[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[Mathdino]

see this post for not making setups designed around one role

town has like no power; neighbourhoods don't actually change town power much at all

it's pretty extremely scumsided imo

[Not Known 15]

Sheriff

17 players

1 Sheriff
12 Vanilla Townies
Total number of Town:13

(including the Sheriff)

4 Mafia Goons
Total number of Mafia:4

Phase 1:Day
Phase 2:Night
Sheriff:The Sheriff is confirmed town, and cannot be targeted by attacks if they are active at night.

During the Night a Sheriff can select 3 people for a Neighborhood(I) ONCE. They will be part of that Neighborhood. If they have no bullets they can do this during the day.
During the Night a Sheriff can select 2 people for a Neighborhood(II) ONCE. They will be part of that Neighborhood. If they have no bullets they can do this during the day.
The Sheriff can do these in addition with their other abilities; but not both the same phase.
The Sheriff will sleep when town lynches

and may not talk at day without permission

, and will can protect one person per night.
If the target is selected to be the night kill the Sheriff will kill the attacking member of the Mafia instead. If the target

performs

the night kill the Sheriff and the (mafia-aligned) target die instead.

If the Sheriff dies and there are any bullets left the Town will, instead of lynching, appoint a second sheriff. If the second Sheriff is mafia Town loses.

If at the beginning of the Night there is an equal amount of other townies and Mafia left the Sheriff may shoot someone if they have any bullets left.

The Sheriff has 2 bullets. Bullets are spent on every kill. If they run out of bullets they appear at day for the rest of the game(and can be targeted).
At any night the Sheriff may decide to appear at day for the rest of the game, along with their night actions. They will lose one bullet when doing so; and cannot act at night anymore(and can be killed)

When, at the start of the lynch phase, there is an equal amount of normal mafia and town the Sheriff appears automatically.
The Sheriff will be subject to activity checks.
Mafia:

The Mafia have a sniper rifle they can use once to kill someone and ignore any sheriff guarding the target. However, if the sheriff guards the killer that night or decides to kill them only the killer will die.

The Mafia have a factional kill but members of the Mafia cannot kill consecutively.
The neighborhoods are active at Night only, and the sheriff can see AND post in that neighborhood.
The mafia night chat is active at night only.

I have altered the composition slightly. The problem with one role dying and everything being bleak isn't there, really, if the Sheriff successfully protects 2 Town then Mafia is not in a good spot.
Even if the Sheriff dies and then town appoints a Sheriff who protects town Mafia is still in a bad situation.
I have restricted the vig to prevent idiots from ruining the chances for town.
If the Sheriff protects Mafia and Town appoints another Mafia town was doomed anyways.
If both Sheriffs protect mafia then Town deserves what they got(and still gets a win chance).
And the Sheriff can talk with the neighborhoods.
Is this version better?

[callforjudgement]

This is still massively scumsided. It's clearly much more scumsided than 13:4 Double Day with an innocent child is. Double Day is normally run at 13:

3

, i.e. starting town a full scum lynch ahead. So this is much more scumsided than a setup that's much more scumsided than one of our approved Opens.

You're basically suffering from a near-total lack of town power. The Sheriff role simply is not powerful enough.

[Not Known 15]

The Sheriff role simply is not powerful enough.

I think it is! The Innocent Child here, the Sheriff, cannot be killed normally for some time. The final protection generates an additional IC.
A lone mafia can only kill every other night.

[callforjudgement]

Add an Innocent Child who cannot be killed normally until mylo to a regular setup with no killing/protective roles and an odd player count, and unless it's a strong player, you'll actually have very little balance impact whatsoever. It's nice in terms of helping the dayplay but it doesn't change any of the nightplay dynamics.

This isn't exactly the same, but the general principles are similar.

[Not Known 15]

Add an Innocent Child who cannot be killed normally until mylo to a regular setup with no killing/protective roles and an odd player count, and unless it's a strong player, you'll actually have very little balance impact whatsoever. It's nice in terms of helping the dayplay but it doesn't change any of the nightplay dynamics.

This isn't exactly the same, but the general principles are similar.

Did you read this?

and will can protect one person per night.
If the target is selected to be the night kill the Sheriff will kill the attacking member of the Mafia instead. If the target performs the night kill the Sheriff and the (mafia-aligned) target die instead.

Maybe you missed the

instead

?

[Mathdino]

Ultimately, you're going to find that the Sheriff is just not a fun role to play. Games that swing around the decision of the one are rarely fun for those without power as well.

[callforjudgement]

The Elite Bodyguard effect you have genuinely is powerful, but it's not enough to balance a setup by itself. (Also, the chances that it hits on any given night are fairly small, especially when scum know it exists.)

