[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[quadz08]

You could maybe give them 1 janitor shot that isn't spent if they're jailkept? I can see what you're saying, but you have to take into account that the JK being accurate is relatively unlikely, and again, 2/3 NKs being unflipped is pretty rough on town.

[Leafsnail]

Yeah that sounds better. I like the idea of creating doubt through a janitor kill but potentially having two unknown flips in a row seems too harsh for a newbie game.

[pieceofpecanpie]

Howdy folks, I'm going to frequent this thread a lot more because I want to take an active interest in set-up discussion, comment on others and share my own.

I'm stuck for what to say about the previous set-up and I don't want to steal the show by throwing one of my ideas down, but I want to share it nonetheless and I'm happy to wait a while if you think I'm butting in.

I suppose this definitely slides into the experimental category and what I'm most afraid of is the following point

"The setup should not make claiming strategies (or any other predetermined plan) pivotal to the town's chances of success."

Have I got it totally wrong with my set-up and cutesy mechanic?

Bite-Back Mafia

there's gotta be something catchier than that

14 player game

for now

1 x Vengeful
3 x 1-shot Vengeful Cop
3 x 1-shot Vengeful Watcher
3 x 1-shot Vengeful Gunsmith
1 x 1-shot Vengeful Tree Stump

2 x Mafia Framer
1 x Mafia Rolecop

The cutesy mechanic is making every town PR have an after-lynch effect (if they are NK'd nothing happens of course), so the way this would work for Cop, Gunsmith and Watcher is that their results will be declared

in game

at the start of the next day. Vengeful is self-explanatory and Vengeful Tree Stump would be able to nominate anyone still alive to turn into a tree stump (they lose their night action and can't vote, however in this case not their alignment).

tree stump may be a stupid thing to throw in here, bit of a red herring for someone or something

Framers are in there to prevent the Cops from planning to be lynched and declaring who they will target. Rolecop is there to help Mafia figure out who they prioritise for night kills instead of mislynches.

I have no idea if this game is broken to begin with. The essence of the game is that I wanted there to be an extra consequence to a mislynch, but in a more "hey cool" than revenge/backstabby kinda way. I just thought it would be great to give an ability to each mislynched townie, using sensible roles to make sure mislynches aren't planned. I have no idea if I've done that and the idea's still in it's infancy and I'm looking for any feedback on how it can be improved, modified, altered etc. for it to be a viable one.

[callforjudgement]

It's broken by massclaim; no matter what scum fakeclaim, at least 4 townies are confirmed, also at that point the Gunsmiths become, effectively, full cops.

Also there's possibly too much town power for an 11:3, even if that problem's fixed (say via making the players not know their role until after they're lynched, or by adding a large amount of randomness to the number of players with each power); in this setup, town get three investigative power role shots + a free effective vig shot (either the vengeful vig or the vengeful tree stump; it's not in town's interest to use both of those powers). That sort of investigative power is within the range of what's normally expected for a game with three mislynches, but with the free effective vig shot, town effectively have four mislynches, which is a pretty big advantage.

So yeah, highly townsided. The idea is interesting, but it needs a lot of tweaking to be fair.

[pieceofpecanpie]

Thanks for the response.

I feel beefheaded asking these things how does the massclaim work out broken when roles will only be revealed by mislynch? eg. Say the cops decide to claim, they can't outright say who they'll target after they are lynched and initially mafia get 2 shots to completely misdirect results. Why are at least 4 townies confirmed? I think I'm beginning to grasp how Cops

and

Gunsmiths are a stupid thing to have together. I'd rather stick with my cop pool and swap the gunsmith role out for something else or tweak other numbers.

Do you think there are roles I should definitely discard immediately? What should I replace them with?

I'm actually pretty embarrassed at posting this idea because it's so unrefined, but I loved the idea (the whole post-mislynch action thing) and then fried my brain trying to figure out how it could work. I really need others to help jog that part along. I'm just too inexperienced.

[callforjudgement]

The massclaim is broken based on role counts. Say 3 people claim Cop. You immediately know they're all town; nothing to do with claiming actions or anything like that.

