This is an old one on one of the sites I usually play, and is used as the usual Open for newbies, akin to C9 here. I haven't seen anything for it on the wiki, so I'm curious what you all would think of it, as I'm interested in modding a round of it.
Sorcerer:
Is not known by the wolves.
Knows the wolves.
Does not count for the wolf parity victory check (e.g. Sorcerer + Wolf + VT + VT is not endgame).
Can be nightkilled.
If the last Scum player alive, Town win.
Checks each night for the Seer, is returned a result of Seer/Not Seer.
Is given a random "N0" negative result at the start of the game.
Seer:
Checks for Wolf/Not Wolf, is returned Not Wolf on the Sorcerer.
Is given a random "N0" negative result at the start of the game.
Hunter:
Selects a player to vengeful, in the event the Hunter dies. This selection must be done before death, and may be changed any number of times, at any time.
Vengeful fires at a random target if none was chosen.
Vengeful fires on both lynch and NK.
Wins the game for Town if left alive in a 1-1 endgame with a Werewolf.
Bodyguard:
Only protects against the wolves' NK; does not stop the hunter vengeful.
It has a lot of very interesting ways it can play out, thanks to the Hunter and Sorcerer, which is what made it a favorite Open to run repeatedly. Seer hits are not auto-lynches, because nobody is ever sure if it's a bonafide Seer hit, or a Sorc hit on the Seer. Sorc play is very interesting - since they can't win in endgame, they usually function to CC the Seer, or another PR in the event the Seer was NKed. Endgames like Wolf-Sorc-VT-VT are nuts, because everyone massclaims Sorcerer, in the hope that the wolf NKs his own Sorcerer, and Town wins the remaining LYLO.
I don't have anything to put here because my normal signature is images. Weeeeee.
In post 8799, callforjudgement wrote:I'd say having an unaware modifier isn't Normal, but it's entirely acceptable to have a "your role is either X or Y but you don't know which" style of role in an Open. (Dethy is a good example of that; it's imbalanced and emphasizes puzzle solving over scumhunting, but I don't have any rules-based issues with it being in the Open queue.)
Does the rule that Open setups have to be Normal technically still exist? Because that isn't really being enforced atm (e.g. I'm pretty sure White Flag would fail a Normal review under the current Normal guidelines).
This is really several discussions rolled up into one, most of which should probably take place outside of this thread, but:
1. dethy would not be considered Normal currently; non-sane Cop variants are explictly non-Normal.
2. I don't know that an "Open Queue games must be Normal" rule currently exists, and you're probably right that it isn't being enforced if it does. I'm certainly not trying to (re)create that rule now.
3. There's a distinction between "Open Queue games don't have to be Normal" and "This particular non-Normal game is a good fit for the Open Queue", but that's not really relevant to this particular discussion.
4. "Normal" is something that I bring up and that has been important to me because it provides a standard of "fairness". Which isn't to say "Even or Odd but don't know which" is unfair, exactly, but I do think this setup loses something in the event that the townies have no way of determining which parity they are. There's still a "puzzle" (sort of) on the scum side, but it's basically random at the start (you can try to kill this player, it may or may not work, if it doesn't you can kill them the next night). There's a good chance that the scum's first non-strong kill will succeed or fail on a purely arbitrary basis, whereas if the townies know their parity I would argue there's an added element of scum trying to work out those parities (if there's no massclaim) and town slightly modifying their behavior to induce a kill attempt on the correct night. It's subtle, but it's there.
5. White Flag should absolutely pass as Normal, and if it doesn't currently the guidelines should be changed. [/slightlybiased, but still] There is nothing I can see in the guidelines that rules out (reasonable) modifications to the win conditions.
Perfect 11 seems quite reasonable at first glance. I dig it.
(If it's breakable my massclaim, my instinct says the way to do it is a partial claim of power role or not. Particularly with the headstart result, the scum are put in a bit of a bind. Wolves will obviously avoid both claiming PR, but they don't have any way of coordinating with the Sorcerer to avoid a Wolf/Sorcerer double PR claim. It's obviously not enough to win outright, but it
might
be enough to give the town better odds than they would otherwise have.
Btw, Wolf-Sorc-VT-VT seems interesting on the surface, but it should be easily winnable by scum. Scum don't need a lynch on town, they just need any lynch, and the real Sorcerer is the only one who can cooperate in making that happen. Wolf votes, the real Sorcerer follows and the fake ones can't.)
I agree that Wolf-Sorc-VT-VT is a scum win. The Sorc isn't going to vote for the wolf, thus the wolf can't be lynched, and in order to force a no-lynch, both VTs have to give themself away as town, allowing the Wolf to nightkill corectly.
In post 8787, callforjudgement wrote:24 is probably too fast, considering weekend V/LAs and the like. Apart from that, I like the setup, and agree that it probably shouldn't have a scum instant win condition.
