[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[GreyICE]

Plague: Only safeclaim is vanilla. That seems bad.

[GreyICE]

Basically a mass claim would make every single scum lynch a 50% chance and, most likely, confirm 9 town instantly. It would then be fucking hunting season on the scumbags left.

[GreyICE]

Idea:
Standard mafia game except that you lose if you die. To counter the lurkfest that would normally ensue, the game is invitation only choosing players who aren't jerks like that.

So a VT who draws the NK off a power role is playing suboptimally?

BAD IDEA MAFIA

Wanna see it play out.

"Okay, I'm scum. You got me. Me and my partners agreed to shoot the first person on the wagon every night, unless you idiots try some game like voting whose the first on the wagon, then we'll just shoot whoever is the first to vote for whoever is first on the wagon. Waiting for unvote from #1 to nominate new #1."

Congrats, voting for scum is now against your win condition.

[GreyICE]

BAD IDEA MAFIA

Wanna see it play out.

"Okay, I'm scum. You got me. Me and my partners agreed to shoot the first person on the wagon every night, unless you idiots try some game like voting whose the first on the wagon, then we'll just shoot whoever is the first to vote for whoever is first on the wagon. Waiting for unvote from #1 to nominate new #1."

Congrats, voting for scum is now against your win condition.

That's closer to how things work in real life if an armed, organized group wants to take over a town through murder...
I wonder whether this threat would be dulled by random lynches?

The worst part is, that if you're VT...

The smartest thing to do at L-1 is claim scum in the thread and make the exact threat I just outlined.

Otherwise they might lynch you.

[GreyICE]

So the cop can find one scum player in the entire game?

Confirmable townies:
Miller
Cop
Lovers
Seer

So the lynch pool is 9 VT, 4 scum.

Seer is the only useful investigative role. Cop finds one whole scum.

[GreyICE]

That doesn't seem too far off the power level of 2 goon/1 cop/6 town setup for newbies. Works.

[GreyICE]

One of the things I sorta dislike about Lights Mafia is that the whole Lights On/Off decision seems kind of arbitrary. I mean, the only speculation for a townie to turn their lights off/on is "Ooh, I wonder if we'll lynch the On/Off Goon today." The only speculation for the scum is "Ooh, I wonder if Townie X thought that the On/Off Goon was going to be lynched today." That's not much. And I think the whole setup kind of fails if either scum is lynched Day 1. After that, the game will either turn into Nightless after Night 1 or the whole on/off decision will be 100% random after Night 1.

Meh it's only random in the sense that lynches are random.

Did the player decide to pull the trigger and shut their lights off? Or keep them on and wait?

Someone will suggest flipping a coin. Someone else will suggest the better idea (rolling a die, if it's 1 or 2, turn them off, otherwise keep them on, repeat each day). Will people game the system? Or will they stick to it?

It is very interesting.

[GreyICE]

Optimal play: No one votes on even days. Lynch is decided by random.org.

Scum have a 1/3 chance to lynch themselves if they stick themselves in pool, confirm town if they don't.

Optimal scum play: keep adding one more group of town to the 'masons' every kill period.

Better mechanic - each goon gets a 1 shot ability where they nominate three players on one day. Whichever one of those players gets the most votes during the day is lynched.

[GreyICE]

Optimal play: No one votes on even days. Lynch is decided by random.org.

Scum have a 1/3 chance to lynch themselves if they stick themselves in pool, confirm town if they don't.

How do town know how many townies scum have nominated to be lynched? There is no way to confirm town in this game.

Mechanic change:

Instead of submitting a night kill, the scum submit three names. Random.org selects one. The other two are confirmed town, that one is killed. Every night after that, the scum choose an additional person. That person becomes confirmed town, but joins the list of people who might die.

Would town be favored in an 8:3?

[GreyICE]

@Grey: why take the skill out of the game?

Also, what happens when the scum submit their own name?
At 1:2 Lylo? (Even at 2:3 Lylo, 2 townies are confirmed.)

@Herodotus: All mechanics that involve choices should be modeled as if the mechanic is used in a very certain manner, then see if this manner is the optimal to use it.

