[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[Hoopla]

This is the thread dedicated to reviewing new open setups to be run in Central Park. If you're thinking about designing a game, or have a good idea for a game,

I would suggest heading over to the Open Setup Ideas and Discussion thread to float it for interest

start a thread in the Open Setup Discussion subforum to float it for interest. If you or anyone else values the setup highly and wants to run it, we'll bring it into this thread and review it for balance/playability.

Please note:

Mods who want to run a unique game need to have one modded game completed.

There are two types of Open Games; Normal and Experimental. For a game to be approved as normal, it must pass the following criteria;

*Though subjective, the setup should aim to be as close to balanced as possible; that is, all factions should have a fair chance of winning.
*The setup should have a mafia/werewolf team of at least two players.
*There should be no alignments other than Mafia/Werewolf, Town and Serial Killer (no Lyncher/Cult/Jester/Survivor)
*There should be no mechanics that can change another player's alignment or bring a dead player back to life.
*The setup should maintain the basic premise of mafia; the outcome of the game should depend primarily (though not necessarily entirely) on whether or not the pro-town players can determine the identities of the Mafia through their posting and behaviour.
*The setup should not make claiming strategies (or any other predetermined plan) pivotal to the town's chances of success.
*Normal Open Games should always be primarily determined by the individual skill of the players, as such, setups with high amounts of role interactions/night kills, unique roles, or containing overly elaborate mechanics may be classified as an Experimental Game.

Experimental games are a little bit more lenient and don't have to follow most of the above guidelines, however there still are a couple of rules that won't be waived;

*Though subjective, the setup should aim to be as close to balanced as possible; that is, all factions should have a fair chance of winning.
*The setup should not make claiming strategies (or any other predetermined plan) pivotal to the town's chances of success.

Once a setup has been approved in this thread, it may be run by any experienced moderator who is in the Open Queue. If the game is successful and well-received, it may be added to the catalogue of approved games that regularly get run in Central Park.

Although there will be an "official" group who ultimately make the final decision on the validity of a new setup, anybody with an opinion is encouraged to post. The more sets of eyes reviewing a setup, the better. I will happily extend the group to those making consistent and meaningful contributions.

[Hoopla]

Edit: No longer needed

[Hoopla]

There are two types of Open Games; Normal and Experimental. For a game to be approved as normal, it must pass the following criteria;

Not quite on topic, but is there a usable synonym for the 'N-word' lying around? As it stands it describes two different sets of standards.

I don't think it's that big of a deal if we have Normal Open setups, especially since Little Italy's guidelines are essentially for "Closed Normal" games.

[Hoopla]

Yogur is cool.
And balanced.
And necessary.

It's breakable.

Both cops claim D1, which gives you two confirmed cops which will obviously produce a town win, so scum is forced to counterclaim. This divides the game into 3 cops/4 unclaimed, with one scum in each pool. You force the Doctor to claim, which scum cannot counterclaim without producing two confirmed townies. You then lynch one of the three unconfirmed players - if it's town, all three cops target the other two unconfirmed players. Scum is forced to kill the Doctor as it's a confirmed innocent, and too much of a risk trying to kill a cop which might be saved. Since all three cops targeted the same player, you get a result, which confirms the last two players' alignments, giving you an automatic scum lynch. There will either be three cops left which will produce a 50/50 3p lylo, or the confirmed townie left which produces a 50/50 3p lylo. This is a worst-case scenario for town, which can obviously be improved on in the 1/3 games where they hit scum on D1, which is an autowin.

So, the possible results are;

- Lynch townie 1 D1: 50/50 lylo
- Lynch townie 2 D1: 50/50 lylo
- Lynch scum D1: win

[Hoopla]

Obviously, they'll be a massclaim but I would not say that it increases town's win rate to unplayable levels. I know I'd play it.

(Also, on the last night (if they follow your plan) the Cops should circle investigate to force the townie kill.)

Then it falls victim to this;

*The setup should not make claiming strategies (or any other predetermined plan) pivotal to the town's chances of success.

I think you'd be playing suboptimally if you didn't follow some sort of claiming plan, and there's no point promoting a game that has a blueprint to success. This is why we abandoned the old newbie setup. We have plenty of other 7-9p cop/doc setups - we don't need another, especially when it doesn't work.

[Hoopla]

I think I agree with you on Mos Eisley. A goon dying early is a really bad situation, as it's essentially nightless, with one OR two roles confirmed or psuedo-confirmed. Too much hinges on the Goon's survival.

I think True Love would be a better game if Lover pairs could talk together - as far as I'm aware they could already? Though I haven't read the games that have used this setup.

[Hoopla]

Both previous True Love games allowed lovers to talk.

Oh good. I'll update the wiki.

[Hoopla]

To elaborate on the small setups I want to bin;

1-Shot C9

and

1-Shot Micro

are both very similar variants of PieE7, which is questionably balanced itself. There is little point running these games even if they were deemed balanced/fun.

Bodyguard 7

is probably broken with a pseudo-follow-the-cop strategy. In 7p games, you really only need one investigation to increase your chances. The Bodyguard essentially acts a 1-shot Doctor. I think Bird 7P is the best variant of a 7P Cop/Doc game that isn't susceptible to cop/doc claiming strategies and doesn't require a roleblocker.

C9

is plain unbalanced - I don't think I need to explain this.

C9+2

is probably unbalanced based off F11's statistics. In the 2 Goons, 1 Cop, 6 Townies setups and the 2 Goons, 1 Doctor, 6 Townies setup, they respectively have 35% and 39% winrates for town. 2:7 mountainous is a terrible option, and I'm surprised towns win in it 32% of the time. I don't think we can promote a setup based on these numbers - that's even before considering this setup is stale and not very interesting.

California

isn't balanced. We have the newbie C9 statistics for the California setup to qualify this claim; 82 Mafia Wins, 32 Town Wins. Nooooope.

Don't Cut The Red Wire

was deliberately broken by JDodge as an experiment.

Even/Odd C9

has been upgraded to Alternating 9P - we don't need this setup.

SCIENCE

is probably unbalanced given we used to run a 2 mafia, 2 Masons, 7/8 Townies variant of Friends and Enemies. The novelty of an Encryptor isn't really a novelty when plenty of other setups feature scum daytalk. 3 Mafia wins to 0 town wins isn't anywhere near enough of a sample size to determine balance, but I suspect when considering what makes other 7P setups balanced/unbalanced that this one isn't.

Yoguraimee

is breakable.

[Hoopla]

I don't think broken is the right word for "Don't Cut the Red Wire"; it wasn't intended to be run after the first time.

About the comment you left on JK9. A good fakeclaim will help the mafia.

Mafia is winning 3-1 in JK9. I think if scum is lynched D1, having to no-kill until they find a PR to safely kill (or take a risk) isn't game-breaking. It should be difficult to win if you lose half your team on D1.

[Hoopla]

What was the ruling on PieE7's balance? What is the ruling on SCIENCE's balance? I want to push on.

[Hoopla]

What's the problem with Gurgi EC8?

The possibility of drawing no Weak Cops, and playing in a mountainous 2:6 setup. Make it 1-3 Weak Cops and it seems fine to me. What do you think?

[Hoopla]

None of the games have featured a town with zero cops. The only guarantee is that there is one cop - that isn't going to break the game, and it fixes the 1/8 games where you're playing in an unbalanced setup.

[Hoopla]

No, it's not. If you can't figure out just from looking at the numbers what the problem is, then this is not worth arguing.

3:7:3
2:3:2

If the top is balanced doesn't take SCIENCE to figure out the bottom one is a load of horseshit. 2:5:2 is obviously much better.

As a thought experiment just continue downwards (replace the mason with a single confirmed "Earl" in the setup). 1:3:1 is clearly more-or-less balanced. Adding a scum and a mason to 1:3:1 does not balance make.

I tend to agree with Grey, 2:5:2 does seem more balanced than 2:3:2, and minimises the possibility of a claiming strategy being a relevant discussion in the game. If this is true, is it necessary to have another mid-sized Friends and Enemies game?

Ignoring the balance side of things, is it even a fun/interesting setup? We have a bunch of 2:3:2 setups, with the 2 being a Cop/Doc. I see SCIENCE playing out similarly to those, with the main variable being the masons can confirm each other. In both setups though, the main town power comes via PoE of having claimed roles/non claimed roles on D2, and scum having to choose which pool to hide within.

[Hoopla]

This is the updated list.

2of4 (Newbie) -

Approved

Alternating 9P -

Approved

Bird 7P -

Approved

Carbon-14 -

Approved

Gurgi EC8 -

Approved

JK9 -

Approved

Lovers Mafia -

Approved

My Name is Earl -

Approved

No Lynching Town -

Approved

SCIENCE -

Approved

Scumhunter's Speed 8P -

Approved

True Love -

Approved

Twin Trap -

Approved

Vengeful 5p -

Approved

Trendy and Subversive

1-Shot C9 -

Binned

1-Shot Micro -

Binned

Baby Too Much Scum -

Binned

Bodyguard 7 -

Binned

C9 -

Binned

C9+2 -

Binned

California -

Binned

Don't Cut the Red Wire! -

Binned

Double Cop -

Binned

Even/Odd C9 -

Binned

Mos Eisley -

Binned

Pie E7 -

Binned

Two of Four -

Binned

Roleblocker C9 -

Binned

Yoguraimee C9 -

Binned

[Hoopla]

- No Lynching Town is probably fine to be approved.

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

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

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

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

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

[Hoopla]

Nominate: Chosen

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

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

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

both

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

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

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

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

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

[Hoopla]

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

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

[Hoopla]

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

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

[Hoopla]

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

[Hoopla]

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

[Hoopla]

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

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

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

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

[Hoopla]

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

Yarr.

Okay, fixed.

[Hoopla]

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

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

[Hoopla]

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

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

[Hoopla]

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

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

[Hoopla]

Okay, updated the list.

Added;

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

Binned;

- Baby Too Much Scum

[Hoopla]

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

[Hoopla]

If PieE7 is not balanced, why would Trendy and Subversive be?

If anything, it seems like a worse deal than PieE7, because you're not guaranteed powerroles that do anything.

[Hoopla]

Okay, I binned Double Cop, Even/Odd C9, PieE7 and Two of Four.

We just need to decide what to do with SCIENCE, 3 of 5, Trendy and Subversive and Vengeful 7p, then we can move onto the mids.

~~

I'm not especially fond of Trendy and Subversive - I think any 2:5 setup where scum get a Roleblocker is pushing it. The majority of times, the two PR's will essentially be Earls, with an occasional save or investigation. I've played in Version 3 before, and we decided the optimal play was for the Deputy/Nurse to claim D1, to make use of the confirmed townie to narrow the pool, and to prevent scum from being able to go for a 50/50 in lylo with this role. It also served as bait to keep our Cop or Doc alive, as scum couldn't afford to risk shooting for the Cop/Doc, missing and having a confirmed townie PLUS a Cop/doc alive on D2.

I don't know - the setup just seems kind of bland, and that's before any balance issues are dealt with. I think in most cases, it's optimal for a Deputy/Nurse to claim, since they're essentially Earls that PROBABLY won't get to use their power.

For SCIENCE, I'm happy deferring to what most people want. Personally, 2:5:2 sounds better to me, but I have no strong feelings either way on this one.

3 of 5 is a good idea, but I don't think there is any one tweak that automatically fixes the setup. If we were to play around with this setup, it probably wouldn't resemble the original very much. It's probably better to just bin it, and then create a new setup borrowing the idea/format if need be.

I feel kind of meh on 7p Vengeful. I think if Vengefuls start to get run with regularity, most people would want to play in the 5p version.