One interesting property I note here is that a scum townbloc member has no incentive to pick anyone in particular other than trying to look town, in much the same way that scum in a (two-faction) normal game have no incentive to scumhunt other than keeping up appearances. I consider this to be a feature, rather than a bug.
Yeah, maybe just 5 days total for the whole process; town could use most of it arguing about who to pick first if they want. And of course you could allow provisional picks (the first player chosen in particular can provisionally choose a second to take effect immediately, since they are the only vote that counts there). The neat thing is that there's no incentive for scum to stall the process once their chosen - the bloc has already failed.
It's true that scum, once chosen, should just try to look town, but trying to look town has some subtle differences in this situation that make it interesting. If the bloc fails, the town knows at least one of the bloc is scum, and possibly both scum are in the bloc, so there is a small incentive to pick a lynch from among those players rather than from the outsiders. Given that, you would want players chosen who would be more likely lynch targets than yourself. It's a small thing, since it's a big enough group to hide in, but it would be interesting to see how it played out if scum were chosen early.
Hmmmmm...
The Cliq
During the day, players vote on one player to be queen bee. That player then selects another. Cliq memebers must then come to consensus on Cliq members within 5 days. If no one is selected, then remaining cliq members will be drawn from the nominated candidates. The remaining players are the outcasts.
Then:
If the cliq is all town, all townies win
If the outcasts are all town, the outcasts depart, having fulfilled their win condition. The game then becomes nightless where if they lynch town day 1 that player gets a vengeful shot.
If they are divided 1:1 then the rules are as follows:
Scum may instantly kill one person in their group (Outcasts/Cliq)
If scum are ever the sole remaining member of either group then they win the game
There are no night kills
Plurality lynches. If there are two equal wagons, then the wagon with the most Cliq members is chosen. If there's an equal number of Cliq members, then we go in order of seniority.
That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil
Here's the best I can do in terms of maximizing the EV for town:
Two players volunteer to be part of a lynch pool (the vig doesn't volunteer; VTs volunteer, but not necessarily immediately to help hide the vig; scum can also volunteer). The other three players are a vig pool. Lynch the scummier lynch pool member. If you lynched a VT, the Vig shoots overnight, and you lynch outside the lynch pool with 65% probability the next day. If you lynched a Goon, the vig doesn't shoot, and you lynch outside the lynch pool every time if the Vig dies overnight, or with 57% probability if scum don't shoot. If the game goes to N2, the vig shoots, and aims in the vig pool.
With 0 scum in the lynch pool: you lynch a VT, the vig has a 66% chance of hitting scum overnight. If they miss, scum win. If they hit, after the claim, town win with probability 65% (if you try to lynch the vig, they claim to save themselves, and if two players claim vig you no-lynch and let them kill each other, thus the victory depends on whether you lynch inside the lynch pool or not). 43% EV for town.
With 1 scum in the lynch pool: There's a 50% chance of lynching a VT, in which case town can only win via vigging a Goon (33% chance), then lynching inside the lynch pool (35% chance); the probability of a town win from this branch is only about 6%. On the other hand, there's a 50% chance of lynching a Goon. If scum shoot in this situation, they have a 50% chance of autolosing, and a 50% chance (1/4 total) of hitting the vig, at which point town lynch in the vig pool which now has a townie and Goon in and so win half the time. Town have a 75% chance of winning in this situation, and so this contributes 37% towards town's victory odds if scum adopt this strategy; thus town EV is 43% in this case too. If scum don't shoot, then they have a 28% chance of being lynched right away and losing (because the vig can claim to save themselves, thus the lynch is aiming for their pool 57% of the time and they get lynched over the VT half the time); the rest of the time, a VT gets lynched, and town win anyway half the time if the vig hits overnight. With this scum strategy, town EV is 6% from mislynch+vig+lynch, 28% from lynch+lynch, and 18% from lynch+mislynch+vig, a total of 52%. As such, scum are going to shoot overnight in this scenario, holding the town to their 43% EV.
With 2 scum in the lynch pool: A goon gets lynched N1. If they shoot overnight, they have a 2/3 chance of hitting a VT (as they have no more information than when they started), so they don't shoot (this is worse than their other options, such as simply not volunteering). In the daytime, town wins with 43% chance when they lynch the other vig pool member, and otherwise lynches a VT and autoloses when the other VT gets vigged. EV for town is 43%.
So unless I'm missing something (e.g. one of the strategies listed is suboptimal; perhaps three members is a better lynchpool size, and this size is achievable because town have an autowin if both scum and the vig refuse to join the lynchpool), this setup is fairly balanced when broken correctly, as 43% is pretty much right where we'd expect it.
If kills count too, it's almost certainly scumsided, given that I couldn't get it to come out townsided even with the more lenient win conditions.
