[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[BBmolla]

Nope. Mafia lynch ends the game in town's favor. Mimes lose if they lynch the last mafia. God this is a wonky setup.

Oh yeah you’re right sorry I don’t read ahead

[Jingle]

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.

Anyone have issues with this being run in the open queue?

[Enter]

Trying to figure out balance for this, it's kind of based on the jury style mafia that was run relatively recently. If someone could look this over with me and help me get it all worked out so it's balanced, that would be cool.

Forgot This Game Was Happening Mafia

Three (3) Voteless Bullet-Proof Town Activators
Four (4) Town Homies (Activated Town Voters)
Three (3) Activated Vengeful Mafia Voters

Rules
Days are an hour long
Every two days there is a night
- The first day, Voteless Bullet-Proof Town Activators each choose a target to activate (in private)
- The second day, Activated Players vote (a majority of Activated Players need to agree on a target to achieve a lynch)
If one of the living Activated Mafia Voters has been Activated, the Mafia have a NK
After every night, all Activated players are De-Activated

-E

[Jingle]

Assuming activation is compulsive (It really should be):

The mafia can only kill if they've been activated thing is a win more mechanic. Odds that a mafia is activated D1 are ~96%. If no mafia are activated, you functionally have three conftown and the game is over.

Activators are irrelevant for EV, so it's probably functionally the same as 4v3.

You probably end up with a group decision as to who to lynch, so the activations don't matter as much except to mean mafia can't out themselves hammering. Mafia win condition has to be the homies dying or it's impossible to win with any mafia lynch. Which means mafia needs only two mislynches, possibly less. My guess without working out probabilities is that you need to add townies and get rid of the conditional mafia kill mechanic.

Assuming activation is non compulsive: You pick the towniest player D1 and that player's faction wins.

Edit: You can also call your activators treestumps. It means they can't be killed or vote.

[Enter]

The intent would be for activation to be compulsive. I'm ok with adding townies, I want to reward minimizing activation of mafia members, however, so maybe conditional mafia kill mechanic works such that mafia have a minimum of one night kill, more if two or more mafia are activated? This gives mafia the chance to kill even if all the mafia are activated and they can decide not to kill so that town will think that only one was activated or something of the like

[Jingle]

Extra kills are hard to balance, and not activating mafia means mafia have less influence the lynch. If you want to give value to sneaking onto the activation train I'd reward it with a 1-shot factional suicide bomber or a mechanic like forcing one of the activators into a specific choice. Or alternatively, you could make activated players lynchproof.

[callforjudgement]

There's a breaking strategy for town in Enter's setup.

First off, the Activators claim. As they're bulletproof, they have no reason not to. This removes them from the lynch pool.
Next, players, including Activators, unofficially vote (using FoSes or whatever) on a non-Activator player they believe is town. Then all the Activators choose that player as the player to activate.
Next, players, including Activators, unofficially vote (using FoSes or whatever) on a non-Activator player they believe is scum. The Activated player is forced to vote for that player, on pain of outing themself as scum. Likewise, if scum kill, this will out them as scum.
If an Activated player doesn't violate the breaking strategy, they should be chosen as the Activated player the following day, unless they're the desired lynch for the day.

Despite all that, EV is only 31.97%, because if scum is chosen on the first vote, their optimal strategy is to lynch the wrong player and nightkill another, even though they'll be outed in the process. Jingle wasn't kidding when he said extra kills were hard to balance.

For what it's worth, if you take the breaking strategy into account, the number of Activators is irrelevant, and the following ratios of homies:scum appear to be balanced (assuming I haven't made a mistake in the EV calculations or missed a better breaking strategy): 2:1; 3:2; 5:3; 7:4; 9:5. I'm not sure that the game would be much fun to play when broken, though.

[Enter]

Well they would be compulsive and they would all have to activate different players. Also the intent was for the activators to not really count as part of the townies needed to be killed for scum to win.

[callforjudgement]

Does this mean that they're aware of which actions are being sent? Because otherwise, two of them could submit the same target coincidentally.

With multiple different activations forced, the analysis is similar to the one I just did, but much more scumsided as preventing the scum kill will be almost impossible. So you'd need a much larger homies:scum ratio than you have there. The setup's a bit more townsided than an all-vanilla game is, but I'd expect the balance curve to have the same shape, just with different numbers, meaning that the number of homies needed to balance three scum is probably in the double digits. (Note that scum would probably have to strategically miss kills every now and then to avoid confirming all the activated players as town; the setup would end up fairly similar to Resistance.)

