[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[Mr. Flay]

Written by Adel, with the help of shaft and Mr. Flay

2 Mafia Goons
2 Mimes (joint RB)
1 Watcher
1 Vigilante
5 Townies

..or 2 Watchers and 3 Mafiosos.

I recommend trying the smaller version first to see if it works. 2 Watchers might also be able to cross-confirm each other, which is problematic.

[Mr. Flay]

Mutually Assured Destruction

4 scum, 8 town.
Day 1, the players to decide who to lynch normally. Then the lynched player gets a kill before they die, then the killed player gets a kill, etc, until the remaining players are all town or all scum. The player can choose not to kill, in which case it goes back to lynching. Players (including the player about to make the next kill) can talk at any time.

I'd put a limit on how long they can wait before killing; maybe 12-24 hours, to keep things snappy.

Also, you probably want a different name, as Thok(?) is running a series of nuclear-themed games with that title.

All Fall Down

?

[Mr. Flay]

Oh, and thanks for ruining my chances of blitzing MD with three thought-provoking threads sure to earn me the Professor Mafia scummy.

That's

all shot to hell now, isn't it?

Fuck it.

In other news, why the hell is somebody called "Empking's Alt" being allowed to nominate/second setups anyway? There are a number of problems here, not least no limitations on who can make/approve setups. If farside's too busy, we need to throttle the pool down through which setups come, to help her.

[Mr. Flay]

Lovers. Red Wire. Friends and Enemies and Enemies and That Other Guy. Fire and Ice.

That's just from memory...

[Mr. Flay]

Lovers has been discussed to death - I've never seen you address the "Town must lynch unanimously two days in a row" problem.

F&E&E&TOG is awfully swingy, assuming cross-kills go through. Fire and Ice is only borderline Normal, because of the way cross-kills go through.

Are you going to address the Empking's Alt problem? What IS the current process, or is like Title Fairy?

[Mr. Flay]

Flay: Why shouldn't I be able to nominate set ups?

You are (probably) an Alt, so you could nominate with one hand and second/third with another.

Even if you aren't an alt, you haven't run a game yet. This Queue is

supposed

to be for untested mods with tested setups. All of the rules for making game setups in Mini Theme apply here in my opinion; you should have run at least one game before designing an Open Setup.

Even if you have run a game on another site, you'd been on MafiaScum.net less than two months when you nominated DCTRW. So your game experience may be very different than our expectations here.

[Mr. Flay]

Lovers has been discussed to death - I've never seen you address the "Town must lynch unanimously two days in a row" problem.

That is probably because it isn't a problem. The town doesn't have to lynch unanimously two days in a row. The mafia goons are lovers, hence the name. The game can only last two days. If scum is lynched on either of those two days the town wins.


Is there a problem I am not seeing?

Right, sorry. what I meant was that you must get a unanimous vote of all townies on Day One of a daystart game, but also on Day Two if you don't miraculously hit scum the first time. Any setup (see: AITP) that benefits from a "lynch as fast as possible at random" is not well-balanced.

F&E&E&TOG is awfully swingy, assuming cross-kills go through. Fire and Ice is only borderline Normal, because of the way cross-kills go through.

I believe that swingy is an acceptable attribute for a game, especially an open game.

Fine; I'm not expecting everyone to find my troubles compelling. But a game where entire teams can be eliminated by D2 through no fault of their own is ugly to me. And that's leaving aside the utter weirdness of a "Backup Mason".

Fire and Ice was originally ok'd by Thesp, and it has been run three (4?) times now. Why the objection to it now? I don't think it would be hard to rewrite the mechanic and role PMs to make it appear more "normal". Is a lack of being "Normal" enough a problem you have with other setups?

As I said before, I don't read this thread all the time, so I looked at Fire & Ice (which was undergoing considerable revision at the time) and figured it was dead in the water. And yes, I've objected several times to how weird the Open Game queue is getting, compared to usual Normals. mith's original post is quite clear on this, but people ignore it regularly.

It's got the 'weirdness' problem of trying to determine what's going on with nightkills. The bodyguard can only protect someone rarely anyway, now they have no way of knowing whether or not they did or the scumgroups crosskilled, making them even more useless. And what happens if F, I, and B all target the same player?

What IS the current process, or is like Title Fairy?

it is like the Title Fairy... isn't it?

I don't know, is it? TF policy is that the TF has final say; they've accepted things with just one suggestion before, they've banned things with four or five people behind them if they're stupid. I'm asking for a little more clarity in the process, and I'd love to have some backstops so that we're not putting all the work on the List Mod.

[Mr. Flay]

Second Bird C9

Meh Dethy

- it's a logic puzzle, not Mafia.

[Mr. Flay]

Blank Mafia is...interesting. I'm not sure it would work; we should try it in real-time first.

Nom/second

Bugs Bunny though. That looks like fun, and it's actually less swingy than figuring out if Glork gets Scum or Town in a regular 2:10 game.

[Mr. Flay]

It's fairly optimal strategy, since Hans is the only power role the Mafia have to worry about killing.

[Mr. Flay]

I don't like DethyBlocker (or whatever it's called), but I do like it better than straight Dethy. I don't think it does as much to encourage the day game as Artem does, though.

Alternating C9

is probably not horribly broken, since it's a melting pot of the usual C9 setups. Not sure it's all that normal, but whatev.

Three Blind Cops

is probably too swingy for actually satisfying play.

:edit:

Shanba: Sure, that's what I meant. I might be in scumchat tonight for a bit...

[Mr. Flay]

Dear fucking god no.

[Mr. Flay]

Bird1111111

?

[Mr. Flay]

Has to be to have any hope of balance.

[Mr. Flay]

Huh? The Mafia will never miss a kill, then; all it means is they *might* not get their first pick, depending on how astute the angel is. There's always

somebody

that needs killin'.

