[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[Phillammon]

Okay- I could see this potentially working with texas justice mixed in- possibly a way to fix both at once?

Dying wish: Three targets

3x Mafia Goon
9x 1 Shot CPR Doctors

Lynches occur normally.
On being lynched, the lynched player selects 3 targets. These are the only 3 targets that may be chosen for night actions (including the mafia NK).
The 1 Shot CPR Docs may only use their ability if they are one of the targets.

Also, happy 5000th post, open setup ideas and discussion!

[BBmolla]

What if a player is CPR docced by two players? By three players? By three players and a Mafia nk?

[Phillammon]

Number of CPRs	NK'd	Not NK'd
1	Lives	Dies
2	Dies	Lives
3	Lives	Dies

[LlamaFluff]

Bumping this idea a bit more

Friends and Acquaintances and Enemies

3x Masons
3x Neighbors (Masons or Mafia can be neighbors) - Have Daytalk
3x Vanilla Mafia
4-7x VT (bring to 13 players)

Since its going to be a good way to learn about the EV of neighbors as well. I do sorta like the "daytalk (only?)" twist for neighbors since it really puts them on their own, removed from the rest of the scum group. Thats something im more willing to talk about, and I guess keeping it standard night would do the most for figuring out the actual strength of a neighbor.

Also since its been joked around a little in the other open thread

Nightless Vengeful Bedlam

1-3x Vengeful Townie
4-6x Vanilla Townie
3x Mafia Goon (or 2x goon 1x encrypt to balance daytalk strength?)

[Scigatt]

they only have two mislynches?

Both sides have only 2 mislynches.

You can adjust the number if you want, though.
Edit:The Mafia has only one mislynch.

What do you think of a larger version, then?

White Flag^2, v.2

5x Mafia Goons
12x Vanilla Townies

Town wins when there are two or fewer Mafia Goons left.

[zoraster]

17p you start getting into games that are going to be tough to fill. And what do you mean "mafia has only one mislynch"? You mean that they can only have one person lynched on their team without losing? I mean, that's true, but that's pretty non-standard way to think about balance.

[Scigatt]

17p you start getting into games that are going to be tough to fill. And what do you mean "mafia has only one mislynch"? You mean that they can only have one person lynched on their team without losing? I mean, that's true, but that's pretty non-standard way to think about balance.

I see your point about the game size, which is why I prefer the first version. Do you think the first version is unbalanced or do you simply have a concern on game length?

[zoraster]

Yes. It's unbalanced. The Town EV for the 13p setup you showed is 34% (regular 13p white flag, which most seem to agree is fairly balanced, has a Town EV of around 48% if I recall correctly).

What's the impetus for this attempt anyway? Maybe that can help me figure this out better.

[NoodleHead]

Hi guys. I am new to this forum, but I have played mafia games in several forums quite a bit. I have created a 2-UC setup a while ago to prevent the over-reliance of the investigative roles while increasing the likelihood of mafia coming out with false roles. I have tweaked a few things to balance the game... Hope I can get some of you guys' input as well. thanks!

(If anyone's interested, I'd like to see how this game is played by the members here in mafiascum. From the result of the first two games, I assure you that this format is very fun!)

2-UC version 3.0

- 2 investigative roles: 1 regular UC, and 1 dumb UC. Both UC and dUC do not know their own identities. dUC's investigative result is always opposite of the actual affiliation (GUILTY/INNOCENT), and the name of his target is given to Mafia every night (no investigative result) until one of the two UC's is dead.

- 1 medic. The medic can protect anyone he wishes but himself. The medic's target will not only be protected from mafia, but will also be protected from the investigation and Vigi's kill. If the medic's target is a special townie, the targeted special townie loses his ability for the night.

- 1 Vigilante. Vigi gets a kill if a special townie (this includes mafia's SACRIFICE as a special townie) is killed.

Vigi is "GUILTY" when investigated by UC.

Vigi does not lose stock kill if he is interrupted by medic's protection, but he does lose it if his target is protected by medic.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Mafia side: All regular, but with the ability to SACRIFICE. When enacting SACRIFICE, you can die as any role (regular/special townie), and are allowed last gasp. When sacrificed as a special townie, Vigi gains a kill stock. Medic protection can prevent mafia from sacrifice.


Mafia side also gets to choose one of the two options before the game starts:

1. An extra mafia member (+1) with the above rules. The additional member would make the possible "blend-in" and SACRIFICE easier to execute.

[mafia : civ ~ 1 : 2.5]

or

2. No bonus mafia member, but Mafia receive names from both UC/dUC's investigating targets every night until one of the two UCs is killed. The identity of which UC investigate which target is indistinguishable (Not given).

[mafia : civ ~ 1 : 3]

The option which Mafia will choose will not be known by the townies until the end of the game.

