[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[saulres]

Vote-Only Mafia

?

Some balanced number of VTs and Goons (I have no idea what's balanced). If no lynch decided by deadline, a plurality lynch happens.

The idea is, players can only post votes. Nothing else. D1 would be a crapshoot but in subsequent days you'd have to use vote analysis to determine who's scum.

[saulres]

Drugs talking?

[saulres]

I had no idea...

Cool

[saulres]

Massclaim breaks it, no?

[saulres]

I was looking at the Medical Mafia setup, and wondering if something similar would be playable for cops. So I threw this together.

It's my first time even touching on designing a setup, be gentle.

Precinct Madness

Setup:
1 Mafia Framer
1 Mafia Godfather
2 Sane Cops
2 Insane Cops
1 Paranoid Cop
1 Naive Cop
1 Results Cop (gets "Innocent" if target is the Godfather or a townie who got correct results, "Guilty" if target is the Framer or a townie who got incorrect results)

Every player who is a Cop is not told which version they are, and will be revealed as "Cop".
Scum will flip as "scum" but not reveal which role they had.

I didn't get very far into thinking out breaking strategies, or if the results could even be used. But I wanted to throw it out there.

[saulres]

^Nice one.

I hadn't heard of dethy before; I tried searching the wiki for a similar setup but hadn't found it.

[saulres]

Yeah, I found that on the wiki after the name was mentioned. Wanted to see why mine was the same but on steroids.

Might be fun to try running it, though, if it's okay to try that somewhere/when.

[saulres]

Which one, dethy or mine?

[saulres]

If I'm reading right, the setup could be described thusly:

5 Townies
2 Mafia

On N1 the mafia get no kill.
On subsequent nights, in addition to their kill, mafia select one player to be turned into an Innocent Child.

That's the same thing, yah?

[saulres]

I don't see how the game will ever end.

[saulres]

And if the kill-less goon goes early, so's the voteless. Guy can't win LyLo.

[saulres]

What would the rule be if they reach deadline without a lynch?

[saulres]

Framer + Bodyguard seems overpowered for having only one cop.

[saulres]

I think the randomness would mean that best strategy is to completely ignore the JOATness. It's too easy for scum to fakeclaim an action with at most a 20% chance of being counterclaimed

if

someone tracked them.

[saulres]

If, say, three players agree to target the same person, the chance of at least one action going through is a little more than a half.

That's false probabilities. The events are independent. I don't remember how to do the correct calculation, but you can see the fallacy here: If I have a 50% chance of flipping a coin and having heads come up, that doesn't mean I have a 100% chance of getting a heads if I flip two coins.

[saulres]

I think this analysis is right, but I'm tired so I may have made a mistake.

Town has to lynch a corner on their first shot, or scum control the tic-tac-toe aspect and win.

If they hit scum, great. If they hit town though, then scum kill the Innocent Child in the middle. Now town has a choice: lynch a corner, or lynch a side. The one place they cannot lynch is the opposite corner from the first one, or scum control their moves from then on out.

If town lynches a side, no matter what the results, scum has to lynch the corner for the block. Then town needs to block, then scum needs to block, repeat until game over.

If town lynches a corner, no matter what the results, scum has to lynch the side between the two corners. Then town needs to block scum. Then scum direct the next lynch.

So most, if not all, of the game, comes down to the first two lynches and the layout of the board.

[saulres]

Saulres, town can go the opposite corner day2 - it forces scum to then pick a side, not one of the other corners, as otherwise town win on three crosses.

If scum has a member on a side, then they win: Scum picks the side where the opposite side is town, forcing town to lynch one of their own and then killing the one in the corner. Board looks like this:

O X X
S O n
X O n

Town has to lynch bottom right, then scum kills middle right and wins. It makes the game tic-tac-toe and not mafia. (Again, depending on the setup.)

[saulres]

What's a fool?

Also, can the MSci target himself? I wouldn't think so.

[saulres]

I'll just leave this here.

[saulres]

I actually quite like We Need a Fifth.

Does that mean you'd make an exception and let BBMolla (or someone else if he doesn't want to, I volunteer) run it in the Micro Queue?

[saulres]

Oh and I guess the dayvig shot is intended to be compulsive?

[saulres]

Isn't it in town's interest to lynch a suspected townie day 1 in We Need A Fifth? (Preferably the second-towniest of the 4.) That gives them a confirmed townie going into day 2 if the vengekill hits (which it probably will), and if they mess up and lynch scum instead, that isn't exactly a problem.

I'm a bit wary of setups where aiming to lynch town is better than aiming to lynch scum…

I'm not following the logic. If there's one person who's clearly town, and one who's clearly second-towniest, wouldn't that mean you should lynch one of the two remaining people because they're probably scum?

Even if lynching a town read

is

a good idea, if he's town and his reads are off you're going to lose...