[Enter]

Yes. Activators should activate in the game thread (like votes). How about 12:3 homes: scum?

[Jingle]

There's a breaking strategy for town in Enter's setup.

First off, the Activators claim. As they're bulletproof, they have no reason not to. This removes them from the lynch pool.
Next, players, including Activators, unofficially vote (using FoSes or whatever) on a non-Activator player they believe is town. Then all the Activators choose that player as the player to activate.
Next, players, including Activators, unofficially vote (using FoSes or whatever) on a non-Activator player they believe is scum. The Activated player is forced to vote for that player, on pain of outing themself as scum. Likewise, if scum kill, this will out them as scum.
If an Activated player doesn't violate the breaking strategy, they should be chosen as the Activated player the following day, unless they're the desired lynch for the day.

Despite all that, EV is only 31.97%, because if scum is chosen on the first vote, their optimal strategy is to lynch the wrong player and nightkill another, even though they'll be outed in the process. Jingle wasn't kidding when he said extra kills were hard to balance.

For what it's worth, if you take the breaking strategy into account, the number of Activators is irrelevant, and the following ratios of homies:scum appear to be balanced (assuming I haven't made a mistake in the EV calculations or missed a better breaking strategy): 2:1; 3:2; 5:3; 7:4; 9:5. I'm not sure that the game would be much fun to play when broken, though.

I kinda said that, but props for doing the math man.

I kinda assumed activators were public, and to make the game more fun it's probably better if peeps can /in as activators/nonactivators. I think there's a lot of call for games in which there is a certain percentage of players who can ensure they're town.

Also 12:3 is probably too many homies. I'm gonna guess the EV is close to 7:3, (presumed 3.5-5 mislynches) but I'd appreciate if cfj would math for me cause I'm way too drunk to do probability tonight.

(also, it took 4 attempts ot spell probability.)

[Enter]

Activators are supposed to be public

[callforjudgement]

EV-calculating this is version of the setup is basically impossible because it contains WIFOM (in whether scum kill when they have the opportunity).

WIFOM is hard enough to follow when you're just thinking about it qualitatively; trying to factor it into an EV calculation causes huge complexities even in the most trivial cases.

[Jingle]

For a viable EV calculation you probably assume scum kills whenever they have the option. It's not a perfect model (but then again, given subjective values there rarely is a perfect model) but it simplifies it enough that you can get a value. Honestly though, in this case it might be worth far more to just pick what seems to be a reasonable number and run it, then reevaluate based on results. Thinking over it again I would suggest 8 homies v 3 goons as a decent starting place. It's on odds and 8 v 3 is scumsided without PRs while the mechanic is probably very townsided from my expectations. Somewhere on par with an investigative doctor, afaict.

Still think you shouldn't make the NK dependent on activating scum, but :shrugs:

If you get enough people interested (5 pre-ins?) I'd either run it or comod it for you in either the open or theme queues, assuming you need an experienced mod to get it into a queue.

[Enter]

Alright. I'll go with 8 v 3, if that's cool with you, and yeah, would you co-mod it with me and teach me your tricks? Unless you'd prefer to run it.
I'll work on getting people interested.
Setup at this point in time:

/Enter to Forget

Three (3) Voteless Compulsive Bullet-Proof Town Activators
Eight (8) Town Activated Town Voters
Three (3) Activated Homies (Vengeful Mafia Voters)

Rules

Every two days there is a night
- The first day, Voteless Bullet-Proof Town Activators each choose a target to activate (in private)
- The second day, Activated Players vote (a majority of Activated Players need to agree on a target to achieve a lynch)
If one of the living Activated Mafia Voters has been Activated, the Mafia have a NK
It takes two votes to achieve a lynch
After every night, all Activated players are De-Activated
Activators are confirmed publicly and post actions in the game thread
Homies get one NK a night minimum, more if more than one Homies is activated
Homies win when town cannot (fewer than two Town alive at the end of a night, fewer than 3 at the end of a day)
Town win when Homies are eliminated

I think I fixed everything, if I missed something let me know. Mafia always have a kill now, they just get additional kills for additional mafia being activated. (This does make it so that mafia are less likely to use their kills)

Are you guys sure I should keep the vengeful part of the mafia given the additional kill when activated mechanic?

