[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[Evenstar]

Does the "Bomb" in Thaumiel mean the same thing as Super Saint

Yes.

[popsofctown]

9/10*6/8*5/8 = 42%

Is what I'm getting for cult EV, so 58% town EV. These numbers assume that town leashes the hammerer so it functions similar to but not quite as a lynch, so they always get a lynch no matter what, either stringing up someone who isn't lynchproof or bombkilling someone they demanded perform the hammer.
9/10 is the day 1 lynch, 6/8 is the day 2 lynch, and the 5/8 is a modified 1/2. At that point it seems like the ability to leash the supersaint mechanic becomes more partial, because people can refuse to perform the hammer, and usually the remedy to that is to lynch them instead, and if you lynch Thaumiel instead, you lose. Any of the other days, if you lynch Thaumiel instead, you still prove the original desired target was scum and still win, but the last day is LyLo so you can't clean up later.

It occurs to me the cult winrate should be just a little lower since it's possible Thaumiel's identity is known by that point. Not very likely though. Maybe 40% EV.

Cults historically have been able to win a whole lot, so I think 40% winrate for cults is fine. It's incredibly powerful in a social deduction game to be able to draft your team the way cults get to do. I would run this as-is, then if cults really seem to be losing over and over again I'd upgrade Thaumiel from Super Saint to Vengeful.

The idea of cults loverizing every member seems really clever and like a very appropriate counterbalance to how powerful they are. It'd be cool if in large closed themes loverizing cults were used, in that context potentially with the option of holstering the recruit action.

Have you thought about doing this as 10 VT, 1 Thaumiel,

Night start

? It doesn't seem to dangerous to give the cult that additional edge if their EV is 40% right now. And it seems really cute for 1 Thaumiel to be randed and every other winning member to be a player she chose.

[popsofctown]

Procrastination

1 Scum Mod-confirmed-role Beloved Princess
1 Scum 1-shot Watcher

1 Town Mod-confirmed-role Beloved Princess
2 Multi-acting Loyal Loud Friendly Neighbor Fruit Vendor
4 Vanilla Townies

What do you think?

[theslimer3]

Curious about a setup that’s a lot like Vengeful or We Need a 5th where the game could end day 1,


But it’s a 3 mafia, 4 town setup, where there’s 1 mafia goon, and 2 traitors, and the rest are all vanilla.
It’s nightless and if the goon gets lynched, the two traitors are endgamed. Lynching town loses day 1.


The twist is that the traitors don’t know who each other are and must attempt to deduce that by seeing who favors the goon.

It’s not meant to be a long game, but there’s tons of WiFoM shenanigans to be held. Wondering if this would be balanced enough for a test spin

I was also thinking about bringing it to 8p, adding an extra VT or IC(ic might be overkill)

[popsofctown]

You could make the traitors lovers to eachother (that don't know the identity of their lover) to increase the speed of the game and avoid adding players?
This might fill slow as a forum mafia game, many people aren't in love with the idea of rolling traitor.

[Jingle]

Procrastination

1 Scum Mod-confirmed-role Beloved Princess
1 Scum 1-shot Watcher

1 Town Mod-confirmed-role Beloved Princess
2 Multi-acting Loyal Loud Friendly Neighbor Fruit Vendor
4 Vanilla Townies

What do you think?

Loud is redundant with FN. Night one, both FN's target both BP and one of them gets results, so scum is going to kill BPs early.

Lynch town D1, scum kills BP. Scum Kills not BP. Lynch Scum BP. Scum Kills 2x not BP.

Not taking into account the potential for shooting a FN, That's D3 MYLO. Watcher has a good chance of hitting one of if not both BPs. It's a 1/5 town win day one, functionally, and a MYLO with 0-2 conftown after that. Approximately a 47% town win if one of the FN's dies, otherwise a 60% town win. Doesn't seem untenable, but it's pretty punishing for town. It's an equilibrium on whether the optimal strats should be followed, and if they are it's functionally the same as a massclaim D1. Playable, but probably slightly scumsided.

[Jingle]

But it’s a 3 mafia, 4 town setup, where there’s 1 mafia goon, and 2 traitors, and the rest are all vanilla.
It’s nightless and if the goon gets lynched, the two traitors are endgamed. Lynching town loses day 1.

