[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[gorckat]

One of the theme games I played in years ago was a 'Soviet' style game where the town had a cop and doc, but their targets were voted on by the town at large. Day 1 it was decided to cop/doc the same person, else scum could kill the cop target and avoid dealing with a conf-town the next day (or something like that). There was also an SK.

What about a slightly simplified version (or maybe just modified):

vCop
vDoc
vVig
Compulsive SK
5 Vanilla Town
Godfather
2 Goons

Town can (must) vote for two of: vig, lynch, cop

and

, doc

(edited for clarity)

So instead of just vote:X, it would be something like:

Cop: X
Vig: Y

or

Vote: X
Doc: Y

To simplify things for the mod, each post with a vote/cop/doc/vig must have two of those options and the mod can ignore posts with just one.

If the role associated with the power dies, then the power is off the table and the mod can ignore posts asking for it.

ADD: And once any option has hit majority (eg cop hits 7 votes on day one and no other option is at 7) then it is locked in and other vote counts reset and people only vote for one of the remaining options.

[Staeg]

Maybe make the survivor a faction with another survivor. So have like two survivors who can only win if they're the last ones standing. Make it so they can't win with anyone else also. And maybe to help them out a bit, give them a vig shot each night to use. You also make one them a "Survivor Roleblocker" or "Survivor Rolecop" but that's up to you and how you want to balance it.

Isn't that a 2-man scum team?

That was the joke.

[LlamaFluff]

Once again, Junpei everybody. Clap if you give a fuck what he says.

*clap*

He does raise a valid point, trying to shut down something because open players "arent as good" said the way you did (especially coming from you) is laughable. First its something that will almost never occur, it would be about the same odds as CCCCCTT coming up in C9++, just because its rare doesnt mean it needs fixing. Saying "cant be all three" would make it worse since there is a noticeable (should take ~20 runs) chance of two mafia being in it, and if they both died last neighbor gets confirmed.

The entire setup basically takes a balanced enough setup and then adds an aspect that will reward good play around a modification regadless of faction. Good play from town or scum can be hefty +EV to that faction.

[callforjudgement]

Fwiw, I think neighbourhoods are townsided no matter what the faction of the people in them (except perhaps the extreme case of scum-dominated neigbourhoods). I was in an opposite-scumteams neighbourhood in Worst Roles Mafia (advertised as being masons, but nobody believes that as alignment confirmation in a bastard mod game), and both sides ended up leaking a lot of information about their scumbuddies unintentionally. Fooling the town is hard enough as scum; you have to be very good to fool a neighbourhood as well.

[izakthegoomba]

I agree with CFJ; neighbourhoods will almost always favour town massively. Iirc, it was information from the "masonry" that really made the mafia win in the end - but if CFJ had been town, and there were no mafia, it would have been an incredibly easy game for the town.

[Junpei]

I agree with CFJ; neighbourhoods will almost always favour town massively. Iirc, it was information from the "masonry" that really made the mafia win in the end - but if CFJ had been town, and there were no mafia, it would have been an incredibly easy game for the town.

Worst Role Mafia man... I can't say anything for certain but I think lots of your players were just fucking around? I didn't read the game but at any rate I wouldn't use that game as an example for all of mafia.

For instance, in Cyclic Experiment II, I was in a neighborhood with MagnaofIllusion, and we were talking and I saw something that wasn't there. Ended up campaigning for his lynch. He was night killed that next night, but I definitely could have ended up lynching him and it definitely wasted towns' time and effort. We were both town.

[izakthegoomba]

I didn't read the game

I think lots of your players were just fucking around?

These would seem to conflict slightly...

The game wasn't really a bastard game. The roles were almost all self-contained, and there was no random dickery on my part. It actually wasn't too far from a normal-ish game, especially in the later stages. Though I suspect there are better examples available.

[callforjudgement]

I agree with CFJ; neighbourhoods will almost always favour town massively. Iirc, it was information from the "masonry" that really made the mafia win in the end - but if CFJ had been town, and there were no mafia, it would have been an incredibly easy game for the town.