It MIGHT work if the angel protects secretly (might as well have the mod do it, frankly; that's not a 'player' role) and has a chance to disrupt the scum's night action.

[Mr. Flay]

Flay, that was my intent. I want the angel to deny the scum the possibility of killing a particular person without the possibility of actually stopping the kill. That's what I see as the primary function of the doc. Why do you think it doesn't work as is?

Can the Mafia kill the Angel?

If not, I think what you've basically got is 2:7 which is far below our usual ratio for Vanilla games. I don't think the Angel actually has much practical value, maybe half a Townie. I'm willing to be wrong, though.

Tenchi: Interesting, but I have no idea on the balance of it. Sorry.

[Mr. Flay]

I'd love to see you back up the claim that Lovers games are more tolerated because they're shorter, Adel. You've made it repeatedly but I've never seen the empirical evidence for making

only

that change to a setup (with the commensurate reduction in townies).

[Mr. Flay]

do you also challenge the proposition that swingy is more tolerated in short games than long games, or can I start from there as a given?

Not sure, because I find short games to be inherently more swingy than large games (where skill can even out some of the swing). I'm not sure which factor is weighted more for most people... which I guess is what I'm looking for. Do you have a poll? Survey instrument? Scummie award review?

[Mr. Flay]

Just hunting the data. You always have such pretty charts, I wondered if it was all illustrative or if some of it was based in your data mining.

[Mr. Flay]

1-Shot Micro or something would be a better name. I like the original, without the C9 variability.

[Mr. Flay]

Isn't that what winning Scorched Earth means?

[Mr. Flay]

Just make sure that the scum PM is posted publicly so that the scum don't try and confirm each other.

I don't see where this would be a problem at all - they're already at a massive disadvantage.

[Mr. Flay]

Ninjas can't be Tracked or Watched, I assume?

[Mr. Flay]

This is likely to be quite unbalanced but the idea seems interesting.

1 Goon

2 Townies

Day Start

Smallest possible simple game. Town has to lynch goon or it goes to night and he wins. If one townie votes the other, goon can hammer. Knowing this, if a vote occurs and a hammer is not dropped, it must not be town on town; it must be town on goon or vice versa, confirming the third party as innocent all around and the goon as such to the townie involved in the vote. I think that's as much as can be determined objectively.

As several people have mentioned, this game would totally lock in; this would probably end up going the following way.
1. Person 1 votes Person 3.
2. Person 2 hammers.
3. If Person 3 is mafia, town wins. If not, mafia wins.

So basically, it's like a game where there is no voting/strategy, and the winner is decided at random, with a 2/3rds chance of mafs winning and a 1/3rds chance of town winning.

Pooky's "Magic Train" Mafia from Flayming Man probably will work slightly better, as the Townies get two chances.

If I remember correctly, the game has three players, two Townies (or Lost Masons, perhaps) and one Mafia Goon. Everyone picks somebody else to vote for. If the Townies vote for each other, they win. If not, they get to try again. If they can't manage after two 'cycles' to find each other, the Goon wins.

The couple of times we played it, it basically ended up with one person confirmed Town and the Goon and the other Town fighting it out for the second pairing. More interesting than it probably sounds...

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, that seems nearly impossible for scum to win, with no real safe-claims.

[Mr. Flay]

Having either 0 or 2 gets reductionist once you lynch several people. Scum will be screwed in any PR fakeclaim if several Townies die and no power roles have...

Also, having that many 'chosen randomly from' roles makes this essentially a normal Mini, not an Open Setup.

[Mr. Flay]

Ah, missed that. It needs to be spelled out much more clearly... it's still kinda screwing the Mafia on claims I think (will both teams know what Power Role was chosen, even if they get neither?), but I'm not sure it's unplayable anymore.

[Mr. Flay]

It's swingy in the same way that F11/C9 games are swingy, though; if one Mafia Faction gets both power roles and the other team gets two Goons, I can't help but think they'll feel cheated at the end. Known but manageable Town Power Roles might be better (2 Godfathers + 2 Cops, or 2 Mafia RBs + 2 Docs/1-shot Vigs, maybe?).

[Mr. Flay]

Huhwha? I wasn't saying to have all those powers as options - I'm arguing

against

having selectable/rollable roles. Just pick a setup that involves the 'pairs' mechanic, balances each team against each other and the town, and be done with it. This variability is going to come back and bite you in the ass.

[Mr. Flay]

Clue(do)'s been run at least twice as well. Obiting's version: http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3087 and MoS's three-part game:
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5184
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5185
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5186

[Mr. Flay]

If the Hunter game actually runs, I'd definitely recommend that they lose if they shoot a Hunter. Their WC is to headshot a scum, not to miss town.

[Mr. Flay]

I agree with ortolan; it slightly rewards certainty. However I would be slightly worried about timezone bias; is there any reason Hunters couldn't put in their choice before nightfall?

[Mr. Flay]

I really don't like a single random diceroll deciding Win/Lose, and having to both hold your shot and lose the scum you correctly identified seems overly harsh. Is there a reason they can't both win on the same Scum, and both exit?

[Mr. Flay]

LOLwut? How are you thinking of wording Win Conditions?

[Mr. Flay]

5W:

• Mafia Roleblocker
  
• Mafia Goon
  
• Tracker
  Watcher (per discussion)
  
• Doctor
  
• 5 Townies

Day start.

I want to see this in operation once or twice before suggesting it to VRK as a replacement for F11. I don't think it is susceptible to the old "Investigative Role claims, Doctor protects while Investigator hunts" problem, because the RB can just stop an outed

Cop

Tracker while the Goon hunts the Doc.

[Mr. Flay]

25% of the time (in theory) the game is REALLY unbalanced: RGTTTTTTT. We can't reliably win 2G10T mountainous games; we still manage about 30% wins there through sheer dumb luck, but it's not really satisfying to me that it's a possibility. It's mostly a necessary evil in F11 because the 'random role selection' element gets reductionist if you just include the other three possibilities.