See: East of Eden mafia, where a bunch of people had a skill that could do like 8 different things or more. They all used it to cop people's alignments.

If the scenario above is unfavorable to the town, adding scum choice to the matter doesn't improve things.

[GreyICE]

Exactly.

Now consider this: You've essentially created an 8:3 game with a weird kill mechanic.

Is that balanced? For reference, Friends and enemies has 3 scum, 3 masons, and 6 town I believe. Even if the scum admit they're masonizing their kills, the scum are going to win handily.

[GreyICE]

Friends and enemies isn't nightless though is it?

Neither is this game, once you realize that the 'mechanic' is a cleverly disguised night kill.

As for it not being a NK, well, if the mafia NK was "Submit a list of 3 players, and random.org will kill one" it'd still be a NK. This makes the town kill one rather than random.org, but that's not much of an improvement, overall.

[GreyICE]

At 2:5 it works much better because it's very friggin dangerous to create 3 confirmed town in a 2:5 setup. You'd commit suicide essentially. If you get a town lynch day 1, then choose 3 town day 2, you literally have a 2/3 chance of hitting scum on day 3 if you assume this to be true. With one dead scum, the other follows pretty fast.

However at 8:3, it's highly optimal to use it like a night kill early on. I think that it'll degenerate into mostly that, especially if the town realizes it's most likely killing a townie, and gets apathetic on even days.

If you do run it, shorten even days to 1 week.

[GreyICE]

Goons have to be able to be made into cops.

[GreyICE]

Hmm

If a cop maker attempts to recruit a goon, they die.

NAR, kill happens before recruit, so if a cop maker is killed, they recruit no cops.

[GreyICE]

At 2:5 it works much better because it's very friggin dangerous to

create 3 confirmed town in a 2:5 setup

. You'd commit suicide essentially. If you get a town lynch day 1, then choose 3 town day 2, you literally have a 2/3 chance of hitting scum on day 3 if you assume this to be true. With one dead scum, the other follows pretty fast.

However at 8:3, it's highly optimal to use it like a night kill early on. I think that it'll degenerate into mostly that, especially if the town realizes it's most likely killing a townie, and gets apathetic on even days.

If you do run it, shorten even days to 1 week.

Again, there are no confirmed townies in either game. I don't know why you keep trying to use that as a point.

Always attempt to see if a mechanic breaks by bringing it down to its simplest level. If the simplest use of it is broken, the mechanic is broken.

For instance, any sort of theme game with a mechanic like "you can ask the moderator a setup question/ask one thing about the game/etc." is always used to cop people's alignments.

[GreyICE]

Jester Nightless

1 Mafia (knows the Jester's identity)
1 Jester
4 Townies

Nightless

The Jester suicides and lose if they're not lynched by the end of Day 2.

Nightless, optimal play:

No Lynch Day 1
No Lynch Day 2

Problem solved.

[GreyICE]

If the jester is lynched, does everyone else lose, or does the game continue?

Everyone else loses.

:badposting:

There's nothing wrong with a Jester lynch ending the game when it's an open setup. It's in a closed setup where that would be a problem.

And lol @ GreyICE.

What? It breaks the setup.

Then it's just a 4:1 nightless.

[GreyICE]

Hmm. No If someone gets close to lych the jester can try and convince them he knows the lynch candidate is a jester... Because he's mafia. Mafia knowing makes it much more interesting.

As long as no lynch = town loss.

Self votes also can't be reflected in the vote count.

[GreyICE]

Exactly. But what if the person seems entirely certain the lynch is the jester? Are they really certain town? Scum with 100% certainty built into the role pm? Or the jester faking it to look like scum?

It's uneven knowledge.

Also ironically if they lynch mafia day 1 they need one town lynch.

[GreyICE]

Also ironically if they lynch mafia day 1 they need one town lynch.

Town wins (I presume) once all the scum have been eliminated.

Jesters are scum, but die automatically after day 2. With no possibility for no-lynch, they

have

to lynch a townie.

Which is another possibility for the Jester, if he catches a strong scumtell from the player and sets himself as the incredibly pro-town person driving the mafia lynch.

Overall, the uneven knowledge is the fact that the Mafia knows the Jester's identity, and the fact that the Jester knows that the Mafia knows. So overall, that means it meets the criteria for Mafia.