I actually miscounted wrt the 4 confirmations; correct strategy for scum is for one to claim Cop, one to claim Watcher, one to claim Gunsmith. That confirms the vengeful townie and the treestumper, which is only 2 confirmations. Then the town have three groups of 4 and know that there's one scum in each.

Basically, the problem is that in an Open, claiming your role means that either you get counterclaimed, or you're confirmed town, so any role that's guaranteed to belong to exactly one town player immediately becomes confirmable. This is true regardless of any of the rest of the details of the setup. This is the main balance difference between Open and Closed games; you can't give someone a power role unless either enough other people have the same power role that scum can safely hide there, or you're OK with them effectively being an Innocent Child in addition to having their power.

[pieceofpecanpie]

What if I dropped the Vengeful and Tree Stump for 5 Gunsmiths?

[callforjudgement]

Then you don't have any actual confirmations, but knowing that 5 out of a list of 6 players are town is still a pretty large advantage for town.

[Phoenicks]

Thanks, Quadz and Leafsnail.

Popp, the main problem is that having enough distinct power roles is more powerful to the town than the powers themselves because

townies can claim to clear.

Sans extensive complications, some fixes:

- Make the number of each power role variable.
- Don't tell townies what power they have until death.
- Give all townies the same power.
- Don't reveal how many of each power there are.

Since those changes (except the third) make the game semi-open, you could introduce other ideas that change the game nature more:

- Make the mafia powerful enough where massclaims would only even things out (give them revenge shots, conversions, janitor kills, yakuza kills, etc.)
- Increase the number of townie slots (not townies) and give each mafioso one of those slots at random as a fakeclaim.
- Increase the number of mafia.
- No reveals on death; actions are made to a target of the deceased's choosing.

I think the easiest (best) solution is just to make the number of power roles for each category variable. Semi-open, but massclaims again have more drawbacks than benefits.

[pieceofpecanpie]

All those ideas are excellent. I'm going to digest them for a bit. Thank you.

[pieceofpecanpie]

Okay let's incorporate that into a redesign.

Bite-Back Mafia

there's still gotta be something catchier than that

14 player game

I'll still stick with it for now

11 x 1-shot Vengeful Enigma

1 x Mafia Godfather
1 x Mafia 1-Shot Roleblocker
1 x Mafia 1-Shot Ninja

At the beginning of each game every Enigma is randomly assigned, but not told, a role taken from a pool of 5 x Cop, 5 x Watcher, 5 x Gunsmith. In the event of an Enigma being mislynched they become aware of their ability and in death can target a player of their choosing with it, the result of which is revealed in game on the following day. If an Enigma is killed at night they are unable to use their ability, however the ability is revealed to the rest of town the following day, unless the Janitor uses their 1-Shot role in which case it will remain an enigma.

edited with current role idea

[pieceofpecanpie]

I think it would be better to change the 1-Shot Janitor to a 1-Shot Ninja, but beyond that I'm actually quite pleased by the rework.

[quadz08]

Public cop is obscenely strong, especially if you can have 5 of them. I'd suggest weaker PRs if you're doing multiples. Tracker, Vig, Gunsmith (gets positive on Vigs), perhaps?

[quadz08]

Actually, Vig is probably as bad if not worse than Cop. Hrm.

[pieceofpecanpie]

Hmmm, a quick bit of sums (although I'm terrible at working out probability).

So from the pool of 15 roles, town gets assigned 5 cops, then with 3 consecutive mislynches, there are 3 reveals. First cop has 3 in 13 chance of revealing a guilty (3rd is not the godfather, but framer at work), although any one of those could be innocent. Probability is increased from there.

So worst case scenario for scum: first mislynch cop gets guilty, town lynch guilty which becomes second mislynch cop who gets guilty, town lynch guilty and get scum, then town mislynch cop who gets guilty, town lynch guilty and get scum, so by Day 4 you would have 1 scum and 5 townies left, from there only a tracker would out the Godfather. Not to mention that you could keep mislynching framed players continuously. I'm also not sure on the odds of reaching that scenario, based on the randomly assigned opening pool and all the actions that would have to subsequently occur.

