[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[ortolan]

^^ I like that one, very very simple too

mafia have 0.4 odds of winning, town 0.6 by random lynching

that's not that unbalanced compared to other standard setups is it?

I can't help but feel in practice unless mafia played really well it'd be pretty easy to out them. And do the townies know who their lovers are?

[ortolan]

Yes I think so because the town have greater odds of winning as it is.

[ortolan]

Is

a 40% chance of winning for mafia imbalanced? (open question)

If town has higher than 50% win chance, that's horribly imbalanced. I'd say if they have 45-50 its imbalanced.

Is there any basis for this? I'm genuinely curious (another open question). It seems to presuppose the deductive power of the town is in general greater than the power of scum to manipulate above the base odds (something that is not at all evidenced by games I've played in).

[ortolan]

Where is the "list" of "approved" open setups currently? I want to see if an idea I had has already been thought of.

[ortolan]

Anyhow I'm gonna post, if it's a repeat then sue me:

I have an idea for a setup spurred by discussion of lovers which is so simple/obvious I'm sure it's been used/discussed extensively before but I'm unsure how to search for previous setups. Anyhow, in case it hasn't:

True Love

Nightless

8 Players- 2 Mafia, 6 Townies

4 lover pairs.

It is known the configuration of lovers is:

1 townie-1 townie
1 townie-1 townie
1 townie-1 scum
1 townie-1 scum

Everyone is aware of who is paired with whom. Daytalking is allowed between both lovers and scum.

This has exactly 50% odds of being won by either town or scum. Sounds awesome to me.

[ortolan]

I'll just commit for the time being:

Here is an example:

You are ortolan, mafia

Your partner in crime is Adel. You may talk with him/her at any time.

Your lover is mith. [additionally all the lover pairings are listed in the mod's opening post anyhow]. You may talk with him at any time.

You win when the number of living mafia players outnumbers or is equal to the number of living town players.

[ortolan]

Good point Crazy

Daytalking for all then.

[ortolan]

That is genuinely 50%. Well done. I approve.

[ortolan]

what do you think about this one Korts: http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 65#1532265

Also 50% odds of winning for either

Is there any chance of me running that in the open games queue or will I need to run it during a marathon day or something first to prove whether it's workable?

[ortolan]

I agree with Korts' point- while strictly speaking it does have a 50% expected win percentage for both town and scum, it is just a bad/boring setup regardless.

[ortolan]

The setup is really just: one judge with two pairs trying to convince this judge to lynch the other.

[ortolan]

only if who plays suboptimally? it is optimal play for the scum to force this situation to begin with.

[ortolan]

I meant your game

[ortolan]

Thanks Korts

I assume 689 was directed at True Love

[ortolan]

actually I just thought of something interesting regarding your setup Empking

if it is agreed beforehand that it is suboptimal town play for masons/scum to claim, then if anyone claims they get autolynched. Then you just play mafia. If the townie gets lynched then they have additional knowledge of who the scummiest on their wagon were. This doesn't change the expected win percentages from a cold hard neutral probabilistic perspective but probably in practice does help town.

[ortolan]

I think what will end up happening is if you run up a mafia then they will claim Mafia B. If it is actually Mafia A the real Mafia B will argue quite stringently to get them lynched which may well give them away also.

Either way Mafia A is likeliest to win in my opinion.

[ortolan]

^^^ that doesn't actually follow from the setup- if you're confident you caught a scummy I see few instances where you could be confident they're Mafia A rather than B, especially assuming even half-decent scumplay from the scum.

[ortolan]

actually, after previous game, it seems that polygamist can be a bit more favored for town, but that is something I want to test out now.

How'd you come to this conclusion? We had an easy win on our hands

[ortolan]

I think that problem is overruled by the fact it always seems to think there are about 15 unique views even when only two people have viewed it

[ortolan]

I think it's pretty balanced that way... the vig kills are actually a pro-town thing, considering that the vig will be trying to target people that are actually scummy.

Yer exactly, you're either removing townies who are probably lynch bait anyway, or getting a confirmation that someone is scum.