[GreyICE]

Jester ends game, so a Jester lynch won't tell you anything about Mafia identity, because game ends.
Bad mafia play can be WIFOMed by good Jester play (he's obviously Mafia, therefore he's the Jester, etc. etc.)

I'd say actual win percentages will most likely be:
Jester - 50%
Town - 30%
Mafia - 20%

[GreyICE]

Jester ends game, so a Jester lynch won't tell you anything about Mafia identity, because game ends.
Bad mafia play can be WIFOMed by good Jester play (he's obviously Mafia, therefore he's the Jester, etc. etc.)

I'd say actual win percentages will most likely be:
Jester - 50%
Town - 30%
Mafia - 20%

Then it'd be pretty obvious that the Jester would be playing like a retarded town just to get lynched. Ugh.

Jesters are amazingly hard to deal with.

The one problem I see with this is that the mafia has a general incentive to lurk, while the Jester has a general incentive to stay in the forefront. That being said, a town lynch day 1 doesn't screw the Jester, so he can setup a 'he's so scum' day 2 based on his wagon behavior day 1.

[GreyICE]

My original intention was that the town would win instantly if the Mafia was lynched Day 1 (though I think my percentages were accidentally made for the other way). I just don't like that the mafia could potentially be like "Ah, crap, well XXX is the Jester, btw," right before he was lynched.

I'm good with the Mafia knowing the Jester's identity if that's what everyone else prefers. That would probably cut back on the Jester's win %, too.

I feel that taking away the possibility of the Jester leading a scum lynch day 1, then getting lynched as the 'most pro-town player' is silly. Yes, it's 1/10,000, but when it does happen its hysterical.

The fact that the Jester knows that the Mafia knows the Jester's identity makes the game actually interesting.

"Person is at L-1, about to be hammered."
"Person X: btw, he's the Jester."

Town WIFOM: Is X scum or Jester?

[GreyICE]

I feel that taking away the possibility of the Jester leading a scum lynch day 1, then getting lynched as the 'most pro-town player' is silly. Yes, it's 1/10,000, but when it does happen its hysterical.

Yeah, that's kind of cool. I'm fine with the Mafia knowing the Jester's identity OR the game continuing after a mafia lynch, but I think having both of those rules isn't a good idea.

The fact that the Jester knows that the Mafia knows the Jester's identity makes the game actually interesting.

"Person is at L-1, about to be hammered."
"Person X: btw, he's the Jester."

Town WIFOM: Is X scum or Jester?

Then just lynch someone other than those two people until one of them suicides, right? There's no real incentive for the scum to act like a Jester.

My preferences would be:

6p version - Mafia knows Jester's identity; game ends immediately after Mafia lynch Day 1
8p version - Mafia DON'T know Jester's identity; game continues after Mafia lynch Day 1

I also have a feeling that the 8p version is more balanced.

The lynched character can't talk in Twilight. Already a fairly standard rule in a lot of games.

As for there being no reason for scum to act like a Jester, that's true, but there's lots of incentive for Jesters to act like scum.

There also may be strong reason for town to act like Jesters on day 2, in order to prevent the lynch of someone they think is a Jester. It's a weird setup overall.

The 8 person setup is more balanced, the 6 player looks to be more fun.

[GreyICE]

How would Cop + Doc + 3 VTs + Goon + Goon work as an open setup?

Mafia would know they have to counterclaim cop D1.

Meh, I doubt a setup like that would work. Too strange, people haven't played anything like it.

[GreyICE]

Gah! This is not a thread for your witchcraft!

Btw, based on bloodbath in camden:

10 VTs
6 Goons

Each night the scumteam must select a goon, that goon dies.

[GreyICE]

@GreyICE:

Bloodbath in Camden ended, so I'm going to propose its setup as an Open:

10 VTs
6 Mafia Goons

Special Mechanic:
If a VT is lynched during the day, the mafia vote off one of their goons to be killed that night. They may still kill on that night.

Result:
4 mislynches for town to lose.
3 scum lynches for town to win.

It's kinda like a 10:3 mini normal, except with more scum to lynch and less swinginess.

