[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[Kmd4390]

I think your setup is good, as long as you endgamed 1 mime v 1 town v 1 mafia for Mime-Mafia joint win.

Why would you do that?

Mime lynch = mime win
Scum lynch = town win
Town lynch = scum win

[mhsmith0]

I thought mime lynch = mine and scum win? Do mimes win alone?

[callforjudgement]

I'm pretty sure that's allowed. I'm not sure if there are any numbers where it works offhand, though (although if pressed, I'd start it at 2:9 in the understanding that it's likely going to be somewhat scumsided).

What would make it scum-sided?

Basically it's that town don't have any information besides dayplay, and yet scum still have a kill. The vote-to-save mechanic prevents scum eliminating one player of town's choice, but they can still eliminate the second-strongest townie, so we'd expect the playerlist to become full of players with more scumsided playstyles over time (i.e. harder to read / worse at scumhunting / more commonly mislynched). Numbers where this sort of setup are mathematically balanced are completely absurd in terms of town:scum ratio, and lead to a very demoralising game in which town get a huge number of mislynches and are expected to use most or all of them (which means that much of the game will be spent making no real progress for either faction), and so smaller numbers are likely to lead to a better game, even though you have to acknowledge that scum will probably win most of the time.

[Kmd4390]

I thought mime lynch = mine and scum win? Do mimes win alone?

Yes

Edit: Wait, I see what you are asking. Lemme get back to you.

[Kmd4390]

Yeah, that would just be a mime win. The instant that the second mime is lynched, the mimes have reached their win condition, meaning scum and town both lose.

[Realeo]

Yeah, that would just be a mime win. The instant that the second mime is lynched, the mimes have reached their win condition, meaning scum and town both lose.

Ew. Kingmaker of classic town v mafia v 3rd party. A condition where the loser can choose the winner. Bad design.

[Kmd4390]

By that logic, you should never use third party in any game ever

[Realeo]

Which is why 1:1:1 is solved by setup creator from get go. Some setup creator during 1:1:1 would skip the day phase to prevent the losing VT from choosing the winner. Some setup decides a winner before hand (like Jungle Republic, Mafia is given the win in a tie or 1:1:1)

[callforjudgement]

Choosing a winner beforehand is the least screwy option.

Incidentally, in a 1:1:1, the roles of town and scum are basically reversed; the townie knows who all the scum are, but the scum don't. This alone is enough to make the endgame fairly screwy.

[Kmd4390]

Waited for fire and ice to finish before responding because talking about this during a 2:1:1 involving realeo and myself could have influenced that.

It's more fun to leave it to the players and let it play out. There are enough options and possible scenarios that the makeup of the playerlist can change what happens and that is more fun than picking a winner before it comes up. I have to say that the 2:1:1 I just played in, while admittedly screwy as fuck, was one of the most fun endgames I've been a part of in a long time.

If it was me, as mime, I wouldn't vote anyone unless I was self hammering. Also wouldn't accept a no lynch. I'd probably try to push as hard as possible that town NEEDS to lynch scum to have any shot. If someone claims scum or mime, I'd have to decide whether to claim scum or not. It's a risk at being outted, but might get town to vote me. So already you see ideas playing out here.

Now as scum, I'd need a town lynch or no lynch. I'd want the no lynch bad, so I might refuse to vote and/or claim mime. Town might be scared to vote me and a mime wouldn't want me lynched. Actually, being lynched as scum should be impossible. I'd probably push that idea to stop town from lynching. If I give off the idea I'm better at theory or a better player, it might work. But if town is smart (or has common sense), they'll take their best guess at lynching scum for the win. So if the mime counterclaims, it's not very believable. Or mime claims scum. Then scum goes "oh shit". So that would get fun fast.

As town, the idea is to figure out who is mime and who is scum and lynch correctly. Now, because of the scenarios above, I'd probably lynch anyone who makes an initial mime claim in theory. But in practice, you have to figure out who is trying to be lynched and who is trying not to be lynched. Asking about NKs and reasoning behind them helps too. In that fire and ice game, town claimed scum and that was followed by a genuine scum claim. I was scum myself, so to figure out which claim was real, I asked about NKs and could tell who actually made them so it definitely can work. But this is a fun WIFOM headache for town.

Also worth mentioning is that the odds of this 1:1:1 coming up are far from 100%. Any scenario that ends the game before 3p eliminates it. Any scenario where scum is eliminated before 3p ends it (this brings up another situation. See next paragraph). Any scenario where a mime is NK'd or both are lynched (therefore winning) before 3p eliminates it. Or scum winning with 2 living members.

Now, on the scenario with scum being eliminated before mimes. Do you keep playing? There's no scum NK so mimes are either killed by the vig, lynched, or survive. The original game shows the town win condition as winning "when all threats to the town are eliminated". So if the vig is gone, things get complicated again. I need to sort this and wouldn't mind opinions. Calling it a draw seems lame. Calling it a mime win seems lame, especially if neither of the two was lynched. And calling it a town win seems lame when they didn't eliminate mimes. But maybe this just means the town win condition needs to change because town no lynching repeatedly results in the mimes not being able to win so maybe town win is the best scenario there? They eliminated the scum team, so they did their job.

[mhsmith0]

wrt mimes, IIRC jesters get endgamed if scum are eliminated and they're still alive, so I'd think same thing applies there. The big question IMO is whether wincons are constructed such that mime wincon is INDEPENDENT of other wincons (so they can win with either faction), or if it's three different factions, only one of which can win.

