Mafiascum.net

This is the updated list.

2of4 (Newbie) -
Alternating 9P -
Bird 7P -
Carbon-14 -
Gurgi EC8 -
JK9 -
Lovers Mafia -
My Name is Earl -
No Lynching Town -
SCIENCE -
Scumhunter's Speed 8P -
True Love -
Twin Trap -
Vengeful 5p -

Trendy and Subversive

1-Shot C9 -
1-Shot Micro -
Baby Too Much Scum -
Bodyguard 7 -
C9 -
C9+2 -
California -
Don't Cut the Red Wire! -
Double Cop -
Even/Odd C9 -
Mos Eisley -
Pie E7 -
Two of Four -
Roleblocker C9 -
Yoguraimee C9 -

- No Lynching Town is probably fine to be approved.

- Twin Trap would probably be more balanced with 9p instead of 7. It falls victim to the 2:3:2 Day 2 massclaim, with essentially two Named Townies and scum choosing which pool to hide in. Other than that, this setup seems fine.

- Baby Too Much Scum is probably unbalanced, or unnecessary when it's a miniature version of Jungle Republic. If the FBI Agent finds the SK on N1, then the town has a confirmed townie that can't be eliminated from the game - the same can occur if the SK is lynched D1. 2:5 Nightless with one confirmed townie is pretty town-sided.

- 3 of 5 has a good premise, but it'll almost always be unbalanced if the Mafia Roleblocker gets drawn. The best case scenario for town is Cop/Doc vs. Mafia Roleblocker, which has a 45% town winrate - that's fine. But the town has a decent chance of only drawing one PR, or drawing one PR with a Miller. And in most cases, 2:7 with one town PR is a 60-65% scum win. It may be more when scum has a Roleblocker too.

I like this setup, but is can't be approved with its current variables. If others like it too, then we can try and tweak it.

- Even/Odd C9: I still don't see much point in approving this, when it's going to play out very similar to Bird 7p. The Cop gets a result N1, should claim D2. Can't be protected by the Doc, so the Doc can either hope to fluke a lucky save, but in most cases will just be a Named Townie. Alternating 9P is a better version of this setup anyway.

Herodotus wrote:

Nominate: Chosen

I'm not sure what version is most balanced, but popular opinion seemed balanced around the last run version:

2 mafia
7 townies (2 of whom are Chosen, and are not told of their selection)

Pre-game, the mafia submit 1 townie's name. 2 of the remaining 6 townies are randomly selected to be the Chosen.
The mafia are told who was selected, but the Chosen are not. As long as

both

of the Chosen are alive, they are NK-immune and can't be endgamed, so the mafia need to lynch at least one of them before endgame or the mafia lose (in other words, 1 or 2 mafia vs. 2 Chosen is a town win).

There are some reasonable policies that are necessary to avoid the game being broken. For instance, town can't be allowed to No Lynch indefinitely. Self-votes might count as double-votes to help reduce endgame deadlock(?)

(to give credit: core concept was by Ether, these numbers came from Incognito's game)

I'm bringing over Chosen to the discussion for approval too, given it is a popular open setup that has been run before.

To clarify a couple of things; mafia select one townie to be immune from being chosen. Chosen Townies flip Chosen Townie.

I think I'd prefer to keep the definition of Mid/Small to 10-13 and <9.

9P plays a lot more like a small game than a mid game. They typically have 2 scum, like small games, and we wouldn't really have many small games if we made 8 the limit. This distinction is fine to me.

Hoopla: Do players in general of open games have a hatred of pools?

Secondly, do you know anyone who prefers 9p games? If it got to the point where mods only run 9p games then we fet back to the point where a significant number of players aren't catered for. 9p might look similar to 7p but it plays completely differently.

9p plays a lot more like a 7p game than a 10-13p game.

I'm confused why you think playing in an 8p game is small, but then 9 suddenly isn't.

You're honestly saying that you think the leap between 8 and 9 is smaller than 9 and 10?

8>, 2 chances to hit scum.
9< loads of chances to hit scum. In that way they're extremely different. The sense of urgency is diferent.

To be honest an 8p game has a bit of a large D1 for me but its still radically dissimilar to a 9p.