<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<_<

about 10 posts up

lol, I'm good.

I calculated a town win rate of 40% for that setup, which I think is too low given the raw power level of the mafia, especially if they're controlling who dies (and the vote thing doesn't work in an open, as you could easily mod-confirm a ton of town). I think the version where 2 scum lynches is a loss is slightly better given that difference.

[GreyICE]

^game I based the mechanic off of

But that's kinda, y'know, going to have the same problem. Literally every townie had to be on a scum lynch wagon? Uh...

Well it helped for us that we basically were one step ahead of the entire thread.

Emp would have gotten the setup weirdness pretty fast AND he was obvtown, he had to be seeing the wall of VT tells and would have guessed what had happened (I've never seen a game where 9/10 of the town gave off obvious VT tells before, but I knew by the end of day 1 we were living in a world of Vanilla). Slaxx the day before he broke the setup, LLD's call on Pine got him before he broke it, and Toog needed maybe 1 more day to figure out which way was up

I think the version with the 1 scum dead per night is better because it makes bussing near suicidal. That gives the town a LOT to work with.

[GreyICE]

Better Idea:
If Town Mislynch, Scum Sacrifice a player
If Town Lynch Correctly, Scum kill a townie.

Like My "perpetual mylo". It reduces the swinginess as appropriate.

I approve of Max's set-up with the following added rule.

Scum are not allowed to Sacrifice any scum player who hammers a wagon. It prevents the L-1 on Town quickhammer and sacrifice strategy that really helped Scum win in the original iteration.

Ours was apparently the 'scum player who got the most votes in the entire game' which ended up looking a hell of a lot like random.org to us (damn RVS ).

[GreyICE]

Semi-Open setup idea:
1 Watcher, worth 3 points
1 Tracker, worth 2 points
3 Observers (Are only told if their target used an ability), worth 1 point each

3 Mafia
10 Town

Three points of power roles are assigned to the mafia.
Five points of power roles are assigned to the town.

Possible weakness: If a mafia watcher flips, all other power roles are confirmed town. Not sure how to work around this yet.

C9++ Solution: All mafia roles flip as "Mafia."

http://mafiascum.net/wiki/index.php?title=C9%2B%2B

[GreyICE]

Um Jailkeeper and Tree Stump aren't like really in the same plane. One's a fixed doctor+roleblocker, one's a VT with a little extra.

[GreyICE]

tree stumps are comfirmed and can't die...

If they really were bulletproof innocent childs, that might be balanced.

[GreyICE]

Uh that game is unwinnable for the town as 9:3:3 or 12:3:3

[GreyICE]

2:11 is theoretically balanced with no cop.

Adding a cop is ridic.

Note that it's not going to play out perfectly, since theoretical balance and actual play are different, but in a 2:11, I'd be very sad to give the town much power at all.

[GreyICE]

I - Tracker
II - Watcher
III - Cop
IIII - Cop, Tracker

P - Bodyguard
PP - Jailkeeper
PPP - Doctor

That way no Cop+Doctor

TT - One Godfather/1 Shot RC + 1 Goon
T - One Godfather/Ninja + One 1-shot Rolecop
0T - One 1 shot RB + One Godfather/Ninja

[GreyICE]

If the target PR is blocked, the Tracker shouldn't be able to tell the difference between that and a VT/inactive Goon. Anything else just overpowers the Tracker role even further than usual.

The tracker role is OP now?

I understand the complaints against Cops and Watchers, but Trackers? Really now?

[GreyICE]

I wouldn't.

There is like literally no reason not to bus like a fiend. There is no team play at all.

[GreyICE]

Basic balance facts:

10:2 mountainous is heavily scumsided
11:2 maayyyy be balanced, but is probably still scumsided.

All setups should take that into consideration.

[GreyICE]

Basic balance facts:

10:2 mountainous is heavily scumsided
11:2 maayyyy be balanced, but is probably still scumsided.

All setups should take that into consideration.

That's a good point.

What would you say about 12:2 mountainous?

More scumsided than 11:2

[GreyICE]

It wouldn't change the game much at all, might actually push it a little more scum sided (night kills less likely to hit scum). It's hard to tell with any setup where the night kills outnumber the lynch so badly.