[saulres]

Can you break the game using this strategy? Every day, rather than lynch someone, choose the one who would be lynched to learn the cop role. If anyone else dies, that confirms that player as scum. If no one dies, use the cop results appropriately and choose someone else.

[saulres]

Oh, missed the "they can only kill someone who's learning" part.

But the idea is, make the scum do your lynches for you. And since if you choose a scum to learn the cop ability, they're not going to kill their partner, they might no-kill to throw off town, and after a couple of days you should have enough information to pick off the scum.

[saulres]

If I suspended all rules except those defining day/night and lynching, what would you guys do to break the game as either town or scum?

In which setup?

[saulres]

I thought you were suspending all rules?

I guess I'm not following.

[saulres]

I'd start private QTs with everybody. If I were town I'd PM some good scumhunters and ask for their help in identifying the scum, and after a while I'd try to get the town to popcorn their role PMs.

[saulres]

If I had a town investigative role, I'd use it nightly and post the results after I flip.

Is this the kind of thing you're looking for, serra?

[saulres]

You need to give them full fake-claims, in separate PMs. So if I as town asked everyone to forward to me the PM they received, as well as a screenshot of it in their PM box, they have one.

[saulres]

The full-PM fake claim should cover that, no?

And I guess PMing other members of mafiascum.net wouldn't work because while you'd be allowed to talk about the game, they wouldn't. But you could ask people on other sites.

If I were scum in that game and flipped, I'd spam-post in the thread to impede town's communication.

[saulres]

if all VTs got their PM bcc'ed at 11:07

Oh. I never do that; role PMs are individual when I send them out.

Why not? Surely I can waive that?

You can waive that rule for players in your game. You can't waive that rule for players

not

in your game, at least the way the rules are written now. Unless you got admin approval first I suppose.

Oh, and double-checking the rules for that just now, I thought of another one -- I'd try to sign up for the game under my ID and an alt (or two or ten...). Or as hydras with multiple people, etc.

[saulres]

If I were town I wouldn't go along with that plan. I'm not compromising my privacy in order to win one game.

Edit: And if the mod's sending out fakeclaim PMs as I suggested above, this plan wouldn't work. Scum just have to copy the info from their real role PM somewhere and then delete it.

[saulres]

So when was this a discussion about a new Newbie setup?

It's been taking up the last several pages.

Which confuses me. Don't new Newbie setup discussions usually get their own thread?

[saulres]

I've been thinking about this for a while now. It could be cool, but probably townsided.

Pseudo-Innocence

9x town
2x mafia
2x werewolf

At the start of the game, three randomly chosen non-mafia and three randomly chosen non-werewolves are announced as such by the mod.

So you could randomly announce both mafia or both werewolves? Or 3 of the 4 scum?

[saulres]

It's 11v2v2. "Mafia x Cop" is a town role.

[saulres]

What's a Vigilante Roleblocker? They roleblock someone by killing them?

[saulres]

How do you intend to resolve blocks that target other blocks? For example, A targets B, and C targets A? Or A targets B targets C targets D targets A?

[saulres]

That's why I was asking how they resolve, to try to come up with breaking strategies.

[saulres]

There's... not actually an FBI Agent in that setup.

[saulres]

Coming out of the joking in the "Cops Must Go the Way of the Buffalo" thread, I present

Too Many Mods

for discussion.

Numbers subject to change, but currently thinking 9 for Micro Goodness.

7 town mods, 2 scum mods.

The in-game setup is maybe 3 town PRs and 4 VTs, 1 scum PR and 1 goon. Everyone knows what the PRs are. Each player-mod distributes the roles however they'd like, and PMs those distributions to the meta-mod. If there are any duplicates of the scum pairings the meta-mod ask for redos. Once approved, the meta-mod posts all the setups publicly, along with who picked them. Then, the meta-mod randomly selects two players to be the scum-mods.

The game then plays as normal. When it gets to ANY setup's victory condition, it ends. If the setup which ended the game is one the scum-mods set up, they win, otherwise town-mods win.

Scum-mods get one nightkill per night. All PRs take effect only if everyone alive with the same PR chooses the same target. Results are for the high-level mod game, not the in-game setups.

[saulres]

Think of each player as a mod running the same open setup with the same player list, which includes themselves.

The exception is, instead of randomizing the roles, they assign them to the players of their choice.

Each player's goal is to end the game by coming to an end-game resolution created by someone in their faction.

[saulres]

Guess Your Role Mafia

Every town player will submit a name at night to use their ability on, but the players won't know which ability (if any) they have. If they want to make smart decisions, they'll have to use the results they receive, in conjunction with the night results, to determine what they are. Of course that might tip the scum off on who their best kills should be...

Players are given results in the form of "success" or "failure". Any role without specific results will receive "Success" if they are not targeted by anyone, "Failure" if they are.

