[OLD] Open Setup Discussion and Nominations

[Kelly Chen]

I would like to see

Nightless Vanilla, 11 players

4 Mafia
7 Citizens
Day phases only

I could see 12p with an 8th townie also.


As far as the standard vanilla setup: I think 2:7 day start or 2:8 night start will be more viable. Yes, they're skewed against the town, but I think they'll hold more interest. We already play some 2:5 vanilla newbies... And my criticism of these isn't so much that the odds favor scum, as that the scum can win before there's even been much of a game.

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

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!

My two cents.

[Kelly Chen]

With 3:8 nightless, you're asking mafia to get the town to lynch

at least

five townies. To my ear that's like saying the town lynches the five scummiest players (with

five days

to talk it over), and none of those five are the scum. I don't think it's fair.

The vanilla/mountainous games that have been played here, with the 2:10 night start setup, require scum to get the town to lynch at least 4 townies. And with 1/6 scum, the town has less information.

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.

[Kelly Chen]

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.

By "genuine" information I'm talking about scum interacting with each other. If 1/3 of the players are in the same scum group, a townie has a much better chance of picking up on interactions between scum, than if say just 1/6 of the players are scum. If there are few scum, more interactions are townie-townie and not actually meaningful.

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.

I agree, but I'm not sure this is damning. If it turns out that scum don't have to be particularly good to win in this way, I'd go with 4:8.

[Kelly Chen]

@Hez - I'm a little concerned if there are only and exactly 4 townies.

@Max - You didn't give the mafia and wolves anything to claim in that first setup. As far as dethy... I think the point is to come up with setups we might run multiple times, not strange setups.

@Fiasco -

I'd put Nightless at 3:9 or 3:8. Lynches could be worse than random as well as better than random.

That is totally wrong. Do you think that if there's no cop, the town may as well flip a coin?? Scum need to get 6-8 townies lynched under 3:9. Doesn't that seem ridiculous to you?

Here's some scum win odds, with average length of game:

79.8%, 8.9 days - 4:17 day start (i.e. Norinel's Himalayan Mafia)
77%, 2.5 days - 2:5 day start (i.e. a newbie with no power roles)
72.7%, 6.3 days - 4:7 nightless

<---- I propose

66.6%, 7.7 days - 4:8 nightless
64.7%, 4.5 days - 2:10 night start (i.e. current mountainous minis)
60.5%, 5.4 days - the 2:11 day start mith gave as an example
50%, 8.4 days - 3:9 nightless (town can be guaranteed half the wins no matter who's playing)

The longer the game, the more town should be expected to gain an information advantage.

[Kelly Chen]

Twomz, what? It's for open (or semi-open) Normals of apparently any size. The "Normal Game" definition excludes the setups you listed.


Another setup I'm interested in:

3:3:6 nightless

: 18.9% town, 37.9% each scum group, 8.5 days avg.

It's about 5% to end with an equal number of both scum and no town.

I think this compares well to Himalayan, considering that there are three teams here.

3:3:5 drops to 14.35% town and 7.3 days, and I'm a bit uneasy about the scum majority there.

[Kelly Chen]

I would think the townie has to play kingmaker. If it's a problem, and the townie won't do it, I would call this n:n:1 scenario game over.

If that rule change is made, then under 3:3:6 nightless, the odds of nobody winning go up to 18.3%... A little high, isn't it? Town's odds aren't affected of course, and the day is only shortened by .18 days...

Perhaps you could break this sort of tie by total post count

[Kelly Chen]

That is totally wrong. Do you think that if there's no cop, the town may as well flip a coin??

If the scum are reasonably competent, lynching isn't much better than coin-flipping. It's true that in a 50% game, the town has a strategy that wins 50% of the time. But the mafia also has a strategy that wins around 50% of the time; there's no reason they need to actually defend each other rather than behave like a typical townie, though of course they can sometimes do so if they think it makes their odds even better.

Admittedly the strategy that gives the town a 50% chance is slightly easier to play than the strategy that gives the mafia a 50% chance, so games should slightly favor the town (edit: that should say "mafia") given random lynching. 3:8 would probably be more balanced than 3:9, but 4:7 would be very skewed in favor of the mafia.

It is not just "slightly easier" for town to agree to lynch randomly using the Dice function, than for ALL the scum to be so "reasonably competent" that they're no more likely to be lynched than a townie. Not that many players are that competent. If the game has a scum team like that, the scum should win a hell of a lot more than half the time, and not worry about being thwarted by use of the Dice function.

4:7 gives town a 27.3% chance if they play using Dice. Put differently, town has 27.3%, at best, if the scum are all no more suspicious than anyone else. These are both situations where the town should LOSE. The 50/50 mark doesn't go where one side is sleepwalking or the other side plays a flawless game.

The stats for 3:8 nightless are 54.6% and 7.4 game days. This is not a good use of the scum players' time.

[Kelly Chen]

It is not just "slightly easier" for town to agree to lynch randomly using the Dice function, than for ALL the scum to be so "reasonably competent" that they're no more likely to be lynched than a townie. Not that many players are that competent.

Are you sure? It's much harder to avoid lynching if you're actively trying to protect your scum-mates than if you don't care whether or not your scum-mates get lynched. We're talking about the latter situation; or if not, we need to take into account that scum are harder to lynch because part of the town is scum.

If you actively defend your scum partners and get suspected for doing so, you're not actually doing that good of a job. If you can defend your scum partners and not get suspected for it, you're even more competent than what we're talking about here.

I'd guess that in a 75%-chance-of-scum-win game, a reasonably competent scum team can win 70%-75% of the time just by throwing away their role PMs and not talking at night, against

any

town. That shouldn't happen; ideally, given equal skill, each side should win half the time.

Replace the 75%'s with 50% or 1% or 99% and the first sentence is still true. If the mafia play blind, town skill is hardly being measured.

In my opinion, playing blind is basically cheating, and a waste of the other players' time.

I guess scum play is more skill-dependent than town, so games with skilled players should favor the town more than games with unskilled players.

But the odds statistic doesn't reflect a situation of equal skill. It reflects either a town that is horrible, or scum that is either skilled or cheating to the point that town skill is irrelevant.

So you can't use the odds statistic to ensure that skilled towns get a fair shake, without royally screwing over skilled scum in every other game.

[Kelly Chen]

"Playing blind" means not reading the role PM. If you're able to read your role PM and "ignore" it, be my guest. I'm not sure what that even means, but I'm sure it's not a new strategy.

If scum have strategies that make vote analysis obsolete, I wonder what you think the role of a vanilla townie is supposed to be in a game of mafia. If any scum worth their mettle can blend into the crowd, you don't have a day game beyond voting with a claimed cop.

[Kelly Chen]

I think Mafia A has a better shot than Mafia B... A scum redirector is going to have a much easier time beating the power roles than a scum framer. The redirector pretty much has a framing ability built in.

If the SK gets lynched, the deflector is basically immortal. He shouldn't cause too much harm to the town, once he claims (no town role would want to target him).

Giving the scum disruptive powers does seem like a good way to include more town power roles than usual.

[Kelly Chen]

This might be somewhat balanced out by things like "scum tells" and slight psycological differences in behavor and thought between the scum and the town that smart townies can pick up on, but even so, if it was a game where random lynches would give the scum a 50/50 chances of winning, I would think that with equally skilled players on both teams, the scum would win more then half of all games.

By "equally skilled" do you also mean "equally unskilled"? Is the average newbie scum as skilled as the average newbie town?

If you take a setup that gives 50/50 wins with random lynches, and it's all newbies playing, my money is on the town.

It seems to me that by your reasoning, if 12 of the greatest mafia players got together to play an open setup that gives 50/50 wins with random moves, the pro-town thing to do is lynch randomly, in order to keep the scum from influencing the lynches.

[Kelly Chen]

I like your setup, Yosarian.

Fiasco is correct, though, that by "vote randomly" I mean that one person uses the Dice feature, and everyone agrees to follow it because it's the pro-town thing to do.

[Kelly Chen]

I would nominate several setups (4:7 nightless, Pie C9, Yosarian's), but I'm not looking to pick up games at the moment.

Is Yosarian's day or night start? Personally I'd drop one townie and still do night start... It's true the two power roles are not as good at investigating as cops, but they can potentially stop some nightkills.

I think a scum group has little chance of winning in Hez' setup #2...

[Kelly Chen]

I'd add some townies to Yosarian's setup; the equivalent vanilla setup being used has 14 townies and 3 scum.

Equivalent?

Under Yosarian's setup, every nightkill that gets stopped is the same as having had one more townie, plus some information.

[Kelly Chen]

I'd guess the two of them are worth 4 townies. The doctor might save one, and the jailer might save two. Not only that, they're both roles that are unlynchable if they claim. So the scum are forced to use nightkills on them no matter how scummy they appear.

I would agree that 3:14 vanilla seems balanced (72.2%, 7.2 days). So perhaps Yosarian's setup is already good with 13p and day start.

[Kelly Chen]

Do people here just not like townies?

It's not that I don't like townies (which are almost crucial to an open setup), but that I don't like a low scum ratio. I think it's dull, and vulnerable to being screwed up by one or two inept scum players.

It's often said that a setup should have from 1/4 to 1/3 scum. I wouldn't want to play with less than that.

Kelly, you're saying there would be about three failed kills? That sounds like a lot.

I think there would be about two. I'm not that confident in the doctor, but with a little luck, I think the jailer has a very good chance of stopping more than one.

It's true that in case both power roles claim, the scum have two "forced move" nightkills. Note that from that point on, no kills would fail.

I really wouldn't expect the doc and jailer to claim as soon as there's a night without a death. Especially the doc has little reason to claim.

[Kelly Chen]

Is walrus the same as tooth fairy except for alignment?

[Kelly Chen]

Any particular concept behind that setup Max?

[Kelly Chen]

I would just say "Mafia Tooth Fairy."

[Kelly Chen]

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.


Could a split role/alignment setup fit here? (Basically reveal the 12 roles in the game, and the number of scum, but scum receive one of the 12 roles randomly, like everyone else.) They (most likely) violate the principle that there ought to be some townies, and as such they're probably hard to balance well. The fake claim issue is taken care of, though.

[Kelly Chen]

Mafia GF
Mafia Cop Blocker
Mafia Doc Blocker
Mafia RB Blocker
Cop
Doc
RB
Vig
5 Townies

This will make for an interesting game because the mafia is trying to find who is which role, and may actually protect them once they figure out, with the knowledge that they can just block them until that mafia person happens to die. It stresses the importance of the mafia figuring out which of the town is what.

Would this setup be too hard on scum though? Not sure if the blocking system set in place would even be used by the scum.

No way, that scum group is powerful. 4/13 and loaded with blockers. If the vig misses once the game can be over before day 3. Scum would definitely use that system or they're stupid, if nothing else they can block the town randomly.

[Kelly Chen]

How would you suggest balancing such a setup? Some more townies?