[GreyICE]

I was looking at the Medical Mafia setup, and wondering if something similar would be playable for cops. So I threw this together.

It's my first time even touching on designing a setup, be gentle.

Precinct Madness

Setup:
1 Mafia Framer
1 Mafia Godfather
2 Sane Cops
2 Insane Cops
1 Paranoid Cop
1 Naive Cop
1 Results Cop (gets "Innocent" if target is the Godfather or a townie who got correct results, "Guilty" if target is the Framer or a townie who got incorrect results)

Every player who is a Cop is not told which version they are, and will be revealed as "Cop".
Scum will flip as "scum" but not reveal which role they had.

I didn't get very far into thinking out breaking strategies, or if the results could even be used. But I wanted to throw it out there.

How will town flip?

[GreyICE]

The problem with survivor is that it's a role that does nothing.

1) You don't care who wins, merely that the game ends
2) Your sole goal is to avoid being lynched or night killed
3) In LyLo you're scum.

Also you have the bullshit of anonymous quicktopics, which is ridiculous and terrible.

Add a Jester and it's practically perfect.

[GreyICE]

Alternating Semi-Open 9P should be revised to remove the Timed Survivor. It just basically serves to make the game nearly impossible for town victory (requires 2 scum lynches to 1 town lynch) without any other benefit.

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?t=23166

2 of: ON Doctor/EN Doctor/ON Cop/EN COP
Vs.
1 Goon
1 of ON Godfather/Rolecop

is a fine setup as is. Does not need a Timed Survivor to screw up the game.

[GreyICE]

Idea: 9P White Flag

6 town, 3 scum. Town need to lynch any two scum to win. Scum have a normal night kill every night. All vanilla.

I wonder if such a setup already exists. Or a similar one?

Scumhunters Speed 8P:

Scumhunter's Speed 8p

5 Townies
3 Scum

After Day One:

...If a scum player is lynched, scum chose one player to kill, but it then becomes White Flag (scum lose when there is only one scum left)
...if a town player is lynched, scum must kill one of their own.

Otherwise nightless

[GreyICE]

can you demonstrate a set of events that leads to a scum win? I'm not seeing a way...

I derped, this is actually a pretty tight setup

Scumhunters 8P was a thought experiment by me and Hito to see how many scum you could fit in a setup while still making sure there would be relevant information from each lynch. It's very close to perfectly mathematically balanced.

I'd argue it was townsided, but this was the entire nexus of the discussion that spawned the setup.

[GreyICE]

Death and Taxes

v1.0

Vanilla Townie x7

Town Tax Collector x2

Town Homeless x1

Mafia Goon x3

• Tax Collectors target three players. They are informed of how many of their three targets pay taxes, but not exactly who.
• Mafia members and Homeless players do not pay taxes.

I have no idea how well balanced this is, but I like the general idea (

Mastermind

-style investigative roles).

So you renamed "Cop" and "Miller"?

[GreyICE]

Also they're most destructive investigating town.

Imagine someone claims with the result "0 scum in group of 3". That's 4 confirmed townies. With the second cop, 5 confirmed townies.

That's... pretty bad.

[GreyICE]

just simulated it again quickly.

~23% was 10:2. 11:2 is more like 40%, but additions in 2 after that have really bad diminishing returns, takes 17:2 to make it even.

The thing is, town should theoretically lynch better than random. So 40% is usually considered balanced, because the town shouldn't ever have an even or better chance to win through random lynching.

[GreyICE]

I dislike any game that comes down to the play of one player. But if you're going to do it, Micro game.

1 King
3 Ministers
5 Civilians

Give short deadlines (like 3-5 days) so it doesn't suffer from nightless paralysis, and change the win condition so that ministers win when they're half of the population or more (don't count the king).

[GreyICE]

Any time you are looking for a specific

outcome

for a setup, you've made a bad setup.

People are never going to play how you want them to play. Make an interesting setup and interesting results will occur.

[GreyICE]

and change the win condition so that ministers win when they're half of the population or more (don't count the king).

That doesn't work. The king can't be lynched if the civilians don't control the vote anymore. The civilians would become kingmakers at that point.