The other reason is that, frankly, I don't think teaching our newbies to play Follow-the-Cop is best.

[Mr. Flay]

The thing about vanilla F11 is that scum still have to act differently, and town gets stuff to work with from that. (Also, I think it's likely that

knowing

the setup to have no power roles demoralizes players in 2:10.) It isn't "REALLY" unbalanced, and I'm pretty sure 35% wins is much better than random. Its odds aren't dramatically different from the other three F11 outcomes, aside from Cop-doctor.

I think we need a bigger sample, but I'll concede the point that the latest numbers don't show a big difference (which perplexes me, since 'regular games' show a huge difference. Is the demoralization effect that big?

If it were me, I would at least mix in 2:5 nightless or so. Just sayin'...

LOLwut?

Question. Is the doctor and the tracker in the game or is a possiblity of being in the game like F11?

That's the only setup - no percentages like F11/C9.

I guess I see the concern with false claims, but isn't that always a concern with a game that small? It's always going to be swingy, which is why we're playing 9p in the first place (to reduce the chance of LyLo D2).

[Mr. Flay]

Guaranteed sane Cop results are unambiguous, and require no thought to process. Tracker at least has some questions to deal with after he gets his result (assuming the Doc and Roleblocker aren't both dead, lulz). That would build more skill, I'd think.

There is the question of what result he'd see if only the Mafia RB was alive and sent in both the kill and roleblock. That's kind of a downside to 5W...

[Mr. Flay]

Would a Watcher work any better than a Tracker in Flay's proposed setup, especially in light of Flay's point in 1307: what do you do if the RBer is the only one left and sends in both the NK and the Block and the Tracker follows him without being blocked? That's pretty much game over.

Yeah, Watcher probably does work better, plus it increases the chances of Town not getting a result if they target the NK.

[Mr. Flay]

What I meant was that I'm fairly positive that not all of the links inside the category are approved Open setups, so it needs some organization from here.

If there's a setup that's not on the wiki and someone cares about it, someone will make a page for it.

Right. Category:Open Setups just means it contains an open setup of some kind, not that it's on The List^TM. Probably some sort of Approved Open Setups page would be useful.

[Mr. Flay]

By the way as for follow the cop I have to wonder if the BP is considered normal?
Mith or Mr.Flay your thoughts on it.

Beloved Princess? Not 'normally', but it's being used for special effect here. Your call, if the setup sounds interesting, I guess.

[Mr. Flay]

That's because there are Cop-haters in the original thread that spawned that tally sheet. One group hates always-sane Cops, the other hates variable sanity Cops. So they both drug down the role...

[Mr. Flay]

If anyone cares, every Open Setup ever played is on the wiki. Each role in each setup has a link to a Category that will show you other setups that used the role.

The next step is to make wiki pages for each Open game played.

farside:

I mentioned it before. If you have a list of approved setups, I'll go through each wiki page for those setups and flag them with a [[Category:Approved Open Setups]]. As the list changes (adds or drops), I can update the category.

Adding that category would be awesome.

[Mr. Flay]

No he didn't.

[Mr. Flay]

Moved from Open Queue at farside's request:

If RITP is broken/unbalanced, that's fine to remove it, though I have to wonder why this fact didn't come out in the setup discussion. And I only see it played once on-site, in Open 120, which was hardly a "cakewalk" from my fast scan (zwet is a wildcard in roles that don't want to be lynched). Can you elaborate?

AITP, though it may be a beautifully designed game, just isn't Mafia. I have yet to see a game of it that looked anything like Mafia, its mechanics are totally different, and it encourages very different play. Can someone point me to a game of AITP (since the first one) that plays like Mafia? Open 178 doesn't, as even the Assassin calls himself the "uninformed minority". Marathon 2009 AITP 1 certainly doesn't. Open 73 blew up. Open 89 supports my analysis of the setup.

::edit::

AITP 3 from Marathon 2009 looks kinda like mafia, except of course that it inverts the factions. Still, you just got lucky, which is pretty much what the game boils down to. The Mafia is screwed from the get-go, in that they have ONE chance to win under their control and a raft of ways to screw up. I think people like the setup because 90% of the time, you're not the Assassin!

I know that "in practice" mith's requirement that Open Games should be Normal is being broken right left and center, but the lone gunman version of AITP doesn't even have an Informed Minority Faction, which has always been one of mith's core requirements for ANY Mafia game. And, of course, he's Uninformed! Even Kelly Chen, who created the setup, says so. So why you keep claiming it's Mafia is beyond me...

[Mr. Flay]

6. It really isn't Mafia, and probably shouldn't be in the Open Queue.

Would you allow it in Mish-Mash, or is it in a no-man's land?

[Mr. Flay]

Simple, make it so that the Code is a computer code that humans can't read and they are passing around a memory chip/copies of it.

QFT

[Mr. Flay]

This

literally

came to me in a dream last night, so I lay no claim to it being a balanced setup as yet.

wait your turn, tex

• n
  Even-Night Vigilantes (1-shot)
  
• n
  Odd-Night Vigilantes (1-shot)
  
• n
  Mafia Gunmen (each has 1-shot)

Day Start

[Mr. Flay]

Not as currently envisioned. It's basically an attempt to 'fix' Texas Justice.

[Mr. Flay]

So mafia would make up 1/3 of the total town? Also, the town doesn't get day kills, only one shot nks?

Well, one-shot NKs plus the normal lynch.

::edit::

Oh, and I think it's necessary that Mafia win 1-1 endgames. Otherwise Town can threaten to shoot everybody but one person as they get close, and force a draw.

This

literally

came to me in a dream last night

Time to revive the Too Much Mafia thread?

Almost certainly.

[Mr. Flay]

Logic? What is this logic of which you speak?? This is a game, and we're just looking for balance... actually, I think what I meant above was "1-1 endgame where both have used their shot", to restrict it further. 8:4 is the same as the Nightless ratio, but Town gets a lot more kills here than in Nightless.