I don't know how effective their blocks would be, especially since it is open setup and the town would be aware that a mass claim is disasterous.

I'd add a few townies at a minimum.

It's true that townies won't want to claim, but the cop and RB collect information that they need to convey somehow. There is strategy on both sides. The cop wants to provide his info without outing himself while the scum are trying to guess who he is.

Even if the scum had no abilities, 4/13 is iffy. The town does have plenty of power roles, but they don't have much room to make mistakes.

[Kelly Chen]

I think Gambits needs some work. I don't think either run was very successful in deterring mass claim, or making it likely that scum could fake claim safely.

What you could do, I think, is come up with 20ish pro-town roles, randomly leave out 6 of them, and tell the scum groups which roles were left out specifically. (Probably give 3 to each, so they don't realize which claims are scum claims.) That makes a D1 mass claim less useful, even if you use Gambits 2-style role reveal.

I don't think Bad Idea qualifies as a Normal game...

[Kelly Chen]

nominate: Pie C9 except the blocker doesn't work on the cop

What's the motivation behind this? This seems to make the blocker almost useless. Assuming the cop is out but the doc isn't, the blocker is only useful if he hits the doc the same night that the mafia tries to kill the cop; if the blocker misses the doc, the scum lose their kill for the night. I wonder if it wouldn't be better for scum to just try to kill the doc.

[Kelly Chen]

nominate again: 5p vengeful

because it is a small game

I'm concerned that taking signups for multiple open games at once runs the risk of larger games (especially vanilla) stalling there, to the extent that replacements are needed right out of the gate.

[Kelly Chen]

Nominating a 5 player Venge? Isn't that Open 7 (which I'm in)?

Yes.

Would a

3 mafia (Cop, Doc, Roleblocker
9 town (Cop, Doc, Roleblocker, 6 vanilla)

Be too out of the ordinary? Or is that to unbalanced?

I think this setup is reasonable. However, a cop is useless to the mafia when they already know everyone's alignment. And a doctor is useless to the mafia when only the mafia can kill at night.

[Kelly Chen]

I want to try this game in chat first, but I could nominate that setup.

[Kelly Chen]

I try to think of alternate voting mechanisms sometimes. A big advantage of the system we usually use is that there is room to be random, change your mind, put on pressure, and everyone can look at what everyone else is doing.

The "X accuses Y and then everyone votes between them" is a little limited here, I think. How are you supposed to come to a good decision as to whom to challenge?

It does seem interesting.

[Kelly Chen]

Maybe backup roles? Those are not immediately useful to the town and similarly can't immediately be confirmed if scum want to claim it.

[Kelly Chen]

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?

[Kelly Chen]

Well I said some of this in-thread but.

Night start is too random with up to three deaths possible.

The town in this particular run doesn't seem to have been too heavily invested. The scum made mistakes (like the town), it's not like the town had no chance to see them.

The switch mechanic strikes me as silly as long as it is a no-brainer what to do with the switches you have. E.g. giving the SK cop immunity just makes it obvious that he should not allow the cop to be switched off.

I don't feel it was very unbalanced. It just looks absurd that the town power roles didn't get to do anything.

[Kelly Chen]

The switch mechanic strikes me as silly as long as it is a no-brainer what to do with the switches you have. E.g. giving the SK cop immunity just makes it obvious that he should not allow the cop to be switched off.

(nod) But what do you think of the idea of making the cop able to distinguish between mafia and SK?

That goes the other way, as I don't believe the SK would believe that a cop would think it is worth keeping the SK's identity secret.

In the original version of the game the SK could only choose between turning off all or none of the mafia switches; that could also make his choice less no-brainy.

I think it's still pretty no-brainy. The possible reward from letting a power role operate doesn't to me seem to outbalance the risk.

It just looks absurd that the town power roles didn't get to do anything.

Agreed, but part of that was a coincidence. Giving the SK a one-shot NK immunity would go a long way toward fixing the problem. I also agree day start would be better.

My comment wasn't a complaint btw. I'm just saying that the town had these power roles but didn't get to use them, and that intuitively looks like an error. But it doesn't necessarily mean it was not balanced.

It was more pro-scum than average but not brrrroke in my opinion.

[Kelly Chen]

I think any game with more than 9 players but just 2 scum runs the risk of being really boring and frustrating when one of the scum gets lynched D1.

[Kelly Chen]

That's 1) pretty rare and 2) to some extent true of every game.

1) Sure it's rare (though it only takes one awful scum player), but when it happens it's bad. If you didn't get a lot of info prior to killing the first scum, you spend the rest of the game hunting an SK.
2) I don't know about that. If you have three scum, and lynch a scum D1, you still have a game, as far as I'm concerned.

[Kelly Chen]

You three saw, but my 4th open setup Jungle Republic mini 392 just ended. I think the setup was fairer, but didn't get down to as few people, as my 2nd open setup Too Much Scum mini 330.

In 330, the three non-killing mafia were slaughtered (one crosskill, two successful cop investigations employed without the cop coming out), and the second wolf made it to a three-man endgame before being lynched. A freaky unexpected lyncher win, too.

In 392, the three non-killing mafia won at 6 alive, flawless victory. The town in general was not too good (basically two lynches were just thrown away). One wolf survived to this point, and the other got lynched D2 due to a seer investigation (thumb-up town, thumb-down wolf, though the seer did have to come out for this).

[Kelly Chen]

Faction Mafia and Axis and Allies are highly bad. I provide links for your reading pleasure.

Faction
http://www.wifom.net/forum/showthread.php?t=34
http://www.wifom.net/forum/showthread.php?t=52

Axis and Allies
http://www.wifom.net/forum/showthread.php?t=59
http://www.wifom.net/forum/showthread.php?t=137

[Kelly Chen]

With the same 4:8 ratio? How did you feel about that?

[Kelly Chen]

I was thinking 4:7 for an 11p...

Having to get at least four mislynches, and not be able to kill anybody, seems kinda, I dunno, soul-crushing...

[Kelly Chen]

Based on the calculations I still say 3:8 is more balanced. If 4:8 or 4:7 is more fun, it should be played with the understanding that it's a scum-favoring setup.

And this is based on what? 4:8 nightless gives roughly the same random win odds as 2:10 night start, except the scum lose the kill they controlled, and they have to stick it out 7.7 days instead of 4.5. Not to mention there are so many of them that they're liable to trip over each other sooner. 2:10 doesn't hit this scum ratio until they've got two of the four mislynches they need.

Brian McQueso brought up a good point though. In nightless, it's balanced until town hit scum, which gives the town an "extra-life".

Huh, I didn't even notice that.

[Kelly Chen]

Triple post coming up

I'd argue 2:10 favors scum also. From the statistics you posted earlier, 3:8 gives scum about a 55% chance of winning given random lynching; 4:8 gives you 67% and 4:7 gives you 73%. This is something the scum can accomplish by ignoring their role PM completely and not protecting each other.

But people don't play like this, especially if it's not vanilla. It isn't actually trivial to play like this. You'll get messages in the night from your scumpartners and the joke is up.

And if you do read your role PM but just "play as though you were a townie," this is not enough since according to you it is mainly individual scumtells that find scum. If one expects the town to have any scum-hunting ability, a balance like 55/45 could only be right in a very short game.

Anyway, by this assessment of ideal balance, I don't think we play any games that don't "favor scum" other than some seriously broken themed games.

As an example: A 3:40 day start vanilla still slightly "favors scum." I can't imagine that ~3 power roles among 9 townies should be a similar balance to four times that many townies with no power roles.

[Kelly Chen]

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).

Hmm, why not just flip a coin as to whether the setup is Vengeful or Lyncher? I'm not sure I see an advantage to the godfather not knowing what the setup is. The lyncher and traitor always know already. And it's a good basis for scumtells to seem to know which setup is in play.

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.

The effect of the cops is probably pretty significant on the balance...

[Kelly Chen]

Two small setups with mafia groups that I posted earlier:

Resilient Mafia (5 players)
2 mafia
3 townies (3 lives each)
night start

(this has been tried in scumchat; I think it's balanced, and I've nominated it)

ShadowLurker made this report:

2 Mafia (SL, Gamer)
3 Townies with 3 lives (Pod, Quag, Goin)

N0: Quag -1
D1: SL -1 DIEDIEDIEDIED
N1: Quag -1
D2: Pod -1
N2: Pod -1
D3: Quag -1 DIEDIEDIEDIED
N3: Pod -1 SL&GamerWINWINWIN

Note: ANY oter outcome after D1 would've resulted in a scum loss, even if D2 they lynched Quag, scum would've still lost.

Is this a big deal?

Another possibility:

5 players
2 mafia
3 townies
day start
town wins as soon as one of the mafia is lynched; i.e. there's only one day

You need some reason why the scum can't just quicklynch, or there's not much room to have a game.

[Kelly Chen]

birdC9

Same setup as original newbie games, but any attempts of the Doc to protect the Cop will fail

Nice.

[Kelly Chen]

The only thing I don't like about bird's idea is that the doctor's ability to claim doctor is probably more useful than his night ability. Not really a balance concern.

[Kelly Chen]

I believe Pair Mafia gives 61% scum wins.

I agree there's a problem with it in that the town never obtains information from partially correct guesses, so the scum only have to prevent one of the ten pairs from being selected. I'm not sure it matters which options the scum eliminate at night.

I do think it is interesting to have a small group of players vote on which mystery prize to select. One of the prizes when opened is a victory for the scum player only (and he knows which prize this is). The other three or so are wins for everybody but the scum.

I think this is more like lyncher, with not so much need to have a scum group.

[Kelly Chen]

I'd like to try vanilla something like this:

3:9 daystart. But either 1 or 2 of the townies (it's random) are barbers. They have no special powers except that a claim is likely to get them out of a lynch.

Then scum can consider claiming barber to save themselves. They can also try to guess at night who the barber/s is/are.

So it's still pretty much vanilla, but a little more complicated.

(I pick "barber" because surely every town has at least one barber. And a barber is a very useless-sounding occupation in the context of the game. Maybe there's a better name though.)

[Kelly Chen]

Well, I didn't mean for the barber(s) to be a significant balance towards the town.

[Kelly Chen]

mith's point is that 3 mafia:9 townies, with no cops/docs/other power roles, hugely favours the scum. It would be interesting if it were 2 scum, 1 or 2 barbers, and the rest townies - a slight variation on the standard Mountainous set-up.

Well, I wouldn't want to play it if it were 2:10. I'd rather play 3:9 even though it is biased. That preference is actually stronger if I'm

town

; as scum under 3:9 I would at least be stressed about tripping over my partners earlier.

I note that the odds of lynching at least one scum are about the same, as a higher scum:town ratio balances out the fewer opportunities to lynch correctly.

In response to mith and Fiasco's last posts: The whole point of having a variable number of barbers is so that you don't simply get off the hook by claiming and not being counterclaimed.