[ortolan]

Delayed Reaction

12 Players:

3 Mafia Bombers
1 Explosives Expert
1 Explosives Expert's Understudy
7 Vanilla Townies

The mafia do not night-kill, instead each night they choose from two options: plant a bomb on a player, or detonate all previously planted bombs. Being blown up kills a player. The explosives expert can check a player each night to see if they have a bomb planted on them. The understudy gains the abilities of the explosives expert when they die. Mafia cannot plant bombs on themselves. The explosives expert will receive a positive result on whomever they investigate if a bomb was planted on them on a previous night or during the night the investigation was undertaken. All roles are revealed upon death, including that of the understudy.

[ortolan]

Wait how is Cowardly Mafia v4 balanced? The vig still kills the scummiest players, in order to kill the vig the mafia have to know both whom the vig is and guess who their target is, which seems very unlikely. Until then the vig just vigs the scummiest lynch-bait players then reports when they get a no-kill. They lynch the scum and the vig gets another go. It's not balanced at all...

The best chance mafia have is to counter-claim the vig, but if this happens after day one it's likely only the vig can justify their choice of night-kill targets based on their previous posts.

[ortolan]

The mafia can't night-kill, and the explosives expert learns if there is an explosive charge on the person altogether, including if it was placed on the same night as the investigation took place. Edited as it may have been unclear.

[ortolan]

I added the extra townie I originally had back to Delayed Reaction to make it 12 player. This adds an extra day before LYOL assuming 3 mislynches/bomb plants.

It seems reasonably balanced now. Any comments?

Cowardly looks alright in its present form but I'll check out some more commentary before giving my approval.

[ortolan]

Why?

[ortolan]

Third CM5

Second Delayed Reaction

[ortolan]

Well, I it just seems more acceptable to me, and it limits the power of the explosives expert when there's one mafia left. Which, I see as more balancing in the possibility that both experts are alive and the other two mafia have been lynched first two days.

I think the probability of them getting a clear isn't that high to begin with plus even if the expert does claim an innocent on one or two players then the remaining mafia can plant a bomb on him then blow them all up the next night. Otherwise it's their fault for losing their scumbuddies imo.

[ortolan]

and Delayed Reaction!

[ortolan]

well, say the mafia has planted a bomb on someone and the explosives expert finds it

If they claim, then unless the mafia counter-claim them then the town gets both a confirmed townie in the explosives expert who has claimed and the person whom a bomb has been discovered on. If the mafia wishes to kill the explosives expert, unless they already have a bomb on them, then they need to spend another night to plant a bomb on the explosives expert before they can kill the two, essentially giving the town at least two days with two confirmed townies to narrow down the potential scum. Also, the explosives backup can claim and if not counter-claimed you get another townie during LYOL. Asides from that, assuming perfect play from the mafia they cannot win until they have

four

mislynches in a row rather than the standard three from a 12 player setup. In light of this I do not think it is clearly imbalanced in favour of the mafia. Note I still disagree with BAB's suggestion that the mafia actually needs

more

power. The setup is somewhat unpredictable, but I don't see it clearly being biased towards one side or another.

But no, the explosives expert cannot disarm the bombs. Do you still think that would improve the setup in light of the above? It seems that might make it potentially too town-skewed (although in this case the mafia might choose simply to play it like nightless or alternatively target some of the scummiest townies to get some extra kills in here and there).

[ortolan]

IIRC that game had a bomb-defuser and a roleblocker. I strongly recommend against these roles. They make it impossible for the mafia to know what "kills" they have to do over, or even (in the case of the game I was in) that there is a possibility that bombs need to be replaced.

Yer I'm not keen on putting that in really.

A bomb detector is basically a type of cop. I really don't think this role needs a backup, since this guy isn't going to get lynched, it is quite expensive for mafia to kill him in the first place... and on death he gets a replacement? ugh.