Well, we don't have any 10p setups from what I recall. So we're comparing 9p to 7p or 11-13p. In most cases, 11p or 13p will feature 3-scum, so that's a drastic difference from how a 9p game is played. 9p is exactly like a 7p game, but with one more mislynch. It isn't radically different.

I have a Gurgi EC8 game going into signups now. Before it fills, I have the weighting at 33/33/33 for the possibility of 1, 2 or 3 Weak Cops. Would it make more sense to weight it 25/50/25, so it's truer to the original?

No we're comparing 9p to 10p since that's the guidelines as you presented them. Why is 10p a mid-size set up?

(I also love how in most cases an mid-size game will have three scum when in the set ups you approved that's only true for half.

Empking wrote:No we're comparing 9p to 10p since that's the guidelines as you presented them. Why is 10p a mid-size set up?

(I also love how in most cases an mid-size game will have three scum when in the set ups you approved that's only true for half.

I don't think it really matters if 10p is small or mid, since we don't have any. I could see justification for it being small too.

The only "approved" mid-sized game that has 2 scum is mountainous 2:11, which will rarely be run because it's hard to fill.

Hoopla wrote:I have a Gurgi EC8 game going into signups now. Before it fills, I have the weighting at 33/33/33 for the possibility of 1, 2 or 3 Weak Cops. Would it make more sense to weight it 25/50/25, so it's truer to the original?

Yarr.

Cogito Ergo Sum wrote:

Hoopla wrote:I have a Gurgi EC8 game going into signups now. Before it fills, I have the weighting at 33/33/33 for the possibility of 1, 2 or 3 Weak Cops. Would it make more sense to weight it 25/50/25, so it's truer to the original?

Yarr.

Okay, fixed.

I like SCIENCE--I mean, I like small games, I like masons and I love daytalking--but I might be biased.

Hoopla wrote:I'm bringing over Chosen to the discussion for approval too, given it is a popular open setup that has been run before.

To clarify a couple of things; mafia select one townie to be immune from being chosen. Chosen Townies flip Chosen Townie.

Mafia might someday win in the variants with multiple Chosen, I guess. (To my knowledge, four games have been run with only one and one has been run with two. So far, town has never lost.) Kind of hard to say more. I think there's a lot of dumb luck behind who gets lynched in any given day, and replacements muck it up a lot in versions where the mafia are reliant on vetoes. Which they aren't in this version, so I guess that's all right?

The self-vote as two votes thing isn't necessary in any game where there's the same or more Chosen Ones as mafiates. It prevents a situation where there are equal numbers of town and mafia, but a non-chosen townie needs to die to kick the endgaming clause into effect.

Ether, do you think the Chosen setup would suffer if the mafia got to choose which two players were Chosen? Would create a nice game of wifom, as town would be reluctant to lynch VI's. Might detract from the original mechanic and turn the game into something else, though.

I think two chosen and one mafia veto seems like a decent deal for mafia, given they only need to eliminate one chosen townie.

That was actually my original plan to run the game, back when I thought scum had it easy. Now I'm not really wild about adding that element, though. I kind of think scaring townies out of lynching bad players is unhealthy for the game and makes it less fun to play, plus replacements mess with it anyway.

I'd see if scum are consistently unable to handle double chosens before trying anything else.

While we're approving small setups, I'd like to forward my own Scumhunter's Speed 8p. I can make a wiki page if we're alright with approving it.

As for the rest on the list:

• 3 of 5: Waaaaaay too swingy based on starting conditions. Cop/Doc/VT and RB/VT/Miller are possible distributions from the same game? Yeah no. Bin it.
  
• Baby Too Much Scum: Too dependent on night-kills. It's basically a game decided by the Serial Killer. Bin it.
  
• Double Cop: I'm not gonna comment on this. I just don't like the concept, but I haven't looked into whether or not it's balanced. Just consider my vote an "abstaining" here.
  
• Even/Odd C9: I say don't bother with Alternating 9p already approved. Nothing is terribly WRONG with it per se, but I just don't think it's worth keeping.
  
• My Name is Earl: I've had a bit of a change of heart. I think we should hold on to this. It's a good Open setup to "skin" (I think theming Open setups is just fine as long as you put themed PMs in the first post with non-themed.)
  