[Kelly Chen]

I think that is not good. It's too much work to elect a mayor whose only realistic ability is to stop votes on a player who probably wouldn't get votes anyway. (Pardoning a scummy player would probably be very controversial, and in a vanilla setup the mayor would have no special information on which to make such a decision.)

[Kelly Chen]

It strikes me as not very fun that in the Dethy possibility, the town is expected to detect whether the sane|insane cop is actually an SK. Given how Dethy is played (follow the investigations) I doubt the town would be very good at this.

It similarly also strikes me as wrong that a TINC vote under the Lyncher possibility is a win for the SK and not the lyncher.

I don't think I would try to mix Dethy and Conspiracy...

[Kelly Chen]

I'm all for non-standard 3:8 or 3:9 setups.

But I don't think giving the town 1 vig justifies giving scum a RB.

And I think giving the town 1 RB is not really interesting enough.

[Kelly Chen]

I take it the town needs to kill chickens as well.

It's rough to have a cop that can detect (only) chickens when the chickens have no way to kill him.

Necromancer doesn't seem like a normal role, and I don't understand the point of it. It seems like it either brings scum back to life (really pointless) or undoes town deaths the scum already managed to accomplish (which is really pointless).

I have a sim that runs setups like this (to check Jungle Republic most recently). Plugging in 3:6:14 (I only count 23 players), with no power roles, I get that the chickens are pretty underpowered relative to the mafia. This counts some endgame situations as nobody winning though. If you use Jungle Republic endgame rules, where chickens get an advantage, it closes the gap.

In my games the killers are werewolves and the nonkillers are mafia.

[Kelly Chen]

I don't think having a lot of nonfatal lynches is good for the game.

[Kelly Chen]

I've come to think that generally scum are happy to get whatever lynch isn't them, and aren't so inclined to try scumhunting just because it's their best plan.

See Hell on Earth mafia for some shocking behavior of scum who have learned that someone else is rival scum. About as much subtlety as many cops display.

[Kelly Chen]

I've been meaning to post this and now I finally have time to:

My twist on Vengeful, self-titled.

Guardian

The same setup as vengeful, but with a few significant and fun changes.

1)One godfather is randomly selected by the mod, and he selects one of the townies to be his "guardian". In essence, this game is vengeful with a mafia recruiter instead of a godfather and goon, and a night 0 start. Still no night kills though.

ok.

2)The mafia loses even if the godfather is vengeful killed.

This happens in 3/5 * 1/4 = 3/20, 15% of games. You're making that 100% town win. Normally that's 33.3% town win. Just saying.

3)This is a no reveal game - the mod reveals roles only when the godfather is killed or when the mafia wins. The goon, if killed, is revealed as a vanilla townie. Being the guardian is his objective, not part of his role, in a sense.

I don't see the point or fun of no reveal. Vengeful is such a small game; really everything should be done to give the town good reasons for their decisions.

4)Thusly, and this is the really interesting part, even if the goon is lynched day one, he gets a vengeful kill.

This was one way that Vengeful was originally played when I was still trying to iron out the details. The result of scum getting a vengeful kill is that there is very little reason for scum not to bus each other. Arguably there is already not that much reason for the GF to not bus the goon, since this interaction is the main way you in theory find the scum; if the goon gets bussed then the GF looks protown and may be able to sail through the game.

I strongly suspect that giving the goon a vengeful kill, plus no role reveal, is extremely biased towards scum relative to the normal game, and making the mafia lose from a GF vigging doesn't come close to balancing it.

EDIT: Turns out I'm wrong about the odds there. Scum wins drop from 60% to 53.3%. Giving the goon a vengeful kill should only up scum win odds by 3.333%, while making the mafia lose from a GF venge kill hurts the mafia by 10%. It's still a big deal to let the goon choose somebody to kill rather than make the goon survive the final-4 lynch, though.

5)People can talk while the lynchee is deciding his kill; it's like day 1.5. He is still limited to killing one of the three who voted for him, though.

In normal Vengeful he is not limited to vigging someone who voted for him.

I really prefer that this discussion of who to vig occur

prior

to the lynch. I find that interesting. The town has to collectively try to plan out the best scenarios.

Another thing you could do, if you wanted to or felt the game was too fast or something, is have a second day where the D1 lynched townie can vote, but then leaves the game along with the D2 lynch.

[Kelly Chen]

Yamahako, while that looks like a (semi)open setup, it doesn't look "normal," which is/was one of the prereqs for the open list.

Also I don't think I would want a first-time mod running that (unless it's you, since you came up with it and probably fully understand it).

[Kelly Chen]

I think everybody would have to massclaim their info. It's not like a cop, where the longer you live the more info you get. And similar to a cop, if an innocent person gets killed in the night before they claim, their info is lost.

[Kelly Chen]

Assorted comments here.

I hope Thesp will allow Vengeful to continue to be played on the open list.


@Guardian: Confirmation Mafia is not a good setup because if the docs claim and believe each other, the mafia can't win if they get down to 1 goon. If you subscribe to a "scum don't have an inherent endgaming ability" policy, then if mafia lose even one goon, the best they can do is draw.

Even with Adel's suggestion of splitting the scum into two groups, I don't think it's good. Scum claiming doctor is probably suicidal (if the other scum group doesn't try to kill them, then when an actual doctor dies the scum will be under suspicion), and it would just be luck whether both scum groups target the same doctor. And if they kill one doctor the gimmick is over.


When making 12p setups, two scum groups of two doesn't call for more town power than a single scum group of three.

When making open setups, it's probably broken to only have 2/12 of the players be vanilla town.

2:2:8 with 6

good

power roles is really imbalanced, even as a closed setup.

[Kelly Chen]

@Guardian: Confirmation Mafia is not a good setup because if the docs claim and believe each other, the mafia can't win if they get down to 1 goon. If you subscribe to a "scum don't have an inherent endgaming ability" policy, then if mafia lose even one goon, the best they can do is draw.

Imo, the point of the setup is for a scum to fakeclaim convincingly and get a doc lynched or night killed.
Even if the fakeclaim fails and the mafia loses a goon, the mafia can win if they pick off townies and get the docs to mislynch on lylo. I would definitely award 2-2 win to the mafia.

Would a 4-2-6 setup work better? No, imo.

I think Confirmation Mafia could indeed work?

What do you say about the situation where two goons are lynched without a doctor death? One goon can never beat two mutually-protecting doctors.

If people know there are two doctors then I don't see why it would be any more complicated for scum to claim doctor than to claim townie.

It's mainly just strange for the "point" of the setup to be something that happens day 1.

[Kelly Chen]

nightless = no night kills = no way for mafia to kill townies other than lynch?

Right. Lets you have a higher scum:town ratio.

[Kelly Chen]

As an open game I would criticize that the miller, being a claimable role, seems to be more helpful to the town than a plain townie.

[Kelly Chen]

I love speedlynch mafia. It will see play. I'd like to see a couple of comments on the final numbers for the game, if possible.

Since it's a nightless game, I believe 3:9 is at least a reasonable guess. The scum need to see six mislynches to win (

two-thirds

of the town); that's the

best

case scenario.


I'd like to

nominate: bird c9

(link). It's the original newbie game setup, except that the doc is not able to protect the cop. To me this seems more elegant than giving scum a roleblocker.

I just want to see how the game plays, though, not sign up myself. So if nobody else nominates this then nevermind.

[Kelly Chen]

Would making the doc be a faith healer (50% chance) have a similar result, while still keeping the prisoner's dilemma aspect? Or has it been tried already with unfavorable results?

In my opinion C9 games are too short for random night abilities to be desirable. It's possible to only have one night!

I think the presence of the doctor inherently creates this kind of dilemma. The doc and mafia can guess how the other may want to move, and unless the mafia's clear best move is doc-immune (i.e. the outed cop) then the mafia and doc need to think twice.

But I don't really like that idea because if the cop hasn't claimed and the doc protects him anyway, the kill still goes through, which just doesn't seem fair.

The doc should work on picking up cop tells or something. 8)

[Kelly Chen]

I think it's a clever way to do roughly the same thing as bird C9.

[Kelly Chen]

What the heck is up with possibilities A and B.

*shakes fist at Fiasco*

[Kelly Chen]

Why would a scum counterclaim miller in a game where there's known to be just one? That makes it very likely you'll get lynched that day or the next.

[Kelly Chen]

Incidentally, I don't think ideal scum play in the original newbie setup calls for scum claiming cop D1.

In general scum don't try to claim/counterclaim known-to-exist roles. At best the town lynches the real role and the next day the scum; at worst a scum is lynched with no benefit.

[Kelly Chen]

Nominate Simenon c9

1 mafia recruiter who can recruit one player once at the beginning of the game.
1 cop
1 doctor
4 townies.

That's interesting. I'm a little worried the scum might have an easy win if they recruit the cop though.

[Kelly Chen]

A 7-10p game probably can't have more than 2 scum in one group if there are nightkills. I wouldn't imagine a 10p game could have more than 3 town power roles. I think 3 is probably pushing it... Three scum is probably the most that can comfortably fit as well, though I might be willing to try four.

The main way to stop town from getting confirmed in huge numbers is to have a lot of vanilla townies, so that when a scum claims vanilla (which will probably be their usual option) it doesn't mean they get autolynched for being "a vanilla at worst."

[Kelly Chen]

Hmm, I don't think it's so cool for it to be 2/3rds chance Pie C9 either... I'd try to find a way to up the odds that it's the cop or doctor that gets recruited.

What if the GF submitted two names. And if exactly one was a power role, that guy gets recruited. Otherwise it's random which one of them is recruited.

The odds that neither pick is a power role are like 4/6 * 3/5 = 2/5, 40%. That's better isn't it? 40% 30% 30%.

[Kelly Chen]

Also, throwing in an SK does not necessarily weaken the town. If the SK kills a scum or two the town will almost surely win, when such a high percentage of it is confirmable.

edit: Also, masons usually end up claiming anyway. Or become easy to guess. I don't think the scum are significantly aided by the investigation ability.

[Kelly Chen]

Yogurt I didn't understand those ideas.

Vig n Lynch: What's the appeal of daykilling masons?

Yogurt C9: Three mafia in a 9p? What's the appeal of messing with mafia communication?

Day Justice: What's the appeal of making half the vigs dayvigs and half nightvigs?

[Kelly Chen]

We did play a successful game of Saints and Sinners in chat once. Me, MBL, and Glork were scum. Got all the way to lylo, 7 alive, 3 scum, 2 confirmed town. Tricky because there was no way to avoid saying one of your scum partners must be scum. We all got lynched, me first

Probably the most interesting thing in the forum run was that the scum NKed their own devil. Heheh.

[Kelly Chen]

Is this too different to be considered open?

