural resolution, and doesn't need to be played out.

(It's an interesting idea. Probably needs a bit of tweaking. Really, we need to run some small lyncher games before thinking about something like this.)

[mith]

I am so very tempted to make a cop role that gets "Ketchup" and "Cinnamon" now.

[mith]

Ok, thanks, it'll probably be next up then.

I'm going to work on getting some of the proposed setups moved over to the wiki sometime soon, so I'll count nominations (and possibly modify things a bit to make it run more smoothly) then.

[mith]

Lyncher (the 5p setup) doesn't qualify as normal due to the lack of a killing group. Would you make an exception due to the small size?

Forgot to respond to this earlier. To answer the question: I'd have to think about it. If there's interest, I would certainly take that into consideration. Good small games are hard to find, and I wouldn't mind seeing more of them run as a general rule. When I said we should run some small lyncher games before trying whatever setup was being proposed, I wasn't necessarily talking about the 5p version; the lyncher role can easily be used in games with more than one scum.

Speaking of the lyncher role and 5p games, I had a slightly weird idea last night that I thought I'd post here. Not nominating it (as it's a little wacky, there's the lone-scum thing, and it probably needs some kinks worked out), but it might be interesting to try in scumchat.

Vengeful Lyncher:

5 Players - 1 Mafia, 3 Townies. The fifth role is either a Traitor (in which case the Vengeful rule applies if a Townie is lynched day 1; this would play exactly like a normal Vengeful game, except the Mafia does not know who the Traitor is) or a Lyncher (in which case the Vengeful rule does not apply, and it players like a normal Lyncher game).

A more complicated variant on this idea, with another well-known 5p setup, which I am calling "

dethtrap

" for lack of a better name:

5 Players - 1 Mafia, 3 Cops of varying sanities. The fifth role is either a Traitor (Vengeful rules), Lyncher (Lyncher rules), or Cop (of the missing sanity).

You could even change that to an evil-C9 type setup, where both the Traitor and Lyncher could appear.

[mith]

I've grabbed Strawberry III, but tweaked it. Hope you don't mind, Fiasco.

(The tweak is removing a townie and making it a cop-head-start instead of night start; day 1 looks the same except for making sure the "9th townie" is killed, instead of the cop - 3:9 vanilla isn't balanced.)

[mith]

I think C9 without the 2-5 option would work fine as well. I've never tried running numbers on any of the semi-open setups before, maybe something to look into when I've got more free time.

[mith]

I don't think the "information" gained could possibly offset the Mafia's advantage in a 3:9 setup. I'm not even convinced that the town gains

any

information from that.

[mith]

Also, a reminder (specifically looking at Bad Idea): This is as good a place as any to discuss complicated open setups, but such games are not likely to ever been run under the Open Game list. That list is for basic setups, maybe with one or two new roles thrown in. Bad Idea is actually pretty basic in concept, but it's not a "normal" game - the "everyone can daykill" has too much of an impact on the game mechanics.

If you like an open setup and meet the mod requirements, by all means, sign up to run it on one of the other lists. There is nothing requiring a Theme Park game have a complicated closed setup - just that it have a theme or a significant change in mechanics.

[mith]

Best play there would probably be an immediate massclaim, followed by the newly confirmed innocents making all the decisions. Might end up being balanced, but it wouldn't be much fun.

(I'll admit to being a bit biased against the whole idea, though. I don't like people being able to prove things based on a claim, unless there is a significant drawback to doing so - like a cop coming out, which denies the town future investigations.)

[mith]

[edit]Corrected below.[/edit]

[mith]

Correction, it's 23/66.

It's with an optimal strategy. I'll type it up and edit it in here.

The basic idea is that you have a ceiling of 27 "wins" out of 66 possible pairings - the town gets 3 days of information, and potentially 3 possible answers on each day.

However, it's not actually possible to get all 27 possible sets of answers out of the problem. There might be a way to get more than 23, but I'm not seeing it.