Hmm. Well I guess the worst case scenario is the detector gets wagoned to a claim day one then the mafia have to plant a bomb on him that night and presumably detonate the next, then they progressively plant bombs on the townies until the point where they can end-game by detonating them. I think I'd still rather keep the backup because the detector isn't that powerful in the first place- it only has a small chance of confirming an innocent even when it does investigate someone (and I don't think giving it a defuse ability is a good idea as you say).

[ortolan]

Do they get a nightkill as well as the poison powder?

Also the game looks broken by mass-claim to me

[ortolan]

also bear in mind that in open setups with hiders the town usually always hypoclaims

[ortolan]

I think it's more likely in a game where someone has seen it before and therefore knows to suggest it

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9768

[ortolan]

yer, if the person they hide behind gets killed they die too (from what I remember that applied in that game).

[ortolan]

I still like Delayed Reaction

[ortolan]

Having played Carbon-14 twice I think it's too biased towards town.

[ortolan]

I need some game ideas people. Hit this page today with what you want to see. Carbon 14 is a possiblilty

Please give Delayed Reaction a go. People will love it due to its unconventional setup. I also see a mafia or town win as equally likely. I will mod if necessary (I'm aware that's not really a possibility). Most of the issues I've seen with it were extremely nitpicky (and I'd suggest the proposed improvements were inferior to the original) and frankly all setups on this site are balanced towards one side or another. I think this is at least as good as most other open setups.

[ortolan]

Feels a lot like a Theme game, ortolan. That's just me.

Personally I don't feel it is any more "themed" than any of the open setups which e.g. feature jesters prominently. It is quite standard, it just has a modified night-kill/investigation dynamic

[ortolan]

blowing my own trumpet here, but imo True Love should get run again

exactly 50-50 odds of town/mafia winning, sounds like a winner setup to me!

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 65#1532265

you don't need to tell people who is lovers with whom at the start, as per how the game was run the first time round: http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11349

[ortolan]

blowing my own trumpet here, but imo True Love should get run again

exactly 50-50 odds of town/mafia winning, sounds like a winner setup to me!

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 65#1532265

you don't need to tell people who is lovers with whom at the start, as per how the game was run the first time round: http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11349

I could go for another round in the game.
Out of curiousity (because I'm a bit tired) was scum allowed to day talk to each other as well in the game?

yer they can

[ortolan]

first time we played that setup we thought it was ridiculously biased towards scum (perfect victory) and second time round....ooh look scum won again (perfect victory). Your change is interesting but I don't think it helps the fact that both the town and the mimes' victory condition is extremely difficult to achieve.

[ortolan]

does the role cop get "mime" and "mafia" or just town power roles?

[ortolan]

Also Percy's amendment effectively screws the town harder- it gives them yet another way to lose even if they lynch all the scum

[ortolan]

basically the problem with the whole dynamic is that town is extremely wary of lynching scummy people. They are more likely to go for nolynches or unothorthodox lynches which wouldn't normally be logical or desirable. No lynches screw up the town, as do having to use variant methodologies for finding scum which will make assessing other people extra difficult. The nolynches punish the mimes and the town, and the whole lynching process being based around "not lynching the mimes" also punishes the mimes and the town. The only way I think the setup could be balanced is by giving the mafia a more difficult win condition, so that they are comparably impaired to the other two factions. Mafia lovers would be something to consider (obviously the town PRs would have to be played around with).

pre-post edit: the new setup looks far more promising. I'd still be interested in perhaps a smaller variant with one jester and two mafia lovers and a few vanilla townies.

[ortolan]

how about 8 players, 5 vanilla townies, 2 mafia lovers, one jester, mafia get a night-kill

it should be possible to do a % chance to win calculation for that.

[ortolan]

looks like scum = 33% chance, mime = 24% chance, town = 43% chance from my calculations. That is within the bounds for balance I would hope. I might nominate this one.

[ortolan]

There Is No "TEAM" In "I"

but there is an "I" in "VIGILANTE"

Mafia

2-3

Mafia Goons

5-7

Vanilla Townies

2-3

Hunters

Each hunter has a NK, and is on their own team (i.e. the hunters are not teamed together, so they don't know who each other are.) If a hunter shoots a mafia member, that hunter wins and is removed from the game. If a hunter shoots a townie, that hunter loses and is removed from the game. If they never shoot anyone, they lose at endgame. All NK's happen simultaneously, so a hunter who is killed by the mafia or another hunter could use their ability on that night. Day start.