Yeah, I'd be surprised if town can do better than the 1/3 they can get with the "obvious" strategy.
(Vig claims immediately; if Mafia counters, lynch someone else and Vig kills fake claim. If you mislynch, you've got another shot day 2, so 2/3 EV. So Mafia doesn't counter. If you no lynch, Vig has a 50-50 night 1, and if successful town again has two shots to get the last scum with the lynch or night 2 kill, 1/3 EV. If you lynch, if you miss (1/2) then it's 1/3 again, 2/3 for the Vig and 1/2 for the lynch (or night 2 Vig if you no lynch, doesn't matter), but if you hit (1/2) it's still 1/3 because Vig is forced to shoot.
But hey, at least we've found a scenario where it absolutely doesn't matter if you no lynch, mislynch, or lynch scum.)
Sacrifice Mafia is likely scumsided unless there's a breaking strategy. It's complicated enough that I won't be trying to find an exact EV. My attempt at a breaking strategy (since that seems to be what I do lately in this thread) would be:
Cop claims.
If there's no counter, Doc protects as long as possible while Cop racks up results. I suspect town should keep lynching and vig should keep shooting, but Cop should also reveal all results as they are received and town should maybe hold off on lynching/vigging confirmed guilties (to maximize PR survival time).
If there is a counter, Vig now claims. If no counter to that, Doc protects Vig, Cop can keep getting results until the Mafia kill him (or lynch/Vig hits the enabler), at which point the counter is confirmed scum.
If both are countered, maybe Doc should claim, not sure. Probably no lynch anyway, Vig should shoot his counter at night; Mafia are forced to get rid of the Cop pretty quickly so he can't rack up results (best way is by countering the Vig with the Cop Enabler), and that outs the other, but town again should probably wait on lynching/vigging - if scum have nightkilled the Vig, this might be the Doc Enabler and town avoids giving scum an extra kill; if they left the Vig alive, this might be the Vig Enabler and we're more likely to get an extra kill out of the Vig. Regardless, town is in pretty good shape here.
In post 8813, mith wrote:Sacrifice Mafia is likely scumsided unless there's a breaking strategy. It's complicated enough that I won't be trying to find an exact EV. My attempt at a breaking strategy (since that seems to be what I do lately in this thread) would be:
Cop claims.
If there's no counter, Doc protects as long as possible while Cop racks up results. I suspect town should keep lynching and vig should keep shooting, but Cop should also reveal all results as they are received and town should maybe hold off on lynching/vigging confirmed guilties (to maximize PR survival time).
If there is a counter, Vig now claims. If no counter to that, Doc protects Vig, Cop can keep getting results until the Mafia kill him (or lynch/Vig hits the enabler), at which point the counter is confirmed scum.
If both are countered, maybe Doc should claim, not sure. Probably no lynch anyway, Vig should shoot his counter at night; Mafia are forced to get rid of the Cop pretty quickly so he can't rack up results (best way is by countering the Vig with the Cop Enabler), and that outs the other, but town again should probably wait on lynching/vigging - if scum have nightkilled the Vig, this might be the Doc Enabler and town avoids giving scum an extra kill; if they left the Vig alive, this might be the Vig Enabler and we're more likely to get an extra kill out of the Vig. Regardless, town is in pretty good shape here.
I am unfamiliar with the set up, and I have 2 stupid questions.
1) How does Cop and Vig coordinate NA?
2) What is Mafia's play here?
I was anything worse than you! Anything worse than you was I!
You was doided teh aposit_tisopa het dedoid saw em.
OK, so what about this updated version of Creature's Gambler Nightmare setup?
I made the town somewhat more powerful in the hope of balancing the setup. Looking at the situation where there's no attempt to break the setup: if town lynch scum D1, most likely nobody will shoot overnight (unless the Vigilante was outed in the process), and they thus have two chances (a lynch + a vig) to find scum. If a townie is lynched D1, scum get a "free shot" at the vig overnight (automatically winning if it hits, and going to a 50% EV endgame otherwise). If I've done the maths correctly, the EV is therefore 35% without a setup-breaking attempt (this figure takes into the account that possibility that the Vig is put up for lynch first and has to claim to save themself). If you do try to break the setup using similar principles to the ones I posted above, I think town can get their EV somewhat higher but not unbalancedly so; I haven't worked out the details yet.
@LicketyQuickety: The easiest way to coordinate in this case is for the Cop to investigate only scummy-looking players, and claim their investigation in advance. The scum can't kill the Cop through Doctor protection, and killing the Cop target to deny the investigation would effectively be making a town-directed kill, which is bad for them.
Mafia have no NK, vigs and vts can be lynchers target. Mafia have no NK. Each Lynchers has a different target. Town win when mafia is lynched or killed, or they kill the two targets nd still hold a majority.