[Hoopla]

I feel kind of meh on 7p Vengeful. I think if Vengefuls start to get run with regularity, most people would want to play in the 5p version.

It's worth noting that I don't think 7P Vengeful has been run on this site at all, so nobody really knows what it would be like to play it...?

Alright, I won't bother approving or binning Vengeful 7p since it hasn't been run before. It can stay on the page as a variant, though.

[Hoopla]

I'm going to bin this current version of 3 of 5 as well - it needs too many changes to work and make use of its novelty well. If someone wants to design and run a new 3 of 5 in the future, I would welcome it.

[Hoopla]

For SCIENCE, I'm going to just keep it as the 2:3:2 version and give it a few more runs before we decide on its balance. Currently the mafia has won 3/3, which isn't proof of much, but it's something to be wary of. We can up it to 9p later if necessary. I'm wary of fixing every 7p setup by just adding two townies though, as we already have a shortage of 7p setups relative to the demand.

[Hoopla]

Science is probably fixable by giving the scum a 1-shot kill.

Hmmm, it's a good idea, but it still doesn't prevent the Day 2 lylo/mylo loss - I'd suggest scum would win in this manner more often than with 1 alive. It's optimal to kill N1 regardless, as such the only way this mechanic benefits town is if they lynch scum on D1 or D2 - if they do, they earn an extra mislynch. Why should they earn an extra mislynch for lynching a scum? When realistically (if we're to fix SCIENCE), we should be giving them that extra mislynch opportunity without town needing to lynch a scum to get it.

[Hoopla]

Well if they shoot N1 and hit a VT, then they're VERY likely to lose.

I suppose another fix at 7p is just make both the scum vengeful and remove the night kill entirely. That might make it fairly town sided though.

This is essentially the mechanic that No Lynching Town uses.

Imagine scum being lynched D1, misses and hits a townie. Masons claim and there is no way to lose. This is becoming less and less like the original setup, though.

EDIT: I missed the mason endgame rule. My last point still stands though.

[Hoopla]

More and more I think 7Ps just don't really work with a full night kill. It's too powerful.

I tend to agree - it's difficult to create a setup that is fair for the town that doesn't produce an optimal strategy or a boring/formulaic sequence of play. Town has no margin for error in 7p, so they do need a decent amount of power in catching scum and/or narrowing the lynch pool. This does limit creativity as far as role combinations go. It's easier to balance a 7p game when you dabble with mechanics instead of roles.

[Hoopla]

Okay, we're pretty much done in regards to the Small Opens and we can move onto the mids. Trendy And Subversive seems to still be in limbo, but we can figure it out later rather than it stalling other progress. I've also added a page for Chosen Mafia. Just one clarification on that setup, it says that "1 or 2 Goons vs. 2 Chosen Townies" endgames them - would that include a 1 Goon/1 Townie/2 Chosen endgame? I assume not..?

Anyway, here are the mids;

2:2:9
Fire and Ice
Friends and Enemies (13p)
Jungle Republic
Mountainous Mafia (2:11)
Weak M.D.
White Flag (3:10)

*

2:10 Bugs Bunny

*

Bad Tweed

*

C/9

*

C9++

*

Faith Plus One

*

Follow the Cop... or Not

*

Friends and Enemies and Enemies

*

Friends and Enemies and Enemies and That Other Guy

*

Hard Boiled

*

Masons and Mafia

*

Masons and Monks

*

Near-Vanilla

*

Night Watch

*

Nightless Vengeful Mayhem

*

Nomination Mafia

*

Operating Room

*

Pick Your Poison

*

Polygamist

*

Switch

*

Tit for Tat

*

Tread Carefully

*

Two-fold C9

*

Twofold Mafia

*

3:3:6

*

Basic Twelve Player

*

Daytalk12

*

Friends and Enemies: Deadly Alliance

*

Mini Love

*

Mountainous Multiball

*

Nightless Vanilla (4:8)

*

Strawberry Mafia

*

Unclean Mafia

[Hoopla]

2:2:9
Fire and Ice
Friends and Enemies (13p)
Jungle Republic
Mountainous Mafia (2:11)
Weak M.D.
White Flag (3:10)

These are the games that don't need much discussion to me. My only concern is going to be the popularity of the 2:2:9 and 2:11 Mountainous setups. I don't think they will be very popular with the players, and I don't think many mods will choose to run them. 3:10 White Flag is a far more fun/interesting (and possibly balanced) version of the 2:11 setup. We might as well approve them and if mods just don't pick them, then it makes no difference either way.

Weak MD might be a little underpowered for the town, given a Hider/Weak Doc can cost the town a mislynch. It's probably about on par with Near-Vanilla as far as balance goes, which is also possibly a little under for town.

[Hoopla]

I'm surprised that Mafia has won both games of Bad Tweed. Even so, you would think that optimum play in that kind of game would be to No Lynch three times in a row.

I'm not - it's a scumsided setup. You're guaranteed to lynch town D1, as scum can fakeclaim cop to scare town off. And when you only have three mislynches available, two cops aren't going to lynch you three scum before you mislynch twice, especially when scum have a miller/Godfather maker. It probably is optimal to no-lynch D1 and unless someone has a guilty, no-lynch on D2.

I still wouldn't expect town to win more than 40% of the time, though.

[Hoopla]

Maybe, but I think that just reinforces no-lynch D1 (and D2) as the right play, as there's less chance of you losing a Cop.

[Hoopla]

I wouldn't lose sleep over binning Bad Tweed. I think binning C/9 is the right move too.

I also agree with not keeping EVERY 2:2:8/2:2:9 setup we have, as a lot of them are kind of samey.

[Hoopla]

Obviously each player won't play optimally, and real game results will deviate from what you can theoretically expect, but in simple to analyse setups like Bad Tweed, repeated play should eventually yield widely followed optimal strategies for each team. I think no-lynch D1 with minimal discussion, followed by any guilty claims immediately on D2 is optimal. If there is none, hypo-cop the innocent results for insurance against the N2 kill, and no-lynch again. Regardless of what happens, Day 3 should be the day you massclaim and try to PoE as much as you can.

For scum, it is optimal to for the Tailor to target itself on N1 to guarantee it gets to use its action again on N2.

Even if this isn't the

exact

plan town should use (I'm sure you could tweak it for slight benefit), I really can't see sense in playing it without some sort of structured investigating and claiming plan as town. As far as I'm concerned, we can do better with setup design - nobody wants to play games that revolve around optimising claiming and PoE strategies.

[Hoopla]

Can the Role Cop kill and investigate in the same night?

[Hoopla]

I think we've had enough 4:8 Nightless games to conclude it's

probably

not balanced. People will point to the EV for the setup, but it's not a relevant factor when you compare it to the EV of other games, as it doesn't operate like a normal game. The dynamic of scum not being able to remove obvious townies hurts them supremely. Couple that with the positive feedback of rewarding the town with an extra mislynch every time they lynch scum, the game gets progressively more difficult for scum the deeper the game goes.

Nightless games beyond a certain size will always suffer these problems, and though you can say "well, scum just needs to look the most townie in the game", it is very difficult to achieve. In a normal game, scum get to eliminate 3-5 of those more townie than them (and still sometimes lose) - it's unrealistic to expect to scum to regularly occupy the towniest slots in the game, in the same way it's unrealistic to expect town to scumhunt super well in a 2:7 mountainous game. You can say "this is what you need to do, and you didn't do it", but it's an unrealistic expectation. There's not enough room for error for town in that game, and there's not enough room for error for scum in this Nightless format.

Scum's best opportunity to win a Nightless game is to get the four mislynches required in a row before town can use connect-the-scum analysis efficiently (and earns extra mislynches). Getting those four mislynches before you lose a scummate is rather difficult in a game with a high density of scum, though.

As for 3:3:6 Nightless, it's probably closer to balanced, although I daresay a lot less fun. I'm not sure if you've played in any games where mods try and be awesome by pumping loads of scum into the game? They lurk and the game stalls, because that's what scum do. The only time it was run it was abandoned - this setup doesn't exactly scream "APPROVE ME"!

[Hoopla]

Why not just move 4:8 to 4:7 or something like that? It would be a shame to lose what is probably the most important mechanic change from this site.

It's a good base mechanic for small games, ie; Lovers Mafia and most of the 5-8p games, but it falls apart when its too large. I don't think dropping it to 4:7 is a very good fix - it might solve overall balance by allowing more games to be won by a scumsweep, but it doesn't fix positive feedback issues, and can still trap scum if they lose two or three scum members as it's hard for scum to appear as the most townie player in the game.

[Hoopla]

Can the Role Cop kill and investigate in the same night?

Yes.

Let me ask you something; do you think a setup with 2 Goons, 3 Innocent Childs and 4 Townies would be balanced?

[Hoopla]

Perhaps a "fix" would be to change the positive feedback so for every scum lynch they get a kill. I know it's technically a very different set-up but nightlesses are special.

We have that setup: No Lynching Town

[Hoopla]

No. Though that's not this setup.

What do you think prevents a Day 1 massclaim essentially making it this setup? It's not rational for scum to counterclaim Doctor, as they're forced to leave at least one alive, enabling the town one or two Doc protections each night. It's not rational for scum to counterclaim Tracker - as it gives town a 50/50 on Day 1 straight up. Assuming this, the setup does become 3 Innocent Childs, with the added bonus of a couple more chances for night powers to do something. The Doctors can then either protect two players amongst the three, forcing scum to either gamble (and give them a free vig kill if they miss) or use their Strongman kill. Presuming they do use the Strongman, the town will either have two Doctors (scum won't do that), or a Doctor and a Tracker. This means the Tracker gets two uses of its action (N1 and N2) for free, plus the benefits of a 3-player open masonry for PoE.

Even if town played it normally, the Doctor-into-Vig role is probably too overpowered on its own. If a successful save is effected, you've done three things; you've prevented a scum-kill (handy), which leaves the town in even numbers. This in turn enables a vig shot to not cost a mislynch (super handy) AND it also confirms a townie (extremely handy). If the Doc-vig claims, it confirms itself and another player, plus a free kill the next night. That's too much swing for guessing one scumkill right.

[Hoopla]

Why is the old version of Pick Your Poison still in the queue? When would scum ever choose to add a cop into the game? The novelty never becomes relevant.

Patrick's made alternative versions, though I don't know if they're normal. I'm still nostalgic over PYP2.

Yes, there are better Pick Your Poison setups we could use instead of the current one.

[Hoopla]

Yes, I've been a bit busy recently, and foolishly decided to play in two mafia games as well which didn't help. I'm going to make a concerted effort in the next couple of days to work on this thread, though.

[Hoopla]

Holiday time is over. It's time to start setting aside more time for this. I want to make a big effort over the next week to get this done, so any help will be appreciated. Here is what we have for the mids;

2:2:9 -

Approved

Fire and Ice -

Approved

Friends and Enemies (13p) -

Approved

Jungle Republic -

Approved

Mountainous Mafia (2:11) -

Approved

Weak M.D. -

Approved

White Flag (3:10) -

Approved

*

Bad Tweed

*

C9++

*

Faith Plus One

*

Follow the Cop... or Not

*

Friends and Enemies and Enemies

*

Hard Boiled

*

Masons and Mafia

*

Masons and Monks

*

Near-Vanilla

*

Nightless Vengeful Mayhem

*

Nomination Mafia

*

Operating Room

*

Pick Your Poison

*

Polygamist

*

Switch

*

Tit for Tat

*

Tread Carefully

*

Two-fold C9

*

Twofold Mafia

3:3:6 -

Binned

Basic Twelve Player -

Binned

2:10 Bugs Bunny -

Binned

C/9 -

Binned

Daytalk12 -

Binned

Friends and Enemies: Deadly Alliance -

Binned

Friends and Enemies and Enemies and That Other Guy -

Binned

Mini Love -

Binned

Mountainous Multiball -

Binned

Nightless Vanilla (4:8) -

Binned

Night Watch -

Binned

Strawberry Mafia -

Binned

Unclean Mafia -

Binned

[Hoopla]

I'm just going to go down the list of unconfirmed setups, so to start with;

Bad Tweed

- Doesn't work with 12 players. Either needs an extra VT or should be scrapped. I'm in favour of the latter, as even if this is were a balanced game, it doesn't seem like an especially fun game. I don't think a 13p version of this would be balanced anyhow. It's optimal for the Tailor to target itself N1 to guarantee it can't be caught and can use its power again later. Having power isolated in two roles really exposes town to lucky nightkills, and although I know this community tends to value the influence of cops highly, I don't think it's enough. Best case scenario is catching two scum from the roles, but this won't happen every game.