[Not Known 15]

ok, fine:(

[mith]

Add an Innocent Child who cannot be killed normally until mylo to a regular setup with no killing/protective roles and an odd player count, and unless it's a strong player, you'll actually have very little balance impact whatsoever. It's nice in terms of helping the dayplay but it doesn't change any of the nightplay dynamics.

This isn't exactly the same, but the general principles are similar.

4:12:1 Double Day + Bulletproof IC has an EV of 41.76%, way better than 4:13 Double Day (26.40%). So, how early they can be killed is kinda important. A 1-shot BP IC won't add much, and the biggest benefit is on whether they are alive at mylo, but it's not inconceivable that a partially BP IC with some other abilities could get the EV up to a reasonable number.

(This is not an endorsement of this particular setup, which has other problems. Just some drive by maths. )

[callforjudgement]

Double Day is cheating because it throws the even/odd maths off :-) I get the point that this setup is more similar to Double Day than a normal Day Start, but the unpredictable nature of the kills is going to throw even/odd (or in the case of Double Day, modulo-3) maths off in its own right.

For a more Normal comparison, 2:7:1 Day Start (where the 1 is an Innocent Child) has an EV of 29.8%, whereas 2:7 Day Start has an EV of… 29.8%. I think this correspondence holds for all Day Start Vanilla setups, where by "Day Start" I mean a normal day/night setup with no Double Day or the like. (Note that by "add" I mean literally adding the IC to the setup, not converting a VT into an IC.)

This setup's going to end up somewhere between the Day Start version and the Double Day version, and it's hard to predict exactly how the parity will work out due to all the partially-effective kills. The effective BP IC is going to help some amount between "not at all" and "fairly useful", but it's going to be hard to tell exactly how much.

[mith]

(I actually just picked Double Day because of your first post, and because I had just gotten it working in my script. )

I think your comparison is a poor one - yes, if you add an IC, it won't provide any benefit if you are also going from odd to even. No one designs games like that, though (and in fact the setup in question has an odd number of players).

If you added a fully BP IC, on the other hand, town would just no lynch down to 2:6:1, and now have a clear advantage (EV goes up to 45.31%). Granted, much of that advantage is at lylo (if the IC is BP only until it gets to 1:2:1, EV drops to 35.42%, and if the IC loses BP as soon as a Mafia is lynched it's 33.57%.)

I suspect the correct way to play the Sheriff would be to protect every night, and in fact protect the same player every night for a while, choosing the towniest looking player N1. If they're wrong and pick scum, they take the scum out (which is obviously a big EV boost) but risk town picking scum as Sheriff and autolosing (less good). If they pick town, though, that player is protected until targeted, and then WIFOM the next night as far as using the sniper or not. I'd guess there's a pretty good chance of a Sheriff being around at endgame, really, and the Sheriff would be even more powerful at a small count than the BP IC - for example, at 1:2:1 town EV is 1 unless the scum still have sniper since at 1:1:1 Night Sheriff can protect someone and either take out the scum or keep the town alive and shoot the scum next night.

Which isn't to say that the Sheriff can get the EV all the way up to 50%, but they might get close.

[Lycanfire]

Frayed Flag

10:3 mountainous

Mafia lose if their faction reaches 1.

First lynch of the game is flipless.

There's no breaking strategy

I intend to run it

Get good or go home

Come at me bros

[Mathdino]

white flag is already super scumsided on this site
town wins less than EV and less than 30% of the time IIRC
flipless D1 likely just makes D1 a policy lynch

but yeah that's gonna be scumsided

[Lycanfire]

Sounds like there's no breaking strategy and can be run in the Open Queue

[callforjudgement]

It's not broken, just unbalanced.

[mith]

Just because a game

can

be run in the Open Queue doesn't mean it

should

be run in the Open Queue (or any queue). Making the first lynch flipless doesn't add anything positive to the game.

(Disagree that it's unbalanced. EV is the same whether the first lynch is flipped or not, and 3:10 White Flag is ~48%. According to the wiki, Town has won 2 out of 8, 25%, but that is not a statistically significant sample size. Also, play better town.)

[Lycanfire]

Admittedly it was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion made simply because people have been knocking towns for the past few months and nobody wants to do anything about it.

Making the first lynch flipless does do something. There's all sorts of theory that could be analyzed from this scenario. For instance, it almost entirely removes a white flag gambit from D2, unless the town is

really

good and certain they roped scum. With a townflip D2, town get to decide whether there's a white flag gambit going on or whether they are at LYLO.

Ordinarily, flipless is hard to work against. The White Flag mechanic changes that. A scumflip on days 2-3 solves the flip from D1. Blank-town-town going into D4 does the same. Town get thrown some critical information lategame.

This one addition completely changes the dynamic of White Flag. Is it harder for town? Yes. Do scum get more agency in their play? Oh, baby, yes. Would I pull it from queue if it wasn't close to being hammered in a week's time? I'm not a total asshole.