In post 8815, callforjudgement wrote:If a townie is lynched D1, scum get a "free shot" at the vig overnight (automatically winning if it hits, and going to a 50% EV endgame otherwise).
Maybe I'm missing something in the setup, but if townie is lynched D1, the Vig has a 1/3 shot of hitting both scum if he shoots, while letting scum shoot has an EV of 1/4.
Also, Vig shooting in the scum lynch case has the same EV - 1/3 hit, plus 2/3*1/2 lynch. Doesn't matter if Vig is outed or not, or if the lynch is scum or town, Vig can shoot. EV is exactly 50%. I doubt they can improve on this.
In post 8815, callforjudgement wrote:If a townie is lynched D1, scum get a "free shot" at the vig overnight (automatically winning if it hits, and going to a 50% EV endgame otherwise).
Maybe I'm missing something in the setup, but if townie is lynched D1, the Vig has a 1/3 shot of hitting both scum if he shoots, while letting scum shoot has an EV of 1/4.
Also, Vig shooting in the scum lynch case has the same EV - 1/3 hit, plus 2/3*1/2 lynch. Doesn't matter if Vig is outed or not, or if the lynch is scum or town, Vig can shoot. EV is exactly 50%. I doubt they can improve on this.
Ah right, I missed that the vig would shoot after a townie lynch (which is weird, because I considered that case correctly in my previous analysis).
After a scum lynch, though, the vig dies if they shoot and miss, leading to a 1/3 rather than 1/2 chance of lynching correctly, so the EV in the "lynch scum then vig someone" case is 1/3 + (2/3*1/3) or 4/9. (Unless I've missed something again, which is quite possible.)
In post 8815, callforjudgement wrote:If a townie is lynched D1, scum get a "free shot" at the vig overnight (automatically winning if it hits, and going to a 50% EV endgame otherwise).
Maybe I'm missing something in the setup, but if townie is lynched D1, the Vig has a 1/3 shot of hitting both scum if he shoots, while letting scum shoot has an EV of 1/4.
Also, Vig shooting in the scum lynch case has the same EV - 1/3 hit, plus 2/3*1/2 lynch. Doesn't matter if Vig is outed or not, or if the lynch is scum or town, Vig can shoot. EV is exactly 50%. I doubt they can improve on this.
Ah right, I missed that the vig would shoot after a townie lynch (which is weird, because I considered that case correctly in my previous analysis).
After a scum lynch, though, the vig dies if they shoot and miss, leading to a 1/3 rather than 1/2 chance of lynching correctly, so the EV in the "lynch scum then vig someone" case is 1/3 + (2/3*1/3) or 4/9. (Unless I've missed something again, which is quite possible.)
I am enjoying the discussion.
I am just assuming in a setup like this that playing things by the numbers is the right play without considering overall Optimal play? What I mean by Optimal is taking into consideration the psychology of the game as well as the numbers. Obviously depending on the setup the Optimal play is going to change. Take for example a Vanilla game where most of the game is itt. Is there a point where weighing in on the psychological components outweighs the EV?
I was anything worse than you! Anything worse than you was I!
You was doided teh aposit_tisopa het dedoid saw em.
I am just assuming in a setup like this that playing things by the numbers is the right play without considering overall Optimal play? What I mean by Optimal is taking into consideration the psychology of the game as well as the numbers. Obviously depending on the setup the Optimal play is going to change. Take for example a Vanilla game where most of the game is itt. Is there a point where weighing in on the psychological components outweighs the EV?
The EV is basically the "baseline" play that town use if they don't have anything better. You can normally assume that town do better than the EV in practice. (For example, if you're in 2:1 lylo with one confirmed town, EV says that town have a 50% chance of winning, but in practice the confirmed townie gets to choose who to lynch and thus (you'd hope) town actually have a better than 50% chance.)
When you have a breaking strategy present, the simplest thing you can do is to follow the strategy, but use scumhunting to decide which choice of player you make to lynch/vig/investigate/etc. when you the strategy gives you a free choice of player. This is a pretty common play (and leads to town scoring well above EV in Nightless games; oddly, this doesn't seem to happen to so much of an extent in games with a normal day/night cycle). Much riskier is deviating from the strategy because your reads are strong enough that a normally low-percentage play becomes a good one. It's rare for players to be this confident in their scumhunting ability, and even players who are that confident are often incorrect to be, so it doesn't happen very much and doesn't succeed all that much when it does.
In your example of a vanilla/mountainous game, EV theory just says "lynch any player", which in practice becomes "lynch the scummiest player", and thus theoretically allows town to win above EV. (In practice, town do well below EV in vanilla-heavy setups with a normal day/night cycle such as 11:2 Mountainous and (as of the most recent statistics, although I suspect they're out of date) White Flag, but that may be the result of a small sample size.)