Town is almost guaranteed to mislynch D1 as optimal scumplay is claiming Cop which can't be disproved. Hypo-cop claiming strategies

may

be beneficial for town at times, but the risk of narrowing the cops down for scum is too great. Guilties and Innocents are of less value as cops are less sure of their results, and town is less sure of a player actually being a Cop. For example, if a Cop claimed a guilty D2, got that player lynched and they flipped town, town would be in a very tricky situation wondering if the target was tailored or scum was gambiting. The nerfed nature of the Cops (less confirmed status upon claiming, paranoia about results) is good for the game, but doesn't give the town enough power.

I personally don't rate this setup very highly, so I'd like other opinions on this one.

C/9

- Bad setup. Should probably be binned (don't know why I haven't yet). I hope I don't get anybody sticking up for this one, otherwise I'll shoot them.

C9++

- There is another thread on this regarding changes, so I'll bump that and solve it there.

Faith Plus One

- This setup has four variants, so we really ought to just pick one and use it if people like it. I know it was played recently. Is there anyone here that played or read the game? What did they think of the setup? To me, it doesn't have that X-factor about it, and I think there are some people who think %-based roles are kind of meh. It feels a little scum-sided too. Again, would like others to weigh in on this one.

Follow The Cop... Or Not

- Doesn't seemed balanced for an 11-player game. That's one less lynch, and the Cop has two possible ways of collecting false or no results. I don't think I'd want to be town in this setup. Not a fan of this setup, but I think I remember someone liking it?

Friends and Enemies and Enemies/Friends and Enemies and Enemies and That Other Guy

- Don't need both of these. I'd probably favour the first one out of the two though. Being a mason seems difficult in this game, and you probably wouldn't want to claim it, as you increase your chance of being offed at night by scum, which isn't good in a game dependent on crosskills. I don't think we need a whole heap of 2:2:X setups, but this one seems popular enough.

[Hoopla]

I'm surprised you haven't accepted C9++ simply because of its popularity.

Yeah, it's very popular. But it does need a revamp.

[Hoopla]

I played Faith Plus One as scum and not only found it incredibly boring but that the winning faction being decided on a 50/50 flip was unfair.

What happened in the game to make winning/losing 50/50?

[Hoopla]

Hey Vi. I've been thinking that the current roster thing is kind of a silly, unnecessary exercise. I feel like the easiest way to determine which games are chosen is to just assign a category (small/mid/large/experimental) to an upcoming mod and just let them pick whatever game they want from that pool. Then once that game has been chosen, it gets locked out for 5 picks (or half the amount of setups within the category) - I don't know yet exactly. This way you get a roster that changes by itself so different games get picked, but there is still an element of popularity involved. Does that make sense?

[Hoopla]

Tread Carefully seems like a

goofy

awesome novelty setup.

FTFY

Yeah, I think it's kind of cool. Probably belongs in the Experimental category now that I think about it.

[Hoopla]

I think Near Vanilla is probably scum-sided balance-wise as well. I'd be interested in seeing what Yos thinks about it. Personally, I don't mind it, but I know my tastes are different from a lot of people. If it was to be included, I feel like town would need a little something extra to help them out.

[Hoopla]

Hard Boiled

- Is partially broken. The ratio of unique confirmable roles is too high, that is makes a claiming strategy Day 1 usually always optimal, especially when you can keep the vig safely hidden and use it to get two town kills to every one scum kill, forcing scum to pick of the claimed PR's. Needs either an extra player, one less role, scum having a PR or maybe a combination of all three.

This setup is popular enough and has a strong, unique flavour about it that it shouldn't be binned, but it does need to be fixed. I'll get ABR in here to see what he wants to do with it.

Masons and Mafia

- Popuar setup but probably unfair on the town. It was discussed at the end of the last game, that adding an extra VT could be a simple solution, just to give town a bit more leeway. Rules of when and how often mafia shoot should probably be clearer too.

Masons and Monks

- In most cases, 13p is better for 2:2:9 setups as the worst-case scenario gets pushed out an extra day. The 13th player is a big help. It's less important for setups like Fire and Ice, as they have good chances of having kills stopped, but in this setup, I'd advise towards an extra VT. This isn't a bad 2:2:X setup, and I'd probably like to keep this one along with F&E&E and Fire & Ice.

Night Watch

- I suspect this setup is partially broken by having both the Watchers claim D1. This forces one scum to claim Watcher to prevent both town Watchers cross-watching. At this point, have the Role-Cop claim, and force all three Watchers to target the Role-Cop at night. This guarantees its protection, forcing scum to pick off one of the town Watchers. The Role-Cop targets the scummiest Watcher, and in 2/3 cases, it will essentially get a guilty on one of the Watchers. Meanwhile, lynches are obviously taking place from the non-claimed pool of players. For increased effectiveness, I'd also have all the non-confirmed players hypo-claim Hider targets, so in the event the Hider dies it's another confirmed scum.

This is too easily broken. Bin it.

Nightless Vengeful Mayhem

- Not a bad setup. It feels reasonably well balanced for a Nightless game - having a 2-shot killer for scum is a good way to prevent the problems of obv-townies not being able to be eliminated. I personally don't find it to be a very interesting setup, but I don't see why it couldn't be included.

Nomination Mafia

- I suspect this setup might be town-sided, but obviously this is heavily steeped in intuition. We've had the 2:5 version of this setup run during Marathon Day a lot with decent success. The wifom element is pretty fun. Maybe it'd be better to just run this as the 2:5 version - we are lacking in 7p setups...

[Hoopla]

The reason Hard Boiled has a scum track record is because no towns decided to try and break it (which it easily falls victim to). Played without a claiming strategy, it's probably slightly scum-sided but within the range of balanced - but claiming strategies do exist and they do help town a lot. The town PR's individual powers aren't strong in and of themselves (except for the vig) , but their main power comes from the ability to claim and confirm themselves, which is a potent tool enabling greater reach for PoE.

I think adding a scum PR is inelegant and creates more swing, but it could be solved with an extra VT

and

one less PR.

[Hoopla]

Faith Plus One

- This setup has four variants, so we really ought to just pick one and use it if people like it. I know it was played recently. Is there anyone here that played or read the game? What did they think of the setup? To me, it doesn't have that X-factor about it, and I think there are some people who think %-based roles are kind of meh. It feels a little scum-sided too. Again, would like others to weigh in on this one.

Speaking as the setup creator--the reason it was made was back in the spring when people discussed the brokenness of the basic 12p, I wanted to make a setup that allowed for both cop + doc roles without having to fall back on more cliched counters like maf roleblockers, macho cops, etc. Faith +1 is what resulted from that. If I had to pick one variant to go with, it'd be 1 doc + 1 ineffective doc + 1 cop. If it feels a little scum-sided, I am happy to work on that as well.

I don't know why percentage-based roles are better than "cliche counters" though. As Quilford pointed out, there will always be times where a Cop is outed and the scum have to get rid of it, and in this setup the "counter" for scum is chance. I don't see what's appealing about a setup with active emphasis on luck.

[Hoopla]

I think that's a fine solution - it bumps it up to a Large game, but that isn't really a problem as we don't have very many good Large Open setups. I agree there should be reward for a successful save.

[Hoopla]

Okay, I've decided to approve the following setups:

Masons and Mafia

(with an extra VT added)

Nomination Mafia

(it might be easier to tell if this is town-sided after a couple more plays. I think 2:5 might also be better variation of this setup)

Friends and Enemies and Enemies

(as is)

Masons and Monks

(with an extra VT added)

Near Vanilla

(with an extra VT added - now 14p so it goes into the large category)

Nightless Vengeful Mayhem

(as is)


Decided to bin the following setups;

Bad Tweed
Night Watch
Follow the Cop... Or not

Undecided on/needs more thought;

C9++
Faith Plus One
Hard Boiled

Operating Room

- Don't particularly like this setup. I talked with a couple of players about it after its first run and had mixed reactions. The town's optimal play is to just use the Doc's as a group vig or nightlynch, which isn't very novel and doesn't really seem to comply with how the setup was supposed to be played.

Pick Your Poison

- It's a good concept, but it's clear the poison choices need to be rethought. There are plenty of other PYP versions out there that are better than this one. Patrick/Ether/whoever else can weigh in on what the best one is, because I haven't seen many of them.

Polygamist Mafia

- True Love seems like a better version of the mass lover game. I don't know if this one is warranted, but I'm happy to go along with it if there are people who seem to like this version too.

Switch

- Is a really interesting concept because it gives (needed) additional power to the SK in a creative way, but it's a big risk to leave the Cop/Vig switches on when the SK is susceptible to them itself. If the SK was BP or investigation immune, it would always leave the switch active. I think there's a better way to do this concept, because in most cases town should have their roles switched off which isn't fair to them. Like the idea, but the execution is way off.

Tit For Tat

- Really like this setup. Only discussion point is whether it'd be better served as 12 or 13 player game. I'd prefer it with 13 for swing reasons.

Tread Carefully

- I'll talk about this again when we do the experimental setups. But it looks doable from a cursory scan.

Two-Fold C9

- Another super swingy 2:2:8 setup. I don't really like it, so I'll defer to what others think.

Twofold Mafia

- I like this one slightly more than the above setup, but meh. Do we need another generic 2:2:8 setup. Again, happy to listen to what others think on this one.

[Hoopla]

2:2:9 -

Approved

Fire and Ice -

Approved

Friends and Enemies -

Approved

Friends and Enemies and Enemies -

Approved

Jungle Republic -

Approved

Masons and Mafia -

Approved

Masons and Monks -

Approved

Nightless Vengeful Mayhem -

Approved

Nomination Mafia -

Approved

Weak M.D. -

Approved

White Flag (3:10) -

Approved

C9++
Faith Plus One
Hard Boiled
Operating Room
Pick Your Poison
Polygamist
Switch
Tit for Tat
Tread Carefully
Two-fold C9
Twofold Mafia

3:3:6 -

Binned

Bad Tweed -

Binned

Basic Twelve Player -

Binned

2:10 Bugs Bunny -

Binned

C/9 -

Binned

Daytalk12 -

Binned

Follow the Cop... or Not -

Binned

Friends and Enemies: Deadly Alliance -

Binned

Friends and Enemies and Enemies and That Other Guy -

Binned

Mini Love -

Binned

Mountainous Mafia (2:11) -

Binned

Mountainous Multiball -

Binned

Nightless Vanilla (4:8) -

Binned

Night Watch -

Binned

Strawberry Mafia -

Binned

Unclean Mafia -

Binned

[Hoopla]

Something to think about. I'm wondering about the necessity of having 2:11 Mountainous and 3:10 White Flag. I know 2:10 used to fill slowly at the best of times and wasn't very popular, but surely White Flag is just a better of Mountainous? 2:2:9 might also be redundant given we have a couple of other 2:2:9 setups with PR's.