Converter mafia

1 secret Judas (Townie, if lynched, Revives and turns into a goon)
1 secret Saulus (Goon, if lynched revives and turns into a townie)
1 cop
1 Jailkeeper
4 townies
1 goon
1 roleblocker

Is that last roleblocker scum? If not I can't really understand having both a jailkeeper and a roleblocker.

For obvious reasons a goon who can be turned into a townie must not be allowed to know who he's scum with. For that reason I think Saulus is a pretty crappy role to get, and your best bet is to claim and get lynched. And this incentive makes it unlikely that Judas would desire to convert.

Yeah, that's the thing. Kelly may know what to do (or someone else).

I wanted to keep the Goon doing kills and the RB doing role-blocks so that it wasn't confusing for the watcher. Perhaps once the Goon goes the Mafia RB would lose the ability to Role-block? Or should the role-blocker just be allowed to do both roles?

Not sure what would be confusing for the watcher. It might be confusing for scum to have to remember to specify who's killing, but giving them that additional choice makes it more interesting I think. You could say that the RB can't block and perform the kill at the same time. Though that really sucks if the goon dies.

On the other hand, my reasoning for thinking scum should be allowed to pick who kills, is that scum can gauge who's more likely to be tracked or blocked. But a watcher doesn't try to target scum, he tries to target a likely victim. So the scum's decision is just which one of them gets sacrificed if the watcher busts them. That would probably be the goon, unless the RB is a terrible player or something.

I don't like the faith healer in a 7p game. But a doctor instead could be iffy... Say they lynch the RB day 1. Goon kills a townie. Day 2, the watcher and doctor claim. Lynch a townie. At this point the goon can't win. He can't kill the watcher. If he kills the doctor he'll be seen. If he kills the townie, he's the only unconfirmed player D3.

[Kelly Chen]

Power roles are kinda lame in an open setup if the mafia can't kill. They have little reason not to claim immediately. Then they're never suspected of being scum, and have no way they could die before endgame.

A dayvig in a nightless setup is just kind of like doing half the kills Kingmaker style, except the king never changes, was never picked by anyone but the mod, and is guaranteed innocent.

[Kelly Chen]

yellowbounder, there has been criticism of the C9 setup as being biased towards scum.

See a thread like this for instance.

[Kelly Chen]

It doesn't seem that slow to me...?

Anyway I don't think the open queue can go as fast as a mini queue because there aren't that many games lined up in advance for the former.

It's true that some people don't like open games. Myself I'm slightly worried about having an unproven mod.

[Kelly Chen]

2:2:7 day start with a somewhat weak town is balanced in my opinion.

I'm not sure about the effect of the "two kills on one target kill nobody" rule. At a glance it seems to help the town, but it could also affect scum behavior in a way that ends up bloodier for the town.

[Kelly Chen]

With Pick Your Poison I'm concerned that if you played it a few times it would eventually become clear which combination the scum should always pick. I'm guessing it's doc+RB.

[Kelly Chen]

YogurtBandit inspired me to come up with this setup which I call

Yoguraimee C9

with his blessing (and Aimee wanted credit too)

2 mafia
2 cops
1 doc
2 townies

It thwarts the original newbie setup D1 cop claim strategy by having two cops!!

[Kelly Chen]

Lol at adding "millers" with no cops.

Something I don't like about the lone watcher is that when the scum decide who to send to make the kill, the only factor to consider is which scum they'd least mind having caught and lynched.

I don't like watcher+doctor because if both claim, scum can't really kill them. They can kill the doctor if they really want to, but they have to pick somebody to sacrifice to do it.

[Kelly Chen]

I could see nominating Lyncher (1:1:3).

I used a double day in mini 330 (Too Much Scum). I can probably pretty easily run some numbers to see what looks balanced.


Yogurt, where have you got the idea that it's a good thing for one mislynch to mean lylo?

[Kelly Chen]

Double Day with 4:12 daystart gives 75.8% scum wins with 8.18 lynches on average. (Random moves assumed obv.)

Here are some numbers (from earlier in the thread) for other setups:

79.8%, 8.9 days - 4:17 day start (i.e. Norinel's Himalayan Mafia)
77%, 2.5 days - 2:5 day start (i.e. a newbie with no power roles)
72.7%, 6.3 days - 4:7 nightless
66.6%, 7.7 days - 4:8 nightless
64.7%, 4.5 days - 2:10 night start (i.e. current mountainous minis)
60.5%, 5.4 days - 2:11 day start
50%, 8.4 days - 3:9 nightless (town can be guaranteed half the wins no matter who's playing)

I think 4:12 looks about right. If you cut out one townie it's 78.6% scum and 7.4 lynches. I think I personally would do that.


Also 3:6 daystart is 88.6% and 2.9 days on average.

[Kelly Chen]

Yes by 4:12 I meant Double Day. 75% isn't a lot for a game that goes 8 lynches on average. The town is expected to be learning information about who's likely scum etc. during that time.

Simulations are run with a vanilla assumption usually. For instance a 3:9 nightstart vanilla gives over 83% scum wins with an average of 4 days. But we swap in two or three power roles and consider it the norm.

[Kelly Chen]

Hm, Yoguraimee C9 is supposed to be a joke actually. It's definitely not a guaranteed town win, but... You'll have mass claim D1, and that will narrow down where the scum must be (probably one claims cop and one claims townie). It almost doesn't matter what the power roles can do at night.

But if people want to try playing it, don't mind me.

[Kelly Chen]

It's an open setup, so it's known.

The town does have a significant advantage, but as I tried to explain, it is significantly reduced by the scum knowing exactly what they need to counterclaim to maximize their odds.

[Kelly Chen]

Well we've had setups before where the first crosskill each way fails. Monks and Masons is one. I also used this rule in Mafia 59, Hell on Earth. It is interesting to see how scum behave when they know someone else is rival scum.

[Kelly Chen]

You see, Fire and Ice v1 worked MUCH better...

lol

v1 didn't have any mafia

[Kelly Chen]

Eh? Do you like the "Very Vanilla" setup

because

scum can sometimes be forced to sacrifice somebody?

Also, in the situation you give the scum could as well just keep trying to kill the watcher (shooting blindly), not go for the doc right away. That way they don't necessarily have to give somebody up. It's just when the doc and watcher know each other that the scum are in a tough spot.

Regarding Yogurt Mafia, I don't understand the appeal of stopping scum nighttalk. I just don't think it would make any difference.

I also don't understand the appeal of the particular roles that were included in Yogurt Mafia.

[Kelly Chen]

In general I don't think mafia should select their powers, for the same reason that in time it could become clear which choices are best.

If I were godfather I would easily choose cop immunity over vig immunity. I wouldn't give up an RB to get both of these powers I don't think.

I don't like the masons in that setup since it's very unlikely that scum would ever try to claim it. Maybe make it 0 or 1 roleblocker instead of the masons?

I'm not sure whether the whole thing is balanced...

Interesting if you tell the scum which roles are included...

[Kelly Chen]

Why do you say "the goon also learns of counterclaiming"?

[Kelly Chen]

I also guess that the godfather could counterclaim as well.

I actually think it probably subtracts something, compared to the current newbie setup, that there is no power role that the scum can claim and perhaps

not

get counterclaimed. It gives a better taste of closed setups (what most games are) if scum fake claims are not necessarily acts of desperation...

I'm a bit put off also by the halved (or worse due to false confirms) value of the cop. It makes me wonder if his role ability is as valuable as the mere ability to claim a role that is guaranteed to be in the setup.

[Kelly Chen]

So Simtar (?) is in effect:

1/6 mafia cop, goon, doctor, 4 townies
1/6 mafia doc, goon, cop, 4 townies
1/3 godfather, goon, cop, doctor, 3 townies
1/3 mafia RB, goon, cop, doctor, 3 townies

Meh. The gimmick doesn't appear often enough for me to like it. I'd rather take out the bit about choosing your partner and just randomly say the cop or doc may be scum (something like 1/3 1/3 1/3). I also think the whole idea may be more interesting in a larger setup...

[Kelly Chen]

Although the cop and doc abilities aren't useful, the mafia possessing them denies them to the town; also, if the mafia gets these roles they can do things to try to make that player look more confirmed, such as feeding the town a guilty result, or skipping a kill and suggesting the doc stopped it.

A roleblocker could technically be useful but it could also be damning if the town noticed the blocker in action. A cop who doesn't get results could very well claim and complain.

Recruited vig is a problem; I'd guess in that scenario he should be one-shot.

I don't much like the idea of nerfing recruited power roles, but I don't think that would be a huge problem either. A vig or a roleblocker would be cramped into either not claiming a power role, or claiming they never felt justified in risking the use of their power. It would be pretty difficult to maintain a tracker claim; I guess scum would choose not to claim that role.

For other roles you could have watcher (as useful to scum as a tracker; probably still hard to fake) or governor (would need to be limited in scum hands; not impossible to fake)...

[Kelly Chen]

I whipped up a sim that does one scum group and has settings like this: Lyncher y/n, Vengeful-style godfather y/n, town has to lynch lyncher even if scum are dead y/n, town wins a final two of lyncher and target y/n, and scum NKs y/n.

I'm a little torn between two setups; one is a third of a day longer (on average) but tilts the game towards the lyncher at town's expense. I'll suggest both:

Crush A

1 mafia godfather (vengeful-style)
1 mafia goon
1 lyncher (who is informed of his target)
4 townies (one of whom is unknowingly the lyncher's target)
day start. mafia can kill at night.

If the target is lynched, the game is over and the lyncher wins.
If the godfather is lynched, the goon dies with him.
If both mafia are dead following a lynch, the town wins. If the lyncher and target are both still alive, then the lyncher loses. (It follows from this that a lyncher-target final 2 is not a draw in this game.)
If the target is nightkilled, the lyncher (if still alive) turns into a townie.
The target only shows up as "townie" when nightkilled, not "target."

Stats assuming random moves:
Number of days: 1.925 average
Town wins: 35.6%
Mafia wins: 43.3%
Lyncher wins: 21.1% (plus 5.1% wins as a townie)

Crush B

Same as Crush A, except the elimination of the mafia isn't game over. If the lyncher and target are both still alive, the town must try to lynch the lyncher. However, the situation of a final 2 with the lyncher and the target is still a town win, not a draw.

Stats assuming random moves:
Number of days: 2.267 average
Town wins: 27.0%
Mafia wins: 43.3%
Lyncher wins: 29.7% (plus 5.1% wins as a townie)

If the lyncher-target final 2 scenario is considered a draw, this lowers town's win odds to 23.0%. It also means a lyncher-target-mafia final 3 scenario doesn't permit a town victory.


Ok, commentary: I call it "Crush" because the info the town can gain stems largely from two players' uncompromisable stances towards another player. The goon

cannot

let the godfather get lynched. The lyncher

must

get the target lynched (or nightkilled, if town goes on to win). They have strange crushes on each other.

Additionally, in Crush A, the lyncher doesn't want the godfather lynched while the target is still alive. Although the lyncher doesn't know who the godfather is, this motivation of the lyncher might help to make him more detectable.