I don't think it meaningfully changes the math to drop a traitor and a VT (I mean, it does, but not enough to be insane) but it would reduce the PITA for the Goon if the traitors are lynched early. Interestingly, the traitors here are functionally identical to Unlynchers which might make the game more palatable on a reskin to some players. It's a scumsided by numbers (57% scumwin on D1) but not enough to invalidate the setup for what it is I think. Probably a good setup to run as a blitz or a marathon.

[popsofctown]

Procrastination

1 Scum Mod-confirmed-role Beloved Princess
1 Scum 1-shot Watcher

1 Town Mod-confirmed-role Beloved Princess
2 Multi-acting Loyal Loud Friendly Neighbor Fruit Vendor
4 Vanilla Townies

What do you think?

Loud is redundant with FN. Night one, both FN's target both BP and one of them gets results, so scum is going to kill BPs early.

Lynch town D1, scum kills BP. Scum Kills not BP. Lynch Scum BP. Scum Kills 2x not BP.

Not taking into account the potential for shooting a FN, That's D3 MYLO. Watcher has a good chance of hitting one of if not both BPs. It's a 1/5 town win day one, functionally, and a MYLO with 0-2 conftown after that. Approximately a 47% town win if one of the FN's dies, otherwise a 60% town win. Doesn't seem untenable, but it's pretty punishing for town. It's an equilibrium on whether the optimal strats should be followed, and if they are it's functionally the same as a massclaim D1. Playable, but probably slightly scumsided.

I don't know why I was dumb enough to not realize loud is redundant on FN.

The rest of this analysis is largely this big pivot on my misunderstanding of the Beloved Princess Role: I thought Beloved Princess only skips a dayphase if

lynched

, in the same genre as vengeful and super saint, but after seeing your post and checking the wiki I now see that it dies upon a death of any kind (which is, a way worse role? Is she supposed to townspew to avoid getting mislynched or scumspew to avoid getting NKed??)

Does "skip the next day if this player is

lynched

" have a name? If it doesn't I guess I'd have to make up one. I believe the setup as written is a dumpster fire (no representation is made that any of my future designs are not also dumpster fires!)

[Hectic]

The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side

3 Mafia Neighbours

11 Town Neighbours

Pregame, mafia create 2 neighbourhoods consisting of 7 people in each. The mafia cannot put all 3 of them into the same neighbourhood.
Each time a player is lynched, mafia must pick a player from the neighbourhood opposite to the one the player lynched frequented, and move them into the lynched player's neighbourhood. The mafia can never have all of them be present in the same neighbourhood at the end of the night, this includes when one is lynched and they are down to 2 members.

[chennisden]

Procrastination

1 Scum Mod-confirmed-role Beloved Princess
1 Scum 1-shot Watcher

1 Town Mod-confirmed-role Beloved Princess
2 Multi-acting Loyal Loud Friendly Neighbor Fruit Vendor
4 Vanilla Townies

What do you think?

It would suck to be a beloved princess, get ready for the D1 1v1

If you win you get to go to lylo (goes from 7-2 to 4-2, beloved princess is confirmed scum so 2-1), which is really tragic

And if you lose lol good luck winning a 6-1 scumgame.

[theslimer3]

But it’s a 3 mafia, 4 town setup, where there’s 1 mafia goon, and 2 traitors, and the rest are all vanilla.
It’s nightless and if the goon gets lynched, the two traitors are endgamed. Lynching town loses day 1.

I don't think it meaningfully changes the math to drop a traitor and a VT (I mean, it does, but not enough to be insane) but it would reduce the PITA for the Goon if the traitors are lynched early. Interestingly, the traitors here are functionally identical to Unlynchers which might make the game more palatable on a reskin to some players. It's a scumsided by numbers (57% scumwin on D1) but not enough to invalidate the setup for what it is I think. Probably a good setup to run as a blitz or a marathon.

I did kinda think of it as a Marathon type game, but I don't think we do those anymore (I remember they were usually a holiday thing, but I didn't see it this year)

Also I kiiind alike the unlyncher idea, but wouldn't that break apart the dynamic of 3 people striving for 1 goal, without any contact?

Heck it, I'mma give it a shot

[popsofctown]

We still do Marathons, last Marathon weekend was like last labor day.

[popsofctown]

I know Evenstar apparently siteflaked/siteleft after posting that setup, but it looks really dope and more interesting than the other cult setups people run, someone should run that the next time they run a cult game (if I foisted my preferences on everyone there wouldn't be any cult games at all but to the extent that there are going to be some whether I hate them or not it's a good design).