[Hoopla]

Operating Room should be binned unless there is a mechanic change along the lines of odd doc # is a save, even is a kill. Would really dent group vig chances with the docs.

That's just kind of luck. Seems like a very ugly solution. We already have a bunch of those luck-based night actions extravaganzas, see Tread Carefully, Medical Mafia, Mayo Clinic etc. I don't know. It's an okay idea, I guess, but doesn't look like it'd produce any interesting gameplay.

[Hoopla]

Also you should prolly scrap 2:11 Mtns in favour of White Flag, what with the 35.6% theoretical town winrate 'n' all. I'm too lazy to find 2:11's actual town winratem though; does anyone know of it?

I'm not sure any Mountainous 2:11's have been played. From the open and closed setups that use 2:10 as a base, I believe the town has won 2 from 11 attempts. It's important to note that in some of those setups town had a Doctor or a couple of weak PR's. In fact in one of the town's 2:10 wins they had a vig, which would have strongly improved their chances. I think mountainous 2:10 has been played multiple times without a town win.

I don't know how well town would do in 2:11 since it's an extra lynch and all - it's helped town's in 3:9's --> 3:10's, but I still wouldn't want to be town.

[Hoopla]

They were mostly played in the days where everything that was unbalanced went unnoticed.

[Hoopla]

Bumped the C9++ thread with what I wanted to do with it here; http://mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p3497954

[Hoopla]

2:11 is unbalanced. Scum has too much control over the game using their nightkill.

What do you think of 3:10 White Flag?

[Hoopla]

Okay, I'm binning Mountainous 2:11.

And MD wept.

[Hoopla]

Re: Tit-for-Tat: Unless I'm missing something, this setups seems swingy in the wrong way -- in the case of the Mafia Jailkeeper or the Town Rolecop, dying not only punishes your side by losing a PR, but also helps the other side by giving them a PR.

I've only played the setup once (as scum) and didn't particularly enjoy that aspect.

I think the point

is

if your alignment's key role perishes you get a disadvantage. The Tit for Tat aspect comes in once the other team hits that role - they catch up.

I kind of think the setup makes more sense and reduces some swing if you flipped it to a Town Jailkeeper and Mafia Role-Cop. Jailkeeper is very potent for town in endgame scenarios, and Role-Cop for scum does nothing for them at the end, as presumably all the PR's should be outed by D3 or D4. In this setup, there is a more neutered, matched reward for town and scum if they kill the right player - scum Jailkeeper in late game isn't that great for them, and town don't really get

that

much value from a Role-Cop late game.

[Hoopla]

What do you think of my C9++ proposal, Magua?

[Hoopla]

Hey Vi. I've been thinking that the current roster thing is kind of a silly, unnecessary exercise. I feel like the easiest way to determine which games are chosen is to just assign a category (small/mid/large/experimental) to an upcoming mod and just let them pick whatever game they want from that pool. Then once that game has been chosen, it gets locked out for 5 picks (or half the amount of setups within the category) - I don't know yet exactly. This way you get a roster that changes by itself so different games get picked, but there is still an element of popularity involved. Does that make sense?

Yes, and I like it.

I think it probably doesn't need to be a static lock-out either. If a setup is really popular and fills quickly it can be locked out for a short amount of time - but then, if a setup doesn't fill or takes a long time in signups, it can be locked out for a bit longer. That makes it a pretty democratic roster driven by what players mostly want.

[Hoopla]

*shrug*

I think unpopular setups should be punished for not completing a signup or taking forever. I don't see anything wrong with going with a 5 game lock-out if it fills normally, then 8 or 10 if it takes longer than the amount of players in days. Realistically, a 13-player game shouldn't take two weeks to fill and I don't see why a setup that takes ages to fill should get another chance to be picked so soon.

(Obviously we're talking about the Small and Mid sections, and maybe Experimental. We could break it down by percentage instead of a number though.)

[Hoopla]

I also think mods should be able to choose their category.

Mods were given free choice for a while with farside and there was a marked increase in 12+ setups being picked. There was a whole contingent of players who wanted small games, but they weren't being run enough in places like Central Park. I think you'd probably go back to more mods picking larger games or a higher ratio of Experimental games if you let that happen.

Experienced mods get a free pick from any category (or their own design) - that's plenty of freedom. New mods can't have everything.

[Hoopla]

What counts as an "experienced mod"?

One game completed as a mod.

[Hoopla]

Approved C9++ with its new changes. Polygamist is probably good enough to be approved as well. Binning both of the Twofold setups. Binning Switch as well - although, I'd love someone to create a setup borrowing this mechanic one day.

~~

C9++ -

Approved

Faith Plus One -

Approved

Fire and Ice -

Approved

Friends and Enemies -

Approved

Friends and Enemies and Enemies -

Approved

Jungle Republic -

Approved

Masons and Mafia -

Approved

Masons and Monks -

Approved

Nightless Vengeful Mayhem -

Approved

Nomination Mafia -

Approved

Polygamist -

Approved

Tit for Tat -

Approved

Weak M.D. -

Approved

White Flag (3:10) -

Approved

Hard Boiled
Operating Room
Pick Your Poison

3:3:6 -

Binned

Bad Tweed -

Binned

Basic Twelve Player -

Binned

2:10 Bugs Bunny -

Binned

C/9 -

Binned

Daytalk12 -

Binned

Follow the Cop... or Not -

Binned

Friends and Enemies: Deadly Alliance -

Binned

Friends and Enemies and Enemies and That Other Guy -

Binned

Mini Love -

Binned

Mountainous Mafia (2:11) -

Binned

Mountainous Multiball -

Binned

Nightless Vanilla (4:8) -

Binned

Night Watch -

Binned

Strawberry Mafia -

Binned

Switch -

Binned

Two-fold C9 -

Binned

Twofold Mafia -

Binned

Unclean Mafia -

Binned

[Hoopla]

Where's Magua? Magua...

Do you think Tit For Tat would be a better setup with an extra VT and a town JK/Deputy and a mafia Role-Cop/back-up JK? It would certainly reduce the swing you were talking about.

[Hoopla]

I like the idea of Enabler-based setups, but it probably is going too far away from what Tit For Tat is - maybe we can use that idea for a new setup. Town and scum are 2 wins each in the setup, so going to 13 probably isn't necessary. In 3:9 Mini Normal setups with a vig, towns had close to a 50% winrate, which is in stark contrast to the overall winrate. I think keeping it at 12 and switching the role alignments is probably the best solution.

[Hoopla]

Wiki for C9++ needs updating if the changes are approved. Still lists night start, etc etc

Yeah, I'll do the wiki for C9++ and the others tonight.

[Hoopla]

Oh god, more setups. Thanks Vi...

They all look gross.

[Hoopla]

Patrick, I feel like for a 13p Pick Your Poison setup, a random breakdown of semi-strong PR's is better balanced in a 3-1 ratio than 2-0. The latter places too much emphasis on too few roles -isolating power like that can cause swing, as one poor wagon D1 outs the PR to deprive the town of half its allotted power. Having it separated across more players is a bit more stable and prevents swing.

Want to help me make a 13p version that fits that criteria? Maybe pregame mafia pick 3 roles from 4-5 for town. Day 0 town votes for 1 role from 2-3 to give to scum. Night 0, all selected roles (town and scum) get randomised and given to people. Day 1, the game begins. What do you think?

[Hoopla]

Vi, one of the variables is 2:7 mountainous. I think we have enough evidence to suggest that only the Cop/Doc setup is balanced.

[Hoopla]

2:7 with a cop isn't balanced?

F11 stats:

2 Goons, 1 Cop: 53 Mafia wins, 29 Town wins (35% winrate for town)
2 Goons, 1 Doc: 50 Mafia wins, 32 Town wins (39% winrate for town)
1 Goon, 1 Roleblocker, 1 Cop, 1 Doc: 47 Mafia wins, 38 Town wins (45% winrate for town)
1 Goon, 1 Roleblocker: 49 Mafia wins, 23 Town wins (32% winrate for town)

[Hoopla]

I forgot it would be 13 players now =)

Sounds good to me, let's work it out.

Tracker, 2-Shot Vig, Jailkeeper, 1-Shot Cop, Innocent Child (PM version) - scum picks three of these for town with no double-ups.

Encryptor, Role Cop, 2-Shot Redirector - town then gives scum one of these roles. Encryptor might not be on the same level as the other two, so maybe something else - or weaken the other two?

[Hoopla]

It stands to reason if 2:7 with a Cop or 2:7 with a Doc is unbalanced, that the same variations in the 2of4 setup is unbalanced also - especially given that scum has a Role Cop in each variable.

If 2:7 with a Cop produces a 35% winrate for town, it should be worse if that same setup now has a Role Cop.

[Hoopla]

Are we assuming that more experienced players would fare exactly the same as a horde of flaky newbies?

So, you think more experienced players are better at playing town than scum?

I don't know, though. It might make a slight difference, but the average open isn't exactly teeming with high densities of top quality players.

[Hoopla]

Okay, fixed up the wiki for Tit For Tat and C9++. Didn't really know what to do with Faith Plus One, but it's probably close enough to balanced and a couple of people like it, so I guess the whim of mods and players can determine if it's successful - there's nothing lost by approving it. At the same time, I'm removing 2:2:9 Mountainous from the catalogue - I'm not binning it, but it shouldn't be in regular rotation because we have a bunch of 2:2:X setups that will fill instead of it - if an experienced mod wants to run it, they can.

Don't know what to do with Hard Boiled or Operating Room yet. Where's Patrick? I need his help for Pick Your Poison...

[Hoopla]

On the topic of Pick Your Poison, during my recently completed game one of the players pointed out that of the three times it had been run, the scum had never picked cop; it was always doc/RB. Is there some way we can force scum to give town something more helpful?

Yeah, the current version doesn't really work. My suggestion was something like this;

Tracker, 2-Shot Vig, Jailkeeper, 1-Shot Cop, Innocent Child (PM version) - scum picks three of these for town with no double-ups.

Encryptor, Role Cop, 2-Shot Redirector - town then gives scum one of these roles. Encryptor might not be on the same level as the other two, so maybe something else - or weaken the other two?

So, town get three roles and scum gets one, which seems a lot more balanced than 2 and 0.

[Hoopla]

Daytalk enabler - while that player is alive for scum, they get to have daytalk.

[Hoopla]

How it will work, is pregame scum pick three of these roles for town to have: Tracker, JK, 2-Shot Vig, IC, 1-Shot Cop.

Then Day 0 begins, town vote for a role to give scum: Encryptor, Role Cop, 2-Shot Redirector.

Then Night 0 all the roles selected get randomly distributed amongst their appropriate alignment.

Then Day 1 begins with the setup finalised.

[Hoopla]

I think that selection of town roles is balanced enough - they all seem roughly similar in power. I wouldn't know which three to select as scum.

The scum roles might not be as balanced - I know a lot of people don't value daytalk as highly as a full Role Cop for example.

[Hoopla]

Janitors are really nasty - I hate no-reveal or partial no-reveal games. What else have you got?

[Hoopla]

All of the town power roles are pretty weak; I think a setup combining any of them would work fine with three goons. So my first inclination is to downgrade the other two roles, even though I know that doesn't really fit in with the "poison" theme.

I think I agree - three goons might be a sufficient fit. It skips the deliberating Day 0 phase that sometimes bogs down the start of the game for town and it stays truer to the original version (in the sense that scum don't get a role). That seems like a simpler solution than trying to find a balance of equally weak scum roles.

[Hoopla]

lets just go w/ 3 goonz, kay?

[Hoopla]

3:10, 2 town PRs, no Maf PRs...

mmkay

No, three town PR's.