Thoughts?

[Kelly Chen]

Oh, also:

Crush Nightless 6p

1 mafia godfather (vengeful-style)
1 mafia goon
1 lyncher (who is informed of his target)
3 townies (one of whom is unknowingly the lyncher's target)
Nightless.

If the target is lynched, the game is over and the lyncher wins.
If the godfather is lynched, the goon dies with him.
Death of all mafia isn't game over; town still tries to lynch the lyncher.
But a final 2 situation of lyncher+target is a town win.

Stats assuming random moves:
Number of days: 2.384 average
Town wins: 27.2%
Mafia wins: 30.0%
Lyncher wins: 42.8%

If mafia elimination is an instant town win then days are 1.984, town odds are 38.8%, and lyncher odds are 31.1%. I am wary of this since it doesn't seem like town should have the highest odds of winning given random moves. Although 42.8% lyncher odds are pretty high...

[Kelly Chen]

I had some trouble following the last sentence of the explanation. Why would it happen that

The godfather can send in the kill to be one of his goons

?

[Kelly Chen]

Wow. That would explain it but it's hardly clear from the description that the usurper behaves like a goon.

I dunno about this. There are four mafia in a game of 12 with just a doc on the town side. Mafia can get the numbers to win pretty quickly; normally D2 would be lylo. So the usurper is in an incredible rush to get the godfather lynched. He would probably be pretty obvious about it because there is basically no other way for him to win.

I predict the godfather is lynched before he has a chance to kill the usurper (who would probably be easy to identify), then the usurper is lynched by the town, and the two goons are hoped to go on to win.

[Kelly Chen]

Jester has a similar ambiguity to the lyncher I think... You need to know whether a win by them is exclusive.

Let's say it's obvious that a win by them is exclusive. Maybe we could also say it's part of the definition of a lyncher, that an NKed target means the lyncher becomes a townie (if still alive). Also that the target is a townie who doesn't know he's the target, and isn't revealed as such.

This is reaching a bit, but say we take it as obvious that if the game ends before the lyncher has fulfilled his win condition (and the target is still alive of course), he loses.

We could also expect the reader to know what a "Vengeful-style godfather" is.

Then you could describe Crush A as:

1 Vengeful-style godfather, 1 goon, 1 lyncher, 4 townies
Day start
If both mafia are dead, the game ends and the town wins.

[Kelly Chen]

I thought it was clear by saying "the target is a townie" and not listing the target as a separate role.

I did wikify Crush A incidentally.

The Jester Mafia wiki entry also expects the reader to deduce that lynching the jester ends the game. It's the only sensible conclusion, but it isn't stated plainly.

[Kelly Chen]

Since the cops are probably outed pretty early, and upon claiming the townie is confirmed, I'd say an innocent result on the GF is pretty damning.

Scum claiming cop would be desperate. The GF might be forced to try if discovered. But you'd have to claim cop early in the game to be believed, that I don't think that tactic would really be useful...

That is basically the same setup as this:
3 godfathers
1 goon
2 sane miller cops
1 miller

barber (the term I use for a confirmed role that does nothing)

(edit: no need to name a miller)
7 townies

[Kelly Chen]

It hasn't been done before, but I think wording it this way makes it look unbalanced. Four scum in a 14p game and three power roles that are mostly not functional. The cops mostly detect power roles (not helpful and probably not informative), except for one (the same) baddie.

[Kelly Chen]

What is "the point" of that townie role? That the godfather should have no way to survive an innocent result on him?

You realize it's basically

lame

for roles to be able to claim their way out of lynches?

[Kelly Chen]

I think it's more or less balanced, and certainly more interesting (which I feel aids town). The mafia will probably often end up getting the traitor lynched...

If you add any town power I'd leave it at a doctor or something.

[Kelly Chen]

1x 1-shot day-vig that dies upon using his ability
2x masons
3x goons
6x vanilla townies

Good thing that vig is only one shot or he might be able to die more than once!

It would be cool if Kelly ran the statistics with Excel yeah

I use MSQBasic usually but I'm intrigued at the thought of trying to do the same thing in Excel.

I'm not sure running stats on this setup would be informative. If you start with the 3 goons and

nine

townies, you get a setup that looks pretty unbalanced with over 80% scum wins given random moves. The masons can be implemented as two roles that, if they would be lynched, instead they claim (and become unlynchable) and become targets for the scum.

The vig is hard to implement. The easiest thing to do is just say the vig fires randomly on D1 to ensure he gets a kill in. But there are a couple of concerns I have with that.
1. It might on average be better strategy for the vig to wait until a mason or two have been outed, so that the vig doesn't kill a mason.
2. It's not obvious to me that a D1 kill strategy is even helpful... The vig's death is the loss of a guaranteed pro-town role, and his kill is only slightly more likely to hit scum than a lynch.

And of course in real life, this stuff isn't random.

[Kelly Chen]

@Albert: I think it's balanced enough to be run, probably. Though I don't like masons

in open setups

without a reason why they would be interesting in that setup. I also don't see why the one-shot vig should die.

How about giving the mafia a one sacraficial kill?

Ugh. Asking mafia to kill one of their own in exchange for being able to overcome a weakness in the setup.

Aimee, OMGWOW is bad for open setup games.

Yeah OMGWOW is bad in most senses here but I see what she's saying, that with a lot of these setups I just don't get why we should try out

that

one.

@Shanba: I don't think I see how it's a viable strategy for scum to claim lovers. (Unless of course they're about to be lynched and they're trying some last-minute fishing.)

[Kelly Chen]

I don't believe open setups should have 1 miller, at least if that player is told they're miller. I'd suggest making it 0-1 miller... That keeps the claim from being such a reliable way to get out of being lynched, and gives investigated scum a chance of weaseling out of it.

I don't feel that 2:2:8 setups like Champagne Mango should have a stronger town than in a 3:9 setup.

@Thesp - wrt Albert's vig+masons setup. I want to ask whether the vig really should be suicidal. I think it's more "normal" and probably more balanced without that. Personally I think it would be more interesting to pair a vig with another power role (maybe tracker or doctor) than with masons... Not much potential for a vig and masons to work together in an interesting way. The masons are eventually outed and the vig has the sense not to target them, that's it.

[Kelly Chen]

Player skill is expected to change the balance. That is hardly an excuse to skew the balance to begin with though.

A setup can be swingy without being unbalanced of course. I won't complain about Champagne Mango 2, although I don't know whether it actually is balanced. The winner is likely to be pretty random.

You have a setup or two that might be balanced, but truly don't look like any fun. I don't think 4 scum in a 12p game is fun; that means lylo is expected on D2. I'm not even sure that is more fun for scum. Grape 2 (2 cops, tracker, doctor, 4 goons) seems to attempt to balance 4 scum by giving the town so much investigative power that they should be able to find a scum in the first couple of nights. I don't think it's fun for town power to be so crucial just to reach a third day.

Sour Apple (3 vigs, 3 goons) surely should not be a nightstart; as many as all the scum could die N0. If two die then the game is hardly worth playing, you should start over.

You say that a N0 that ruins the balance of the game is the price to be paid for a faster D1. In my opinion a fast D1 bodes poorly for future days, because it's hard to have a random voting stage after D1.

One or two of these setups just seem broken. In Coconut it is true that anyone can claim doctor, and the town has to lynch them to prove or disprove it. But despite claims, the possibility exists that scum are reduced to a number equal to or less than the number of remaining doctors. If that's at least two, scum can do no better than draw, unless the mod uses a "scum win at 50% rule." (And scum can't continue to issue counterclaims; I imagine this setup would have a massclaim immediately.)

I think Trail Mix is unbalanced enough to be called broken. I don't see how scum are supposed to win that.


I do think it would be good if lovers replaced masons in open setups. (That is, they would just be mutually confirmed masons who die immediately when the other does.) That would be more interesting and take a bit more skill to play...

[Kelly Chen]

Can I talk with my lover before the game if I'm GF? If so I'll tell him I'm going to bus one of my goons D1. But instead I pick a townie to claim as being a goon. They'll deny it but my lover and the two goons should vote with me.

Now mafia make up half. We kill a townie in the night. Then we get another day right? Because the lover is still alive.

So I out the lover (

actually I already did that the previous night

oops that's not allowed, oh well) and lynch him, mafia win. Woo!

[Kelly Chen]

That's interesting actually (makes claiming doc pretty undesirable; even if mafia lose their kill due to a doc, that doc doesn't know he was the one who did it) but personally I'd lose the roleblocker, swap in another townie.

[Kelly Chen]

I don't think I get how this is significantly different from Bad Idea?

Do such games really need a rule to handle the case that nobody kills anybody?

[Kelly Chen]

Mafia need to be sure they don't use their second kills before endgame...

[Kelly Chen]

Bah. yellowbounder, what do you like about Arsonist? All I find notable is the doc who only protects against the SK.

[Kelly Chen]

KC = Kansas City?

I recommend nerfing the doctor into a 3rd townie. The scum groups should probably have 3 players each, or at least a one-shot nightkill immunity.

[Kelly Chen]

In my games, if when all protown are eliminated, there is a tie for largest surviving scum group, everybody in the game loses.

[edit: except for one game where one of the scum group's advantage was that they won in this situation.]

My previous post was joking by the way.

[Kelly Chen]

I think it's interesting in theory, but in practice I think the scum would use their knowledge in an awfully transparent manner. You know, like most cops.

There was some of this behavior in Hell on Earth mafia...

[Kelly Chen]

btw I think Pooky is nominating the 6p nightless Crush.

[Kelly Chen]

I think 12p with 2 power roles and 2 groups of 2 scum would be balanced. It'd be nice to have an uncertain number of power roles but I'm afraid of unbalancing it.

Other sizes would work I'm sure.

If I were a scum group I believe I would choose for the town to have a doc or an RB, and hmm... maybe give the other scum group an RB.

[Kelly Chen]

Not sure what you're gaining by revealing alignment but not role. If someone dies before claiming, that the scum believe to be a power role, the scum could try to claim one of the roles... But which one? To be safe you'd have to have the other two roles dead already.

Not sure that setup is balanced as is...

[Kelly Chen]

Hmm, good point about the sanity.

As for balance, it mainly seems to me that between two cops and a doc, the two goons probably get owned. If they don't get owned it's probably because there was so much confusion in the cops' results. I think it could be balanced. Not my personal cup of tea perhaps...

[Kelly Chen]

I know there's a gf, but he wouldn't be prone to being owned by the cops.

[Kelly Chen]

I don't think that's part of Rishi's setup (mafia not knowing which one is the GF). I don't think a fake cop claim is too likely prior to endgame in his setup... The mafia would have to be able to learn for certain whether they'd killed a cop (hopefully unclaimed) first.