Optional: If multiple hunters target the same person on the same night, the mod randomly chooses one who shoots first, and the other holds their shot.
Optional, to discourage hunters from claiming: When a hunter is lynched, day continues.
Optional, to discourage hunters from claiming: the mafia have a roleblock in addition to their kill, but can't use it on the same person on consecutive nights.

It's not necessarily right for the Open Queue, but how about as a marathon/quick game?

I'd like to see this run, although I'd change

Optional: If multiple hunters target the same person on the same night, the mod randomly chooses one who shoots first, and the other holds their shot.

To "whoever submits the action first".

[ortolan]

I see no good reason they couldn't "optionally" do that, no.

No, as that is unfair to people who have lives...

Um...so is the fact that catching scum (or pulling a good gambit as scum) usually requires a fair bit of mental attention. It might be *random*, or *timezone-biased*, as Flay pointed out, but I don't see it as systematically disadvantaging people who "have lives", whatever that means; at least not more so than they usually are in the context of a mafia game.

[ortolan]

Oh, that's what you meant, Adel? :/

Personally I don't think it really is a big deal if only one of the roles has the ability, because then you know who it is. I was thinking it'd be more interesting if the lynch AND THE FLIP were delayed a whole extra day, giving you some concrete information (this person is going to die) but not all of it (their flip.)

I don't want to run the numbers right now but I'm gonna assume even balances better and whip up a little mock up:

Slow Rusty Guillotine Mafia

2 Mafia Goons
1 Maifa Roleblocker
1 Town Tracker
1 Town Doctor
1 One-Shot Impatient Vigilante
6 Townies

Special Lynch Mechanic

When a majority is reached on someone, the mod will announce such and the day will end. However, the person in question will not be dead (and their alignment will not be revealed) until the end of the next day, when a new majority is reached on someone. You cannot no-lynch in Slow Rusty Guillotine Mafia. When a majority is reached on someone, they cannot use any night actions but are otherwise unaffected.

Exception: If two scum are dead and a majority is reached on the third scum, the game will end.

New Role: One-Shot Impatient Vigilante

This guillotine is so slow...sometime you just gotta know, y'know? That's why you brought your gun along to the festivities. No need to wait for a slow old blade, right? And hey, he was gonna die anyway...so really, you didn't kill a guy at all. You've only got one shot, though, so make it count.

At any point during the day, you may PM the moderator saying that you want to use your ability. You will instantly kill the player who a majority was reached on the previous day. This ability will not reveal who the vigilante is. You only get one use of this ability.

You win with the town.

this one deserves consideration (personally I think the altered lynch mechanic is similar to the altered nightkill mechanic I proposed in Delayed Reaction; which was apparently too deviant to be an open game. Not a criticism of your setup but I think neither should be disallowed).

[ortolan]

Follow The Cop

9 players

2x mafia goons
1x cop
2x beloved princess millers
4x vanilla townies

cop head start

edit: beloved princesses only give the scum an extra kill, the cop only gets one investigation. They only trigger doublekill if they are lynched, not nightkilled.

[ortolan]

Might also make the princesses flip as VT if they are nightkilled, not sure on that one.

[ortolan]

Follow The Cop

9 players

2x mafia goons
1x cop
2x beloved princess millers
4x vanilla townies

cop head start

edit: beloved princesses only give the scum an extra kill, the cop only gets one investigation. They only trigger doublekill if they are lynched, not nightkilled.

I

think

the best strategy here is to lynch normally day 1, and if someone is driven to claim that claims princess or cop, lynch someone else (obv). Then, Day 2 have both princesses claim and cop claim her result. Thoughts?