We used the info from that mostly to wipe out the wolves (I caught two out of three of them just from the QT just after replacing in, and my buddies figured out the third based on their impressions of the game and what I told them). The wolves also had a pretty good idea of who we were, but didn't pick on us for strategic reasons and because they weren't entirely sure there was another scumteam at all; this was probably something of a mistake. I think that if the wolves had tried to defend themselves rather than trying to hurt the town as much as possible, town would have won; the more two scumteams know about each other, the worse it is for the both of them, IMO.

Note that I'm not upset at all; I came into Worst Roles Mafia

expecting

to get a bad role, and I wasn't disappointed ;)

PEDIT: The game wasn't particularly bastard, except in the setup; and I don't think the setup was made for maximum bastardliness, it's just that it had only bastard roles to choose from, so it was going to end up as a bastard setup no matter what.

[LlamaFluff]

Closed and Open games differ a whole lot in how you approach them. Given that its an open the whole thing is based off of trust, which means if its all town they still have to end up trusting eachother and if its scum, gaining the trust of town can get them pretty far, especially if they have a voice in the back of towns mind they are able to continually push on.

Neighbors are hard to really pin down the EV of since its one of those things that depending on who gets the role, it has a whole lot more potential to be swingy or not. It requires being played correctly to actually be of a big advantage unless they want to take the risk of blindly trusting eachother. Either way neighbors in an open game is at least semi rare, so it would be interesting to see how they are adapted to that type of a situation and may tell us more about how the role functions.

[Junpei]

These would seem to conflict slightly...

I thought given that it Worst Role mafia it was supposed to be 10% mafia game 90% lolroles, I guess I was wrong.

gorckat: Why would I ever not choose "cop and doc" and "lynch"? How is vig and lynch different except for that the vig can get blocked/lost? Why would the cop not claim for protection every night? How does this game not end by the end of night 2?

[gorckat]

gorckat: Why would I ever not choose "cop and doc" and "lynch"? How is vig and lynch different except for that the vig can get blocked/lost? Why would the cop not claim for protection every night? How does this game not end by the end of night 2?

I could have been clearer- each day, town gets to choose only 2 of: lynch, cop, doc, vig.

If the cop claims, then the town has to doc him each night and scum can pick off his innocent targets, leaving guiltys to be lynched, but then no cop (because they have to doc the cop and lynch the scum, giving scum a free night).

ADD: Oops- you had more than one question

No RB, so no way to block the vig.

Early ending is a fair concern. Maybe remove the SK and leave the vig option, or vice versa? I think the SK was needed for balance initially to make sure scum didn't control too much of the night game.

I think Simenon ran the original game, so it might be worth me digging for it to look at postgame thoughts. I've always liked the idea of the setup because it explores the space of limited public/shared resources and how to best handle them.

Double ADD: Hmm- can't seem to find the game, by post author or searching my history...was there a crash between 2009-the Nov 2011 one that ate entire threads that were never recovered?

[Junpei]

Hm. Well I think lynch is a must pick because it's the only ability that you can't lose and it is a killing ability.

So that makes doc useless because no PRs to protect.

Cop or Vig... that's a decision though I'd go cop. Reason being that there are too many kills in a small setup and a cop is the conservative option.

In my personal opinion I think I'd get rid of SK because there's too many kills going on. If town went lynch/vig, that's 4 kills in one phase in a 11p game. also 3v1v7 doesn't seem super balanced anyway. Could you explain more why there's a Serial kIller? I'd personally make the game a bit bigger but I'm wondering on your reasoning.

[quadz08]

The mechanic is really cool, but yeah, far too much scum in it. Assuming lynch is picked every day, you then have a single town-controlled PR each night, vs. mafia vs. SK. Preeeeeetty weighted towards the mafia.

[gorckat]

Well- there are a Cop, Doc and Vig (I called them vCop, etc to indicate the voting on their ability).

If the vCop dies, town can't vote for any more Investigations/Cops.

The original didn't have a Vig, so the SK balanced the scum ability to coordinate and influence the Investigate/Protect votes, but still competed with the town. I think it ended up a town win with the SK playing (and maybe claiming) as a Vig before a cross kill took it to town-town-goon lylo.

