[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[LlamaFluff]

Its a situation where if scum know its role heavy the RC starts dropping in usefullness a bit. Its probably better than the GF still, but when half the players are town you dont need as much PR hunting assistance.

Im thinking Day Talk and maybe JOAT is all scum (should) be taking, but playing it minimalistic would be better I think as it also allows for more fakeclaims.

This would also need a game name for the creative types.

[Leafsnail]

The Writing on the Wall

9 players. 7 town, 2 scum. Mafia have compulsive nightkills.

Each name on the following list is assigned to a player. Names are alignment independent.
Anna
Ahab
Alec
Bianca
Bob
Baldric
Clarissa
Caleb
Cormac

One of the following two mechanics will be randomly selected at the start of the game. Nobody is informed which one is in use.
1. On night one, the

first

letter of the mafiakiller's name is revealed. On night two, the

last

letter of the mafiakiller's name is revealed.

2. On night one, the

last

letter of the mafiakiller's name is revealed. On night two, the

first

letter of the mafiakiller's name is revealed.

In the case that one mafia member dies the other mafia member can perform a kill using their dead partner's name

once

, providing their partner has not already performed a kill.

The idea is that the mafia has to provide some information about themselves, but they get to choose what that is. There's plenty of space for WIFOM and nightkill analysis.

[LlamaFluff]

Im going to start looking more indepth at expected setups for the still unnamed one that I have been talking about over the last few pages.

If anyone has any more comments regarding the balance or if you have a name please let me know now.

[Leafsnail]

Pick Their Poison?

[LlamaFluff]

Arms Race?

We need a wordy creative type in here.

[JacobSavage]

I'm Dyslexic, I can do creative spellings. Does that count?

How about Power Gambit?

[chkflip]

Stack the Deck.

[quadz08]

Power Play?

[LlamaFluff]

Once I get a "second" on a name (except PYP... because scum dont pick towns roles) I will start making a wiki article for it and getting it ready for a trial run

[JacobSavage]

I'll

2nd Stack the Desk

as it seems teh most appropriate

[Archetype]

New here, but not new to Mafia.

I've been toying with a Setup Idea and was wondering what you all thought of it:

8 VTs
1 Town Informant
1 Town Cop
1 Mafia Goon
1 Mafia 1-shot Strongman
1 Traitor Informant

50% chance of one of the VTs being a Doctor
50% chance of the Mafia Goon or Mafia Strongman being a Role Cop

Only the Town Informant is told if there is a Mafia Role Cop or not
Traitor is separate of the main Mafia 2 man faction. He is told whether the Town has a Doctor or not.

If a Mafia kill targets the Traitor, he will be invited to join the main faction instead of dying.

[quadz08]

Stack the desk =/= stack the deck

[serrapaladin]

Here's something I've toyed around with before in private chatrooms, with fairly good feedback. If there's interest, I might run it in the Micro queue once I'm allowed. Let me know what you think:

Don't Be Yourself Mafia

5 VTs
1 BP SK
2 Goons

Several games (rounds)

are played by a group of 8 players, with the same setup and

the same role distribution

. Before each 'round'

anonymous alts are randomly distributed

among players for use in this game, such that players are newly anonymous at the start of each round, but know that everyone has kept the same role. The actual playerlist is hidden until the end (and nameclaims can be disallowed). From round 2 onwards, it is equally useful to identify people by their posts, as it is to scumhunt.

The actual setup can be anything from 3p LyLo to a standard 9p Micro, and the winner is determined by 'first-to-two' or 'first-to-three' rounds won. Replacements are a no-go, so this would need committed people, and probably something like WotC.

[chkflip]

Stack the desk =/= stack the deck

S is right above C on the qwerty keyboard. The more you know.

[callforjudgement]

Several games (rounds)

are played by a group of 8 players, with the same setup and

the same role distribution

. Before each 'round'

anonymous alts are randomly distributed

among players for use in this game, such that players are newly anonymous at the start of each round, but know that everyone has kept the same role. The actual playerlist is hidden until the end (and nameclaims can be disallowed). From round 2 onwards, it is equally useful to identify people by their posts, as it is to scumhunt.