=============================================================================

Details: (copy/paste from the previous games that I ran)

20~25 players

:

? mafia

,

4 special civs

, and

? regular civs

.

Basic Rules and Info

-

All roles are Randomly chosen

.
-

When two or more players receive the same # of lynch votes, it will result No lynch

.
-

When both "No lynch" and the "player lynch" receive the same # of votes, it will result a lynch to the player

.
- Other than the mafia side,

NO PM ALLOWED among the players

.
-

No editing

. If caught editing, you will be instantly disqualified.
- You may claim or lie about your role, but

no revealing PM regarding Role-assignment info.

- Be active, but not overly active.

Think before you post

, so you won't be making triple posts.
-

Last gasp will be PM'd to me.

You have

12 hours to write the last gasp

after your death. Mafia side will not get a last gasp (w/ the exception of self-kill). However, if you want to give props after death, you may PM me and I will post it as an "out-of-game" msg.
-

"No Lynch" is allowed

, but self-lynch isn't.

= ROLES =

============================================

Recular Civ (Civ)

- has a duty to lynch a target during the day phase. The highest vote gets axed when the day ends.

Undercover Agent (UC)

[/color]

– In addition to the regular civ's duty, the undercover has the investigative power on a single target every night. The affiliation will be revealed to UC at the end of the night (

INNOCENT/GUILTY

). If UC chooses to target himself, or if UC's target happens to be the same to the dUC or Medic on the same night, the result will be “

INCONCLUSIVE

.”

Undercover Agent (dUC)

– In addition to the regular civ's duty, the dumbass undercover has the investigative power on a single target every night. The opposite of the target's true affiliation will be revealed to dUC at the end of the night (

GUILTY/INNOCENT

). If dUC chooses to target himself, or if dUC's target happens to be the same to the UC or Medic on the same night, the result will be “

INCONCLUSIVE

.”

Note:

1. When receiving “UC” roles, both UC and dUC will only know themselves as “UC.” The identity of dUC will not be revealed until the end of the game. No matter which UC is killed during the game, the story will only reveal that the “UC” is dead.
2. “Beginner’s mistake”: The name of dUC’s target will be revealed to Mafia next day. However, it does not reveal the target’s roles. During the game, if one of the UC’s dead, the mafia will stop receiving the names of the target from that point and onward, regardless of which UC is dead.

If mafia side chooses to go for their option # 2 (see post 1), then the names of the investigated from both UC and dUC will be given to mafia every night until one of the UCs is dead.

3.

UC or dUC's night action will be interrupted by the medic if the medic happens to protect UC/dUC for the night, respectively. The investigation result will be "BOTCHED."

4.

If UC/dUC happens to investigate the target that is "protected" by the medic, the result will be "INCONCLUSIVE."

Medic (Medic)

– In addition to the regular civ's duty, the medic gets to protect a single target (except self) every night from Vigilante and/or Mafia’s kill.

Note:

1. If medic happens to protect a special civ, he will also interrupt his action.

Vigi cannot kill on the same night when he is protected by the medic, and the UC cannot investigate on the same night when he's protected by the medic.

2. If UC/dUC happens to investigate the target that is "protected" by the medic, the result will be "INCONCLUSIVE."

Vigilante (Vigi)

– In addition to regular civ's duty, the Vigi gains one stock kill at night for each UC/dUC/Medic being kill by Mafia at night. Vigi also gains a stock kill if Mafia enacts SACRIFICE as a special civ. If the UC/dUC/Medic is killed, Vigi gains the kill from the next night.

Vigi is "GUILTY" when investigated by UC.

Note:

1. Vigi may store as many kill stock as long as he's alive. However, he may kill at most 1 person per night.
2.

Vigi's night action will be interrupted by the medic if the medic happens to protect Vigi for the night.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Mafia

- In addition to the regular civ's duty, the mafia get to kill one player per night. If mafia side enacts SACRIFICE, the identity of the dead mafia member

may be revealed as any civilian roles (Regular, Vigi, Medic, or UC) of his choice

, and is allowed a last gasp. Such a move will NOT change the dead mafia's affiliation. (Therefore, if mafia side wins, he wins.)

= THE ORDER OF NIGHT EVENTS =

============================================
The order of all the night events, though mostly overlooked, can be rather important. This is the order of the events that would take place at night.

[

Night starts

] --> *Medic's Protection --> **UC/dUC's Investigation --> Mafia's Kill --> ***Vigi's Kill --> Mafia obtain dUC's target name --> [

Night ends

]

* [ -=

Medic's Protection

=- ]
- UC/dUC's investigation is interrupted if the medic saves him from being killed by mafia at night.
- Vigi's kill is interrupted if the medic saves him from being killed by mafia at night. However, the kill stock is not wasted.
- Medic rescues the sacrificial mafia at night, or protect the mafia from being killed by Vigi.
- If Mafia kills the medic, Vigi is free to kill even if he or his target was under the protection before the medic was alive.