The original also allowed a lynch, cop and doc, so not as scum weighted as quadz points out with only one power role active.

I think to be interesting, there needs to be a 3rd night action possible. What about a JOAT with something like 1-shot vig, 1-shot governor (to override any lynch/cop/doc/joat vote the next day) and 1-shot <something else>

Should the setup be smaller with no SK and 2 goons? 9 player, maybe?

ADD: Forgot to check my wiki- the link was there

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?t=6150

And it ended Cop-VT vs SK lylo in a town win.

[quadz08]

Using the same mechanic, I'd say definitely no SK (at least for the first few runs; a variation with 3rd party could work, probably, but not until it's more familiar how the balance of voting on PRs works out).

Perhaps 1 vCop, 1 vDoc, 1 vVig, 1 x-shot AnyGovernor, 6 VTs vs 1 GF + 2 goons. Perhaps you could make the Governor ability kick in D2, with votes for the person who wields the Governor ability made during the prior night phase?

[quadz08]

However, this setup does lend itself to breaking strategy. Cop outs himself D1, town votes Cop+Doc every day. Doc protects the Cop every night, while the Cop collects investigations until the scum can find and kill the Doc. Then town votes for Lynches and Vigs til scum is dead.

[gorckat]

Floating Governor is cool- would that be a public or private vote count? Does anyone dieing that night count towards the vote? What if no majority is reached- go with the highest and random.org any ties (or dice in thread)?

Private- scum can try to load the votes onto one of their own, while risking being caught out, and actually using the Governor on their own is risky.
Public- more info for town, possibly offsets scum slant?

[gorckat]

However, this setup does lend itself to breaking strategy. Cop outs himself D1, town votes Cop+Doc every day. Doc protects the Cop every night, while the Cop collects investigations until the scum can find and kill the Doc. Then town votes for Lynches and Vigs til scum is dead.

On Day 6, 5 people will have been investigated and 5 killed (typical 7 man bad town lylo ). Goons found have to be lynched, setting back the number of innocents found and tying up the doc. Prior innocents get NK'd (or not for WIFOM- was one the GF?)

Not sure if it's full breaking or just boring. Gonna spreadsheet some scenarios

EDIT: Just realized if the Doc is covering the cop each night, then Scum are free to WIFOM at will on whether or not to let an innocent see the day, so no innocents see the sun unless allowed to, rather than the after the fact next night killing I was considering above.

[quadz08]

I'd say private votecount, but who receives the governor ability is made public. (At least, that was my original thought.)

Not sure how the math works out, but it's a possible 5 days/nights of nothing but Cop+Doc interaction. Not sure if it's actually worth the time, but it's possible. *shrug*

[gorckat]

I was also thinking public governor, just not sure on public/private governor vote counts.

[quadz08]

I'd say private, but whatever you feel works best for game balance.

[Venmar]

@gorckat - What is stopping the town from simply no lynching the day phase by voting for a cop target and voting for the doctor to protect the cop? It's the same as the follow the cop i believe. Unless i am missing a must lynch policy?

So basically:

Vote Cop : Player X
Vote Doctor: Player Y ( Cop is Player Y )
-- If everyone just votes like this, doesn't the day end with a no lynch and a follow the cop situation spurs? --

Sorry if i missed something that makes what i am saying wrong or already mentioned.

EDIT: Yup, i missed this. Ignore my stupid post

[vijay2vasandani]

Just saying, I skimmed and I want to say that due to the rarity of an all town neighborhood, it messed up town in DV's mini. Granted, it was a mini so we didn't really know the setup, but I replaced in as scum and I managed to confuse some townies into lynching the neighbours before lynching my almost-obvscum slot.

[vijay2vasandani]

So yeah, neighbourhoods aren't always protown.

[RedPanda]

1 day and night doctor protection remains for the day also.
9 Vanilla townies. 2 are secretly vengeful.
1 mafia traitor.
2 mafia.

the reason I want to keep it as secret is because I don't want any townies to be confirmed by just claiming vengeful.
the traitor here can be nked. can't be recruited.

ideas and suggestions to improve/balance would be appreciated.