[Kelly Chen]

We could also borrow a setup from edion0:

1. could be:
* 2 mafia, 10 town
* 2 mafia, 9 town, 1 roleblocker
* 3 mafia, doc, 8 town
* 3 mafia, cop, doc, and 7 town
* 3 mafia, cop, doc, roleblocker, and 6 town
* 3 mafia, cop, doc, sk, vig, and 5 town
* 3 mafia, cop, doc, sk, vig, roleblocker, and 4 town
* 5 mafia, cop, doc, sk, vig, and 3 town
* 5 mafia, cop, doc, roleblocker, and 4 town

Forgot about this one hehe

[Kelly Chen]

The funny things about edion0's setup were
1. he edited more possibilities into the list after the game started
2. it was a themed game (Hitchchiker's Guide)

I'm actually not that interested in a variable number of scum in a 12p game.

I feel kind of interested atm in setups where the scum have a good chance of being able to claim a power role (other than as a move of desperation or at lylo).

[Kelly Chen]

By "sad" do you mean "weak"? I don't think it's that bad. I wouldn't normally give the scum a RB in such a setup but I understand it should probably be there due to the two doc-like roles.

Open Normal (what kind of name is that) has masons in it so I tried not to read it. I agree that a variable number of town roles makes it more likely that scum can try to claim one.

[Kelly Chen]

xyzzy you must've done your math backwards. I get that

scum

have 40% to win in both of those setups. (In 6p scum odds are 4/6 * 3/5. In 5p it's 4/5 * 3/4 * 2/3.)

I like Maz' setup better with an additional townie instead of a doc.

I'm not sure I understand Guardian's suggestion.

[Kelly Chen]

If you balance my way, town's power should be more in proportion to the strength of

one

scum group, not all of them combined. Thus I think setups like C call for the least town power.

(It's true that if the various scum groups control a ton of kills, then they could by accident wipe out the town by N2. That's an issue, but not necessarily a balance issue; you don't necessarily improve the situation by loading the town up with safeguards to prevent the nightmare scenario, because then in a less severe scenario the town dominates for no good reason.)

The main thing with C is that both scum groups start out puny relative to the town, and they're vulnerable to each other's kills. Loading the town up with four good power roles, let's say, would be pretty inappropriate imho. It's already an uphill battle for scum.

I am not sure how total crosskill immunity would affect the game; it's not exactly fatal to the town since hitting a scum becomes like a cop investigation. The game is changed quite a bit.

[Kelly Chen]

In the first setup, if the DK is protown... That seems awfully strong. Not only do you have a doc to protect the cop, you have another cop who doesn't even have to claim results.

A scum DK has to be sure the mafia don't die off too soon, since if the game continues after the mafia are gone it's a dead giveaway that the DK is scum. I haven't thought this through but it seems like this might add up to the scum DK typically being unable to win.

The millerness is probably limited in effect. It could cause the cop to claim prematurely when he gets the guilty result, and that would cause the DK to have to claim. I can't see it resulting in a DK lynch though (not the investigation itself anyway... unless the DK had earlier claimed to not be DK). I also don't think mafia would ever try claiming DK (which was the first thing I considered when I read the DK was a miller), since that's just asking to be vigged.

My main thought about the second setup is that the scum DK badly needs to not claim unless forced by a cop investigation. If both DKs claim, the town probably waits for the scum to succeed in killing off the good one, meaning the other DK is obviously scum.

[Kelly Chen]

I was not thinking clearly when I wrote that.

I've reviewed too many setups lately with millers that wouldn't work as (presumably) intended...

[Kelly Chen]

Difference betw 2 and 4 is that in 2 the disabler knows who he is? That's pretty busted.

I'd lean towards 4 too.

[Kelly Chen]

One Hot Night Mafia

2 Goon Mafia A
2 Goon Mafia B
2 Goon Mafia C
2 Goon Mafia D
5 Townies
1 Doc

Night Start

Death scenes for all mafia will not reveal which mafia the Goon was a member of, just that he was a Mafia Goon.

Yes, 3 or 4 players will sign up only to die right away. Even though this game would be very swingy and random at first, I think the number of different endgames that are probable and the short Day 1 will make it very interesting.

Short Day 1? I guess you're expecting that scum will probably just use their majority to pile onto a random person? I think that is likely, but I think they would take their time doing it so that they can at least use the "well, nothing was happening" cover.

I would say it's already difficult to identify a scum group when there are only two of them, let alone with night start and no confirmation of what group a dead scum belonged to.

Why not go the extra mile and have no role reveal and a cult?

[Kelly Chen]

If the whole town is sibling there's no incentive to not claim sibling. Mafia would rather kill a sibling than the townie I guess, although the townie is essentially confirmed and won't be lynched.

As soon as one scum is lynched the scum are out of it, since they would have no choice but to claim their actual partner as sibling. (If he hadn't for some reason, you still have one guy out there who has nothing to claim.)

That last thing is a notable problem I think, but in any case the setup generally seems highly tilted towards town.

EDIT: when I wrote this I didn't consider lack of role reveal. I'll do that later. I'm not sure it makes a big difference though...

[Kelly Chen]

Even in a mountainous setup you don't usually aim for a 50/50 split given random moves. Especially in a larger game where the town has more time to discuss and gradually gain information.

For example, Norinel ran a mountainous game with 21 players and 4 scum, which comes out to about 80% for scum and about a 9-day game on average. I think 80% might be a bit high, but not by much.

[Kelly Chen]

I don't know what is more retarded: that you think mafia need special incentive not to out each other (who can win doing that?), or that you think the way to give them this incentive is to have a mod-enforced ban on the behavior.

With the mafia members not really on the same team, but with great ability to harm each other, I would be pretty surprised if town lost this.

[Kelly Chen]

I think the second setup is probably good...

The lyncherish mechanic should help the town find something to discuss, which seems to me can be a difficulty in vanilla games...

Alternatively, don't give scum an NK

unless

a target is lynched.

[Kelly Chen]

The thing is, I'm not sure it purely is a "benefit." The scum are encouraged to act in a way which could be detectable.

[Kelly Chen]

I don't really remember commenting much on Fiasco's c9++... It's not really my thing. I'm sure that sort of thing could work.

I seem to recall one point where it would be possible to generate a setup with the wrong number of players. I think he probably fixed that.

I think I found it odd that Fiasco thought a mod-confirmed innocent was more valuable than a mason or something.

Can't remember a sanity issue off the top of my head...

As far as when an open setup ceases to be open? Well, already C9 isn't open, only semi-open. I don't have a big problem with an enormous number of possibilities personally...

[Kelly Chen]

Does "ULAP" mean "please explain why this is an interesting setup"?

[Kelly Chen]

It might be Southeast Asian Gardener... I think Adel mentioned it...

[Kelly Chen]

In chat they tell me ss3 is a 3p setup......

[Kelly Chen]

I'm thinking of modding a semi-open setup that might go sthg like this

67% chance sane cop, 33% insane cop
33% townie, 33% naive cop, 33% paranoid cop
50% townie, 50% doc
50% vig, 50% sk
50% townie, 50% psychiatrist
33% town lover pair, 33% masons both town, 33% masons one is scum
50% town rb, 50% one of the scum is rb
50% mafia gf, 50% mafia framer

etc. That sort of formulation. I'd love to work in all kinds of stuff like tracker, devil, survivor, lyncher, traitor... But I don't want to create situations like "oh we lynched the devil, that means there's no lyncher or survivor."

Can you think of any cool stuff that I didn't think of?

[Kelly Chen]

Although I have some concern about combining sanity with mafia alignment manipulation abilities, I think it's ok for mafia to have either a gf or a framer other things being equal.

[Kelly Chen]

Protown lovers + open setup = can't get lynched
Protown lovers + nightless = can't get nightkilled = little reason not to claim.

[Kelly Chen]

So that's like having 5 townies where a random pair, unknown to anybody, die together. It's just a crap shoot.

[Kelly Chen]

There's not a lot of incentive to pretend to be town. Lynches would probably be pretty random.

[Kelly Chen]

Town won e.g. Open 6 Nightless.

[Kelly Chen]

I like both versions, but I agree it's a lot closer to Jungle Republic than to Too Much Scum.

Too Much Scum was 50% antitown or neutral, two lynches per day phase, limited role reveal, and the cop could detect both mafia and werewolves.

[Kelly Chen]

How does the recruiting mason help? Can he only recruit town?

I don't really see the point of setups like this though...

[Kelly Chen]

Nominate: Vengeful

Not sure about that, seeing how the last vengeful went.

I want to point out that for the second half of this game (a month) you didn't have a mod. I promise that in general this setup doesn't make mods quit the site.

[Kelly Chen]

Nightless mountainous is currently played 4/12 which gives about the same odds as normal mountainous minis.

79.8%, 8.9 days - 4:17 day start (i.e. Norinel's Himalayan Mafia)
77%, 2.5 days - 2:5 day start (i.e. a newbie with no power roles)
72.7%, 6.3 days - 4:7 nightless

66.6%, 7.7 days - 4:8 nightless
64.7%, 4.5 days - 2:10 night start

50%, 8.4 days - 3:9 nightless

[Kelly Chen]

I don't, they're produced by simulations. Naturally they assume that all moves are made randomly. In practice the town does better than predicted because over time they have the ability to gather information and make better lynch decisions.

edit: It's well known that towns have done badly with vanilla setups, but I think you still have to assume that towns make

some

progress, or else we really may as well design for 50% odds and have towns roll dice when in doubt.

[Kelly Chen]

I'm thinking of a setup like this:

2 goons
1 devil (gets "power role" (cop/doc) or "not a power role")
1 SK (no buffs)
1 lyncher (target is a townie)
5 townies
1 unprotectable cop (detects goons and SK)
1 doctor

Lyncher's win condition never changes; he always has the ability to win as a protown survivor.

Basically a low power game (less swingy) with a number of distinct motivations. I don't think this setup is perfect but maybe I'll hit on something better...

[Kelly Chen]

They can; I think most don't. A scum that plays as well as in simulations is actually pretty competent, while a townie with a totally random scumdar might be considered so useless as to not be worth playing with.

[Kelly Chen]

I assume you're saying the mafia get two kills a night at first.

I think that setup would be very swingy. Three antitown-controlled kills and a town role that can cause an arbitrary death.

If the town isn't accidentally obliterated then it's possible it could swing the other way. Two sane cops is a lot, generally, and there's a doc and a night watchman (not sure exactly what role you have in mind here) in addition. In any case that's a lot of town power that they can get lucky with. They could catch more scum than they have kills to deal with...

I didn't fully understand your description of how mafia powers change.

[Kelly Chen]

I think it probably does adjust the balance, although personally I would prefer never to discuss strategy with my scum partners... I don't want to feel like I've agreed to play in a certain way.

[Kelly Chen]

Unlyncher

The Unlyncher is the opposite from a lyncher and must prevent a player from being lynched. However if unlyncher is lynched the unlyncher loses

1 Unlyncher
4 Townie

What do you think

Interesting idea I think. I take it the town wins if they kill either the Unlyncher or the "Target."