** [ -=

UC/dUC's Investigation

=- ]
- If UC/dUC is killed by mafia, the "beginner's mistake" will be deactivated immediately. Mafia will not be able to receive dUC's investigation for the night and onward.
- UCs receive their investigation result before Mafia's kill is available.
- When UC/dUC's target is protected by the Medic, or if they target themselves, or if they happen to choose the same target to investigate at the same night, their investigative result would be "INCONCLUSIVE"
- When UC/dUC is protected by the Medic, their investigative result would be "BOTCHED"

*** [ -=

Vigi's Kill

=- ]
- Vigi's kill stock is not wasted if mafia killed the target before Vigi does.
- Vigi's kill stock is not wasted if his action is stopped by having Medic protecting him.
- Vigi's kill stock

is

wasted if his target is protected by the medic.
- Vigi is free to kill if the medic was killed by mafia before Vigi's night action.





Thanks!

[Scigatt]

Yes. It's unbalanced. The Town EV for the 13p setup you showed is 34% (regular 13p white flag, which most seem to agree is fairly balanced, has a Town EV of around 48% if I recall correctly).

What's the impetus for this attempt anyway? Maybe that can help me figure this out better.

Well, the original setup was inspired by this setup, by removing all the crazy stuff. Looking up some stuff in the forum, the trimmed setup was most similar in spirit to White Flag. I then wanted to see how doubling that restraint for the mafia would change their strategy, if at all. I want at least 4 goons as don't want the mafia to just become polygamist lovers.

[zoraster]

So are you saying that if mafia choose to get an extra mafia member and there are 25 players playing that there will be TEN mafia members?

Setup seems very, very, very scum sided. It also seems complicated for not achieving much.

[NoodleHead]

well, the 1:2.5 ratio estimate is very rough and misleading. I'd like to say that in a 25 player setting, there should be 6 mafia in the regular setup, and 7 for the +1 bonus.

Also, 10 outa 25 mafia would not be 1:2.5 mafia to civ ratio. that'd be 1 : 1.5. Seven mafia in a 25 player setting is about 1M to 2.5C (i.e. 7M + 18C).

Here are the two games that have been using similar rule so far, although with minor difference: (you may need to register)

Game 1-Mafia's victory. Highlight of the game: Townies pulled a dUC + Vigi + UC 3-hit combo in the mid game.

Game 2-Civ's victory. Highlight of the game: Mafia attempted a fake dUC plan at the end of the game. Things become very deathnote-like at that point.

Game 1 had Vigi being T4T upon death, and game 2 removes T4T from Vigi while allows Mafia to choose any role for sacrifice. The general consensus is that the 2-investigation makes it difficult for Mafia to attack at the end of the game, although it's hard for civs to approach in the beginning.

[callforjudgement]

Hi guys. I am new to this forum, but I have played mafia games in several forums quite a bit. I have created a 2-UC setup a while ago to prevent the over-reliance of the investigative roles while increasing the likelihood of mafia coming out with false roles. I have tweaked a few things to balance the game... Hope I can get some of you guys' input as well. thanks!

Not sure how many people will read a post that's that long and "busy", especially with nonstandard names. Let me try to translate that into standard names for roles over here…

2-UC version 3

• 1 Sane Cop ("UC")
  
• 1 Insane Cop ("dUC")
  
• 1 Alien ("Medic")
  
• 1 0-Shot Vigilante Miller ("Vigilante"), gains an extra shot whenever the Mafia's NK flips as a power role
  
• X Vanilla Townies
  
• All players who flip as townies can post one informative post within 12 hours of death
  
• Y Mafia Goons (factional abilities in addition to the NK: is told who is targeted by cops each night both cops are alive, can cause the flip to be anything if one NKs another) OR Y+1 Mafia Goons (factional abilities in addition to the NK: is told who is targeted by the Insane Cop each night both cops are alive, can cause the flip to be anything if one NKs another)

It seems reasonable enough as a basic idea for a setup, although there are several things in it that people over here tend to dislike (the possibility of an inaccurate flip, for instance). I think the extra member for the Mafia is typically much more important than knowing who the Sane Cop investigates; it'd be more likely to be accepted in basic concept if you just removed all the factional abilities from both sides. There are various other issues, to do with timing (12 hours is too short) and playerlist size (25 players is unlikely to fill as an Open over here, and in fact unlikely to fill except as a Large Theme with a particularly popular theme).