1) Sane Cop: Success = Guilty, Failure = Innocent
2) Doctor: Success = Saved someone from death, Failure = Didn't
3) Vigilante
4) Neighborizer: One neighborhood for all targets, neighborhood continues if neighborizer dies
5) Bodyguard
6) Doublevoter (both votes count for same person, but VCs will show only one. If this player's on a lynch wagon it's like the victim of the wagon is Hated)
7) Gunsmith: Success and Failure as per wiki page
8) Hider: Will NOT be affected by other's abilities being used on their target.
9) VT
10) VT
+ 3 Mafia Goons with nighttalk and a factional nightkill which they have to specify who uses

There will be a night 0 which will not actually cause any deaths, but D1 will start with results and a "flip" showing what would have happened if N0 was real.

Flips will show alignment but not role.

Think this will work?

[saulres]

Bodyguard will die if their target is a kill target. If the target's not, then success/failure is based on if anyone targets the bodyguard specifically.

Neighborizer is default. The people in the neighborhood should be able to figure out who the neighborizer is by D3 unless both neighbors target the same person N2.

[saulres]

Cop doesn't know who he is. No one knows.

Under your plan, and assuming the targeted person is town and not one of the PRs in this group: Both the vig and the scum target that person. Bodyguard takes the first hit, doctor protects the target from the second, bodyguard gone. Hider confirms target as town. Next night scum kills that person, or town keeps protecting that person, and for all they know, they're protecting a VT.

If the person town targets is scum, bodyguard takes the vig hit, bodyguard dies, and the hider dies. So scum's down one but town's down two.

So I'm not sure it's a problem?

[saulres]

I still think it breaks because you get a negative you know you are a cop.

Or any one of the roles who get a default Failure because they weren't targeted.

If you get positive you have a guilty or are doctor.

That's a good point, will have to look at that. It only works if everyone targets the same person, though, because you get a positive if you're targeted. Maybe give one (or more) of the scum a fruit-vending ability that doesn't dispense fruit? So they can provide false positives?

Under your plan, and assuming the targeted person is town and not one of the PRs in this group: Both the vig and the scum target that person. Bodyguard takes the first hit, doctor protects the target from the second, bodyguard gone. Hider confirms target as town. Next night scum kills that person, or town keeps protecting that person, and for all they know, they're protecting a VT.

So doctor doesn't protect all? If a player is targeted by a doc, vig,and BG... how are you resolving that?

Doctor protects its target, but does not protect the bodyguard. First kill hits the BG; doctor does nothing. Second kill hits the target, doc protects him. If no BG, two kills hit the target, doc protects from one of them, but the target still dies.

Either way you have three roles that are self-confirming through result. The vig (basically self confirming). Neighborizer (self confirming).

Neighborizing is basically self-confirming, yes. Vig can be depending on what the protective roles and scum do. But I'll look at them when I look at the cop/doctor positive results.

Thanks, Llama, this is the kind of stuff I was looking for.

[saulres]

Not quite following. Does this clarify?

For the roles which do not have specific success/failure results: If PlayerA has such a role, and is targeted by anyone, PlayerA will receive a Failure result. Otherwise PlayerA will receive a Success result.

Anyone who self-targets will get a "No Result" result.

Note to self: When reviewing, check if scum should receive success/failures if they're visited, to prevent them having to guess if questioned.

I probably won't get to review this until after the holiday weekend.

[saulres]

Being voteless is highly demotivating in a game where motivation to play is fairly critical.

I disagree about this: being voteless robs you of half of your default arsenal. (Voice and vote.) You lose the vote, then it can actually serve as a HUGE motivator to become a large Voice.

...That being said, a role which STEALS votes I heavily frown upon, as it is frankly a broken role.

Solution: Give that role some kind of cool night or day power to offset the loss of vote power.

Game Name: Vote or Vig
Game Type: Insane
Game Size: 9

Optional Caption/Description of Game upon announcement: 2 scum, 7 town

Pre-game, and each night, every town player has to choose one and only one of the following:
1) You have voting capabilities during the next day
2) You have a vig shot the next night.

Mafia have to decide if they want

all

living Mafia to have votes the next day, or if they want their factional kill the next night. They do not get vig shots.

If at any point a day starts where Mafia controls the vote, they win.

Anyone have a breaking strategy?

I think the Town could collectively decide to force their secondary lynch candidate to opt for votes instead of the kill. If they're voteless in the next phase it's a scumclaim, and if they have a vote but there's no NK the following night, they're probably scum there too. It might not be exactly breaking, but it could be a heavy hit to the scumteam.