I'd definitely prefer Cops over Vigs as Vigs can simply negate scums abilities to stay hidden and feel a bit too swingy for this set up.

On the other hand, what I can change is take out the Framer and replace it with a 1-Shot Roleblocker? I feel that resolves your scenario a little.

I'd revise the roles to Godfather, 1-Shot Roleblocker and 1-Shot Ninja.

[JacobSavage]

Don't tell them what they get and make one of the pools (the Vig one) Vanilla.

[JacobSavage]

Even better make it a day role block so they can stop a conversion.

[pieceofpecanpie]

So with those 3 scum roles every mislynch gives them a defence.

Mislynch is Cop - Roleblocker can use their shot to cancel the investigation reveal
Mislynch is Watcher - Ninja can perform unseen kill.
Mislynch is Gunsmith - No matter, safety in numbers as there's an equal or greater chance it's a Cop or another Gunsmith

Only when there's a second mislynched Cop would town get a revealed investigation.

pedit: Day Roleblocker you say? Hmmm, interesting.

[pieceofpecanpie]

Actually, Day Roleblocker would have to function differently than 1-shot for it to be more powerful than just a Roleblocker, since scum should be using the shot on the first revealed Cop they would prevent town from getting any benefit out of that role. As opposed to a Day Roleblocker wasting their shot on an unrevealed Gunsmith and a Cop getting mislynched the following day.

[pieceofpecanpie]

What I mean by the previous post is that there's no certainty in the set up numbers, so revealed roles carry less weight than a successful investigation. Hence why I changed Janitor to Ninja, Ninja is much more powerful.

[chkflip]

input pl0x - might run them as opens soon (specifically micro 102) and want to know if they're "fair and balanced" as you may say.

MICRO 102

1x Cult Leader
1x Serial Killer
1x Town Alarmist
1x Town Cop
1x Town JOAT (Nurse/Deputy, 1-shot tracker, 1-shot fisherman)
4x Town Vanilla

MICRO 123

1x Cult Leader
1x Wolf goon
1x Town Poisoner
1x Town 3-shot Day Lie Detector
1x Town Alarmist
1x Town Ruffian
1x Town Friendly Neighbor
2x Town Vanilla

Spoiler: ruffian role

ROLE:

Town Ruffian
- You must choose one player to do a possibility of things to. Simply reply in this thread with ROUGH: PLAYERNAME to do whatever it is you'll do to said player.
There is a 20% chance you will silence them from a (real-time) week.
There is a 20% chance you will immobilize them, stopping them from going out.
There is a 20% chance you will roleblock your target, stopping them from doing anything.
There is a 40% chance you will do absolutely nothing.

You will be told what you did when the sun rises.

WIN:

You win when there are no more threats to town.

EXTRA:

You may not communicate with players outside of the game thread.

Please reply with "/confirm rolename" to help open the game thread.

Just curious... are these "fair" setups?

[pieceofpecanpie]

I've never played a cult game, so I'm really not sure on how to balance those. Is it workable to have one without a town-sided killing role? ie. Vig And would cult auto-lose if their leader is killed?

With a fisherman, can they fish for any of those items even if the given PR isn't in the game?

In your second game could you just clarify what the first and second actions of the Ruffian do precisely. And with the third action, it just works as a roleblocker right? That is to say it doesn't literally stop them from doing anything.

[JacobSavage]

I think as opens they might be less cult sided when they're open.

Also maybe a protective role could work or a Vig. Two anti town factions is a little bad.

[Faraday]

#123 is broken as an open. Everyone claims, have the lie detector detect one of the VT's and gg? You have your goon/cult/one vt left if he gets an innocent. Poisoner targets one, after lynching one. Even better if the lie detector hits scum (particularly cult)

[Rainbowdash]

Simpling PoPP you can probably do something like

1-3x Vengeful Townie
7-9x Vanilla Townie

3x Goon