It's also likely to be very townsided due to the two investigative roles. An Insane Cop, especially when it's known that they exist in the setup, is almost as powerful as a Sane Cop. (Especially because cops in that setup would likely spend night 1 scanning the obvtowniest person they could see in order to establish their own sanity. I assume you'd ban them from scanning themselves.) It definitely feels like a "large" open setup; with a shorter player list, it wouldn't work because town roles could claim to confirm themselves as town and give enough information from there to lead to a likely town win. But if you don't have multiple scum-controlled kills per night (likely by adding an SK or a second scumteam), the game will last long enough for the investigative roles to solve the setup by themselves, unless they die very early. (Knowing the investigative roles' targets doesn't help the scum much; they could NK them, but that means that the cops effectively get to control the NKs with their scan choices. Optimal cop play in this setup is probably to scan people who you personally think are town but who are under suspicion by the town at large.) You could fix this by adding more scum than usual, but then the game would end up somewhat power-dominated, which is generally no fun for the VTs (and which becomes very swingy, too).

[NoodleHead]

Thank you very much for the feedback! You've definitely nailed some of the problems that existed in the two games I ran in the past!

And yes,

self investigation = inconclusive
clash of investigation on the same night = inconclusive
investigation target that is protected by the medic = inconclusive
UC who is protected by the medic = Botched

[gorckat]

With Open 425 complete, Carbon-14 town is 4-7, so not wildly unbalanced.

What if the scum faction didn't know what they were (mafia/werewolf) or the investigators didn't know what they were (seer/cop)? The former option might be balanced, but the latter feels off (but maybe interesting elsewhere).

Assuming Magna's rules from 425 get recycled, the goal of scum not knowing their actual nature would be to prevent them from willingly trading for the role that can find them.

Magna's rules were:
-everyone promises to not fakeclaim at start of game
-intent to hammer must be declared to allow a claim
-VT claims can be hammered right away
-power claims get hammered only if countered (forces a 1 for 1)

So if seer claims while at L-1, a werewolf could counter (probably only if they were likely to be looked at or an alternate lynch choice) in hopes of protecting the other scum.

[Scigatt]

So are you saying that if mafia choose to get an extra mafia member and there are 25 players playing that there will be TEN mafia members?

Setup seems very, very, very scum sided. It also seems complicated for not achieving much.

I was gonna respond to this, but then I realized you were talking about the other setup.

[Hoopla]

With Open 425 complete, Carbon-14 town is 4-7, so not wildly unbalanced.

It's barely (read: not) statistically significant enough to make a ruling on balance - so I don't see the point of messing with the elegance of the setup.

[gorckat]

Probably could have left that out- I don't think it needs to be fixed so much as towns need to play better- a couple losses I scanned had insane early hammers, iirc.

Do you think the scum not knowing if they're werewolf/mafia adds anything to the setup without unbalancing it?

[zoraster]

I'd like to bring this up again:

Overrun

7 Town, 6 Mafia

Mafia only have night talk. Each night they

must

choose a MAFIA member to be a blood sacrifice (i.e. kill them). This is the only kill the mafia has. The goal is for the mafia to make a blood sacrifice of all but one of their members.

During the day, town lynches as normal.

Town wins if they lynch correctly

twice

before scum is completely eliminated. If it ever gets to the point where town cannot do so, the game is ended in a mafia victory (i.e. no successful lynches by D5).

Expected value for this game heavily favors town, but the fact that scum make up a huge portion of the voting power makes it hard for town to get good votes, especially in the early days where EV is highest.

The game will likely be connection heavy, even more so than White Flag.

[callforjudgement]

One issue with a setup that's heavily townsided with random voting, and not heavily townsided in practice, is that the town's optimal strategy is probably random voting. You can expect people to try to come up with absurd methods to randomize the vote in a way that scum can't interfere (offsite, I've seen people doing things like agreeing in advance to hash the timestamp of the next post by the moderator and use that to determine who to vote for; this is particularly awkward as it means that the moderator ends up determining the game result by their actions).

[Hoopla]

I agree, I'd probably opt for random voting given such a high percentage of players are trying to manipulate you. You essentially need every townie to agree on one player to lynch scum (without bussing).

[zoraster]

It's tough for town, certainly, but once you get down to 4v3 and 3v2 with the information that you've hopefully gathered from the votes of previous days (7v6,5v4), you're in a pretty good position to make it.

Is there any way to solve the random problem? I mean, it generally gets frowned on here anyway, but is there something to do?

[callforjudgement]

The "no provable randomness" rule would help; it leads to it being very risky for the town to try to arrange a randomizing method, because of the risk of scum manipulating the results.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

That'll just mean the correct strategy is to try to identify a townie and then sheep that townie. If the natural way to play the game is suboptimal, it's probably just not a good set-up.

[callforjudgement]

Trying to identify a townie is going to be awkward when the town is almost half scum, though. Both because there are more ways to go wrong, and because there are more players trying to guide you wrong.

I guess it'd play a bit like Conspiracy on day 1, which might be a good thing.