[Hoopla]

Thanks for that report on Jungle Republic. I've never played in one and haven't thought about the setup too deeply, but the results we have so far suggests it's balanced-ish, even if it is swingy. But a setup with three factions and five scum is always going to be swingy, I feel.

Anyhow, I'm going to go ahead with the Pick Your Poison solution of 3 Goons for the other roles it's with. I think that's runnable and potentially a fun setup.

I don't know what to do with Operating Room. I haven't heard any good solutions for the setup to play how it's intended. The optimal strategy still is for the town to just vote on a player for all the Doctors to "vig" at night, which seems to undermine what the setup is about. I don't know. I can't think of any good solution and I'm not sure if it's worth the time. If someone wants to stick up for it and offer some ideas on it, I'm willing to listen, otherwise it can be binned.

Hard Boiled is a tricky one to fix - it definitely has the popularity, but it suffers from having too many named, confirmable roles, and with a vigilante in the setup, strategies revolving around the other PR's claiming and the vig staying hidden and cleaning up the other roles makes it too easy for the town and not fun to play in. I think the right solution is going from 12p to 13p and dropping one of the roles. My opinion would be dropping the Detective/Psychologist.

[Hoopla]

The Large and Experimental Games now:

Double Day
Near Vanilla (14P)

*

Big Love

*

Picking Simplicity

*

The New C9

*

Immunity Mafia

*

Lovers Multiball

*

Ninja Mafia


Donner Party
Medical Mafia

*

Assassin in the Palace

*

Dethy

*

Mayo Clinic

*

Paris Mafia

*

Quack Mafia

*

Quack Multiball

*

Rebels in the Palace

*

Rusty Guillotine Mafia

*

Tread Carefully

*

10P Jester Mafia

*

12P Jester Mafia

*

Texas Justice Mafia

*

Crush Nightless

[Hoopla]

I think it's really tough on the Mimes if the town uses the no-lynching strategy D1 and/or D2.

[Hoopla]

Watcher + Vig probably isn't a good combination either. It's a good idea for a setup - it makes the concept of Jesters much more playable, but it needs some tweaking.

[Hoopla]

It's a decent solution - both PR's are likely to do little. I think the main influence will be how much damage the SK can do to the scumteam. The Cop might catch a scum or two at best, but it's likelier to either die before it claims or get a couple of innocents. Maybe the mafia could have a Godfather? The SK would be foolish to pick the RB option - being Inv-Immune is much handier. JK pretty much has to replace the Doc though.

[Hoopla]

The Godfather is immune to the Cop investigation. We don't really ever use Godfather in the sense of having to perform the kill.

Giving the SK a choice of 1-shot BP or Investigation immunity is probably a more balanced choice. I don't know how it should flip - it's probably largely inconsequential in this setup.

[Hoopla]

Another thought: I think Weak MD should be given another VT to take it to 14 players like Near Vanilla did. Two PR's (especially one's that can die by themselves) is too low for 13p - the town needs security against a town role dying costing them a mislynch.

[Hoopla]

Yeah, I don't really know what to do with Mayo, but it needs fixing.

[Hoopla]

I think the SK should have an immunity choice between Investigation-Immune and 1-shot BP. Full Bulletproof is obviously a more desirable trait than immunity to one role in the game. Explain the 1-shot Daykill to me again.

[Hoopla]

It seems like an extravagant mechanic to include just to minimise the possibility of Follow The Cop. What happens if the SK is alive deep in the game with the kill intact? It creates messy endgame scenarios.

I don't see why we don't just go with Macho Cop/Doc/SK/4 Goons.

[Hoopla]

Yeah, the SK still gets its one choose of immunity. It's simple and there is no Follow the Cop strategies available.

[Hoopla]

I think most people believe lynching swiftly without much thought is the optimal strategy, though. I haven't seen that game be played in any other way.

[Hoopla]

Uhh, 60% IS way better than average scumhunting, though. And it's easier.

Follow the Cop in the Original Newbie Setup wasn't 100% or even 80% effective either, but it made the game too damn easy.

I think this is the key problem with AitP. At the very least, it shouldn't be catalogued as one of the setups to get a regular run by new mods. I'd be open to leaving it in the not approved/not binned area. Since I'm running the system to allow experienced mod to run whatever setup they want (so long as it's not binned or if new, gets approved), I could see AitP being something selectable in that sense.

I don't think it deserves to be on rotation, though.

[Hoopla]

Okay, churning through these last Large Opens;

Binning: Big Love, The New C9
Approving: Weak MD (with extra VT), Picking Simplicity (with Macho Cop)

~~

For the Experimental Opens;

Binning: Dethy, Rebels in the Palace
Approving: Mayo Clinic (with Docblocker)

Still don't really know what to do with AITP, so I'll probably just keep it off the roster for regular games but allow experienced mods to run it if they really want to. Rebels in the Palace really isn't balanced, though, so that can go.

Don't know what to do with the Quack Mafias yet. Paris needs a rethink and I know Rusty Guillotine got some questions raised about its mechanic - it'd be nice to have hito come in and talk about that setup. Tread Carefully is a cool idea, but I feel like the town might need a 13th player and/or the two Mafia kills per night needs to be rethought.

[Hoopla]

Double Day -

Approved

Picking Simplicity -

Approved

Near Vanilla (14P) -

Approved

Weak MD (14P) -

Approved

Big Love -

Binned

Immunity Mafia -

Binned

Lovers Multiball -

Binned

Ninja Mafia -

Binned

The New C9 -

Binned

~~

Donner Party -

Approved

Medical Mafia -

Approved

Mayo Clinic -

Approved

*

Assassin in the Palace

*

Paris Mafia

*

Quack Mafia

*

Quack Multiball

*

Rusty Guillotine Mafia

*

Tread Carefully

10P Jester Mafia -

Binned

12P Jester Mafia -

Binned

Dethy -

Binned

Rebels in the Palace -

Binned

Texas Justice Mafia -

Binned

Crush Nightless -

Binned

[Hoopla]

Why is Tread Carefully still asterisk'd? Its not broken, as far as we're aware its not imbalanced, it is exactly what it says on the tin. If mods want to mod it and players want to play it then surely there's nothing more to say.

As I said just before, allowing mafia two kills per night (and from one goon) allows them to trade in one goon (or none) for two town players at night, which is a massive advantage in a 4:8 game. If town mislynches D1 and D2, they lose (even if you give town the best case scenario of one goon dying each night). I doubt it's balanced.

The game needs an extra VT and/or (with a preference for "and"), an alteration to the 2 kills per night rule. It's difficult to just change the rule to 1 kill per night, as it makes it a lot more difficult to get rid of PGO's, although there is no way to prove that you are a PGO, so it makes it a viable fakeclaim for scum and town will be forced to lynch PGO's sometimes. 1 kill per night

could

work...

Oh yeah, I value this setup highly and want to run it (But if its not allowed in the open set ups I want to get in the MT ASAP.)

The process I'm going to start using for running a new setup is;

1. Get it approved here
2. You (or another "experienced" mod) signup to run it in the Open Queue
3. If it goes well and people like it, it can be considered for regular rotation like the other games

So, if you have serious intentions of running it soon, I'll review it for you here.

[Hoopla]

Oh, another thing about C9++ that I don't think we covered.

If a 1-shot role gets blocked, is their shot spent?

I say yes.

I say yes, also.

[Hoopla]

Yesv I have serious intentions of running it soon.

In theory I don't have that any problems with letting this game run. It looks like it suffers similar problems as the 6P Lovers setup, though. Every town player needs to be correct and vote together to lynch a scum (assuming scum don't bus) - that's an awfully difficult prospect on D1 with no information. Getting

two

correct lynches requiring every townie to be right is going to be even harder, don't you think?

[Hoopla]

I'm aware, but there won't be any voting tells like that in lylo and even then, scum won't vote for each other then, so all you have is D1. It just seems like a slightly more convoluted variant of Lovers Mafia. I'm not a huge fan of two confirmed players in small setup like this either - seems like a cheap mechanic. I think we can give it a shot and see how it goes, though.

[Hoopla]

Hard Boiled is still an unresolved setup due to a possible breaking strategy. I think the simplest solution that still keeps most of the setup is going from 12 to 13 players and dropping the Hider Tracker. The Det/Psych is a unique facet of the setup that ought to stay and gives the game more depth. I think the Hider Tracker is the least integral role, and it's necessary to lose one role regardless of the game being 12 or 13p.

Going with hitogoroshi's analysis of Rusty Guillotine, I'm happy for it to be binned.

I'm not sure what to make of the Quack setups. It's an interesting mechanic, but I think too much hinges on the town getting lucky in getting rid of the Quacks early. The higher the ratio of quacks the town develops, the less trustworthy using their protections become. Regardless, 3:9 nightstart isn't the right starting base, as all three runs of the game hasn't featured a single night without a nightkill. I think the average amount of nightkills is even closer to two than one going off what we have so far, and given the town has little claiming benefits to their roles, we're essentially dealing with a glamourized mountainous setup, which obviously favours scum. I think whatever solution we use to patch this setup will take it too far away from what it is. I'd prefer someone to just make a new quack setup if this will be missed, but the current version should probably be binned, in my opinion.

[Hoopla]

Nobody is really interacting with me, so I'm periodically just making decisions after enough time has passed for someone to object.

Once these last setups are complete, this thread will only be used for approving new setups mods want to run.

[Hoopla]

Alright, binning the Quack setups. Binning Rusty Guillotine. Hard Boiled goes up to 13p with the Hider Tracker also removed.

The only setups really left to talk about are Paris Mafia and Tread Carefully, then we're done!

[Hoopla]

I'll update the wiki pages for those later today.

Double Day -

Approved

Picking Simplicity -

Approved

Near Vanilla (14P) -

Approved

Weak MD (14P) -

Approved

Big Love -

Binned

Immunity Mafia -

Binned

Lovers Multiball -

Binned

Ninja Mafia -

Binned

The New C9 -

Binned

~~

Donner Party -

Approved

Medical Mafia -

Approved

Mayo Clinic -

Approved

*

Paris Mafia

*

Tread Carefully

10P Jester Mafia -

Binned

12P Jester Mafia -

Binned

Dethy -

Binned

Quack Mafia -

Binned

Quack Multiball -

Binned

Rebels in the Palace -

Binned

Rusty Guillotine Mafia -

Binned

Texas Justice Mafia -

Binned

Crush Nightless -

Binned

[Hoopla]

A question I have about Paris Mafia is what happens if a Goon is lynched D1 and then the other Goon and the Vig crosskill each other at night? The town now only has Mimes to deal with which doesn't fulfill the win condition of "eliminating all threats to the town". Does the town win by continuously no-lynching? Or is it a draw? Because they obviously can't lynch now.

I don't think it's fair that the Mimes need to secure their own lynches before the Goons die. Their game is entirely dependent on the scumteam surviving the first day and night, and quite possibly another day and night given how difficult it would be to get lynched as a Mime D1 and D2. I think the Mimes have really low odds of being lynched during the day, without being killed by scum or the vig and without the scumteam dying before them. There is just too much to do. This is even if town doesn't elect to play the game with a no-lynch strategy (which happened last game and fucked the Mimes over). Theoretically you could patch that problem by forcing the town to lynch, but that just creates more problems, like if the Goons are dead or the last Goon/Vig is outed and the town is forced to lynch, the Mimes can just block the final NK floating around to secure their lynch by town being forced to. It's just a messy combination of elements that don't really work.

I don't know how to fix this setup, but it is popular, so I'm willing to listen to ideas on how to fix it, otherwise it faces the chopping block.

[Hoopla]

Would you have a link to the last paris mafia game?

Here you go, myko.

If the Mimes are the only team alive, then the Town wins if their numbers equal or are lower than the number of Mimes alive, forcing the Town to lynch...?