[Mr. Flay]

This

literally

came to me in a dream last night, so I lay no claim to it being a balanced setup as yet.

wait your turn, tex

• n
  Even-Night Vigilantes (1-shot)
  
• n
  Odd-Night Vigilantes (1-shot)
  
• n
  Mafia Gunmen (each has 1-shot)

Day Start.
Mafia has no group kill.
Mafia autowins 1-1 endgame scenarios where Town has used their 1-shot already.

[Mr. Flay]

Was my Wait Your Turn that bad?

[Mr. Flay]

Seems workable, but hellishly swingy.

[Mr. Flay]

2 Mafia Millers (are told they're millers) (appears innocent to the Sane Cop)

What does this power have to do with Miller? Essentially it's an Investigation-Immune Goon, or a double-Godfather.

I also don't understand when the Mafia Lawyer would ever use their power on anyone but themselves, since all their scumbuddies are already investigation-immune?

[Mr. Flay]

Oh, okay. Seems like a lot of legerdemain for little gain, but I see where you're going with it now.

I still think "Mafia Miller" is unnecessarily obscure; just call them Investigation-Immune Goons and be done with it.

[Mr. Flay]

It's part of the flavor, hence the name "Scumbags Mafia".

[Mr. Flay]

Fruit vendor I agree is meh and the role of fruit vendor isn't something I would have in a normal game.
As for the Rival Vig Mafia. I'm concerned about the chances for mafia in the game. I don't feel it's well balanced.
I really like Max's second idea

2 Mafia A
2 Mafia B
1 Cop A
1 Cop B
1 Doc
5 Town

It's simple but still fun in my view

Isn't that essentially Twofold Mafia, from Open 44?

[Mr. Flay]

Sorry, I meant swingy in that if you play it several times, the way the roles interact/survive is going to vastly change the balance each time. Which is the case for C9/F11/any number of other setups too, just it's not necessarily obvious in this one. I would think that it's actually swingier from the Mafia's side - if they hit the Cop N1, they're in extremely good position.

[Mr. Flay]

Andrius, you have the patience of a (Super)Saint.

[Mr. Flay]

This may all be academic since the wiki says the game is broken for certain endgames, but I'm confused by the setup for Crush Nightless (6p).

1 Godfather (vengeful-style)
1 Mafia Goon
1 Lyncher (who is informed of his target)
3 Townies (one of whom is unknowingly the lyncher's target)
Nightless.

If the target is lynched, the game is over and the lyncher wins.
If the godfather is lynched, the goon dies with him.
Death of all mafia isn't game over; town still tries to lynch the lyncher.
But a final 2 situation of lyncher+target is a town win.

The last line is what confuses me. Why would that be a

town

win, with them all dead? I'm guessing it's supposed to say Lyncher Win?

[Mr. Flay]

Oh wait; actually reading Open 37, I think the logic is "Lyncher can't get a lynch when there's just two, therefore they fail and Town wins". They're not all dead, because Target = Town. Given that Town only has a 27% EV, that makes some more sense now... still think it could go either way, and not sure if my math is right. Where the hell is Kelly Chen??!?

Also, LOL at the Lyncher in Open 37 thinking they played for the draw...

[Mr. Flay]

Huh? Where's the Mafia?

[Mr. Flay]

Do they get a NK?

[Mr. Flay]

Have the dream result roleblock the target. They get an investigation result, but whatever action they have fails. That also opens up insane dreams and scum mystics who can plant dreams into players. Lots of ways to balance the role... but I don't know if it would be ok as an open game.

Yeah, I like the potential there for a Theme Game, but it seems a bit much for this Queue.

[Mr. Flay]

I know. We're talking about ways to FIX what happened in that game.

[Mr. Flay]

Fonz is right - you can end up with

two

Cops with useful results that way.

In practice, multiple Mafias almost never seem to team up to defeat the Doc, probably because any signaling of intent will lead to Mafia shooting the other Mafia instead.

[Mr. Flay]

I like it. Helps reduce "bandwagon analysis", which seems to be infecting every game I'm in.

You mean 'the best way of finding scum?'

[Mr. Flay]

I like it. Helps reduce "bandwagon analysis", which seems to be infecting every game I'm in.

You mean 'the best way of finding scum?'

Yep. Like I said, makes the game more interesting.

You have an interesting definition of interesting. What would you use to scumhunt, if you were in that game?

[Mr. Flay]

More White Flag seconding please.

What happened with the first one?

[Mr. Flay]

Isn't it broken by forcing everyone to vote someone without votes? Then you've got three confirmed Townies and a

Sane

Partial Role Cop, 2 Watchers, and a Useless Godfather.

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, I don't see what the Hiders add to the game. They're unable to rely on their data due to the redirection, so even HypoHiding (is that a new word?) doesn't really gain you anything.

You're probably actually better off NOT hiding (thus preventing the Redirector from killing you) and playing the game like 1:7 Nightless Mountainous.

I see you've forbidden that, for obvious reasons.

What

do

you think the Town play should be here, vezok? It

has

to be Day Start, or you lose (at least) two players before they even do anything, and even still, they'll lose at least two players a Night, so they've got at most two chances to lynch right. How are you envisioning the Hiders approaching/using their information?

[Mr. Flay]

Depends partly on whether or not you reveal the first role after the first lynch, or only when Day is done.

Also, more Town Power Roles means somewhat less inclination to lynch more in early game, but can make lategame totally devastating on Scum.

[Mr. Flay]

Yos2 calls it the Lights Out mechanic, I'm not sure if

that's the only game it's been used in (besides /in-vitational 11, which is ongoing).

any other games have used it, besides the Scummies Invitational.