Hm. Well they'd have to wait for D1 to make the plan, and it wouldn't take effect until D2 when it's unlcear how many people would still be alive, and town wouldn't know if there were no kills until D3 started, where scum could choose to NK D2 in order to paint a townie as having the scumclaim, so in a 9-player game I'm not sure that would really be a heavy hit? Also see below*

Some more details:

The lynch threshhold for each day will be based on the number of votes in play that day, not the number of players.

The scum win condition is: You win if at the beginning of any day, you have half or more of the votes in play, OR when all townies are dead.
The town win condition is: You win at the beginning of any phase where at least one townie is alive, and all the scum are dead.

So yes, the game could theoretically never begin if before D1 almost all the townies choose vig and the scum choose vote.

*I'm seriously thinking about announcing how many votes there are in play, but not who has them, and not doing vote counts. Players are free to place fake votes, no one will know who's lynched until I post a lynch scene. If deadline hits with no lynch, plurality lynch takes effect. If there's a tie, the first person to hit the plurality threshold for the tie will be lynched.

[saulres]

Anyone have a breaking strategy?

If everyone chooses vig, when does the day end?

I think it can be broken like Texas Justice if everyone just chooses vig.

If everyone chooses vig, Mafia wins by them controlling half the vote. Because half of zero is zero. So town has to be careful.

[saulres]

Anyone have a breaking strategy?

If everyone chooses vig, when does the day end?

I think it can be broken like Texas Justice if everyone just chooses vig.

If everyone chooses vig, Mafia wins by them controlling half the vote. Because half of zero is zero. So town has to be careful.

What? It's only one lynch, why would that lose town the game??

The scum win condition is: You win if at the beginning of any day, you have half or more of the votes in play, OR when all townies are dead.

[saulres]

Umm... I can make the scum win condition in my game whatever I want it to be. Especially when it's set up a certain way to prevent game-breaking strategies.

If it would make you happier, replace "town" with "Team A" and "scum" and "maifa" with "Team B".

[saulres]

check who can vote by forcing everyone to put a vote down to all different players. That will make it clear to see who's voteless

Except I don't plan on telling people who's voteless. I either won't do a vote count until a hammer is reached, or make it clear that the vote counts only reflect who placed votes where as a courtesy summary to players but does not reflect the actual vote count.

[saulres]

No, the votes remain public so the scum has to do some strategizing on when/how/if to place them. So does town.

[saulres]

Let the scum independently decide whether they have a vote. They should always have a nightkill.

This isn't really a solution; the scum would

always

choose to have a vote if they always have a nightkill.

Your other strategy does sound promising. I've pulled out of modding this but may consider returning to it if I can figure out how to fix the broken strategy. Thanks for coming up with that.

[saulres]

Which gets right back to "you can prove you're town by having your vote not count" in later game. No, I need to figure out how to fix it but don't really feel like it at the current time.

[saulres]

I don't know if there's any desire to make a cult-playable game, but here's my take. I tend to think in micro-game size but numbers can of course be adjusted

Initial configuration

2 Cultists
2 Goons
5 VTs

The cult has a Private Thread open at night, and a nightly factional recruit.
Scum have a Private Thread open nights and a factional kill.
All night actions are compulsive, no-lynch is not an option.

Win conditions:
Scum wins when everyone else is dead or nothing can prevent the same. If recruited, they gain access to the cult PT but their wincon is

not changed

, and they flip as "recruited goon".
Town wins if both scum are dead and/or recruited and at least one townie is alive and not recruited.
Cult wins if all living players have been recruited.

[saulres]

My idea was to force the cult to do some thinking on who is town and who is scum, because recruiting scum hurts them. They have to try to keep one scum alive. It's designed (at least I thought it was) to give town a chance against the cult, and make the cult work for their win.

...So if there's one goon left and one townie left everyone else is cult, and the cult recruits the last goon, the town wins and the cult loses?

As long as the goon doesn't kill the last townie. So both the cult and scum have to be careful with their actions.

A recruited goon is functionally worthless for the purposes of preventing other win conditions, but recruiting it is also bad for the cult?

A recruited goon can try to redirect the cult from recruiting the other goon, while also letting the other goon know who's town and who's cult so they can plan their kills. So if one of them's recruited, they have to work for their win too.

[saulres]

Guess and Check

5 Players

2 Mafia Goons

3 Vanilla Townies

• After day 1 lynch, the lynched player is flipped but stays alive. If a mafia is lynched, they must reveal a town player to be town. All town players must submit their guess for the scumteam.
  
• If all townies guess the scumteam correctly, Town wins. Otherwise, Mafia wins.

how balanced is this

If scum is lynched, town has a 1/3 chance of guessing the scumteam correctly.
If town is lynched, town has a 1/4 chance.

Seems to me at least that the latter case is too scum-sided. Maybe make it "if town is lynched, a random mafia on the wagon is revealed to be scum" to bring it back to 1/3? (And don't allow self-votes so it's not a complete town wagon.)