If you ended up with two VTs dead on first day/night, then 1 or 2 of the scum also claim beloved princess. If only one claims you end up with a 1/3 chance of hitting scum out of them, assuming the cop didn't inspect the scum who fake-claimed vanilla. Assuming they didn't then if you hit town (2/3 chance) then town loses instantly. If they did then you lynch a scumbag, cop dies and you end up in 5 player and the same choice between 2 beloved princesses and one scum, where if you choose wrong you lose. I can't see how this approach helps town in the slightest.

[ortolan]

Follow The Cop

9 players

2x mafia goons
1x cop
2x beloved princess millers
4x vanilla townies

cop head start

edit: beloved princesses only give the scum an extra kill, the cop only gets one investigation. They only trigger doublekill if they are lynched, not nightkilled.

So basically a nerfed cop and potential double-kills for the mafia. It's a REALLY brutal scenario for town. Two mislynched BP's = 6 dead townies = probable scum win. Assuming one scum fake claims, town has a 2/3*1/2=33% chance of ending in such a situation, without even addressing the other scum.

I think removing the BP's and having them just millers would be a much better balance.

I don't think it's as harsh on town as you make out. When a princess gets wagoned they are going to claim princess. When a scum gets wagoned they are going to claim either princess or VT. That's all part of the WIFOM- if someone claims princess you're taking a big risk by lynching them, but if the town is scumhunting well they should be able to see past that and lynch based on actual scummy behaviour.

Also remember that if the cop gets an innocent result then that player is a confirmed innocent VT. When they get a guilty they can decide based on the person's behaviour whether they are more likely to be scum or princess.

Follow The Cop

Should probably be run at least once for sheer comedy value.

Bonus points if you make the princess millers bulletproof.

That would be funny but it would probably further disadvantage the town and lead to no-kill WIFOM situations (if there's no kill the town will wonder if the scum nokilled or if they targeted a princess, and they will speculate as to who the kill was directed at) which aren't very enjoyable to play through in my opinion.

[ortolan]

For all of the 3 seconds I spent thinking about it, I thought that would lean more towards town, I would just take the free investigation and be happy. Just curious what your perspective is?

Oh yer, I forgot that would effectively be a free investigation for the cop. In that case another perspective is that it gets very nasty for the scum if a beloved princess claims and is believed. They cannot kill them in any way. If it happens with both it completely screws the scum.

[ortolan]

Can you self-nom? Let's see.

Nominate: Follow the Cop

[ortolan]

If only one scum claims then there's a 66.6% chance of mislynching. The next day if the town chooses to lynch from the first two there's a 50% probability of them losing instantly.

The chances of the cop finding the other scum lying about their claim in that time is too complicated for me to calculate taking into account all possibilites. I don't

think

it's broken though .

[ortolan]

Yeh, it's not clearly broken. I don't know if it's better or not, but it's probably within the margin where you'll sometimes do better with scumhunting. (Still too lazy to run numbers.)

Nominate: Follow the Cop

I figure!

Cheers. I think the numbers are difficult to run because you need to take into account probability of cop investigating one of the three claimaints n0 vs not doing so. It just got too complicated for me

[ortolan]

I can't find a link to it, so I'll ask here. Is there a list of all approved Open Setup games?

I think I've asked that before and got the answer "no". I could be wrong but I think farside basically determines what setups get run, apart from when a setup is nominated for the first time.

[ortolan]

Let's do follow the cop now!

[ortolan]

(EV is...50% [or] 45%.)

Looks like we're good to go. Seems like I have a knack for coming up with 50% setups seeing as my other one, true love was exactly 50%.

[ortolan]

waaaaa follow the cop never got run

[ortolan]

let's run one of my setups again

True Love or Follow The Cop

You can't get much better

[ortolan]

let's run one of my setups again

True Love or Follow The Cop

You can't get much better

Nominate True Love

I dunno about Follow The Cop, though; I'm not sure there's any reason for the Princesses to not just claim immediately. Doing that would keep the cop from investigating them and it keeps any wagoned scum from claiming princess.

tbh there might indeed have been some ongoing issues with it, I don't really remember

Second True Love

[ortolan]

Ultimate WIFOM

2 Mafia Goons
1 Innocent Child (Mod-confirmed town at the start of the game)
1 Watcher
3 Townies

Nominate

brilliant. Few roles = good design.