Balance-wise you have to consider that at the final 3, the town has a two-thirds chance of

winning

.

With your setup the unlyncher only has a 10% chance of winning, it seems to me (3/5 * 2/4 * 1/3, given random lynching of course).

(I am assuming the unlyncher wins by getting everybody else lynched.)

[Kelly Chen]

Why is the town cop's investigation revealed to the mafia? To make it easier for scum to find each other?

I can't see adding a doctor to that setup, even if it were two goons. And a scum roleblocker is pretty unnecessary with no doctor.

[Kelly Chen]

Good, I didn't agree with those extra roles either.

The initial reason town cop investigation is revealed is the part of the theme. But then I realized that by adding this, those three roles has to be very clever about what they do. Scum initially is at disadvantage, because they can't talk to each other. Traitor might want to paly by making it obvious enough for the cop to investigate him and send signal to the scum, but not scummy enough to warrant a lynch. Cop needs to be

very clever

about how he goes about in the game, for example too much correlation between what he says and his investigation could potentially bust him out. Essentially he needs to find a whole new way of playing one. Goon is left to his own survival skills, at least for the beginning. Town needs to be more on the ball than usual to see through the new strategy. So I think this set up would involve a far more tactical play than your everyday mafia. And that the name just sounds so cool.

Some concerns:

The goon can kill the traitor (presumably). If this happens it means the town never has the ability to look for connections between scumpals, since they never knew each other.

Unless the traitor is told who the goon is. I assumed not since otherwise it's not clear what he's investigating for. It didn't sound like he was a devil (cop seeker). I guess it's possible that you meant for the main point of the traitor's investigation to be that it communicates to the goon who is

not

the traitor.

It doesn't seem like the traitor should try to be scummy enough to be investigated by the cop, since unless the goon knows who the cop is, this will just get the traitor lynched the next day.

Due to scum not knowing each other, I would be concerned about the game being interesting enough for those without power roles, especially early in the game.

[Kelly Chen]

-It is possible for that happen, be it accident or stupidity. Then the game would turn into "hunt the SK"

I would guess it would happen more likely than you'd expect. Sometimes people misinterpret cops to be scum or (in this case) vice versa.

-Traitor is told who the goon is, goon doesn't know who is the traitor. Let me make clear what cop traitor is:

mafia cop + traitor = cop traitor

- I was more thinking along the lines of this might generate an interesting volley of counter-claiming and such. But non-the-less, there are many alternate tactics for the traitor I could think of.

Scum can't get away with counterclaiming a guaranteed role prior to endgame, unless they're willing to trade a scum for a cop. In either case this doesn't seem to serve the purpose of the traitor getting the goon to realize who he is.

-Townie role is always the most interesting role isn't it? (Or so I hear) Townie would hunt like any townie would do in other game. Except slight twist that they may be subjected to slightly different tells...

The thing is just that I'm not sure that is just a slight twist.


edit: This last bit at least is moot if the traitor knows who the goon is.

[Kelly Chen]

@Max: Clarify all the end-of-game and win conditions and maybe I'll figure out odds for that setup.

@VH: I am confused that you describe one role as both a "traitor" and a "GF." Is he in the mafia, or just know who's in it?

How does the bomb work again? Is it a protown role that takes down whoever is responsible for killing him?

I'm not seeing that setup as too biased towards town... Maybe I'm underestimating the bomb though.

[Kelly Chen]

That's a pretty crucial thing to determine, which side the bomb is on. If he's a fourth mafia then that setup is already imbalanced, not even considering that if he gets lynched it's a free death for the scum.

[Kelly Chen]

Huh...

An unplayer is immune to being nked but he wins if it happens? So he exits the game or what?

If unplayers are guilty to "cops" I guess the cop is pretty useless.

[Kelly Chen]

Maybe tangential but a little while ago I ran a scumchat game of "choose your alignment." In that game I made xyzzy a sort of unlynchable jester, who needed to be nightkilled (impossible since there were no nightkillers) or endgamed in order to win.

The final three consisted of xyzzy (whose unlynchability had been tested), the SK (who had claimed cop), and the last mafia. xyzzy did a full claim and tried to convince the other two that he would only vote to lynch town, so that they needed to convince him they were

scum

. Ultimately only the mafia took the hint (as far as I understood things), so the SK got lynched.


Anyway... It does seem to me that the interesting idea here is a sort of opposite of a jester who simply wins if he gets NKed. Or at least doesn't get lynched.

[Kelly Chen]

I don't like the lovers because if a scum group gets one, it's an unfair disadvantage relative to the other scum group.

I also think some more interesting town roles could be added. Or some kind of limited role reveal (as in Back to Gambits). Because the way you have it, a cop can claim and receive protection, and the scum group not vulnerable to that cop or doc don't have inherent incentive to help the other scum group out in taking the cop down. So it's just two "cop claims, scum hunt the doc" games played side by side.

Good move removing bulletproof etc. though, I think. And I wasn't even going to try to think about the setup with the cultist in it.

I don't really like the 3:3:16 ratio. I've run a 4:4:14 (five power roles) and a 4:4:11 (four power roles) open setup and think that is more interesting. (I might do without the one-shot crosskill immunity that the latter setup had, though.)

edit: and my setups had no doc at all, other than a jailkeeper in the second one.

[Kelly Chen]

Eh I wonder if I should've said anything about the roles. I think the roles are too simple for a bus driver to be of any interest. And I don't think inventor is a sensible role in any open setup.

I'm not sure if alignment reveal only makes it more interesting. I was thinking this sort of confusion could help scum fake claim power roles. On the other hand with two scum groups, it could just attract crosskills too.

4:4:16 is already up to 24 players. May as well shrink it to 3:3:12 (18p), I think.

[Kelly Chen]

I don't understand the goons' win condition clearly. It looks like there are two: get the GF lynched and be lynched themselves. If that's right, that's incredibly easy to accomplish, assuming the town wants the goons lynched as well.

If it's nightless, there is no purpose to a doctor's ability.

While I think it is somewhat interesting for A to need to lynch B when the town is eager to kill both if they knew who they were, I think you undermine this when a single townie lynch D1 means the town loses the majority.

[Kelly Chen]

Number of days until deadline

set

? Or is that the length of the deadline?

Three days for night choices is pretty standard. I think the "goon who submits the NK performs it" rule would have no effect but to further hurt the scum when one of them is AWOL.

The doctor's not bad, though in a game of this size it is almost the same as saying he can't protect the same person on back-to-back nights.

The tracker (maybe) doesn't quite reach its potential here since if he tracks someone to a corpse, they're scum. The only case for ambiguity is if he tracks someone somewhere and there is no death that night... Hmm.

[Kelly Chen]

Lynch protection = governor.

If the town really wanted that lynch, this role has no effect in a nightless game. The governor/doctor would also have no role information to suggest that the lynch was on town. It would only be good for reversing a scum quicklynch.

[Kelly Chen]

Three days for night choices is pretty standard. I think the "goon who submits the NK performs it" rule would have no effect but to further hurt the scum when one of them is AWOL.

one has to be the trigger guy so that the tracker can get a read on him. The scum that doesn't pull the trigger can't be tracked to the victim's house: he didn't go.

Well I realize

that

, what I'm saying is that you seem to have come up with this rule with the idea that it would make some difference in the gameplay. But three days is already plenty of time for the scum to discuss which one

should

make the kill. So this rule only makes a difference when one scum has no choice but to submit (and thus make the kill) because his partner isn't around to talk to.

[Kelly Chen]

That pretty much is the standard rule, although I think it's ok to take the submitting member as the performing member when they don't specify. I've had players assume I knew that that's what they meant anyway.

[Kelly Chen]

And 4:8 is ridiculous even when the town has power roles, let alone in a vanilla game...

[Kelly Chen]

Well, 2:10 isn't bad in the same way that 4:8 is. 2:10 is bad imho because it's dull; 4:8 is absurdly unbalanced.

Anyway, that is not a good reason to use randomization. Look at C9. It doesn't use randomness in order to make 2:5 vanilla (favors scum) and 2:5 cop+doc (favors town) balance each other out. The uncertainty of the setup makes vanilla not favor scum as much as if it were guaranteed vanilla, and it makes cop+doc not favor town as much as if it were guaranteed cop+doc.

[Kelly Chen]

You don't want to put too many townies in. Yeah you'll make it less swingy (in the sense that the town can't get wiped out overnight) but you're also solely strengthening the town with that solution.

[Kelly Chen]

Here's a setup I've been thinking about for a while:

Nominate: Masons' Dilemma

3x Mafia 1 Goons
3x Mafia 2 Goons
2x Masons
2x Masons
2x Masons

Day start. If all pro-town players are dead and neither Mafia has a numerical advantage, everybody loses.

Thoughts? I like the Prisoner's Dilemma aspect of the whole thing

It seems to me you massclaim your mason partner day 1. Depending on claim order there's a high likelihood that you already find scum in this process. The only way you don't find a scum day 1 is if two goons from different factions claim each other. But they still may as well then kill each other at night. Especially if one of the groups is down in numbers.

If a mason dies, his partner is confirmed. If a scum dies, his claimed partner is outed. I think there would often be no need to discuss anything in the day.

[Kelly Chen]

whats the point in the cops?

Seriously?

to give the town at least a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Seriously.

On the other hand, by giving the town cops, you've made it sensible for scum to try to kill cops instead of trying to kill rival scum.

It was not obvious that the town could not win the 5-townie version. And that version would possibly even have some scum-hunting instead of a deluge of guilty investigations.

I agree that it is not likely that the scum would cooperate. The setup shouldn't permit that anyway, at least when there are so many scum.

[Kelly Chen]

It doesn't seem like everybody would know who is scum. Only two of them are obvious scum to somebody, after day 1.

The only way to kill town and not simultaneously confirm town is for the scum groups to cooperate in each killing a different member of the same mason pair. But they can't do that, or even be sure that the mason pair they're targeting isn't the other scum group.

Trying to hit the other scum group (i.e. the pair claiming to be masons) seems like a much better idea since the other member of the pair is then outed, and the next day's lynch.

Since a scum draw is impossible (as it should be) it seems totally unviable to me (whether no lynch is permitted or not) for scum to come out in the day, even if the town is a minority. A scum alliance has to end in a betrayal by one side or the other, or neither side benefits at all. It seems to me that is different from a prisoners' dilemma.

[Kelly Chen]

Well, I was thinking about these setups, not so sure about it being very good though.

Nightfinder Mafia

2 groups of mafia, one goon and a godfather each
1 SK
One Werewolf
1 Cop
1 doc
2 townies
2 Masons, May talk to eachother at night
Day start

No difference between the werewolf and the SK? Four NKs is pretty iffy.