One recent cult game I watched had a watered down recruit action, one had a cap on the size of the cult. The Thaumiel setup has neither restriction and since converting player's alignments to cult and being a large faction generally are the two most unique things about cult I think it maximizes the cultiness of cult.

[Hectic]

The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side

3 Mafia Neighbours

11 Town Neighbours

Pregame, mafia create 2 neighbourhoods consisting of 7 people in each. The mafia cannot put all 3 of them into the same neighbourhood.
Each time a player is lynched, mafia must pick a player from the neighbourhood opposite to the one the player lynched frequented, and move them into the lynched player's neighbourhood. The mafia can never have all of them be present in the same neighbourhood at the end of the night, this includes when one is lynched and they are down to 2 members.

Thought on this? Unsure how broken it is. Town get a lot of info over time based on what players are in what neighbourhoods in each phase.

[popsofctown]

I guess it's probably balanced but it looks like a dethy-headache to play so that's why I didn't feel in a rush to comment.

[gobbledygook]

That looks like fun, Hectic.

[Jingle]

Without running numbers it’s probably balanced. The only real issues I see is that it could get to functional autoloss but still have days left to get there and it’s stuck in perpetual evens. It might be more fun run as a 13p with White flag mechanics.

[Hectic]

I realised I'm only allowed to mod Micros, so I made this instead:

TRUST NO ONE

3 Lone Wolves

2 Town Puppetmasters

4 Vanilla Townies

• Wolves
  do not possess any form of private communication, but are informed of each other.
  
• The
  Puppermasters
  share a
  Neighbourhood
  with one another, which may be used at all times.
  
• Each
  Lone Wolf
  and
  Puppermaster
  individually submit a target each night.
  
• If any player is targeted an
  even
  (excluding 0) number of times, that player will die. Otherwise, targets are unaffected.
  
• If the number of
  Wolves
  equal the number of
  Town
  , and this is the first time this has occurred, there will be an additional night.
  • Remaining
    Puppetmasters
    will collectively submit
    3
    targets during this night, rather than 1 each.
    Wolves
    will submit targets as normal.
    
  • Following this night, if the number of
    Wolves
    still equals or now outnumbers the number of
    Town
    , the
    Wolves
    win. Otherwise, the game continues.
    
  • Past this, the
    Wolves
    win as normal by equalling or outnumbering the
    Town
    .

[Hectic]

Alternate variant:

STRINGS ATTACHED

2 Mafia Manipulators

2 Town Puppetmasters

5 Vanilla Townies

• Mafia
  share a private topic, which may be used at all times.
  
• The
  Puppermasters
  share a
  Neighbourhood
  with one another, which may be used at all times.
  
• Each
  Mafia Manipulator
  and
  Puppermaster
  individually submit a target each night.
  
• If any player is targeted an
  even
  (excluding 0) number of times, that player will die. Otherwise, targets are unaffected.
  
• Mafia
  win when they equal or outnumber the
  Town
  .

[popsofctown]

No strings attached is super imbalanced, in a way that makes it possible to challenge if it qualifies as mafia. Manipulators differ from puppetmasters only in whether it's ok for some vanilla townies to be alive when they claim victory (Puppetmasters: that's ok. Manipulators: that's not ok.) and how they interact with the game's parity ruling (Mafia win at a parity of puppetmasters and manipulators, puppetmasters do not.) The parity rule is meant to feel unified with the rest of the game rather differentiate two factions only once the game reaches a distant endpoint.

The most popular classic definition of mafia/a mafia variant is "a social deduction game where the uninformed minority roots out an informed minority" and since the town puppetmasters have a symmetric amount of partnership info it's not quite mafia. In 2 Mafia, 2 Masons, 5 VT, the idea that the mafia will probably usually fracture the masonry with the factional NK is what makes the setup remain mafia, since this expectation is symmetric here and the vig shot can also work as a doc shot that can no longer be relied upon. (Some designers can/should?/could/would argue that the possibility the nightkills are super unlucky for the scum in such a setup is a problem even so. Not the social deduction game of 2 Mafia, 2 Mason, 1 VT is rather unmafia, both groups claim to be the Mason pairing and express willingness to vote the other mason pairing, and the game hinges 50/50 on the choice the VT makes between voting those two groups, but traditional scumhunting doesn't work, both players are refusing to vote a partner and not "trying to sort" the other group. Social deduction from the mafia leaking schaudenfreude that their victory would not be shared with the VT is the only social dynamic to deduce, which is a valid social deduction dynamic but not the one featured in the core concept of mafia.)