Code: Select all

Day 1: 2/12 - Pick 5 at random. (66 Pairings Remain)
  0 Scum. Day 2: 2/7 - Pick 3 at random, plus 1 innocent. (21 Pairings Remain)
    0 Scum. Day 3: 2/4 - Pick 2 at random, plus 1 innocent. (6 Pairings Remain)
      0 Scum. Day 4: 1 Pairing Remains
      1 Scum. Day 4: 4 Pairings Remain
      2 Scum. Day 4: 1 Pairing Remains
    1 Scum. Day 3: 1/3, 1/4 - Pick 1 from first group, 2 from second. (12 Pairings Remain)
      0 Scum. Day 4: 4 Pairings Remain
      1 Scum. Day 4: 6 Pairings Remain
      2 Scum. Day 4: 2 Pairings Remain
    2 Scum. Day 3: 2/3 - Pick 2 at random, plus 1 innocent. (3 Pairings Remain)
      0 Scum. NOT POSSIBLE
      1 Scum. Day 4: 2 Pairings Remain
      2 Scum. Day 4: 1 Pairing Remains
  1 Scum. Day 2: 1/5, 1/7 - Pick 2 from each group. (35 Pairings Remain)
    0 Scum. Day 3: 1/3, 1/5 - Pick 1 from first group, 2 from second. (15 Pairings Remain)
      0 Scum. Day 4: 6 Pairings Remain
      1 Scum. Day 4: 7 Pairings Remain
      2 Scum. Day 4: 2 Pairings Remain
    1 Scum. Day 3:                        (16 Pairings Remain)
      0 Scum.
      1 Scum.
      2 Scum.
    2 Scum. Day 3: 1/2, 1/2 - Pick 1 from each group. (4 Pairings Remain)
      0 Scum. Day 4: 1 Pairing Remains
      1 Scum. Day 4: 2 Pairings Remain
      2 Scum. Day 4: 1 Pairing Remains
  2 Scum. Day 2: 2/5 - Pick 2 at random, plus 2 innocents. (10 Pairings Remain)
    0 Scum. Day 3: 2/3 - Pick 2 at random, plus 1 innocent. (3 Pairings Remain)
      0 Scum. NOT POSSIBLE
      1 Scum. Day 4: 2 Pairings Remain
      2 Scum. Day 4: 1 Pairing Remains
    1 Scum. Day 3: 1/2, 1/3 - Pick 1 from each group, plus 1 innocent. (6 Pairings Remain)
      0 Scum. Day 4: 2 Pairings Remain
      1 Scum. Day 4: 3 Pairings Remain
      2 Scum. Day 4: 1 Pairing Remains
    2 Scum. Day 3: 2/2 - Pick Scum, plus 1 innocent. (1 Pairing Remains)
      0 Scum. NOT POSSIBLE
      1 Scum. NOT POSSIBLE
      2 Scum. Day 4: 1 Pairing Remains

The "optimal" strategy is pretty flexible. What matters is that you leave the possibility open for getting any of the 3 answers the next day. The way I've arranged things is such that the "goal" should be to try to pick both scum each day. You could arrange it the other way around for some of the cases, but it's more intuitive this way.

(The "middle" case - getting an answer of "1" each of the first two days - is too messy to explain elegantly; all that really matters is that you pick in such a way that you could get any of the three answers, and since there would still be 16 possible pairings left, that's trivial to do.)

[mith]

Incidentally, I think you can still get 23/66 if you are allowed to just pick 4 on day 1 (or if you are allowed to pick someone not in the game as the 5th, equivalently). You leave enough pairings possible in the "0 Scum" case to get the full 9 out of it, and still get 5/6 from the "2 Scum" case.

(That isn't to say it would be good play if the groups weren't picked "randomly"... scum could more easily manipulate it away from the "2 Scum" case. But I found it interesting.)

[mith]

I don't like one-scum setups as a rule, but the second one looks pretty interesting.

[mith]

I was thinking about your suggesting for adding in a "no Mafia" possibility to the "dethtrap" setup, and the obvious fix for the nightkill problem is to use Vengeful rules. I think I'll give it a try in scumchat sometime soon.

For a more general TINC game, perhaps the win condition could be that the town must vote TINC before some point, and if they lynch the lynchee gets a vengeful kill - they wouldn't just be making the kill randomly, they would try to make a kill that Mafia *wouldn't* make, to hint that there is no conspiracy (and then the Mafia's kills in games they were in could fake this thinking, and so on).

[mith]

"The dethtrap conspiracy"

Setup randomly chosen from the four below:

1. Mafia, Traitor, Sane/Insane Cop, Naive Cop, Paranoid Cop

Traitor knows who the Mafia is, comes up "innocent" to Sane Cop. Mafia doesn't get a NK, but doesn't know this until N1. If D1 lynch is innocent, lynchee gets a vengeful kill. Town wins by lynching Mafia, or by vengeful killing Mafia and lynching Traitor. If town votes TINC, Mafia wins.