Or is that just stupid. >__<

That still doesn't solve the problem if the vig is alive but Goons dead, as the town can then no-lynch to vig through the Mimes... unless you disallowed the town from no-lynching in this scenario too. But then does the game end if the Vig is still alive in a 2-2 endgame? Either way, you're going to have to have annoying arbitrary game rules for multiple scenarios. And I still don't think the Mimes have much of a chance of winning, given they're Lovers and 1 vig/scum kill is all it needs to eliminate them.

[Hoopla]

An attempt at a setup as closely related to Paris Mafia as I can get:

Marseille Mafia

1x Mafia Goon
1x Mafia 1-shot BP
2x Mimes
1x Compulsive Vigilante
1x Jailkeeper
6x Townies

~~

- Daystart
- Mimes have a new win condition.

Both Mimes must die by the same cause

. So, if the first Mime is lynched, the second one must be lynched. If the first Mime is nightkilled, the second one must be nightkilled.

- Endgame Rules:
- If ONE Mime is alive after the Goons are dead, the town automatically wins if that Mime's wincon is to be NK'ed, as the Compulsive Vig can shoot itself leaving the Mime no chance for victory. If that ONE Mime's win-con is to be lynched, it is a Town/Mime draw as a no-lynch cycle begins, UNLESS the Vig is still alive, in which case it's a town win as the town can no-lynch continuously and vig everyone else.
If BOTH Mimes are alive after the Goons are dead, the town automatically wins if the Vig is alive as the town has the option of lynching all the players, or vigging all the players, so depending on when the first Mime dies determines how town kills the rest of its players. If the Vig is dead, then it becomes a Mime/Town Draw as town cannot lynch or NK in this situation.
- In a Goon/Townie/Mime With a Lynch Wincon endgame and the Mime is lynched, the Mime's wincon resolves before Mafia's and the Mimes win. If the Townie is lynched the Goon kills the Mime at night to win.
- In a Goon/Townie/Mime With a NK Wincon endgame and the Goon is lynched, it's a Town/Mime draw, as the town player doesn't have the majority to lynch the Mime. If the Townie was lynched, it's a Goon/Mime draw as the Mafia doesn't hold the majority and also can't kill the Mime at night.

Endgame rules are a bit long, but I'm sure you can trim them down into something more readable. This wincon gives Mimes a better shot at winning or securing a draw, and prevents a Day 1 no-lynch being a viable strategy for town.

[Hoopla]

I'm calling a moratorium on the Gurgi EC8 and Weak MD setups. Both have been played recently and both suffered from game-warping hypocopping strategies, which appears to be inherent with putting Weak Doctors/Hiders/Weak Cops etc. in Open Setups.

My question to the community is: Is hypocopping a damaging mechanic when it's optimal play for towns to follow it? Such strategies tend to turn the game into a logic puzzle and makes being a powerrole kind of pointless. It also saps the interest in dying town powerroles - in a normal closed game, a Hider turning up dead at the start of Day 2 makes for interesting speculation on why it died, but in an open game, you merely check their last post the day before.

The setups could still very well be balanced, but I don't see the point of the game when it is entirely based on hypocopping strategies - I don't see this as much different than a follow-the-cop based setup.

[Hoopla]

That's a fair assessment.

[Hoopla]

I keep forgetting to bring this up, but I suspect Nomination Mafia is unbalanced. Despite having only been run twice, I've played in both and get the impression it's incredibly difficult for scum (both were resounding town wins), as they have no direct way of killing obv-townies, but are still hamstrung by being dealt a scum:town ratio lower than a usual nightless game (and those tend to be town-sided anyway). The mechanic of town believing all three nominees are town makes those days run very slow with no scumhunting occurring.

Last year when marathon days were still popular, we ran maybe half a dozen 2:5 Nomination Mafia games with a mixture of results. I suspect this mechanic is better suited to a game that size, balance-wise and fun-wise. It heightens the wifom mechanic of nomination selections too, as the second day becomes more important.

I think this setup would be improved by going down to 2:5.

[Hoopla]

Seems like a cheap mechanic that ruins the elegance of the setup. It also then just becomes nearly identical to another nightless game (Nightless Vengeful Mayhem) that uses that mechanic.

[Hoopla]

I think I'd prefer to try the different ratio before I tinkered with giving scum kills or switching nomination days. The current setup doesn't have endgame problems that require special rules.

[Hoopla]

Going to give 2:5 Nomination Mafia a test run soon, then we'll discuss the issue again later.

[Hoopla]

A game of Medical Mafia just finished, and although the endgame wasn't tarnished, as scum was lynched, I think situations where a Quack Doc/Mafia Goon endgame shouldn't go to night and resolve as a draw, which I believe is the current interpretation.

As no Doctors know what they do, mafia has even less clue what someone does, so it just makes the endgame a lottery if the last Doctor can kill/block the remaining scum. I think a 50% rule needs to be enforced for this setups' endgame.

[Hoopla]

Was there a lot of logic puzzling in the game?

It's hard to logic puzzle when you don't know what you're going to do. There might be elaborate networks you could create, but the benefits seem negligible.

~~

Have been meaning to do CES' review of Diffusion of Power for a while, but wanted to wait until Korts' Brass & Shrapnel had finished, as I suspect early gameplay could mimic what happened there.

Diffusion of Power:
4-6 of {N1 Cop, N2 Cop, N3 Cop, N4 Cop, N5 Cop}
6-4 of {N1 Doc, N2 Doc, N3 Doc, N4 Doc, N5 Doc}
3 Goons
+ Rule to exclude the more extreme scenarios to make it less swingy.

In Brass & Shrapnel, the town was similarly divided into receiving a role from two pools of PR's, which prompted a D1 massclaim and forced scum to pick which side they wanted to be in. If scum draw early positions in the massclaim or just don't think about their claim, town can deduce a maximum number of scum from a particular pool, which is costly if they ever lynch that maximum number before that pool is wiped out - it can create artificial innocents later in the game (or at least rule out certain combinations) based on what happened in a D1 massclaim.

If innocents do get confirmed, either by a cop or through a massclaim, it can be difficult to get rid of them all, when an innocent alive gives Doctors an obvious target each night, which increases the chances of a Doctor save occurring, which in turn increases the length of the game, enabling a higher ratio of powers to be used. It could also be a strategy to no-lynch on D2 and D3 to build a pool of innocents and have claimed Doctors protect that pool - not all scum can fakeclaim Cop, so on the whole it should be relatively reliable, and allows any D4 and D5 Cops a good chance at getting an investigation.

I think the setup needs work, because I can't see any town not massclaiming D1.

[Hoopla]

Do you expect town to massclaim?

[Hoopla]

I do - or at the very least hypocopping.

[Hoopla]

Alright. Say we go ahead and run this, are we allowing double ups on roles? Can there be three N1 Docs for example?

I still get the feeling that town will spend their time on D1 trying to break the game instead of playing mafia, regardless of whether they find a beneficial claiming strategy.

[Hoopla]

Isn't that a problem a lot of Open set-ups are going to face regardless?

To a degree, but good open design shouldn't feature an early massclaim/claiming strategy or a synchronisation of actions. Open setups can be pretty limited in some senses, as the nature of confirmed innocents and optimising night actions can be so powerful, there needs to be incentive for people to not declare their roles, whether that is through uncertainty/randomness of the setup, scarcity of PR's or a mechanic that makes claiming suboptimal (like the mechanic in Masons and Mafia).

I don't really see anything that is preventing town from thinking that they can get an edge by trying to optimise night actions than play it blind. There is some randomness, but I think there is enough probable information to make networking of night actions profitable, imo. I'm not sure of an exact strategy, but if all the information is out there, I think you could organise actions in a certain way to test combinations of players and force scum to shoot certain people.

[Hoopla]

You know I know all that stuff, right?

Nope.

~~

You can't protect everyone - but you can protect the most valuable players (such as claimed Cops for that night or confirmed innocents), which forces scum to shoot from a less desirable pool of players, and when scum need to use their nightkill with great efficiency in this setup, you can see why even one or two players being safe for the first couple of nights is valuable. If there are more innocents/Cops for that night alive than protections available (even if scum is the claimed Doc for that night, they can't just go ahead and kill the towniest player), you can have those claimed Doctors flip a coin between who to save which still partially nullifies scum's NK if they don't want to take a chance.

I think a sensible plan is for N1 Cop(s) to investigate N5 Docs/Cops, which creates innocents out of the least desirable NK choices for scum, enabling greater use out of the N2/N3 brigade. N2 Cop(s) then investigate the N1 Cops to see if their information is reliable.

Like I said before, it seems obvious to me that town will employ a claiming strategy of some kind regardless of whether it is actually beneficial.

[Hoopla]

From what I can tell of this discussion (and I may be wrong), it seems that you both think massclaiming isn't necessarily optimal here.

I'm not sure what I think, but I probably wouldn't oppose a massclaim as town if I were playing.

[Hoopla]

While I wait for more input on the Diffusion of Power setup, I'll bring up a different setup.

Upon seeing Xalxe's Marathon game of Switch, it reminded me I wanted to reintroduce this setup into the mix, because it isn't broken or overly unbalanced - I think the Switch mechanic needs tweaking though.

It doesn't make sense for the SK to have the opportunity to veto every switch, particularly when it's vulnerable to the Cop and the Vig at night. It means the decisions at night are fairly automatic, as the SK is more at risk than the mafia by gambling on letting the Cop or Vig use an action (presuming the mafia don't Switch them off) - the SK should leave both those switches off each night.

I think a much better mechanic is the Mafia having control of the switches while the relevant mafiosi is alive, but the SK instead of vetoing the switches it wants off, simply reverses the state of the switches that the scumteam leaves them in. This makes a more interesting dynamic at night that isn't completely predictable. It's also deliciously wifomy.

I like the night start for the novelty of it, but I think the SK should be innocent to the Cop for balance reasons - it is already up against potentially two kills a night and no kill immunity, so it should at least be safe from the Cop. I also think with a nightstart, 13p (an extra VT) would make the game a little less swingy overall and slightly reduces the chances of a D2 massclaim being beneficial to town if they catch the right set of night actions on N0 and N1 (one more VT slightly thins the ratio of confirmable town roles to non-confirmable roles - a problem that sometimes can affect open setups).

[Hoopla]

Another potential problem I see is the predictability of the scum's actions. For instance, the game will almost always start with the cop and the vig being switched off, and the doctor switched on (the doc switch mafioso making the kill).

How is the SK to know what state the Cop/Vig switch is left in? The SK reversing the state of the switch means there are no guarantees.

[Hoopla]

Additionally, I think limiting him to a maximum of 3 actions per night (all 3 switches and no kill, 2 switches and a kill, or any combination of fewer switches+kill) could be a good idea. Not sure how that works out, balance wise.

This only makes a difference when all three switches are alive.

[Hoopla]

If the SK has immunity to the Cop, it's beneficial for the SK to leave the Cop active, while the mafia want it inactive - that creates a guessing game. Mafia should like having the vig active more than the SK, because the mafia has the security of a three player team over a lone SK - this could create a guessing game. It's in scum's interests to kill the SK as soon as possible to have control of all the switches, so leaving the Vig active is in general a +EV move if they can manage it.

[Hoopla]

Perhaps, but it should be in the mafia's interest to make the game as short as possible - as a general rule, the more days the game goes for, the easier it is to find scum during the day. Games that have a good chance of not going beyond D3 typically favour scum.

[Hoopla]

I don't like the SK being investigation immune. He should be affected by the PRs just as the scum team. I would make him NK-immune (but not vig-immune).Another potential problem I see is the predictability of the scum's actions. For instance, the game will almost always start with the cop and the vig being switched off, and the doctor switched on (the doc switch mafioso making the kill).