Breaking strategy for town: Game 1, each townie chooses and publicly announces a different number. (The scum have to as well, so as not to give their scuminess away by acting differently from a townie.) In future games, each townie announces their number at the start of day 1; the best scum can do is 1v1 them. This doesn't involve any sort of nameclaim, nor cryptography, so it's not banned under the rules you're listing (and attempting to ban it specifically would be really difficult, along the lines of post restrictions to prevent setup breaking, which never work).

[serrapaladin]

Forcing 1v1 isn't enough to win it with 2 NK's though. In 5/2/1 that only gives 2 conftown, which are killed N1 unless the sk is lynched. A D1 mislynch brings it to 2/1/2. Town will want to be able to identify the SK out of scum, because mislynch + sk lynch is still a scum victory. If anything, this is scumsided unless town is good at identifying players. Also, endgame isn't revealed, so if scum wins the first, town doesn't have that option.


The only real breaking strategy is of course for all players to post some problem or riddle round 1 to which they provide the obviously only correct answer round 2, but that's basically cleverly trying to circumvent the crypto rule, so it's forbidden.

[callforjudgement]

Breaking strategies don't have to get a 100% win. Getting a 1v1 with every scum in a setup that's otherwise designed to be balanced is breaking it; it doesn't outright win you the game, but it makes things a lot easier.

[serrapaladin]

But it's designed with the fact in mind that repeats favour town. That's why the initial setup is scum-sided. All your strategy does is bring the D1 scum-lynch odds from 1/4 to 1/3. Immediately claiming round 1's position (since players are labelled 1-8, it's enough to say "I was player 3 in round 1") isn't actually the best strategy for town.

[TehBrawlGuy]

If there is one thing to be learned from variable setups scum pick (like Pick Your Poison) - scum routinely choose suboptimal choices.

I was once in a PyP where Scum had to pick 3 of 6 Town PRs to be in the game. They picked the three that could self-confirm.
It went about how you would expect.

Agreed on

Stack the Deck

.

[BBmolla]

Here's something I've toyed around with before in private chatrooms, with fairly good feedback. If there's interest, I might run it in the Micro queue once I'm allowed. Let me know what you think:

Don't Be Yourself Mafia

5 VTs
1 BP SK
2 Goons

Several games (rounds)

are played by a group of 8 players, with the same setup and

the same role distribution

. Before each 'round'

anonymous alts are randomly distributed

among players for use in this game, such that players are newly anonymous at the start of each round, but know that everyone has kept the same role. The actual playerlist is hidden until the end (and nameclaims can be disallowed). From round 2 onwards, it is equally useful to identify people by their posts, as it is to scumhunt.

The actual setup can be anything from 3p LyLo to a standard 9p Micro, and the winner is determined by 'first-to-two' or 'first-to-three' rounds won. Replacements are a no-go, so this would need committed people, and probably something like WotC.

The three players playing strangely differently would always be scum.

[serrapaladin]

How good are you at telling who anonymous alts/hydras belong to?
I've been absolutely creamed several times by someone who was better at looking like me than I was... particularly in forums, where you have time to plan your posts.

[BBmolla]

How good are you at telling who anonymous alts/hydras belong to?
I've been absolutely creamed several times by someone who was better at looking like me than I was... particularly in forums, where you have time to plan your posts.

If you're town in that setup, you'd want to play exactly the same, drop easy to find tells (Saying perse a lot or some shit) that you could replicate in future games to be identified.

[Leafsnail]

Talk at length about your hobbies

[serrapaladin]

If you're town in that setup, you'd want to play exactly the same, drop easy to find tells (Saying perse a lot or some shit) that you could replicate in future games to be identified.

But if you start using or reusing unusual words/phrases, scum can either start copying some of them, or point out that "you're trying too hard to look like that player from round 1". Either way is full of WIFOM, so the only way is to do something that's not recreatable (like what Leafsnail mentioned).

Leafsnail's suggestion is indeed a possibility, but I would say that's forbidden by the proviso that you can't post anything by which one might identify your main account. The way I'm used to playing Mafia is that you're not allowed to reference anything external to the game at all, which I actually find to be quite a good way to play.

[Leafsnail]

It's an interesting idea but I think it gets kindof confused when you combine it with a mafia game. I'd be tempted to just make a mish-mash game along similar lines (get a bunch of people to try and pretend to be someone, audience has to guess who the real one is).