[popsofctown]

Trust No One is very much a mafia game. The town is informed, but the mafia are Even More Informed. Like Animal Farm where all the animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others, you know? The concern going into it is that is 6:3 Town:Scum and WHEW. You can make it work but man at a base level that tends to be strong for the scums WHEW.
Balance is like at least a little overrated though, that isn't actually even my number one concern with it! My number one concern with it is that it incentivizes bussing. General open setup theorycraft consensus is that mafia is fun when bussing is incentivized about as much as mountainous and if you make changes that shift that balance you prefer to go the direction of making bussing more costly rather than less. Since your 3-3 rule (that is clearly meant to address the overall out-the-starting-gate concern that 6:3 is WHEW) can't trigger if scum make a bus the setup definitely incentivizes bussing more than mountainous. No bueno, it is more interesting when scum get to ride the waves of their own bus/bloc meta etc.

I would use an equally brutal detriment to the one you have and let it trigger whether scum bussed or not. 3:6 is STRONG. Viggy doc masonry is very strong. But 3:6 is STARONG. You should be ok with something less conditional, like, "scum picks a player pregame, that player dies immediately following the third death of the game" or have that player picked on the fly, or have the same special wow the Puppetmasters dinged level 6 and are ulting thing special night immediately after the third death. There's other things you can do, but I think it is preferred if they impact all game branches instead of calling one possibility branch out specifically. That was in some ways the criticism that was leveled at Fusion Mafia that we just finished: that it's balanced for computers perhaps but maybe suffers in how some branches of game outcomes totally ignore the power-rebalance-mechanic. (I think this one is scumsided for computers so you have some room to work)

[Jingle]

Use a different green that one is physically painful.

[Hectic]

No strings attached is super imbalanced, in a way that makes it possible to challenge if it qualifies as mafia. Manipulators differ from puppetmasters only in whether it's ok for some vanilla townies to be alive when they claim victory (Puppetmasters: that's ok. Manipulators: that's not ok.) and how they interact with the game's parity ruling (Mafia win at a parity of puppetmasters and manipulators, puppetmasters do not.) The parity rule is meant to feel unified with the rest of the game rather differentiate two factions only once the game reaches a distant endpoint.

The most popular classic definition of mafia/a mafia variant is "a social deduction game where the uninformed minority roots out an informed minority" and since the town puppetmasters have a symmetric amount of partnership info it's not quite mafia. In 2 Mafia, 2 Masons, 5 VT, the idea that the mafia will probably usually fracture the masonry with the factional NK is what makes the setup remain mafia, since this expectation is symmetric here and the vig shot can also work as a doc shot that can no longer be relied upon. (Some designers can/should?/could/would argue that the possibility the nightkills are super unlucky for the scum in such a setup is a problem even so. Not the social deduction game of 2 Mafia, 2 Mason, 1 VT is rather unmafia, both groups claim to be the Mason pairing and express willingness to vote the other mason pairing, and the game hinges 50/50 on the choice the VT makes between voting those two groups, but traditional scumhunting doesn't work, both players are refusing to vote a partner and not "trying to sort" the other group. Social deduction from the mafia leaking schaudenfreude that their victory would not be shared with the VT is the only social dynamic to deduce, which is a valid social deduction dynamic but not the one featured in the core concept of mafia.)

Right, so the main issue being how the Puppetmasters and Manipulators are equal powerlevel/informed-wise. And yeah I didn't think of it that way, but I suppose you could just see the Puppetmasters as a second mafia which is okay with some vanilla town being alive at the end. Thanks, that was enlightening. Almost too bright actually, I'm gonna invest in some sunglasses.

Trust No One is very much a mafia game. The town is informed, but the mafia are Even More Informed. Like Animal Farm where all the animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others, you know? The concern going into it is that is 6:3 Town:Scum and WHEW. You can make it work but man at a base level that tends to be strong for the scums WHEW.
Balance is like at least a little overrated though, that isn't actually even my number one concern with it! My number one concern with it is that it incentivizes bussing. General open setup theorycraft consensus is that mafia is fun when bussing is incentivized about as much as mountainous and if you make changes that shift that balance you prefer to go the direction of making bussing more costly rather than less. Since your 3-3 rule (that is clearly meant to address the overall out-the-starting-gate concern that 6:3 is WHEW) can't trigger if scum make a bus the setup definitely incentivizes bussing more than mountainous. No bueno, it is more interesting when scum get to ride the waves of their own bus/bloc meta etc.