Alright - how about this solution to minimise predictability:

SK pregame gets to choose one of these perks:

1) Investigation Immunity AND Vig Immunity
2) Mafia NK Immunity

~~

I was originally going to suggest a choice between Investigation Immunity and 1-Shot BP, but kill protection is the obvious choice. This seems to be balanced perks, as the Cop/Vig could both be dead by D2 anyway, making having double-perks irrelevant. The second choice only gives one immunity, but you'll probably be facing at least three or four mafia NK's to win the game.

This also has the benefit of mafia not knowing whether the SK wants the Vig/Cop turned on or off, which now ensures the switch dynamic isn't stale.

[Hoopla]

I think both of those solutions could work.

[Hoopla]

So, I think I found a breaking strategy for scum in Scumhunters 8p. Day 1, one of the scum claims in-thread.

I know this seems ridiculous; but Lovers' Mafia (4:2 nightless white flag) is considered balanced; and if the claimed scum gets lynched (which they probably will be, because town has no motivation to claim scum), the game becomes 4:2 nightless white flag, but with the strongest townie missing (they get NKed), and weakest scum missing (because that's who the scumteam will sacrifice). So scum can drive the game to a scumsided setup without much of a problem. Also, scum claiming D1 means that there's no way you can use D1 play to tell who the scum are because everyone has the same information.

Town

might

be able to defeat this by lynching someone else instead, in which case the setup is effectively 5:2 nightless in which the town win outright on a correct lynch D1. I think this is also scumsided, but am less sure. Also note that the lynch threshold is higher by 1 day 1, due to the claimed scumbag (who is presumably trolling and refusing to vote, or self-voting, in order to not give away information). This probably doesn't really matter so much, though, unless the game goes to plurality lynch (in which case it definitely does).

The game always requires town to lynch two scum throughout the game - if they do it on D1, they only need one more from two possible scum. If they miss D1, they need two from two. Both outcomes from the D1 lynch involves the scumteam strengthening their team, as they either get rid of the weakest teammate or the strongest townie. I don't think giving town a 4:2 whiteflag scenario is optimal, as normal 4:2 is clearly better. You brought up the town's counter-strategy, in the sense, they get an autowin if they lynch a different scum than claimed scum D1. I don't think claiming scum is a good idea, really.

Hoops, can you make me some interesting small-player opens for skype/ventrilo mafia? :3

I don't really know what's balanced for face-to-face and voice-chat mafia. We have a wiki of interesting setups you're welcome to experiment with.

[Hoopla]

Alright, going to add Diffusion of Power and Switch to the wiki with the following changes:

I think a much better mechanic is the Mafia having control of the switches while the relevant mafiosi is alive, but the SK instead of vetoing the switches it wants off, simply reverses the state of the switches that the scumteam leaves them in.

SK pregame gets to choose one of these perks:

1) Investigation Immunity AND Vig Immunity
2) Mafia NK Immunity

Okay. I've come up with a unintrusive if inelegant change to Diffusion of Power that should remove mass claim's most meaningful benefit - tell the scum how many Cops and Docs there are. That way the 5-8 split should always be avoided; the town can gain no information from timing of claims (e.g. if a claim makes for a 7-5 split, that claim would look townie otherwise); scum can even all claim the same role if there are only 4 of those which means the only way for anyone to be cleared by set-up logic is if the town lynches 2 scum from a group of 6.

Just flipping Doc/Cop instead of Nx Doc/Nx Cop prevents hypocopping by the bye.

[Hoopla]

Fight or Flight has been tried for the first time and ought to be properly reviewed. It's possible that it might be in the town's interests to orchestrate night actions in some way - perhaps everyone choosing to commute N1, or not commute N1. I received a PM from Regfan about it when it was playing:

Spoiler: Regfan's message

I'm just tossing around with ideas but I think there's a way to not break persay but increase the chances town win the setup to the point that it's not exactly fair. I'm thinking along the lines of the following;

Town scumhunt D1. Select 2 agreed upon scummy targets. Call them 1 and 2. 1 and 2 shoot each other. All townies flip a coin, if heads commute, if tails don't commute. No other townies other than 1/2 shoot.

If 1 or 2 are scum and commute they just confirm themselves as mafia the following day meaning they wouldn't do that and shooting elsewhere while may kill a town play also runs the risk of them being commuted and losing their kill. This means scum are forced into shooting the person that was selected for them and biting the bullet. So lets say end of N1 1 and 2 are dead.

If one of 1 and 2 are scum then it's 5 alive, 4 town and 1 scum. Scumhunt again. (Not sure whether lynching or NLing is the better move here, I think they end up being roughly equal) but for the sake of NL again. Lets say 3, 4 and 5 are the people FoS"ed (Town only need to find 2 agreed upon town reads call them 6 and 7). 3 shoots 4, 4 shoots 5, 5 shoots 3. If either of them deviate from the plan they confirm themselves as scum, same goes if they commute. If scum is one of them they lose. If scum is one of 6 or 7 they're still alive the next day both holding a vig shot and a possible commute (Depends on their actions previous night) where town can still win.

If neither of 1 or 2 are scum can can either take their hand at shooting hoping they shoot a non-commuted townie and winning the game but risking hitting a commuted townie, loosing their vig shot and putting themseles in a weak position. D2, town would lynch and organize vig shots ect.

Spoiler: And my response

If there is one or two scum in the two scummiest slots, then the scum commutes if one, or they consider shooting other townies if both. This confirms one of the two as scum the next day when neither of the two slots die, but if you lynch scum that day, you have no way of knowing if the other is scum as well. If you lynch the townie first in a 1-1 situation, the now confirmed-scum gets a free shot that night that could take the game down to 2:4 or 2:3 the next day (or 1:3/1:4 if town wants to burn a vig shot, but that in turn exposes them to getting shot by the confirmed scum).

The risk of this plan is getting two townies in those two slots. You're then left with 2:3 and no time to set up another two slots to test. You can no-lynch, but again, if two scum is there, they shoot elsewhere and probably win. If one scum is there, it commutes, while the other shoots, hoping to bring it down to 2:2, so town can't get a majority the next day.

The town probably breaks the game or comes close to it in the first scenarios, but it's offset by the risk of picking two townies, which will probably lose the game. This is the same metric that operates in other 7p games - you mislynch on D1 and D2 (first two picks being townie), you probably lose. The difference is, you're picking those two slots without any information on D1, as opposed to one at a time.

The setup definitely has issues and needs to be thought out more - even if this plan doesn't break it, I think it's possible for other strategies to exist.

Thinking about it more, I don't think Regfan's strategy is likely to more beneficial than playing the setup with townies making informed choices. I would like some more opinions about it.

[Hoopla]

As far as I see it, this is a sure-fire strategy as long as both scum players aren't right next to each other, and the designated survivor isn't scum or preceded by a scum player.

That's a lot of risk - probably to the point where it's not worth the hassle. You need to gamble the game on a player being town D1 with no flips. Still without information, you need to pick another town player from the group too precede the survivor. I bet it's probably around a coinflip, getting those two players to actually be town, even using rigorous townhunting. Then after all that, you have to avoid dumb luck that scum aren't next to each other on the list.

Come on... you can't say town have better odds than playing it using their own individual faculties.

[Hoopla]

I tend to agree with Magua. I actually like the idea conceptually, but I think in practice, the game would just be annoying in terms of scumhunting.

I think 2:11 with a JK is clearly town-sided, given that the 2:7 newbie game with a JK is producing a 55% winrate for town - it would probably be more if scum didn't have a Role Cop, too. The benefit of double-kills is definitely offset by the chance of crosskills, as well as the Cop role functioning. If I were one of the Goons, getting myself into a situation where I kill the other scum is such a bad position to be in, it really isn't worth the risk of me hitting them or them hitting me. One scum dying, means a Cop result wins the game and the JK becomes super powerful. The town barely needs to do anything to win here. This is what you're risking every night you don't join.

It seems pretty clear to me that the risk of being killed/killing your partner (and even the risk of being lynched and not having a chance for your partner to win for you) is far too great not to join. And if they do, the setup is probably town-sided anyhow.

[Hoopla]

On Pick Your Power Redux: I had wanted a PYP game in the Open catalogue for a while and when Ludi requested running one, we decided to do it based on his ideas. Although the game was interrupted by the forum crash, the game was a little flat in parts and I think it could be spiced up with more influential roles. When you have a power heavy game, the natural tendency is to water things down to reduce variance and offer roles that could help either team.

Originally, myself and SpyreX were planning on running PYP X/Y where each role is actually two possible roles, for example:

Night 3 Vig/Vengeful
1-Shot Vig/1-Shot PGO (active)
Cop/1-Shot Redirector
1-Shot Commuter/1-Shot Watcher
Doctor/Roleblocker
Universal Backup/Role Cop
Neighbourizer/Fruit Vendor
Jailkeeper/Tracker

With the previous setup, you can't exactly offer a series of roles only useful for town or only useful for scum, as you only have eight roles to offer. X/Y allows you to cram 16 possible roles that aren't watered down versions into 8 slots, which makes the game more interesting from the outset. Obviously in this setup, if you win a role, you get to pick which one you'd like to be - this setup now allows scum to go for Cop or vice versa without doing it solely to "block". More possible roles also increases variables, which means massclaiming is less profitable, as you don't automatically know which roles will be in the game.

Anyway, I'm asking for opinion on this update to PYP, since Scott Brosius is up soon and wanting to run it.

[Hoopla]

Also, while IceGuy and everyone else is here, Open 391 finished recently, which was the first run of The New Recruit. I think I agree with Rainbow's assessment of the setup (although not as strongly):

Things I want to know

1) How is this setup balanced? Its at best mildly town sided.
2) Why would scum ever recruit? It turns a somewhat difficult win into a very difficult win.
3) Why did Hikari die at all with the hypo result?
4) Why did OOTN NOT die night one?

I really dont think this setup is balanced though, its so town sided its not even funny. The first setup basically is a win for town if they lynch scum in the first day, probably even second day with JK alive. Second setup is just brutal beyond reason for scum to deal with, recruiting was scum mistake number one.

Recruiting is probably is bad move for scum (at least more challenging than the original setup), and if this is so, it removes the main draw from the setup (two relatively equal choices at the beginning of the game) and turns it into a logic puzzle once town figure out the setup they're in.

[Hoopla]

lso, is this 2:6 or 3:5? A 2:6 version seems townsided with all the power roles flying around, whereas 3:5 starts in mylo, potential lylo if scum have vig shots, and so town won't get to use them, so it's highly scumsided.

It's 3:11, so there is a minimum of 6 VT's with a chance of more.

[Hoopla]

But all the clear looking people will be alive because they can't get shot. It wont be the typical lylo crowd.

I think you're underestimating how difficult it is to catch scum in games with a high town:scum ratio (and especially with little association tells).

[Hoopla]

Is Fire and Ice balanced? Considering 2:2:9 is par for multiball in a Mini Normal, and then you'd also have 2 PRs.... This setup only has 1.5 PRs if you count the kills-cancel-each-other-out mechanic, and it's 2:2:8. At the very least, shouldn't another Vanilla Townie be added?

Where did you get the notion that 2:2:9 has to have 2 PR's in a Mini Normal? And that that would even be balanced? I don't think we have any proof of that. My instinct is that 2:2:9 is close to balanced as an open mountainous game, but probably not as a closed game, but we haven't really got enough games played using this ratio to make too many conclusions yet.

[Hoopla]

Reposting this setup here since RedPanda has the intention of running it in the Open Queue:

1 day and night doctor protection remains for the day also.
9 Vanilla townies. 2 are secretly vengeful.
1 mafia traitor.
2 mafia.

the reason I want to keep it as secret is because I don't want any townies to be confirmed by just claiming vengeful.
the traitor here can be nked. can't be recruited.

ideas and suggestions to improve/balance would be appreciated.