I think the key here is to make sure wincons are fully understood and explained pre-game, so that everyone knows what they're getting into. Scum rolling in game state but getting beat by mimes when they didn't realize that only one faction could win, for instance, isn't ideal at all.

[Kmd4390]

Yeah, I'm pretty positive it was a one faction wins kind of game. Endgaming mimes if scum are eliminated makes sense to me.

[Lycanfire]

Please review...

Hollywood Mafia 13p

10v3
x4 celebrity
x6 VT

x1 mafia celebrity
x2 mafia goon

Celebrity:

Your celebrity status is confirmed at the start of the game

For balance purposes. The thread may have useful information for starting points on game problems and EV calculation.

[Eddie Cane]

scum rb
scum 1x strongman
mafia goon
mafia goon
town jk
town 1x bp
town vig
10 vt

(4v13)

[callforjudgement]

Please review...

Hollywood Mafia 13p

10v3
x4 celebrity
x6 VT

x1 mafia celebrity
x2 mafia goon

Celebrity:

Your celebrity status is confirmed at the start of the game

For balance purposes. The thread may have useful information for starting points on game problems and EV calculation.

This is mostly being discussed in the setup's own thread, but I believe it's scumsided as written.

[Espeonage]

Thought on

7v2v2

6x VT
1x Doc

2x Bulletproof Red Mafia Goon

1x Blue Mafia Goon
1x Blue Mafia Cop

I want a set-up with mafias with different abilities that is more or less balanced between them and town.

Idea is that Blue Mafia loses an otherwise even endgame, but gets an advantage in target selection in day phase. This makes 1/1 endgames easy to settle. I am unsure if Blue should have a 1-shot strongman. Doc is designed to avoid blue solving too much through kill blocks.

[Egg]

Not sure the cop really helps when they can't NK red scum. Sure, it helps them with the doc but otherwise meh

[Alisae]

Please no more multiball games

[acidphoenix]

a. what alisae said
b. fire and ice is 9v2v2 and objectively more townsided so ??

[Gamma Emerald]

Seems like a jungle game not branded as one

[Srceenplay]

Hope this is in the right spot.

Know thy neighbor

A setup based on player list position.
Night actions only can be used on the player above or below you.
Above the top is the bottom and bellow the bottom is the top. (The list circles around)
Days are standard days except shorter 7 irl days.
The beginning player list positions are rolled as a random list at random.org.

7v2
2 goons
1-shot vig
Doc
5 vanilla towns

The game mechanical role is a Driver. It can be town or mafia. Must be random rolled. It then takes the place of a random vanilla town or goon.
The driver can move any player from their current position to the top of the list as a night action.

Night action resolution:
Driver
Doctor
Kills trigger simultaneously

Thoughts?

[Awoo]

Change driver to "Elevator Operator"

[TheGoldenParadox]

Hope this is in the right spot.

Know thy neighbor

A setup based on player list position.
Night actions only can be used on the player above or below you.
Above the top is the bottom and bellow the bottom is the top. (The list circles around)
Days are standard days except shorter 7 irl days.
The beginning player list positions are rolled as a random list at random.org.

7v2
2 goons
1-shot vig
Doc
5 vanilla towns

The game mechanical role is a Driver. It can be town or mafia. Must be random rolled. It then takes the place of a random vanilla town or goon.
The driver can move any player from their current position to the top of the list as a night action.

Night action resolution:
Driver
Doctor
Kills trigger simultaneously

Thoughts?

I feel it's way too swingy dependent on which alignment it goes to.

[Not Known 15]

Sheriff

17 players

1 Sheriff
4-10 Vanilla Townies
0-4 Town Neighbor I
0-4 Town Neighbor II
Total number of Town:13

(including the Sheriff)

0-4 Mafia Goons
0-4 Mafia Neighbor I
0-4 Mafia Neighbor II
Total number of Mafia:4

Phase 0(pre-game, only once) Neighborhood selection by the Sheriff.
Phase 1:Day
Phase 2:Night
Sheriff:The Sheriff is confirmed town, and cannot be targeted by attacks if they are active at night.

In the pre-game, the Sheriff will select at least 3 and at most 4 people for each of the two neighborhoods(I and II)

The Sheriff will sleep when town lynches

and may not talk at day without permission

, and will can protect one person per night.
If the target is selected to be the night kill the Sheriff will kill the attacking member of the Mafia instead. If the target

performs

the night kill the Sheriff and the (mafia-aligned) target die instead.

The Sheriff may kill someone at night instead, consuming one bullet. If the target was town they will appear at day for the rest of the game even if they had a bullet left.

The Sheriff has 2 bullets. If they run out of bullets they appear at day for the rest of the game(and can be targeted).
At any night the Sheriff may decide to appear at day for the rest of the game, along with their night actions.

When, at the start of the lynch phase, there is an equal amount of normal mafia and town the Sheriff appears automatically.
The Sheriff will be subject to activity checks.
Mafia:

The Mafia have a sniper rifle they can use once to kill someone and ignore any sheriff guarding the target. However, if the sheriff guards the killer that night or decides to kill them only the killer will die.

The Mafia have a factional kill but members of the Mafia cannot kill consecutively.
The neighborhoods are active at day only.
The mafia night chat is active at night only.

Feedback, please

[callforjudgement]

Sheriff sounds like a terrible role to play. You could at least let them talk in the neighbourhoods.

I also believe that this isn't nearly enough town power to balance a 13:4, given that town have none of the usual Open advantages (because role and alignment are effectively randomized separately, except in the Sheriff's case, setup knowledge isn't very useful to figure out who's on which team).