[OLD] Open Setup Discussion and Nominations

[Fiasco]

I'm not sure exactly what counts as "playing blind". I could see not reading your role PM as cheating, but I don't think there's anything wrong with reading it and then ignoring it if you're scum. Scum have strategies available that are close to "playing blind", and if that automatically gives them much better than even odds, the game is unbalanced. Of course, psychologically speaking it may not be possible to behave exactly the same, but any differences are going to be in subconscious tells rather than in who is trying to do what. That more or less means you can't catch scum with vote analysis.

The scum may have even better strategies available (selectively derailing bandwagons when they think it's safe), but that only improves their odds of winning.

[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.

[help im a bug]

Big Dipper Mafia: 21 players

Mafia A: (3)
2 Mafia Goons
1 Mafia Role Redirector (Gives two names to the moderator. If the first uses a night action, he unwittingly targets the second)

Mafia B: (3)
2 Mafia Goons
1 Mafia Framer (Makes his target guilty to cop investigations)

Town: (14)
1 Sane Cop
1 Insane Cop
1 Doctor
1 Deflector (Gives a target each night. Anything that would target him, targets his target instead. The SK's kill is an exception.)
1 Vigilante
2 Masons
7 Townies

Other: (1)
1 SK (Nightkill-immune)

How does this sound?

[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.

[Thok]

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).

This isn't quite true-a mafia redirector might beat him head to head. It depends on which has priority, the redirecting or the deflecting-the redirector could redirect the deflection back to the deflector. (Say that ten times fast).

[mith]

Nominations?

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

[help im a bug]

What if I turned the Mafia Framer into another Redirector? Maybe a roleblocker? (I just really like redirectors). Or is the deflector broken? I don't think so; he can't claim until the SK is dead, and the SK won't die until he gets lynched.

[Yosarian2]

"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.

If there was a situation where there was a 50/50 chance of a town win from random lynches in a pure townie/scum situation, then if you assume good play on the part of both teams, I would expect the scum to actually win more then 50% of the time, because they have the added advantage of knowing who is on their team. The scum have the option of either intentionally selling out each other to appear more townlike, or they could try to play in such a way as to make it less likely then random that their scum partners would get lynched while being subtle about it. Either one has it's risks and benifits, but I would think that

either

stratagy would actually tend to yield better then random results for the scum.

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.

[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.

[Yosarian2]

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.

Well, that is true. Newbie scum tend to self destruct more often then newbie townies.

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.

Well, except that if all the pro-town people vote randomally, then all the scum have to do is have a slight preference towards voting good guys over scum and they will clearly have the advantage. So townies have to pay attention to vote counts and scum tells and whatever else they can in order to have any hope of nullifying the inherent scum advantage of knowing who is on their team.

[Yosarian2]

Here's a thought for a simple open setup game.

Near-vanillia:

8 townies
1 doctor
1 jailkeeper (combined doc-roleblocker) (note:any attempt to doc-protect the jail keeper will always fail)
3 scum

The idea is a game that's not quite mountanous, but has no investigative roles; the possibility doc protection might stop the scum from just picking off all the experenced players, but without any investigative roles the town is going to have to find scum the old fashoned way, without relying on investigations or role-claims at all (as if either town power role does claim in the early game, they're dead; if they claim in the late game, the scum could counter claim easily).

Also, the fact that there are three seperate ways the town could prevent a scum kill means that the jailkeeper role can't really be used as an investigative role the way a roleblocker can. Even if the doc is dead, if you target person X and then there is no kill, that might mean that person X tried to make the kill, or that the scum tried to kill person X, or that the scum just decided not to kill just to mess with you.

[Fiasco]

"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.

I'm not claiming the strategy (of behaving exactly as if you were town, including votes) is new, fun, or optimal; just that, if something close to it is available, the scum have a chance of winning that is at least close to the probability of a win given random lynches.

Well, except that if all the pro-town people vote randomally, then all the scum have to do is have a slight preference towards voting good guys over scum and they will clearly have the advantage.

I think the idea is to use dice tags and make everyone vote for the same random target.

[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.