2. Mafia, Lyncher, Sane/Insane Cop, Naive Cop, Paranoid Cop

Lyncher has innocent target, wins immediately if this target is lynched, and comes up "innocent" to Sane Cop. If target is NKed, Lyncher wins with Town. Town wins by lynching Mafia and Lyncher; if the Lyncher and Target are last two alive, it's a draw. If town votes TINC, Mafia wins.

3. Mafia, Sane Cop, Insane Cop, Naive Cop, Paranoid Cop

Standard dethy setup. If town votes TINC, Mafia wins.

4. Sane/Insane Cop, Sane Cop, Insane Cop, Naive Cop, Paranoid Cop

Town wins by voting TINC. If town lynches D1, lynhcee gets a vengeful kill. If town lynches D2, town loses.

Any glaring holes? I won't bother trying to figure out whether it's "balanced" until it's tested.

[mith]

Well, yeah, everyone will claim Cop (at least at first; there's reasons to claim lyncher on D2). I thought that was kinda obvious.

I thought it goes without saying that the cops don't know what sanity they are, but I guess if you aren't familiar with dethy...

[mith]

Cop Head Start.

And note that the traitor and lyncher both come up innocent to a sane cop. As far as cop investigation goes, there's only one "guilty".

I think the opposite of what you said is actually true; in a game with two "scum" faking results, it would be extremely difficult to learn anything about sanities. The real information (if any) would come from trying to figure out why each player might fake the result they're claiming.

[mith]

Yeah. Might be worth lowering the chances of TINC... maybe not though, it's hard to say how the possibility will affect play in the other setups.

One minor annoyance I have is that it will be clear to everyone whether or not it's a vengeful setup by D2. You could throw in some chance of the vengeful kill in the TINC setup turning up as a death miller or something, I guess (though maybe the fix is more annoying than the "problem" ).

[mith]

Stoof, if the town lynches twice in a TINC, they lose automatically (by rule). Otherwise, yeah, there would be no reason for them to ever vote TINC.

[mith]

Really, as much as I dislike the idea of death millers, that option probably does fit best with the "conspiracy" idea.

(I'm putting together a little spreadsheet to analyze this, I'll let you know if I come up with anything useful. It's extremely messy. )

[mith]

Hm. It looks like there are sets of N0 investigation results (/claims) which can't happen in TINC, but can in dethy. I wouldn't have expected that. There's also the issue of someone getting a different result N0 and N1, which means there must be scum.

Maybe an alternator? Sane N0, Insane N1 (or vice versa).

[mith]

Duh, I should have expected that. For TINC, there must be at least 2 of each result, but not so with dethy.

[mith]

The lyncher's goal is to lynch a target; if the target doesn't get lynched, the lyncher loses. I guess you could include "TINC" as a target for the lyncher; depends on how likely the town are to vote TINC.

As for dethy... part of the upside of mixing dethy with Vengeful/Lyncher in the first place was to reduce the strict "follow the investigations" routine. I suspect in reality it would play a lot more like a 1/5 Vanilla, but the investigations give the town *some* chance of narrowing the possibilities on who might be scum. If it came down to a "Either X is scum, or TINC", I think that would be an interesting decision to have to make.

(That said, will probably try just the original dethtrap first, before introducing the TINC concept. I don't think there's anything major wrong with the idea, but we've already come up with plenty of little annoyances...)

[mith]

I don't know... I don't think keeping the setup in doubt is worth screwing around with the role reveal. If the town is successful in lynching scum (any scum), they ought to at least get that information.

Maybe just give the scum a NK if the traitor is lynched in vengeful (I hadn't considered that if the traitor is lynched there's no NK in vengeful). The traitor not knowing who the scum is would be interesting I guess, but wouldn't play anything like vengeful.

[mith]

Started looking through the thread today... mostly I need to pick a couple for new signups, but if I have time I'm also going to start getting some of these wiki'd. Probably going to go with C9+2 and another Nightless 4:8, unless someone can point out a bunch of nominations I'm missing.

Fiasco, I was thinking on Toddle C9 (2)... what if the Cop + Goon was guaranteed, rather than a 50-50? In other words, it'd be a 50-50 between Pie C9 and Cop C9. That would remove my main complaint (the possibility of there only being one scum), but I'm not sure about the balance (I suspect both possible setups are in the scum's favor as opens, and they should gain an advantage just from knowing which setup it is before the town does... could +2 it into a 9 player setup, I guess).

