[JANUARY CHALLENGE]

[the worst]

NSG, your setup reminds me a little of that 2 day mafia marathon game. More swingy but still super interesting. I really wanna play that.

[Allomancer]

Guilt Neighborhood

2 Mafia Goons

9 City Planners

(Venge-Neighborizer)

When a City Planner is lynched, the entirety of their wagon is added to a new neighborhood.

[BuJaber]

Toxic Neighborhood

1 Mafia Heavy Smoker (Ninja + bomb)
2 Mafia Goons

1 Town Neighborizer
6 VTs

1 3p Psychopath (compulsive SK with a twist)

Mafia do not have nightkills.
If the heavy smoker is lynched they kill everyone on their wagon due to second hand smoke. They also do not have access to the mafia chat because they take too many smoke breaks.

Neighborizer can add one person per night to their neighborhood.

Psychopath is a compulsive SK whose kills fail if they target people inside their neighborhood if they are in one (to maintain innocent persona among his neighbors).

This sounded better in my head.

[Allomancer]

The Heavy Smoker seems like more of a Traitor than a Ninja.

[BNL]

Track or Watch

3 Mafia 1-shot Tracker/Watcher
8 Town 1-shot Tracker/Watcher

The Tracker/Watcher, if used, will return a list of all players who targeted that player or got targeted by that player. Track/watch results are not distinguished, and a player will not show up more than once on the list even if they would appear on the list more than once.

Mafia can kill and action.

Wincon is standard

[BuJaber]

The Heavy Smoker seems like more of a Traitor than a Ninja.

Yes it has elements of traitor but I removed that to avoid confusion as apart from not having access to the chat it has no other commonalities with traitor.

Ninja is just because I'm imagining a caricature-level of smoke around them that they cannot be seen thus cannot be targetted.

I was just having fun with it and then tried to balance it and I think I failed miserably.

[Allomancer]

Ninja is meaningless in that setup because there aren't any trackers or watchers tho...

[BuJaber]

Oops I mixed up ninja with ascetic.

But even ascetic doesn't protect from kills. Hmm.

I guess it would have to be BP + Ascetic.

Point was that it's a very powerful role that cannot be targetted by neither neighborizer nor psychopath, hence the no talking with partners and no nightkill for scum to try to nerf it.

It's a closed setup for obvious reasons. And yeah probably swingy as hell. I realized that after posting it, but previous versions were very one-sided, and I feel this could go very wrong in specific circumstances, but overall should be quite balanced.

[the worst]

Compulsive commuter?
That's a super swingy setup. Fun to think about though.

[Jingle]

Panic Room

11 players:

1 Mafia "Bomb" (Compulsive Multi-Vengeful)

2 Mafia Goons

1 Town "Recruiter" (Compulsive Day Neighborizer)

7 Vanilla Townies

• Upon the death of the Mafia Bomb, everyone not in the Neighborhood is killed. After this point, the game becomes nightless.
  
• The ability to recruit to the neighborhood is always passed on to the most recent recruit.
  
• If everyone in the neighborhood has died, the game continues on as Vanilla.

Who wins if everyone dies simultaneously? For example, Recruiter targets Bomb, lynch recruiter D1 lynch Bomb D2?

[northsidegal]

If I'm understanding you correctly:

D1 the neighborhood is recruiter + bomb, the recruiter gets lynched end of D1. Day 2 there's only one person in the neighborhood, the bomb. The bomb then gets lynched. Ah, I get what you mean.

I think I'd call that a draw.

Edit: Actually wait. If everyone in the neighborhood has died when the bomb is lynched, the game continues on as vanilla, so I think rather than the game instantly ending in a draw, the game would simply continue on and the bomb would just die like a regular mafia goon.

I'm beginning to notice some problems.

[northsidegal]

In the original version Mafia had essentially a forced victory if one of them were recruited D1 by killing the recruiter, recruiting another mafia D2 and then hardbussing the bomb.

Panic Room v2

11 players:

1 Mafia "Bomb" (Compulsive Multi-Vengeful)

2 Mafia Goons

1 Town "Recruiter" (Compulsive Day Neighborizer)

1 Town Recruit

6 Vanilla Townies

• Upon the death of the Mafia Bomb, everyone not in the Neighborhood is killed. After this point, the game becomes nightless.
  
• The recruit begins the game in the neighborhood along with the Recruiter.
  
• The most recent living recruit is always the one with the ability to recruit.

Still can't decide if 3 mafia or 2 is more balanced, but right now I'm kind of leaning towards 3. This version makes it such that the neighborhood will never not have someone in it.

[callforjudgement]

Key to the Bunker

• 7 Town Bunker Guards
  
• 1 Town Conspirator
  
• 3 Mafia Goons
  
• Day Start; daytalk is not available for either faction
  
• Modified victory condition: town win by eliminating 2 of the 3 Mafia and then going through a Night phase with no town deaths (either by killing the third scum, so that there can be no kill, or by blocking the nightkill)
  
• Each night, a town Bunker Guard may (it isn't compulsive) let a player of their choice into the bunker for that night. (They cannot self-target due to bunker security measures.) If a player outside the bunker submits a nightkill on a player inside the bunker, it will fail. (Membership of the bunker never becomes public until postgame, i.e. scum just have to submit a kill and it will work if no townie targeted the victim or some townie targeted the killer.)
  
• The Conspirator is a modified Neighbouriser; they choose a target during the day phase, and their target is permanently added to their neighbourhood at the start of that Night (thus, it's useful faster than a Neighbouriser normally would be in a non-daytalk setup). Additionally, once during the game, they can attempt to kill someone at night, but it must be a member of their neighbourhood (and if someone lets their target into the bunker, the kill will fail unless someone lets them into the bunker too). Flavour is of someone constructing a team of townies (a conspiracy) to take on the Mafia, but who isn't entirely trustful of all of them.