[Yosarian2]

Ah, I see. I guess that would be a fairly scum-proof way of lynching randomally. Heh...if that was actually an effective stratagy, then perhaps the mod'd have to outlaw use of the dice feature, in that hypothetical game. I don't know if the game really need a way to prove randomness like that anyway.

Anyway, in any real game, the scum can be expected to make at leats a small number of mistakes. I probably was overstating my case a bit. Still, in a 50/50 game, with good players on both sides, I would expect the scum to win at least close to half of the time.

[Fiasco]

Heh...if that was actually an effective stratagy, then perhaps the mod'd have to outlaw use of the dice feature, in that hypothetical game. I don't know if the game really need a way to prove randomness like that anyway.

(shrug) If random lynching is more effective than non-random lynching, the town can always find a way, whether it's by coordinating on the weather or stock market or even by saying "given that X is going to be lynched, we probably shouldn't lynch X" until there's some sort of equilibrium. In a balanced game, random lynching should never give the town a better than 50% chance, though I agree with you that it shouldn't be much worse than 50% either, assuming that (as in vanilla) the scum won't have any difficulty making claims.

[Yosarian2]

Heh...if that was actually an effective stratagy, then perhaps the mod'd have to outlaw use of the dice feature, in that hypothetical game. I don't know if the game really need a way to prove randomness like that anyway.

(shrug) If random lynching is more effective than non-random lynching, the town can always find a way, whether it's by coordinating on the weather or stock market or even by saying "given that X is going to be lynched, we probably shouldn't lynch X" until there's some sort of equilibrium. In a balanced game, random lynching should never give the town a better than 50% chance, though I agree with you that it shouldn't be much worse than 50% either, assuming that (as in vanilla) the scum won't have any difficulty making claims.

Heh...but who would be the one suggesting the method? If it's a scum, he might be able to suggest something that sounds random, but isn't quite....would be an interesting discussion, at least.

In fact, there are times when that might actually be a good stratagy; for example, if there are 9 townies, 1 doc, and 1 SK (no mafia), the odds of the SK winning through pure chance are low, but the one time that setup game was run on mafiascum the SK won, because it was a very highly skilled player running the SK (IS).

Or, for that matter, it might have been better if we had just started lynching completly randomally when there were about 9 of us left and only 1 scum in the recently completed Himalayan Mafia; if we'd done that, the town, more likely then not, would have won, hehe.

[ibaesha]

Nomination for the following Set-ups:

Basic Twelve Player,

12 Players

3 Mafia
1 Cop
1 Doctor
7 Citizens
Night Start

#2 -
Mafia x2
Mafia x2
Doc
Cop
Townie x4
Pick 2: Roleblocker/Tracker/Vigilante/Double Voter

Pie C9 (7 players)

1 mafia roleblocker
1 mafia goon
1 cop
1 doctor
3 citizens
day start

Near-vanillia:

8 townies
1 doctor
1 jailkeeper (combined doc-roleblocker) (note:any attempt to doc-protect the jail keeper will always fail)
3 scum

[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...

[Fiasco]

I thought each setup just had to be nominated once, and there would be voting later. (edit: turns out I'm wrong.)

I'd add some townies to Yosarian's setup; the equivalent vanilla setup being used has 14 townies and 3 scum. I'd also make it something like 3:3:8 nightless rather than 3:3:6.

[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.

[Fiasco]

So are the doctor and jailkeeper really worth 6 or even 7 townies? I'd expect a failed kill to happen maybe 1 or 2 times. As soon as the doctor and jailkeeper give their information, they'll be killed. (edit: the jailkeeper, at least)

[Trojan Horse]

So, Kelly would drop a townie from Yosarian's setup, and Fiasco would add a couple more. Sounds like it's fine as it is.

Seriously though, if we figure one or two prevented night kills, and add in the extra info provided by such blocked kills, plus the fact that the doc and jailkeeper are hard to counterclaim... Yosarian's setup should give the town at least as much chance as in a 3:12 vanilla game (and maybe a bit more). I'd either leave it as is, or drop one townie. It's a tough call.

[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.

[Fiasco]

Do people here just not like townies?

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

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. On the whole, I'd still add two townies to the setup.

72.2% sounds unbalanced to me (3:20 is a bit better at 65%), but let's not go there again.

[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.