Seconded

Thirded

Am I allowed to

Fourth

my own setup?

Wait, really? Sorry to burst your bubble, from what I see this isn't even close to being being balanced. Looks pretty blatantly scum-sided, I'd predict an 90%+ win rate for them. Please explain to me how this setup is balanced???

[ortolan]

Hoopla I don't even understand your critique of the setup, it makes no sense to me

- Mafia need two mislynches to win
- Only intellectually impaired mafiates would target the innocent child while the watcher is alive.
- Thus the watcher has an incredibly small chance of successfully guessing who the mafia kill, especially if the mafia show some intelligence and properly randomise who they're going to kill.
- If the mafia happen to target the watcher he's screwed anyway.
- This setup isn't even remotely balanced.

[ortolan]

Maybe if you added four more townies you could bring the mafia win rate down to about 50%

[ortolan]

9 players maybe?

2 Mafia Goons
1 Innocent Child
1 Watcher
5 Townies

That would solve the problem of Mafia getting an automatic 3p endgame just by openly sacrificing themselves, and I'm sure it improves balance, too. I'd much rather do 9p instead of 11p, though, since if an 11p has scum lynched Day 1, then that creates a sucky game.

mm yes, that might be better

[ortolan]

I like Hoopla's a lot. Maybe not have the Goons flip on death (just mafia, don't know on/off?)

[ortolan]

I have an interesting idea... With an unusual mechanic.

Party All Night, Every Night

• 2 Mafia Goons
  
• 1 Watcher
  
• 9 Vanilla Townies*

Every player can go to another player's party each night. (But not their own, strangely enough) This does not allow night talk (because everyone got too drunk to remember anything).
The mafia must decide who kills everyone that attends the same party he does, or the host if nobody else attended. Each goon can visit a different party, but only one will kill.
The Watcher (You can think of him as the designated driver) remembers who was at the party he attended (as normal- because he wasn't drunk)
Partying is compulsory.

You need to be more specific about how the parties mechanic works.

[ortolan]

2 Monopolistic Docs (Docs that roleblock other Docs if they target them.)

Heyyyyyyy, I know where you got that idea from

[ortolan]

2 Monopolistic Docs (Docs that roleblock other Docs if they target them.)

Heyyyyyyy, I know where you got that idea from

I honestly don't. Mind enlightening me? (I presumed it was Draft but that wasn't right.)

yer they are different but I'm guessing the purpose is the same- to stop the doctors claiming and protecting one another

[ortolan]

Idea:

Couple Mafia. Basically, a setting where everybody has someone else confirmed. Something like this:

2 different Mafia groups each consisting of 2 people
4 different Mason groups each consisting of 2 people
2 Confirmed Survivor Lovers

I think there is already a setup like this, barring the survivors part which is just a bad dynamic to begin with

[ortolan]

Vengeful Lovers Multiball

2 Mafia Goon Lovers

2 Werewolf Lovers

2 Serial Killing Lovers

6 Vengeful Lovers

> Vengeance only happens on Day 1
> Nightless
> Serial Killers wins when it equals the amount of Town : 3rd Party

Does the Vengeful loveres each get one shot or does the couple as a whole get one shot?

this setup has too many potential kingmakers and is otherwise generally dysfunctional

[ortolan]

Bloody hell this thread is full of "Nah that idea fails". Does

anybody

help with making the setup better, or is everything instant-yes/instant-no-get-rid-of-it?

It's because people propose too many crappy setups which feature neither a purpose nor any good ideas within them

in the case of the setup I linked above, it caught my attention because it seems like it has potential, but unfortunately the main dynamic in it is ultimately unworkable

[ortolan]

that setup is leet

[ortolan]

I would be interested to see the outcome if someone can run some EVs on Tic Tac Toe. It looks a little luck-based but you will potentially get some very interesting WIFOM developing.

[ortolan]

just a heads up; open setups with jesters don't work and aren't fun to play. don't even bother.