The King doesn't want the ministers to be the majority, because then he loses. So the King will cooperate with the civilians to lynch a Minister, because a Minister lynch is the literal only way he can win in 3:3:1. Once it's a 3:2:1 everything becomes shakier (there's also the fact that the Ministers might accidentally cooperate to lynch the king in a 3:3:1 because they have no idea who the king is). Although potentially the king could claim then, which makes the game quite stupid... huh.

I feel like 6:3:1 is probably the correct ratio, but that raises it above a micro, and I really think this is suited for the micro queue.

[GreyICE]

Well if the mafia dayvig can't anonymously submit, the best idea is to treat it like a 7:2 nightless. 7:2 nightless should usually be a town win.

Otherwise it's a 7:2 nightless with 1 mafia kill, which is a bit more balanced.

Real question is "is the town dumb enough to use the worthless vig shots they've been given?"

Also there's a stupid "race to post" effect if the mafia have a shot left in LyLo, so they should just autowin in LyLo. And saving the shot is 99% the right option. So it might degrade to a 7:2 nightless where scum automatically win if scum players + 1 = Town players.

[GreyICE]

All right.
So it should be balanced by a player size.
Thanks for the comments!

Balanced but poorly designed.

The optimal move for town is never to shoot, meaning that you have a game where the theme (everyone is a vig) is directly counter to the mechanics (town is punished for vigs actually shooting)

[GreyICE]

Okay, so we ask the bulletproof to claim. Either one person claims or two do.

If one person claims, they are the first vote on the wagon. We lynch at random, vote at random. 75% chance to kill one scum. LyLo we have the bulletproof vote first, the other player hammer whoever the bulletproof votes. Overall, 75% chance of town victory.

If two claim, we lynch one. 50% chance of hitting scum. If we hit scum, we lynch bulletproof townie day 2. 100% chance of town win. Otherwise, scum have an 89% chance of hitting at least one scum. 67% chance of town victory after that.

Scenario 1: 75% chance of town win
Scenario 2: 80% chance of town win

Setup is shit.

[GreyICE]

24 is probably too fast, considering weekend V/LAs and the like. Apart from that, I like the setup, and agree that it probably shouldn't have a scum instant win condition.

One interesting property I note here is that a scum townbloc member has no incentive to pick anyone in particular other than trying to look town, in much the same way that scum in a (two-faction) normal game have no incentive to scumhunt other than keeping up appearances. I consider this to be a feature, rather than a bug.

Yeah, maybe just 5 days total for the whole process; town could use most of it arguing about who to pick first if they want. And of course you could allow provisional picks (the first player chosen in particular can provisionally choose a second to take effect immediately, since they are the only vote that counts there). The neat thing is that there's no incentive for scum to stall the process once their chosen - the bloc has already failed.

It's true that scum, once chosen, should just try to look town, but trying to look town has some subtle differences in this situation that make it interesting. If the bloc fails, the town knows at least one of the bloc is scum, and possibly both scum are in the bloc, so there is a small incentive to pick a lynch from among those players rather than from the outsiders. Given that, you would want players chosen who would be more likely lynch targets than yourself. It's a small thing, since it's a big enough group to hide in, but it would be interesting to see how it played out if scum were chosen early.

Hmmmmm...

The Cliq

During the day, players vote on one player to be queen bee. That player then selects another. Cliq memebers must then come to consensus on Cliq members within 5 days. If no one is selected, then remaining cliq members will be drawn from the nominated candidates. The remaining players are the outcasts.
Then:

If the cliq is all town, all townies win
If the outcasts are all town, the outcasts depart, having fulfilled their win condition. The game then becomes nightless where if they lynch town day 1 that player gets a vengeful shot.

If they are divided 1:1 then the rules are as follows:
Scum may instantly kill one person in their group (Outcasts/Cliq)
If scum are ever the sole remaining member of either group then they win the game
There are no night kills
Plurality lynches. If there are two equal wagons, then the wagon with the most Cliq members is chosen. If there's an equal number of Cliq members, then we go in order of seniority.

[GreyICE]

How many Cliq members are there total? A fixed number, or does it vary?

Five, and it's all locked on day 1.