LO1: http://mafiascum.net/archive/viewtopic.php?t=3161
LO2: http://www.mafiascum.net/archive/viewtopic.php?t=4518
SI: http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... =3&t=14713

[Mr. Flay]

Setup idea:

11 players
2 Vig
2 BP goons
7 VTs

Allows for worst case 2 mislynches for town.

Thoughts?

If both Goons are BP, why would a vig

ever

shoot? As a hypocop? Too risky.

[Mr. Flay]

There's a setup with a Named Townie already - My Name is Earl.

[Mr. Flay]

Seriously, run this in chat/marathon and see how it plays out.

FTFY

[Mr. Flay]

My biggest concern is Day 1. Looking for 1 specific person out of 13 with very little to go on doesn't sound very fun to me, sorry. I think this setup might be better if it could be rebalanced with a Night Start.

Also, how much would it suck to be a Love Cult leader that dies D1? Night 0 Start seems the way to go...

11/13 * 9/12 * 7/11 is pretty rough on cult though; 40%? Upping the players to 16+NS seems to bring it to a dead even 50%, if I can do the math right.

Town might be advantaged by No Lynching for a day or three though, to increase scum's percentage before they start shooting. Larger games may offset that?

[Mr. Flay]

The idea was that cult would have a night kill, I was undecided on whether it would or wouldn't and forgot to put it in. I think night start is a much better idea than what I had though which means night kill should probably be cut out as it would take much larger numbers to balance.

Flays numbers seem to work, so it'd be:

1 Love Cult Leader
15 Vanilla Townies

Night start
3 town lynches = town lose/cult win, 1 cult lynch = town win/cult lose
Cult must recruit each night, if no choice is sent there will be a random choice
There must be a lynch each day, if no majority is reached before deadline then the player with the most votes (and who reached that position first in the event of ties) is lynched

I'd suggest a trial run with Crazy's 1:9 or 1:8 2-lynch number first, might spot any glaring brokenness w/o involving 16 players. Sounds interesting, though... I agree that Mandatory Lynches is probably a good idea, but what do you do if nobody is voting anyone?

[Mr. Flay]

That could work, yeah. Good incentive!

[Mr. Flay]

Or just call the WC "three dead townies"; don't have to mess with the definition of lynch then.

[Mr. Flay]

Actually, shotty's right for once. mith has said that one-scum games don't work as mafia.

[Mr. Flay]

That... sounds interesting, but really looks like an Open Setup

Theme Game

. Not sure I understand the 8th note - so the Murderer can't miss killing, they just might not get their first pick?

Also, cutting off communication is tricky, and relies on a very present Mod.

[Mr. Flay]

Cutting off communication for the whole hour since they separate. They don't carry radio or walkie-talkies with them- Isn't it silly? It pretty much make sense since they talk first then separate

after

they've decided who to spy/kill. Meep.

Oh okay. So they'd be incommunicado for the next "Night".

[Mr. Flay]

2 Cops is vastly overpowered, even with the RB. By N3 they'll have half the game investigated, probably.

[Mr. Flay]

shotty, you're not addressing the fundamental lack of balance in the game. Depending on how the coin flips in setup, you've got several wildly different games coming out of that. Stop focusing on the coinflip element and make ONE balanced setup, no variability. Then you can start to play with things that can change without screwing up said balance.

[Mr. Flay]

I actually thought about that set up. It's amazing what really thinking can do

Well done, shotty.

[Mr. Flay]

Special Mechanics:

~If 2 or more Doctors target the same person, that person dies.

What if one of said Docs is RBed?

Otherwise, I got nothing. I feel like it's been done before...

[Mr. Flay]

The mafia and werewolves are different in power because the mafia has one player that shows up guilty to the cop, while the werewolves have two (or zero,) and nothing to compensate for this difference. If you want them to be equal but different, you could give one of the werewolves NK-immunity. But inequality doesn't make a setup bad.

NK-immunity is way stronger than inv-immunity in that setup, IMO.

Seacore: I don't like that your 'rainbow' game punishes teams for killing their opponents. Not sure how to balance that, at all... will each color have a different power role progression? If so, it's possible to get an ugly Cop+Doc synergy going (Cop+Doc in Open Setup = Bad Thing).

[Mr. Flay]

Tragedy is correct, though "Detective" works fine too, I think.

And Open Games CAN be Themed, as long as everything is translated transparently into Open Setup language as well.

[Mr. Flay]

Tragedy, that's way too complex for an Open Queue game, and I'm not even sure if you can call it Mafia.

FTFY

[Mr. Flay]

Pretty much is changing original roles to a different way. They don't have the same mechanics as the normal one.

Change the role name, then. It's confusing to use existing roles in wildly different ways, ESPECIALLY in Open Games.

[Mr. Flay]

all in all, we should probably try to have a little more self control... one player posts one game, and then we should discuss it until the idea is abandoned or nominated... I find this thread extremely confused with people posting 3 games in the same page

How do you manage to keep up with games, then? It's an organic thread...

[Mr. Flay]

What's the problem with cults? Cut off the head and the body dies eventually.

Step 1: Go to Mafia Discussion
Step 2: Ctrl-F
Step 3: "cult" in the search box.
Step 4: Click.
Step 5: Read
Step 6: PROFIT!

Seriously, it's a complex question, but it boils down to 'cults are overpowered in their traditional method'. Many of the fixes can be just as bad.

[Mr. Flay]

@Empking: Since FBI agents look for a Specific Role. But Cops search for alignments...

Yeah, but we already have a role for FBI Agent. Call them Casting Director or something... (okay, maybe not).

Also, the positive/negative thing IS confusing. Can't you just say "Vanilla" or "Not Vanilla"?

[Mr. Flay]

What happens if the Monopolistic Docs target each other?

[Mr. Flay]

and wins along with end-gamed survivors after a 'No more lynches ever' vote

Wha huh? You're not a Survivor if you can win after you're dead.

Also, 2:7 is horrifically scumsided.

[Mr. Flay]

Uh.... for the love of Heisenberg, why??