[mith]

Your numbers are off. Blank-Town-Town could be 3:4 or 2:5; it would take three Town flips to determine the D1 lynch. Regardless, once it's potentially LyLo, town should probably just act as though they lynched Town D1 and evaluate from there (if they lynched scum D1 and it screws up their analysis, they get another chance D5).

I also disagree that it eliminates the gambit. Scum can absolutely gambit D2-D4 after a D1 scum lynch, it's just that town won't know whether something is a potential gambit or not until D5. It doesn't particularly matter, anyway - all the gambit is is an extreme form of bussing, town has to account for that as a possibility anyway. (Also, as the originator of the gambit - people get way too hung up on the gambit. It's strong if done right, but it works in those situations because towns fall so hard for it. Just knowing that the gambit is a possibility should make towns wary of it occurring, and provoke better analysis of the potential gambit players during the rest of the game, rather than just falling totally for a pairing argument. Play better, town.)

All making D1 flipless does is give the town less information D2 (and D3/D4 unless they have flipped a scum). IMO, that is not a positive addition. YMMV.

[Not Known 15]

Sheriff

17 players

1 Sheriff
12 Vanilla Townies
Total number of Town:13

(including the Sheriff)

4 Mafia Goons
Total number of Mafia:4

Phase 1:Day
Phase 2:Night
Sheriff:The Sheriff is confirmed town, and cannot be targeted by attacks if they are active at night.

During the Night a Sheriff can select 3 people for a Neighborhood(I) ONCE. They will be part of that Neighborhood. If they have no bullets they can do this during the day.
During the Night a Sheriff can select 2 people for a Neighborhood(II) ONCE. They will be part of that Neighborhood. If they have no bullets they can do this during the day.
The Sheriff can do these in addition with their other abilities; but not both the same phase.
The Sheriff will sleep when town lynches

and may not talk at day without permission

, and will can protect one person per night.
If the target is selected to be the night kill the Sheriff will kill the attacking member of the Mafia instead. If the target

performs

the night kill the Sheriff and the (mafia-aligned) target die instead.

If the Sheriff dies and there are any bullets left the Town will, instead of lynching, appoint a second sheriff. If the second Sheriff is mafia Town loses.

If at the beginning of the Night there is an equal amount of other townies and Mafia left the Sheriff may shoot someone if they have any bullets left.

The Sheriff has 2 bullets. Bullets are spent on every kill. If they run out of bullets they appear at day for the rest of the game(and can be targeted).
At any night the Sheriff may decide to appear at day for the rest of the game, along with their night actions. They will lose one bullet when doing so; and cannot act at night anymore(and can be killed)

When, at the start of the lynch phase, there is an equal amount of normal mafia and town the Sheriff appears automatically.
The Sheriff will be subject to activity checks.
Mafia:

The Mafia have a factional kill but members of the Mafia cannot kill consecutively.
The neighborhoods are active at Night only, and the sheriff can see AND post in that neighborhood.
The mafia night chat is active at night only.

I think this could be actually still scum-sided but I'd be willing to try it out some time. Obviously, the players are aware that they could be the Sheriff, this is not a problem.

[Slaxx]

One Red Goon
One Blue Goon
One Yellow Goon

x VTs

Randomly 2 of
(Red Cop, Blue Cop, Yellow Cop), with mafia being informed of which cop doesn’t exist.

Red Cop gets “Red” (Red Goon) or “Not Red” (Blue/Yellow Goon, VTs) and so on.

I think this would have to be double day to make it anywhere near balanced at 13 players.

13->1ML->12->1ML->11->1NK->10->1ML->9->1ML->8->1NK->7

Gives the town 4 MLs before lylo in worst case scenario.

Also this doesn’t seem super original and maybe has been done before?

[northsidegal]

Sounds a little bit like Elemental Large, although I missed the point about there being randomly 2 of the colored cops.

Actually on further thought it's really not all that like elemental large.

What's the purpose of mafia knowing which one doesn't exist?

[Slaxx]

Sounds a little bit like Elemental Large, although I missed the point about there being randomly 2 of the colored cops.

What's the purpose of mafia knowing which one doesn't exist?

Possible fakeclaim opportunity and also knowing who “The Godfather” is

[northsidegal]

seems a little scumsided to me on first look. the cops seem low-utility considering that even if you correctly target scum there's only a 1/3 chance that you actually get an incriminating result and "innocent" results are only retroactively useful after lynching a specific colored goon. along with the existence of essentially a godfather and scum being able to fakeclaim cop, it seems to me like it'd basically just be 13 player double day with 3 named townies.

edit: the retroactive innocents may be more useful than i'm giving them credit for.

[Slaxx]

Hmmm.

Could be same setup but with each Goon only being immune to one cop, and no goons immune to all three.

Purple Goon (Red/Blue Guilty)/Orange Goon(Red/Yellow Guilty)/Green Goon (Yellow/Blue Guilty)