Overload Nightless

5 Mafias
5 Townies
2 Masons
Day Start

I think this is actually not that bad, except that mason is kind of a dumb role when there are no NKs. (No reason not to claim.)

Stupid Mafia

3 Mafias, 2 cannot NK and 1 has 50% of successful NK
1 Cop without investigation option
1 Doc that dies if protecting player from NK
4 towns
Night Start

Eh. Too much luck I think. Doesn't seem good that the scum can lose their one way of killing the cop.

That doctor is called a "bodyguard" or "martyr."

[Kelly Chen]

I want to clarify this setup, since Thesp brought it up:

I'm thinking of a setup like this:

2 goons
1 devil (gets "power role" (cop/doc) or "not a power role")
1 SK (no buffs)
1 lyncher (target is a townie)
5 townies
1 unprotectable cop (detects goons and SK)
1 doctor

Lyncher's win condition never changes; he always has the ability to win as a protown survivor.

Basically a low power game (less swingy) with a number of distinct motivations. I don't think this setup is perfect but maybe I'll hit on something better...

The devil is promafia. I didn't think it necessary to say that. Mafia win condition would be for at least one goon to live, and everyone else except possibly the devil to be dead. If the second goon dies, the devil immediately exits the game (since a win is impossible).

A lyncher win would not be exclusive. He would exit the game if his target is lynched. If the target is nightkilled while the lyncher lives, the lyncher can only win as a protown survivor. He can also win that way if the target never dies. (In other words, I want to replace the "standard" lyncher behavior that if the target is nightkilled, the lyncher turns into a townie.)

For convenience I will dub this

Highlander Grog Mafia

after a flavor of coffee I like...

[Kelly Chen]

No, a devil doesn't know who's in the mafia, nor vice versa. His entire purpose is to role-fish.

Devil is also called "mafia spy," I believe with the same definition.

Games with 1 SK are what you do when you don't have enough players.

[Kelly Chen]

No, a devil doesn't know who's in the mafia, nor vice versa. His entire purpose is to role-fish.

Devil is also called "mafia spy," I believe with the same definition.

Seems like it would be very difficult to have any impact on your win condition. Would it be worth giving them a N0 headstart on their investigation?

You could. I don't like N0 investigations personally.

Games with 1 SK are what you do when you don't have enough players.

Yeah, I can never convince anyone to play mafia in RL so limited to this style game. Thought it might be fun for kicks.

If you have some colored beads and a winter hat, you can do some things without a moderator. 2:4 nightless with six people, or Vengeful with five.

[Kelly Chen]

Colorful Conversations:
1 Serial Killer
4 Mafia Goons
12 Citizens
1 Vigilante
1 Sane Cop
1 Red Mason Leader
1 Blue Mason Leader
1 Yellow Mason Leader
Night 0 start for Mason Leaders and Cop.

Mason Leaders are able to recruit Players, but all Masons appear innocent to cop. Leaders may recruit Mafia.

Town seems a bit large, especially with that many confirmed roles.

Mainly though, it seems like the masons shouldn't recruit anybody until the cop is dead.

[Kelly Chen]

It was hard to tell it was a joke. I almost said something.

You're right that the setup is unbalanced though. Scum would have to be awesome to win that.

[Kelly Chen]

Second Texas Justice. I liked several of the other Justices thrown about, but they're probably not Normal. Neither is AITP (or Vengeful, really...)

My feeling is that tolerance for Vengeful is reasonable, because its "not normal" characteristics are what allow it to be possible to have a 2-person scum group in a 5-player game. That was the whole thought behind its design.

@Haschel
I'd cut three townies from that... And still bet some money on a town win.

[Kelly Chen]

7-player Vengeful does have three scum, but I'm a bit discontent that, assuming random moves, there's a 3/7ths chance that the game doesn't get to Day 2. (1/7th chance of GF lynch plus 4/7 * 3/6 chance that a townie is lynched and vigs town.)

[Kelly Chen]

How about a game with 5 townies and 2 mafia, except during the first night after the first day, one townie will be randomly given the role of roleblocker townie? Therefore, there is more of an unlikelihood of the power role being knocked out on Day 1. Also, the roleblocker can use his ability right when it's assigned during night 1.

It is already pretty unlikely that a power role is knocked out Day 1 in a semiopen setup. Typically they can claim out of being lynched.


You guys have to nominate a specific Smalltown setup.

edit: Oman, the first Smalltown was balanced, but in my opinion the role selection was rather odd and not very interesting.

[Kelly Chen]

Scum City Mafia

3 groups of 3 Mafia
1 SK
1 Vig, town aligned
1 Cop
1 Doc
7 Townies

Could be worse. I'd leave out the vig and SK. Pick a theme (like "lots of scum") and leave out other themes ("as much NK death as possible").

QuickBlitz Mafia

8 townies
4 scum
Townies only have 2 weeks a day to come to a lynch decision or a random townie will be killed.

I take it this is nightless? Two weeks isn't really

that

fast...

Lol Nightless

10 Mafia
10 Town

This game starts with scum having fulfilled their win condition.

Every-other-nightless

6 Townies
4 Mafia
1 Cop
1 Doc
Day 2, Day 4, Day 6 and every even-numbered day is nightless.

I ran a setup with this mechanic, although the double days were called "morning" and "afternoon" of the same day. (Mini 330.)

It is basically a boost to the town.

[Kelly Chen]

Lol Nightless

10 Mafia
10 Town

This game starts with scum having fulfilled their win condition.

That stills leaves entrants with a 50% chance of winning the game. Odds don't get any more even than that.

How does it, the mafia only need one stray vote, and they can prevent a lynch on any one buddy.

It's a 50% chance of winning before you receive your role.

[Kelly Chen]

Hummingbird

2 Mafia Goons
1 Mafia Cop
1 Traitor
3 Trackers
3 Watchers
1 Vigilante
1 Jailkeeper

Don't ask me why it's called Hummingbird, I don't know. It was originally an espionage concept (with the Vig being licensed-to-kill and all), but Pooky already took that name. It's probably severely unbalanced as of now. Any thoughts?

4:8 (which it almost is, due to the traitor) is almost unheard of due to how little it takes for scum to win. It seems like you're aware of that and have tried to balance it by giving the town a ridiculous amount of power.

As an open setup without any townies, it seems prone to mass claim. Each scum would have to claim tracker or watcher, and the town would gradually figure out who's legit. Plus given the nature of the tracker and watcher roles, it's easy for the town to verify whether someone can actually target at night. I guess scum would frequently have to claim they forgot to send their move in...

I guess that if scum win this setup at all, they do it fast and right away, with two mislynches. I think if they can't pull that off then the town will most likely collect so much information that they're able to lynch right every day.

[Kelly Chen]

Deleting posts has the problem that you can just save the posts to your hard drive.

[Kelly Chen]

I didn't [ignore it]...

Though actually it wasn't clear to me what the setup was. By "C++" were you referring to Fiasco's setup?

[Kelly Chen]

Texas Justice at least uses normal roles and mechanics. This not only has a very unusual mechanic, it's also not really clear that it would work.

I would for replacements purposes, make people 72 hours PM saying what they remember from the thread so people can replace

Every 72 hours? Some players won't even post that often...

[Kelly Chen]

If you think the "normalcy" of the setup can survive being two-headed on top of everything else...

You didn't answer my question about whether you had Fiasco's setup in mind when you said "standard C++ set-up." I'm pretty sure even the normalcy of that setup has been questioned.

[Kelly Chen]

Yeah in scumchat if you try to scroll up to get some evidence you could get lynched before you get back.

[Kelly Chen]

Now for my large open coming soon I'm trying to think of standardised roles which I could use. I was thinking of:

3 Mafia
3 Werewolves
2 cops (1 sane, 1 with sanity issues)
2 seers (1 sane, 1 with sanity issues)
1 doc
1 sorcerer
12 Town.

But I started thinking is that balanced enough?

I don't like only 3 mafia in a 20p game, let alone a 24p game with a second scum group to help kill them.

But yeah you don't get to pick your setup. Run this as a large normal, or maybe that's what you meant.

[Kelly Chen]

Actually maybe a few other comments:

3-4 Mafia with 2 of the following (GF, RB, Cop, 1 shot cross kill immunity)
3-4 Werewolves with 2 of the following (AW, RB, Cop, 1 shot cross kill immunity)
1-3 cops (100% chance first sane, 50%, 0%)
1-3 seers (100% chance first sane, 50%, 0%)
1-2 mafia healing roles (if 2 second martyr)
1-2 were healing roles (if 2 second martyr)
1 unlyncher OR lyncher
However many town.

If you do a semiopen setup, I'd say you're introducing uncertainty at the expense of confidence in the balance being right. I think you should try to avoid undermining the uncertainty by making it possible to deduce which setup was selected. (edit: "by making" goes with "undermining" not with "avoid.")

For example, in the above setup, if you are a mafia-martyr, you know there is no other mafia-martyr. And the mafia-doctor (guaranteed to exist) knows there's no other mafia-doctor. That means mafia can't claim any healing role without a risk of being directly counterclaimed.

The situation with the cops seems a little better.

I don't like "1 unlyncher or lyncher," although it's mitigated by these not being protown roles. Basically I don't like that if you're the unlyncher, you know there is no lyncher, and vice versa.

I think this setup has too much potential to be unbalanced for the town against one of the scum groups but perhaps not the other. If I understand your setup correctly, it's possible for the town to have 2 sane mafia-cops, 1 insane mafia-cop, a mafia-doc, and a mafia-martyr. That's a lot.

[Kelly Chen]

You didn't have to say it, it's standard for roles to know what they are.

Yes, you could word the PM that way, and fix the issue.

edit:
Actually I think it would be better if it were 1-2 healing roles and

each one

has a 50% chance of being a martyr (with or without knowing it).

[Kelly Chen]

I guess I should start pointing out that Crush Nightless is busted (can't complete) in a godfather-lyncher-target endgame.

Maybe Crush A is still viable, since the target can be nightkilled without the town knowing, but I haven't put a ton of thought into it. The difference is that the endgame godfather-formerlyncher-townie becomes a possibility. In that scenario the lyncher is free to vote for the mafia. I guess this means that even if the last townie is actually the target, he doesn't know that, so he can't assume that one of the other two players is required by his role to vote for him.

Hrm hrm.

[Kelly Chen]

You're using that principle from the other thread?

Eh. I think our collective knowledge needs to trump that rule of thumb.

In other words I don't think 2:2:10 is better.

[Kelly Chen]

Well, as far as philosophy goes, I don't believe that in a three-party game any one party should have the ability to control their own destiny. If it so happens that the other two groups gang up on them, deliberately or by accident, the attacked group should lose. Otherwise you risk having lopsided outcomes at other times.

[Kelly Chen]

xyzzy, does that mean the town must be sure not to lynch the Advisor before the K/Q are dead?

edit: Ah nevermind. I see that the K/Q are basically lynchers who can kill people. Just not who they want.