[mith]

I've wiki'd all the setups we've actually used so far. At some point (though I probably won't get to it today) I'll get to work on some more of the suggestions in this thread. If someone gets bored and feels like putting together a list of setups which have been suggested and aren't considered either horribly broken or otherwise bad ideas, I'll start with those.

[mith]

Yeah, you have to have 50% in Nightless, obviously. Otherwise the Mafia can't win anyway.

Random kills by the day-vig in such a game gives the town a 2/3 chance of winning. I would have the day-vig come out immediately and hope "discussion helps the town" applies.

Unless we're talking about a one-shot.

I don't agree that it (day-vig winning an endgame) would stink in a non-nightless game. The day-vig would only survive to such an endgame by never claiming, and so either he will have played well enough to never be in danger of getting lynched, or he has to weigh the "become confirmed" perk of the role against the possibility of saving the game at the last moment; and also has to fool the scum into thinking he's just a townie. (And I've stated before in various threads that I think it's silly to change the Mafia's win condition because the town might be able to use an ability to their advantage.)

[mith]

Assassin in the Palace was all sorts of cool.

And I'm not just saying that because I won.

And Crush Nightless was one of the few we ran multiple times.

[mith]

C9+2 with a slice of Pie

Setup is one of the following (25% each):

1 Mafia Roleblocker, 1 Mafia Goon, 1 Cop, 1 Doctor, 5 Townies
2 Mafia Goons, 1 Cop, 6 Townies
2 Mafia Goons, 1 Doctor, 6 Townies
1 Mafia Roleblocker, 1 Mafia Goon, 7 Townies

[mith]

Arkansas Justice:

3 Mafia, 9 Townies. Nightless. 6 "Lover" pairs and 4 "Sibling" trios randomly distributed. Whenever someone is lynched, their lover gets a one-shot kill among the lynchee's voters. Unless their lover was also their sibling, in which case they die of shame.

[mith]

As much as I like AITP, the mechanic change is very significant. (The most recent was run as a Mini Theme, even. So I'm not sure why people are nominating it here.)

(And it case it wasn't obvious, my "Arkansas Justice" setup was a joke.)

[mith]

Oh, I don't disagree, necessarily. It just wasn't a serious suggestion for Open Games. If someone wants to run it as a Mini Theme, feel free.

[mith]

With 4 scum in a 12 player game, they'd pretty much have to all be sane for there to be any chance at balance.

I suspect as it is it's probably roughly balanced with a huge variance.

[mith]

Third:

Two of Four (Townie)

Nominate:

The same, but with 9 players instead of 7.

Nominate:

Pie 9C9

(Ideally, I'd like to see all these run a couple times before we make a decision on the Newibe setup thing, but that's probably not realistic.)

[mith]

Not at all sure of the balance on this one (or even if it would be any fun), but...

Kingmaker in the Palace

1 Assassin
1 Kingmaker
X Guards

Each night, the Kingmaker chooses a King. All the Guards are then told who the King is. During day, discussion continues until the King sends "Execute: Player" by PM to the Mod. If the Assassin is chosen for execution, he gets a vengeful kill, and he wins if he kills the King-for-a-Day.

[mith]

What happens if the Kingmaker chooses the Assassin to be King?

The Assassin becomes King for the day, gets rid of a Guard for free, and the game continues.

If the Kingmaker dies, a random Guard becomes the Kingmaker (like in the usual Kingmaker setup).

[mith]

Actually, I see what his point is. In the usual AitP setup, the town would have to vote for him and do so without giving away why they're going it. In KitP, however, the King kills privately, so day could be over before the Assassin has any chance to get a read on who the Guards are protecting.

(There's still some strategy to it, though, since the Guards will be distancing from the King to some degree, and the Assassin would gain some information if he were killed immediately after suggesting the King as scum.)

Hm. Perhaps a fixed time for day? Or a mininum time? (The problem with that, though, is that it might be a valid strategy for the town to just not say anything until the minimum had passed.) Or the town has to vote to end day, at which point the king chooses who to execute?

(Btw, I'm not necessarily suggesting this be run as an Open. It's a pretty strange variant. I may try it as a Mini Theme sometime though, if the bugs can be worked out.)