[Mr. Flay]

Nominate -> It becomes an Official Open Setup for anyone to use for their Open Games.

Nominate + Support + I think farside's stamp of approval, actually.

[Mr. Flay]

Even in the best-case scenario for scum you posted, if the vig shoots N1 and hits scum, the town gets a 2:1 lylo. The town isn't going to mislynch D1, Loverize two townies and miss with the vig shot all in succession very often. It seems like a 1/5 sort of probability for all those to come true, which is fine by me - the town had enough chances. They missed four times.

I'm not sure that percentage is right, but it still seems high for a N1 loss.

Chance of hitting a Townie on the D1 lynch = 3/7 (killing the Vig or Loverizer doesn't fulfill this scenario)
Chance of the Loverizer hitting two Pro-Town people = 3/5*2/4, yes?
Chance of the Vig hitting one of those Lovers = 2/5 if the Vig isn't one of them, 1/5 if they are. 2/5*4/5+1/5*1/5, I think.
Chance of Mafia hitting one of those Lovers = 2/5... but this stacks with the above chance to kill a Lover.

Did I miss something?

[Mr. Flay]

Only if it gets okay'd for balance and stuff.

Junpei is right. The system I'm starting to implement is that first-time mods have to run something off the catalogue. Experienced mods (one successfully modded game) can then design a game or pick whatever they want from the catalogue.

[Mr. Flay]

If the target PR is blocked, the Tracker shouldn't be able to tell the difference between that and a VT/inactive Goon. Anything else just overpowers the Tracker role even further than usual.

[Mr. Flay]

This worked during Marathon Week:

Flay the Town

• 2 Vengeful Goons (D1 only)
  
• 5 Townies

- Nightless
- Scum do get a Daytalk QT to use at their own risk, but cannot discuss postlynch who to Venge.

Not exactly sure the Daytalk is necessary, but I don't think it hurts in a Nightless game.

Not sure what to do about No Lynch in a non-marathon game. In the marathon I lowered the lynch threshold by 1 (if it wasn't LyLo) and extended deadline.

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, I think for a normal-speed game Plurality Lynch should suffice to get people off their asses. I'm not sure the game is big enough to take a Mafia-wins-ties rule.

Also, scumchat thought it might be Mafia-sided and need a WEAK power role.

[Mr. Flay]

Thanks for working the math on this, guys. I agree that Earl is about the only reasonable role to throw in there, or something equivalent like a 1-shot Doc.

[Mr. Flay]

Ugh.
I'm not sure anything's really 'weaker' except roles that are stupid for this setup, like Jester/Miller.

[Mr. Flay]

It got one trial as a Marathon. I think it was fun enough to try again.

[Mr. Flay]

That just screws over one random Townie. Bleh.

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, but if he knows he's a Death Miller, then he's not going to get lynched, which goes back to 2:4:Named.

If he doesn't, then how can he avoid being randomly lynched, and he doesn't give the EV bonus of being Named.

I think?

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, but if he knows he's a Death Miller, then he's not going to get lynched, which goes back to 2:4:Named.

There is a difference - scum can counterclaim, and unlike with a named townie you wouldn't know if you've lynched the right one or not. That would definitely effect EV, although I'm not entirely sure how much by.

I see what you're saying. That's a much weirder setup than I was originally going for, but might work?

I'm not really convinced it needs the boost, though. 44% is better than most of our non-Opens, probably.

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, I feel like all of this is drifting farther and farther away from the point of the original game (Inverted Vengeful). Any role we add is likely to distort... can we play with the number of Townies instead?

[Mr. Flay]

If you have 2 D1-only Vengeful Goons and 6 Vanilla Town, then the odds are:

2/8 D1 Scumlynch
-- Game is now a mountainous nightless with 1 scum and 5 town, for which the odds are 66.67% town.
6/8 D1 Mislynch
-- Game is now a mountainous nightless with 2 scum and 5 town, for which the odds are 42.86% town.

Overall odds are 48.81% town, 51.19% scum (assuming scum lynch randomly, so it's probably actually a little worse than that for town). That's actually... pretty much right. If town EV is over 50% then town should all agree to random lynch and the game doesn't work as anyone who disagrees with policy random lynching must be mafia, and if town EV is below ~42.5% town then town has to be consistently about 5% better than random (assuming no informative power roles etc.) and I'd be surprised if that happens. That would make 46.25% to town a rough approximation of the sweetspot, and accounting for scumplay reducing it slightly 48.81% is really close.

So yeah, 2x Vengeful D1-Only Goons vs. 6x Vanilla Town actually works really well. :p

(I spent ages trying to balance the 2Maf vs 5Town setup by trying all sorts of odd role combinations, when just adding another Vanilla Town works. )

:applauds:

[Mr. Flay]

It's interesting though because most of the time it's going to go from 2:11 Mountainous to 2:10:Innocent Child.

[Mr. Flay]

I'd prefer keeping anonymity enforced without interference in the mechanics, to see how the 'addon' effects balance by statistically comparing faction win/loose rate to that of the vanilla setup - assuming it becomes popular.

Anonymity is almost literally impossible. See Author Mafia for an example; everyone was forced into an alt where they were intended to post as someone in a completely different style from their typical posting, and several players still managed to work out who was who.

This. Anonymity doesn't work in long-form games like MafiaScum has. You can sort of get away with it in rapidfire games with shorter posts.

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, but if you 'break' it without announcing in thread that you've broken it, there's literally no enforcement mechanism.

[Mr. Flay]

With sufficient restrictions, it might make for a good game. But I think it's a rather perverse enforcement method, and distorts the actual core of the mechanic (again, IMO).

[Mr. Flay]

What if you randomised whether they're odd or even?

That just alternates which group is disadvantaged; doesn't solve the core problem.

Rather than 1-shot RB it might be more balanced to go with a N1-only RB. Then they can't use it against the Werewolves, forex.