• No Lynching Town: I like it.
  
• Pie E7: Balancing high-power against high-power in a small game basically puts the whole game on the back of the first lynch, and unless you're in a speed game (or a theme with a d1 conversation started) the first lynch is often fairly arbitrary. Bin it.
  
• SCIENCE: So basically a 2:5 with daytalking scum and daytalking masons. I think it can probably stay.
  
• Trendy and Subversive: I like it. I don't know what the balance difference is between the three versions (this is a no-running-the-numbers carpet bombing review session) but if it's not balanced I think it's one to tweak. Remember my complaint back up in the Pie E7 review? This is how you fix that issue.
  
• Twin Trap: I love "guilties are definitive, innos are not" as a design principle. I agree with Hoopla it could stand to be bigger. If it's balanced with just 2 townies added, I'm all for adding that tweaked setup.
  
• Two of Four: Oh lordy lou a town RB with cop and doc just seems like a recipe for HEADACHES. For both factions. I think it should be binned just on the "not-fun" principle. IF someone else thinks it's fun and is/can be balanced, we can talk about it.
  
• Vengeful 7p: Sure, let's keep it.

Twin trap seems horrid. I'm not sure 3 VT, 1 watcher, 1 tracker, 2 goons is town sided. Making the PRs only catch one of the two scum turns it into a joke. Maybe as a 9 player. MAYBE.

My Name is Earl is awesome.


PEdit: Obv I second Hito's nomination.

hitogoroshi wrote:While we're approving small setups, I'd like to forward my own Scumhunter's Speed 8p. I can make a wiki page if we're alright with approving it.

I like it, with the exception of the Lynch All Lurkers rule built in. I think that's not a particularly wise idea - I'd hate for a game to decided/influenced by a scum lurking. It also unfairly incriminates someone who goes on V/LA. The game is 8p - it isn't going to go that long. Using a mechanic to try and speed the town up probably isn't required in such a small game. If anything, such a rule is probably not fostering a perfect scumhunting environment, as most "speed" games tend to be reckless and swift, and occasionally devoid of thought.

Ether wrote:I'd see if scum are consistently unable to handle double chosens before trying anything else.

I'm willing to give it a couple of shots to see how it plays. Does Chosen Mafia have a pre-existing wiki page? I can't find one.

GreyICE wrote:Twin trap seems horrid. I'm not sure 3 VT, 1 watcher, 1 tracker, 2 goons is town sided. Making the PRs only catch one of the two scum turns it into a joke. Maybe as a 9 player. MAYBE.

Remember, innos from one PR become definitive when one scum dies. And named PRs become essentially on-demand confirmed (unless scum force 50/50). It's a pretty well balanced setup imo (as a 9p).

Hoopla wrote:

hitogoroshi wrote:While we're approving small setups, I'd like to forward my own Scumhunter's Speed 8p. I can make a wiki page if we're alright with approving it.

I like it, with the exception of the Lynch All Lurkers rule built in. I think that's not a particularly wise idea - I'd hate for a game to decided/influenced by a scum lurking. It also unfairly incriminates someone who goes on V/LA. The game is 8p - it isn't going to go that long. Using a mechanic to try and speed the town up probably isn't required in such a small game. If anything, such a rule is probably not fostering a perfect scumhunting environment, as most "speed" games tend to be reckless and swift, and occasionally devoid of thought.

Fair enough, I can take the LaL bit out. I'll go ahead and make a wiki page.

Hoopla wrote:

Ether wrote:I'd see if scum are consistently unable to handle double chosens before trying anything else.

I'm willing to give it a couple of shots to see how it plays. Does Chosen Mafia have a pre-existing wiki page? I can't find one.

I don't think so.

From what I recall, Baby Too Much Scum was not liked by anyone when it was actually being played.

Okay, updated the list.

Added;

- Twin Trap (9P)
- Scumhunter's Speed 8p
- My Name Is Earl
- No Lynching Town

Binned;

- Baby Too Much Scum

Vi, can you make an "Outdated" category in the Historical Open Setups section? Just for unpopular setups or setups that are essentially something else, ie; 1-Shot Micro/1-Shot C9 etc.