[BuJaber]

I am interested in running this: https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=115&t=78733

But I received no feedback at all.

May I mod it? Why/why not.

[DrDolittle]

Wanted to run an open game with a little more hidden information and decision making. Love to hear your thoughts on this.

The Usurping Town

X Town Usurper

Y Mafia Usurper

Rules

Every Member is given a unique target in their own faction (that could be themselves?).
The win condition for a player is that the player's faction must win AND the player's target is dead.
The player does not have to be alive to win.
Mafia lynch is determined by voting system in their thread. Without a strict majority is a no kill. Mafia are allowed to kill members of their own faction.
The game's end condition to determine winners is checked when all mafia members are lynched (then each town member checks their usurp condition) or when nothing can prevent mafia from winning (then each mafia member checks their usurp condition)

[Irrelephant11]

Yikes

So first of all town has a way to confirm every townie as town. This possibility makes it feel pretty broken right off the bat, even if some individuals would choose not to use this strategy immediately to protect their usurper wincon
Second of all fewer than 4 mafia and every mafia will know who’s coming for them. This possibility also makes it feel broken

Then again it’s such a strange setup it might still be fun to play... but it doesn’t really feel like mafia anymore, as cross-alignment alliances could quickly become as important as one’s own team

Who wins if mafia endgame town before any mafia die or vice versa

[DrDolittle]

Who wins if mafia endgame town before any mafia die or vice versa

No one wins since no one has their win con satisfied.

[DrDolittle]

So first of all town has a way to confirm every townie as town. This possibility makes it feel pretty broken right off the bat, even if some individuals would choose not to use this strategy immediately to protect their usurper wincon
Second of all fewer than 4 mafia and every mafia will know who’s coming for them. This possibility also makes it feel broken

Good call. Maybe everyone should have a target that is not alignment indicative. Does that help?

[DrDolittle]

But then it's less interesting since mafia can just kill their person. Maybe change mafia to lynchers only.

[DrDolittle]

every mafia will know who’s coming for them. This possibility also makes it feel broken

actually this doesn't feel that at all since all it does is sow discord in the mafia, and makes coordination way more difficult. but the town part is still an issue you're right.

[Jingle]

Honestly feels less like a mafia game and more like a popularity contest. Any game where a big portion of it is picking who wins and loses within your team leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[DrDolittle]

After talking with some smart people, this is the redesigned version I'm hoping to run in the micro queue. Looking forward to fine tuning this some more.

Some Smart Setup Name

6 Vanilla Town
1 Blue Mafia
1 Red Mafia
1 Town Opportunist

Rules

• Blue and Red Mafia know each other and coordinate night kills in a PT under majority vote.
  
• Blue Mafia only wins if he survives and Red Mafia does not survive. And vice versa.
  
• Town opportunist wins either with town, or alone if both Blue and Red Mafia are alive in the endgame.
  
• If either Red or Blue Mafia dies, Town opportunist becomes a treestump if still alive.

Notes

A challenging part of this game is under 5 people LYLO. Blue Mafia knows that getting a mislynch will result in a loss, so would strongly push the lynch of the Red Mafia. But pushing too hard means that he will out himself and obtain a town win.

Meanwhile, the existence of the opportunist will `strengthen' the mafia faction in the LYLO situation by instead pushing for a mislynch.

The discord among the mafia makes it feel like this setup should be a town-sided. Another option is changing the Opportunist to scum-sided and knows who scum are, and leaves the game if one of them is lynched. However, that role might be a bit unfun to play.

[Jingle]

Interesting. I'm just going to assume that the opportunist doesn't know who the mafia are because it's broken if they do.

Balance wise, mafia is going to struggle to win this, but I don't think that's necessarily a problem. It's an interestingly viable strategy to no kill into 6p MYLO, because then even if town mislynches scum can choose not to kill which means they don't outright win.

You could probably make it a 7 person if you wanted a more even town/scumA/scumB win distribution. It'd functionally be 5v2 with an IC and nightless until the first scum dies, except, of course, that Opportunist becomes a Jester in 5p LYLO.