[Mr. Flay]

Any sort of NK protection for Mafia would be MORE unbalancing than a 1/6 chance of a N1 Cop. Especially in endgame.

[Mr. Flay]

Maybe a Seer head start?

Might be the best of a bad lot - everything else with scum teams that small seems worse than the disease.

[Mr. Flay]

its fair chance of winning for

both

the parties.

Exactly. You're

only

looking at this from the POV of the Angel and Demon factions. Town is utterly screwed.

[Mr. Flay]

Looking up qt rn

http://www.quicktopic.com

[Mr. Flay]

Good thing he asked about nightless mountainous, then.

[Mr. Flay]

That's what I'd guess from everybody else being Townies, yes.

[Mr. Flay]

Behold, a setup inspired by chess and the Matrix6 setup:

Knight-Errant 17p

Then, using the following table:

Town Doctor	Mafia Jailkeeper	Town Gunsmith	Mafia Roleblocker
Mafia Godfather	Town Cop	Mafia Watcher	Town Tracker
Town Jailkeeper	Mafia Roleblocker	Town Bulletproof	Mafia Jailkeeper
Mafia Watcher	Town 3-Shot Commuter	Mafia Godfather	Town Roleblocker

Imagine a chess knight placed randomly on the 4x4 table. Then, pick a random move available to that knight. For example, you could pick Town Cop + Tracker vs. Mafia Roleblocker + Watcher.
Add 2 Masons and 2 Mafia Goons.
Then add a JOAT Serial Killer. The SK has 1-shot abilities according to the setup that was chosen. If an ability shows up twice (e.g. a setup with a Mafia Roleblocker and a Town Roleblocker) then the ability is 2-shot. The SK also has a 1-shot strongman.

Mafia Godfathers are both bulletproof and investigation immune.

Setup is 12-4-1 overall.

...that sounds like a horrifically complicated way for the mod to screw it up and/or end up with an unplayable game anyway.

Maybe blend it with PYP: Mod picks the first power role. First player to signup picks a knight move to enable the second role, second player uses a knight move from that spot, etc. Or do it after WC assignment, but that sounds fraught with disaster.

[Mr. Flay]

Dethy is ridiculously popular on Marathon Days, but that's because it plays fast and really only requires one player to be paying close attention.

Sounds like Dethy- might be worth a shot in a similar setting. Gives Mafia a chance.

[Mr. Flay]

One of the Wheel of Time games had a delayed death mechanic for NKs. It was SUPERannoying for scum not being able to shut anybody up immediately, but that was a PR-heavy game.

[Mr. Flay]

Also {Fool, Fool} should yield Not The Same, since they want different people lynched.

[Mr. Flay]

But if town does it for them, it actually punishes town for lynching well.

[Mr. Flay]

What he said.

[Mr. Flay]

Not decided either way yet.

Normal_Game#Roles

[Mr. Flay]

The problem is anything with a large number of killing roles (Texas Justice, Fight or Flight are two off the top of my head) have been broken mid-game.

Kill Everyone Mafia (4 vigs, 3 scum) also ended up being heavily townsided; scum won the test game, but via the method of killing townies who attempted to break the setup. The dead thread broke it.

Wait Your Turn, Tex may not have been tested sufficiently yet, but the games run so far have not been townsided in any way.

[Mr. Flay]

Wait Your Turn, Tex may not have been tested sufficiently yet, but the games run so far have not been townsided in any way.

It's broken via No Lynch, No Kill, isn't it? You No Lynch repeatedly, taking no night actions, until all the Mafia have taken their shots (you know how many there are, so you can keep track of this). Then everyone claims odd or even. Then you circle-target; whichever category has more Mafia claiming it has to circle-target first.

This is pretty reliable with the typical version of the Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies rule (which requires scum to break NLNK cycles via killing).

Mafia are not Compulsive in that game. So at worst you'd get Happily Ever After.

[Mr. Flay]

Except that Towns LOVE to shoot (MAD, EBHOBANHAR, etc). Nobody is going to sign up for that game to play the safe odds.

[Mr. Flay]

Needs more SK.

[Mr. Flay]

I was semi-serious. I think it will be broken by prefclaim.

[Mr. Flay]

That has the added benefit of encouraging at least someone to be training (if no one is training, anyone can be killed; if one person is training, everyone else has a 1-shot BP)

[Mr. Flay]

Drive to someone's house with a baseball bat, a pair of pliers, duct tape, and some rope.

This is forbidden under standard rules?

mith is a tyrant.

[*]Do not bring outside influences into the game - this includes threats...

[Mr. Flay]

Don't forget timestamps.

[Mr. Flay]

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

No, I mean make sure your timestamps do not give away alignments. For instance if all VTs got their PM bcc'ed at 11:07, or all scum got theirs first and then you sent Town, or if the gap between PMs is twice as long when you have to send a scum a role and a fakeclaim role...

[Mr. Flay]

yes.... but scum aren't told they are scum

...Then that's a bastard game and has no business being anywhere near an open setup?

I do not think that word means what you think it means. "No hidden features to roles" applies to Opens. "No fucked up and crazy setups" obviously does not.

[Mr. Flay]

It just seems that as long as scum just basically decide to ignore all associative things (they gain little from working together really as they have a 2/3 win chance if no one reads their role) they should win.

Mod should definitely require a reiteration of role/partners in confirmation PM for this game, yes.

I think it's unbalanced, but it will take a LONG time for scum to really use that 78% advantage properly, even in today's bussing society.

[Mr. Flay]

Superswingy.

I'm not sure it needs boosting, as the chance for crosskills is pretty high.

n/m, they just can't communicate.

Town probably benefits from lynching randomly here. As mentioned, lists or really posts at all will be more helpful to scum than town.

[Mr. Flay]

Because warring Town Factions isn't "Normal". That's a definite mutation of the game, as is a non-majority "Town".

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, it's an interesting idea but I'm really concerned about swinginess.