I would use an equally brutal detriment to the one you have and let it trigger whether scum bussed or not. 3:6 is STRONG. Viggy doc masonry is very strong. But 3:6 is STARONG. You should be ok with something less conditional, like, "scum picks a player pregame, that player dies immediately following the third death of the game" or have that player picked on the fly, or have the same special wow the Puppetmasters dinged level 6 and are ulting thing special night immediately after the third death. There's other things you can do, but I think it is preferred if they impact all game branches instead of calling one possibility branch out specifically. That was in some ways the criticism that was leveled at Fusion Mafia that we just finished: that it's balanced for computers perhaps but maybe suffers in how some branches of game outcomes totally ignore the power-rebalance-mechanic. (I think this one is scumsided for computers so you have some room to work)

How is the condition I've changed it too now? Where the Puppetmasters pop off and ult the first time the Wolves gain parity with the Town, regardless of how many bus passes they've bought. It addresses your concern where town are guaranteed to get this benefit, regardless of how the wolves play it.
Thing is though, I'm starting to think the game isn't very fun for VTs. Puppetmasters and Wolves have a lot to think about, and lot of WIFOM to breach, while VTs just spectate and play a mostly regular game of mafia, other than the WHEWiness of 6:3.

[popsofctown]

I think the ult needs to happen no matter what or almost no matter what, so either Puppetmasters need to be able to self target to protect themselves if they drop to solo, or the rules need to say some random towny gets nominated puppetmaster if parity is reached and both puppeteers are dead.
Having the ult trigger at parity rather than 3 kills is fine. I think it disincentivizes bussing a bit but that's the correct direction to push like I said earlier. Just as a personal preference I generally try to keep the bus incentive close to mountainous.
As an element of clarity it should be clear that the 3 targets the Puppetmasters can select can contain duplicate targets, that seems like it's definitely the point. Is it exactly three targets or up to three?
The outcome for "everybody dies" needs to be defined (I guess technically it's zero to zero parity). When parity is reached for the first time at 1 wolf 1 puppeteer the puppeteer is guessing how many times to hit themselves and how many times to hit the wolf and it can shake out that both the wolf and puppeteer die. I would want to rule that a town win. It's still possible for the wolf to win even if you rule that a town win, it would be a 50/50 on protecting themselves correctly with their action.
Unless it's not supposed to selftarget. Many many details.

[TrueSoulEnergy]

Serial Killer FM

SKD3

A Serial Killer doesn’t have Night Immunity and they do not share a chat with their partner nor know who they are.

Guardian Angel

Town Doctor

+

Vanilla Townie

Town Neighborizor

+

Vanilla Townie

Town Roleblocker

+

Vanilla Townie

Witch

Town 1 Shot Vigilante

+

Town Neighborizor

Town Cop

+

Town Doctor

Town Masons

Serial Killer

Town Redirector

+

Town 1 Shot Vigilante

Town Botanist

+

Town Roleblocker

Town Masons

Rolecards

Spoiler:

Serial Killer

Each night you may choose a target to attack.
You win when you have majority over town.

Witch

Each night choose a target and redirect their action to a different target that’s not them.
If you Witch a Vigilante, they don’t lose any shots.
You cannot win with Town, In order to win Town must not have majority.

Guardian Angel

You know who the Serial Killer is but they don’t know who you are
During the night you can choose to Purge the Serial Killer.
You can only Purge Twice per game.
You can use this ability even if you are dead.
When you Purge the SK they are Night Immune and if they would be lynched the following day it will instead result in a No Lynch.
You only win if the SK won.

Town
———-

Roleblocker

Each night you may choose someone to Roleblock.
If you Roleblock the Serial Killer, they will be redirected to kill you instead.

Redirector

Each night choose a target and redirect their action to a different target that’s not them.
If you Redirect a Vigilante, they don’t lose any shots.

Doctor

Each night you may choose a target and if they were attacked you will heal them.

Botanist

Each night plant a seed at someone’s house.
If someone who has a seed is attacked they will be healed.
If you heal someone your seeds will fade away.

1 Shot Vigilante

Once per game, During the night you may choose 1 player and attack them.

Cop

Each night target someone and see if they are a Member of the Town or not.

Mason

You are a Mason and You share a Mason PT with (Player).

Neighborizor

Once per game during the night you can choose 2 players (You May Choose Yourself) and put them into a Neighbourhood PT.