[mith]

They're still trying to figure out who the Assassin is, same as AitP.

[mith]

The setup was balanced as is. But the noreveal would definitely add an interesting twist, without affecting the balance. Adele's noreveal suggestion was that alignment is not revealed on

stumping

. Not that likely to make a difference (compared to Phate's), since the townies will always stump before being lynched, but alignment should be revealed on lynching anyway (the Mafia getting an extra kill on a town-lynch is bonus enough).

I would also give the scum the ability to permanently remove a tree stump rather than killing. Both options (scum stumping, scum removing a stump instead of killing) are unlikely to be used, but having them as possibilities adds a lot to the game.

[mith]

8 Player Setup That I Haven't Named Yet

Day Start

1 Mafia Boss
1 Mafia Hitman
1-2 of [Tracker, Jailkeeper, One-shot Vigilante]
4-5 Townies

Only the Hitman can kill. Mafia win when the town is unable to eliminate them (not at 50%; so Boss/Hitman/Jailkeeper/Vig or Boss/Vig are still winnable for the town).

[mith]

I was envisioning it as a normal Mafia with a limitation (only one of them can kill) - the names are just "flavor", with the Boss not getting his hands dirty.

But there are a number of variations you could have:

1. Mafia know each other, but only the Boss decides on the kill (implies no communication).
2. The Boss knows who the Hitman is, but not the other way around, with the Boss ordering the kill (and the Hitman being told who his target is - relevant if the kill is blocked for some reason). Could combine this with NK immunity, to avoid the Hitman-kills-Boss problem (or not, and force the Boss to signal his partner somehow).
3. The Boss has NK immunity. Note that since the Boss can't kill, he is already immune to the Tracker and the information side of the Jailkeeper, so there's some symmetry to this. Note also that in this case, the Mafia win condition reduces to 50%, since the town can no longer win in either of the cases I mentioned.

If the Hitman is lynched, it basically reduces to a Nightless game, but it doesn't have the Pie-E7 problem, since the town has no information roles that can target the Boss.

The main cocnerns I wanted to address here were balance with weaker pro-town roles (less swing), and dealing with the pairty issue of an 8P Day Start. There's not that many good 8P setups available, I think (at least, no "normal" ones came to mind).

I'll run some numbers at some point, see if they suggest anything regarding balance.

[mith]

(Could also use a Watcher as one of the options.)

[mith]

The Hitman does know who the Boss is (and vice versa) in the original version.

[mith]

How can the Hitman kill the boss if the boss determines the target of the Hitman?

Er... ignore that. I think I was going to include an option where the Boss knows the Hitman, but the Hitman chooses his own target, and got confused.

2-6 nightless would be a decent 8 player setup imo.

its basically like 2-Ten cept mafia dont have nightkills.

Not exactly - in the nightful version, the Mafia have a better chance of avoiding the lynch. But 2-10 is in the Mafia's favor somewhat anyway (and a quick check of the numbers says that any nightless game with 1/4 Mafia will be perfectly balanced for random lynches).

In fact: Nightless formula - the scum's EV for a nightless game is 2X/P, where X is the number of scum and P is the number of players.

[mith]

Double Day Mafia

12 Townies
4 Mafia

Two lynches per day, alignment reveal immediately after lynch, one mafia kill per night.

Have I got the numbers balanced?

I get 24% EV for the town with that setup. (4-12 is 50-50 for Nightless, 12% for normal mechanics.)

3-13 would be a pretty good balance (39%).

[mith]

Guardian, I haven't run through the other options, but if all town players tell the truth and both scum claim SS, town EV is 2/3 (split the claimed SSs into two pairs, and have one hammer the other - lynch the hammerer if he refuses; if both pairs are M/SS, town wins, otherwise mafia wins). I would guess that the Mafia can do better by splitting their claim.

[mith]

(It's also 2/3 if both Mafia claim Townie; SS are now confirmed, and town wins if they hit Mafia D1.)

[mith]

Actually, I think it's 2/3 no matter what. If the claims split 3/2, have one SS hammer another. 1/3 chance of losing immediately (SS --0 SS), but otherwise either Mafia gets lynched or Mafia refuses to hammer (and gets lynched that way), and now the SS are confirmed and have numbers to lynch both claimed townies.

I doubt the town can improve on this with fakeclaims.