[Mr. Flay]

Odd-Even unless one team is eliminated? Sort of a Fire/Ice variant?

[Mr. Flay]

I feel like I should know the answer, but Bombers have unlimited bombs, right? They can do one each cycle, not once per game?

[Mr. Flay]

Thinking of running this tonight as a Marathon.

at the mountains of ebony and ivory

2 Goons.
X Townies.

All players have two votes: one (Ebony) to attempt to lynch as normal, one (Ivory) as a protective/preventative. Ivory votes will subtract one from a person's Ebony vote total. If anyone has a majority of Ivory votes at the end of a Day, that person will be Bulletproof the following Night.

Days will lynch on a plurality basis if no one has an outright Ebony majority.

Biggest question, of course, is how many X Townies might be balanced.

[Mr. Flay]

The Ivory votes keep scum from being able to always kill the towniest/leader, yes, which should help. I'm also curious about how the Ivory votes will provide additional information for scumhunting.

[Mr. Flay]

Obviously everyone should self ivory vote and have everyone become bulletproof - and have no counter wagons to the lynch. (or maybe keep one so town is choosing who scum can kill)

No one will have a majority of Ivory votes, so

no one

will be bulletproof. It devolves back to Mountainous in that case.

TierShift: You can't give Town an uncounterclaimable Power Role with the Ivory mechanic in place (see also: Angel Nightless). You can't give scum any power at all without making the imbalance worse. I think it's better with the purity of "Mountainous" at its core, but I'm open to suggestions of roles you think would work.

[Mr. Flay]

Also of course you can't Ivory-vote yourself.

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah scum will never "miss" a kill because it doesn't work like Doctor, but it should strengthen Town a bit to not lose their leader(s). I don't think I'm going to have time to run it tonight though, and it looks like smaller games are already having trouble filling.

Alternatively the cutoff for Ivory-Bulletproof could be plurality>=Ebony. In other words if you 'lynch' with 4 votes out of 11, you could protect two people that Night if each got 4+ Ivory votes. Unsure how that changes things, maybe too much...

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah scum will never "miss" a kill because it doesn't work like Doctor, but it should strengthen Town a bit to not lose their leader(s). I don't think I'm going to have time to run it tonight though, and it looks like smaller games are already having trouble filling.

Alternatively the cutoff for Ivory-Bulletproof could be plurality>=Ebony. In other words if you 'lynch' with 4 votes out of 11, you could protect two people that Night if each got 4+ Ivory votes. Unsure how that changes things, maybe too much...

Guh, forgot about endgame, where scum will reach 'unlynchable' status much quicker due to the Ivory votes. Since who is unkillable is publicly known, Town will still die every Night, so all we've done is strengthen scum in mountainous.

I really wish I could find the offsite Ebony/Ivory games Fiasco was talking about... I want to see what their actual setup was.

[Mr. Flay]

No team.

[Mr. Flay]

I don't consider that a team in the usual sense, because it's too transparent. The Jester wants the Jester lynched. The Town knows the Goon knows who the Jester is, so any action to push for the Jester's lynch is going to be seen as scummy. The Town is never going to let a Jestery-person get lynched, so you'll end up lynching somebody else randomly. 1/3 chance it's the Goon, autolose for the Mafia.

If it's not, N1 the Jester dies and now it's a cointoss between the Goon and the remaining Townie. That's way more than 50% townsided.

[Mr. Flay]

The Jester's goal is even more explicit than usual, because it only has one Day to do it. I don't see that so much "incompetent" as "functions as designed". The Jester can't be subtle and hope to succeed (for one thing, if the Goon is the lynch instead it's an autolose).

But then I find Jesters incredibly lazy.

[Mr. Flay]

Sounds a lot like my Ebony/Ivory from a few pages ago: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p5788228

[Mr. Flay]

I need to practice my plagiarism skills. To be serious though, I hadn't seen yours and I made the above to attempt to remedy issues that plague games at my homesite; village inactivity/disengagement and actives being killed off. For your set up, I'd say regular mountainous numbers are fine assuming you're looking for a 50% EV, but that's just my guess.

11:2 is theoretically balanced in Mountainous Forum Mafia. In practice, Town usually loses due to apathy/disillusionment. 8:3 requires them to lynch correctly more than 50% of the time, which doesn't happen often in non-Mountainous games.

[Mr. Flay]

EV? (which Forum Mafia consistently does worse than)

[Mr. Flay]

*shrug* I was going off of memory of Numbers Part 1, but yeah 11:2 is within most definitions of "theoretically balanced" (40-60%). In practice it doesn't work.

[Mr. Flay]

Maybe I'm just used to a site with better lynch percentages.

In Mountainous?

[Mr. Flay]

I'm baaaaack.

at the mountains of ebony and ivory

2 Goons.
11 Townies.

• All players have two votes: Ebony to attempt to lynch as normal, Ivory as a protective/preventative. Ivory-votes will subtract one from a person's Ebony-vote total.
  
  
• Lynches require a Majority^TM of Ebony votes rounded DOWN, excluding the voted player (unless they go insane and Ebony-vote themselves). So for Day One, the lynch threshold is 6/12, not 7/13. One Ivory vote will functionally change it to 7/12, like normal.
  
  
• Deadline will be 13 RL days, after which the lynch threshold is reduced by 1 for each RL day. Yes, that does mean you can lynch more than one person if you're careful (both get 5, forex). This also should avoid the endgame hell of round-robin Ivory-votes.
  
  
• If anyone has a Majority^TM of Ivory-votes at the end of a Day, they will be Bulletproof the following Night.

Holes? Tweaks?

[Mr. Flay]

If that's the way they want to play it, fine. Personally I doubt scummers have that kind of patience.

[Mr. Flay]

Raising the Minimum^TM to 2 should solve the problem.

And yes, if it gets down to 3/5p LyLo I'll revert to strict majority.