Bunker Guard is a combination of Doctor and Strengthener. (It started out as just the combination, then I added the flavour, to make it more intuitive how the setup works.) Conspirator is sort-of a combination of Neighbouriser and Vigilante, although it's not a pure combination. So the setup clearly obeys both requirements (a clear combination role and 0 VTs), and also obeys both requirements a second/alternative time in a more twisted way (a modified combination role and a modified Neighbouriser).

The basic idea here is that townies can control the game by only targeting other townies (and lots of them). I suspect there are no breaking strategies simply because scum who know that they've been strengthened can kill anyone they like without giving away information, so town can't coordinate them except via the neighbourhood (and thus probably want to keep scum outside the neighbourhood, especially because it would let scum know who the confirmable townie is). The Conspirator was originally just added in an attempt to shift the balance, but I really like where the role ended up (e.g. they can recruit someone, and kill them the same night if they decide after overNight questioning that their target was scum). The modified win condition helps prevent the game dragging out if a townbloc is correctly identified, and also adds a "semi-White-Flag" effect that helps to balance the setup.

[Irrelephant11]

I have done my best to put everyone's submissions into the second post of the thread - let me know if I picked the wrong version, or if you want to submit something else, etc. I'll keep trying to keep it updated as we go, but just lmk if I miss something!

[Irrelephant11]

I feel like for fairness I should say no, but also the point of this is to generate interesting open setups...
How about: you can post multiple setups, but either:
- I will find a way for the voting process to balance against your increased likelihood of winning, or
- You pick your fav by the 28th to actually be in the running, and the others will just exist in the world (its own prize, am I right?) w/o winning this challenge

Why?

I mean, if the point of the challenge is to create fun setups, why not let people submit multiple setups? The 'prize' is bragging rights for having created the best setup, and that's still valid if you submit one setup or 50..

Firstly, because rules are arbitrary and this feels right to me
Secondly, because I don't think our goal should be to get, say, two people coming up with three dozen setups each in hopes that by sheer force of statistics they have a greater shot to win this challenge, setup quality be damned; it should be to include as many people as possible in the collaborative effort of making a high-quality open setup we can add to our common rotation. I think the ability to discuss, sharpen, and present 1 high-quality setup should make someone a winner, rather than "the person who floods the entries with variants wins".

So I'm still open to people submitting multiple setups, but I think there would still be some soft balance in the voting. It'd be something simple, though, like "you can only vote for one setup from each entrant" maybe.

I'm also still open to discussing this, if other people also feel multiple submissions should be allowed/encouraged! This challenge is for the MS *community*, not just for me

Toxic Neighborhood

1 Mafia Heavy Smoker (Ninja + bomb)
2 Mafia Goons

1 Town Neighborizer
6 VTs

1 3p Psychopath (compulsive SK with a twist)

Mafia do not have nightkills.
If the heavy smoker is lynched they kill everyone on their wagon due to second hand smoke. They also do not have access to the mafia chat because they take too many smoke breaks.

Neighborizer can add one person per night to their neighborhood.

Psychopath is a compulsive SK whose kills fail if they target people inside their neighborhood if they are in one (to maintain innocent persona among his neighbors).

This sounded better in my head.

Is there an updated version for this? To put in the OP

[Jingle]

You know what would be an interesting prize? Getting to choose the setup guidelines for the next Challenge if you want.

[northsidegal]

i think that's already part of the prize

Winner will be in charge of the requirements for next month's challenge

seems great minds think alike

[the worst]

I don't think I'll win but is it too late to withdraw my submission so I don't have to do any work next month?

[Something_Smart]

I'm willing to design next month's if the winner doesn't want to.

[Jingle]

seems great minds think alike

And Jingle's mind sometimes stumbles into the same vein.

[BBmolla]

Docblock the Clock

11 players:

3 Mafia Compulsive Docblocker Doctors

1 Town Compulsive Vigilante

7 Town Compulsive Docblocker Doctors

• Docblocker is a roleblocking ability that only blocks a Doctor's protection. If a Docblocker Doctor is Docblocked, their Doctor protection fails but their Docblock block succeeds.
  
• A mafia member can kill and Docblock Doc in the same night.

Just to submit something, I'm out of time this month. I haven't thought it thoroughly through, but I believe there is enough to stop doctrain at least.

[BBmolla]

I agree with not allowing the submission of multiple setups btw.

[Jingle]

So they stop the protection of and protect the same player? Or do they target two people separately? I kinda dig it either way, tbh.

[BBmolla]

So they stop the protection of and protect the same player? Or do they target two people separately? I kinda dig it either way, tbh.

First way

[BuJaber]

Toxic Neighborhood

1 Mafia Heavy Smoker

(Compulsive commuter + bomb)

2 Mafia Goons

1 Town Neighborizer
6 VTs

1 3p Psychopath

(compulsive SK with a twist)

Mafia do not have nightkills.

If the heavy smoker is lynched they kill everyone on their wagon due to second hand smoke. They also do not have access to the mafia chat because they take too many smoke breaks, and their constant smoking envelopes them in a thick smokescreen so they are untargetable.

Neighborizer can add one person per night to their neighborhood.

Psychopath is a compulsive SK whose kills fail if they target people inside their neighborhood if they are in one (to maintain innocent persona among his neighbors).

Fixed the original for more clarity.
I don't yet have an alternative / new version.