[mith]

yb, with two kills a night 2:14 is 21% for the town. 3:13 is about 7%. 3:14 is even worse, because the numbers are bad for the town *and* they can't fix them by no-lynching (5%).

[edit]Actually, it might be to the scum's benefit to only use one kill on certain nights, to get the numbers in their favor. Too lazy to take that into account, though.[/edit]

Surpisingly, 1:15 is almost exactly 50%, if the scum is forced to kill twice (though games with only an SK tend to be not-much-fun).

[mith]

It's Nightless. 4:7 isn't terrible.

But there's no reason for the Town-Mayor to ever pardon anyone. So it just becomes "If anyone is ever pardoned, they are Mafia. Ignore them, try to lynch them at the beginning of every 'day' to get rid of the pardoning ability, and continue with the game as normal."

(But just having a semi-unlynchable Mafia member would make the scum win percentage go up quite a lot, I would think.)

[mith]

Tomato: Obvious scum strategy is to claim one of each (so I wouldn't say it's "hard" for them to claim). You basically have three interlinked games of 1:3. Still very difficult for the town, especially with the parity. Haven't run the numbers, but I don't think it would be significantly different from 3:9 vanilla.

5 groups of 3 would be better (though of course the scum then won't be able to cover all the groups, and 3 of the town will start off confirmed).

yb: 3 Mafia is too strong for that game - the bullet-proof role is strong, in that they can't kill it and it won't get lynched unless one of the Mafia counterclaims, but not nearly strong enough, and the lynch-proof role is mostly useless, as Tomato points out (though not quite equivalent to Citizen, because of the potential for Mafia counterclaiming). Town's best strategy is probably to have everyone claim "immune or not" (but not whether you are bullet or lynch immune).

Here's a variant on the bullet-proof role that might be better (I don't have a name for it yet): Mafia can choose each night to kill using a gun or iocaine powder. Bullet-proof only dies if targeted by iocaine powder, all the other townies have built up an immunity to it. (Substitute "iocaine powder" for whatever, depending on the flavor.) Basically, the Mafia can kill the "bullet-proof" role once they figure out who it is (either by failing the previous night, or through claims).

Tweaked yb setup:

2 Mafia
1 Bullet-proof Variant (see above)
1 Lynch-proof
6 Townies

[mith]

That's assuming town massclaims. I don't really see a reason for them to do it. After a couple of days and some deaths, I'd assume it would change quite a bit. If two of the same town role die, all the better.

The point of the massclaim is to increase the potential for confirmed innocents - that's the only bonus the town gets in this setup. Without the massclaim, it's just a vanilla setup, except where two of the same role die the third can claim and become confirmed (and immediately die).

The only potential improvement I see is if you could force a massbreadcrumb day 1, then lynch someone, and then the Mafia have to kill blind the first night rather than knowing which group they should kill from (then massreveal of the breadcrumbs day 2, to make the most informed lynch possible).

The parity is a big issue anyway. 12-player with no power should be a night start (and town should no-lynch in a day start).

[mith]

Huh, better than I expected. 3:8 Vanilla is 16.5% for the town, Tomato-setup after a no lynch + massclaim is 28% for the town.

[mith]

Preventing a mislynch on a single player who will then die the next night isn't worth that much to the town's chances.

A quick example of why massclaim is good here:

Without massclaim, Day 1: 3/11 chance of hitting scum.

With massclaim, Day 1: 1/3 chance of hitting scum. With one of the town roles already dead, there will only be three claims for that role, one of them scum.

If we hit scum Day 1, the scum kill, and then Day 2 with massclaim we have a 1/4 chance of hitting scum (move on to the next type of role). Without massclaim, if the scum hit another of the same town role as Night 1, that role will be able to claim to avoid a mislynch, so we likewise have a 1/4 chance; if they don't hit the same type of role, however, it's 2/9.

If we don't hit scum Day 1, on Day 2 we have a 1/2 chance of hitting scum with massclaim. Without, 1/3.

(Waiting to massclaim day 2 is probably better than no massclaim at all, but almost certainly worse than an immediate massclaim.)

[mith]

There's no reason for the DM to not claim if he knows he's the DM. I thought DMs were generally told they were townies, though.

Either way, I don't have a problem with the DM in an

open

setup (any mod using it in a non-bastard closed setup should be shot immediately), though I think it's a dumb role if the player knows he is the DM (since he should pretty much always claim immediately), and a very annoying one if not.

[mith]

Locking...