I'm trying not to let the "Hidden Vengeful" aspect impact my thoughts on the setup, as it looks playable, but stuff like Naive Millers seem really unfun and is a cheap way to include extra roles without allowing town to confirm themselves via claims. I think some people don't mind hidden roles, and Hidden Vengeful is probably better than Hidden Miller, as getting a guilty claim on you out of nowhere is a lot worse than getting a free kill out of nowhere.

Would probably need to work out a couple more specifics with the Traitor, like endgame scenarios and what happens if the Traitor is alive after both Goons have died. Does it inherit the NK, does it autolose, or does the game just go to nightless?

I'd like to see what others think about the setup.

[Hoopla]

You really think townies are going to self-hammer for a 20% chance of being a Vengeful? It would happen less than townies self-voting in 5p Vengeful and that doesn't really happen

that

often.

[Hoopla]

The main thing that bothers me, is that chances are, for the Vengeful mechanic to be a productive +EV factor for town, they need two kills (or a kill + Doc save or a kill + Traitor NK) to keep the town out of evens, which seems unlikely to me, as it's very possible for a Vengeful Townie to be NK'ed. Even if the town gets both uses of the kills, the additional kill they generate (two Vengekills traded for a mislynch) is offset by the fact that two townies will have had to have been lynched in order to get the extra kill overall. You can't really expect townies to use the mechanic in a positive way, even though there are situations where it could be beneficial to use it (like after the Doc making a save N1). For the most part, Vengeful Townies should really only be killing to bring numbers back to odds, but I don't see any player not using their kill.

I feel like Nightless Vengeful Mayhem is probably a better balanced scenario for town than Panda's game, and this has had four scum wins to zero.

On a side-note, I think Nightless Vengeful needs one more townie to prevent a potential D2 lylo.

[Hoopla]

I don't know how many takers you're gonna get for a 2:10 open game, to be honest.

[Hoopla]

I think RedPanda is still sticking with Naive Vengefuls to eliminate the problem of them claiming.

I don't really know what the setup is trying to achieve - it just seems like a weird Vengeful/Nightless Vengeful Mayhem mutation that doesn't look overly fun.

[Hoopla]

Thoughts on a setup Kcdaspot would like to run soon:

9 townies
1 town vig
3 maf
2 werewolves

maf have a factional Role block.

werewolves kill like normal.

It's a tweak on Jungle Republic, so mafia won't have a nightkill.

[Hoopla]

I have no qualms with trialling this setup - it seems balanced enough and neatly skips around a lot of the problems nightless games have in general.

[Hoopla]

In a 14 player game, it's necessary for the town to no-lynch at least once (unless scum decide to no-kill, which they shouldn't if the town is in even numbers, as it gives the town an extra mislynch), and if I were town, I'd be suggesting no-lynching D1 to get more information for more of the game and while all the PR's are alive. If people believe D1 is the best time to no-lynch, then that could be a silly way for the game to begin. Why not have 13 players and just force a lynch and nightkill rather than introducing no-lynching/no-killing strategies? It just seems inelegant for no real benefit.

On gut, the setup seems relatively balanced, but also somewhat luck-based. There's always an element of luck involved when you introduce PR's into a setup -- a lot depends on who gets the roles, how they use them, and if they can manage to evade the NK. In this setup, there is an additional layer of luck where the PR's don't even know if they are one and can't tailor their play to improve chances of survival or claim to escape a lynch. It's just like, well, if we mislynch (which will happen sometimes) I hope it isn't a PR! It is an interesting idea, but I don't think I'd personally play in it.

[Hoopla]

Oh, I didn't see the nightstart. That makes more sense, although I still echo my luck-based sentiments. There is a big difference between entering D1 with a Cop guilty on scum (or even an innocent because it forces scum's next kill) and a Fruit Vendor death. And it's not really based on anything.

[Hoopla]

What assertions am I making that are contrary to the intended style of gameplay? It is going to be more luck-based than a regular game of mafia (at least for town). In a normal game of mafia, a Cop can claim before being mislynched, or play in a way to attempt to maximise their survival, and conversely VT's can play in a way to attract the NK more. When you remove knowledge of one's role, of course it will be more luck-based. You get a handful of mislynches each game -- the game is going to swing wildly based on whether or not those mislynches were PR's or not, and in this game you have no way of discerning that as town. Don't know why the luck thing is up for dispute?

I'll grant you interesting gameplay decisions for scum -- but I don't see how there's any interesting gameplay for a townie, other than "maybe I'm a PR and will get to do something", but that doesn't really guide or influence one's play at all.

[Hoopla]

I don't think I'm being dismissive -- your game looks relatively balanced. I'm merely sharing with you that the thing that holds me back is that the setup is essentially strategically akin (for town anyway) to a mountainous game with an occasional innocent or guilty upon the dawn of a new day. I'm not saying there isn't luck in mafia. Every mafia game has luck. This has a little bit more.

Why are you upset at my tone? I'm not upset at you.

[Hoopla]

The one aspect I think is really interesting is the wifom potential for scum to leave an innocent alive if the godfather is still around. I don't know what I'd do as town if we got an innocent d3 and then on d5 or d6 that player was still alive,

[Hoopla]

hello balance wizards!

i have a window of free time coming up that i was considering dedicating to modding a game. an old idea that i never ended up experimenting with was my trapdoors nightless setup. i was hoping to finally give this a whirl pending peer review.

the setup;

3 mafia, 7 townies. Nightless.

- Imagine all ten players lining up in a row
- At the start of each day the mafia selects which player to place the trapdoor under. That player is poised to be executed.
- The town can choose to execute that player or move the trapdoor under someone else
- If the trapdoor was under the player in position #5 and the town instead decides to execute player #7, it costs two moves to execute that player
- The town can only move the trapdoor ten times for the entire game
- For the purpose of this game, position #10 wraps back around to position #1, and when someone is executed the gap closes in the lineup, ie; if #8 is executed, #7 is now connected to #9
- The mafia can't place the trapdoor under the same player on consecutive days
- Mafia have daytalk
- The ten players' positions in the line up are randomised pregame

Mafia wins if they control 50% of the town. If the town has used all their moves while the mafia is still active, the town will be considered endgamed as mafia cannot be executed now.

~~

Scum will probably need to place the trapdoor under themselves at different points in the game, so it should create some tasty wifom about how the mafia think the town will react to their choices. For town, determining how to spend your resources could be an interesting mechanic -- how sure do you have to be for someone to be scum if it costs two or three moves to do it? Do you wait until the scum place the trapdoor closer on future days and execute a second or third best target today who is closer? Conserving moves and regularly executing scum's choice could be viable and as it gives the town more flexibility deeper in the game, but if scum thinks the town will be doing this, they might select townies for their trapdoor choice with a higher frequency, and so the wifom will flow.

is it balanced?
is it fun?
is 10 moves an appropriate amount of flexibility afforded to town?

[Hoopla]

There's likely to be a lot of swing-from-randomness because the scum have a clear advantage if they happen to be bunched up in the playerlist (repeatedly trapdoor the player opposite, and town need to play almost perfectly to win).

yes, this does seem to be where a lot of the swing lies.

can any math genius tell me how likely it is for scum to be randomised into three sequential slots? or three of four etc?

as a worse-case scenario (assuming a sequence of scum), scum choosing to continuously trapdoor the opposite half of the playerlist could very easily implicate the distribution of scum. the move-quota can easily accommodate two max-spend phases for town if the town spends zero or one move on all other days. so, my counter-strategy as town would be to conserve moves early until a genuine suspect arises - or until we observe a pattern of scum trapdooring a certain portion of the playerlist.

more information seeps into the game the longer it runs. by D3, the town observing scum place the trapdoor in one area may well be enough evidence to execute a player 3-4 moves away.

the setup has a similar psychology to nomination mafia. in this setup, mafia don't

have

to nominate themselves for even-day executions - but by choosing to avoid the noose on this day, they (theoretically) increase their odds of being executed on other days. do they throw town a bone and give them a chance to execute them on even-days, as a trade-off for late-game deception purposes? sometimes. well, at least that is what we see scum do in nomination mafia.

i suspect scumteams fearing PoE in trapdoors nightless would distance occasionally; or at least not make it obvious which part of the playerlist has the highest concentration of scum (if they were fortunate enough to draw a concentration of scum-positions).

another big source of swing in nightless setups is that when you execute scum, you gain an addition misexecute - not to mention all the juicy association tells that now come into the game. nightless setups have a real problem of obvtown players or strong scumhunters being unable to be eliminated by scum, which can be deadly for PoE. i suspect that is a main reason why nightless games historically had such a high town winrate.

usually by the back-end of a nightless game, the setup is pretty much solved from PoE. you almost never see scum win a 3p LYLO in nightless, because for such a situation to occur, it requires that a scum be in the top 2 most town-looking players for the whole game, which is incredibly hard to do when you're unable to remove obvtown players. scum -- on the rare occasion they win nightless -- usually do so in a sweep or losing just one member.

i suspect most trapdoor nightless games (if run as is) wouldn't make it to a 3p LYLO - but i see that as an advantage. the scarcity of moves forces towns to be proactive and win the game before then. is picking your top or second top suspect across 4-5 phases better than trying to win in it in 6-8 phases but accepting lower-percentage executions along the way? hard to say.

perhaps the game would benefit from an additional townie, making the mechanic more relevant and probably helping out with win/loss balance too (it feels a little scumsided just in terms of the 7:3 nightless numbers, given the restrictions on voting).

i can see an extra townie being the correct adjustment if people think this is scum-sided. i'm hesitant because my experience with nightless games is that as soon as one scum gets executed, it blows the whole game wide open, usually creating one or two obvtownies in the process. the positive feedback loop of getting an extra misexecute every time you hit scum usually allows town to brute-force a PoE win.

in this setup, town gets four misexecute chances to hit scum before earning another misexecution. yes, towns will have to accept conserving moves on some phases - but scum will have to risk trapdooring a teammate within 0 or 1 moves at some point, or else risk revealing where scum is concentrated in the playerlist, allowing town to break the setup wide open on d3 or d4.

[Hoopla]

If worried about same area being targeted, have the eliminated townie reorder to their liking.

this is also an interesting idea.

i suspect towns will end up spending a significant portion of the day debating how the playerlist should be ordered in the event of a misexecution, which somewhat detracts from the moving mechanic - or at least, introduces more complexity to what is intended to be a simple/elegant setup.

another thought that came to mind (if we're tinkering with the mechanic itself instead of the town:scum ratio), would be to not allow scum to trapdoor players who have received it before (instead of just non-consecutively). this way, if scum are in slots #1, #2, #4, scum can't just bounce between #7 and #8. they'll have used up the furthest-away slots, forcing them to bring the trapdoor closer. this also introduces town strategies of possibly leaving certain slots alive if they want to influence parts of the playerlist where the trapdoor can't go next.

[Hoopla]

could be useful to prevent "okay we literally spent all our moves and now we lose."

i like this as a losing condition for town. it forces town to (probably) win the game in six phases or so. it's similar thematically to a white-flag type mechanic, where by shifting the endgame forward (or would it be backwards?) from a 3p LYLO, it changes the way people play earlier in the game, for example; bussing/distancing becomes much more high stakes in mid-game white flag.

[Hoopla]

With 3 out of 10, the odds of being placed into 3 sequential slots is I believe 1/18 (2/9 * 2/8 = 4/72 = 1/18).

how about a sequence of 3 in 4? i imagine that's a trickier calculation

[Hoopla]

Also I almost tried to dive into the math for 3 in 4 then I realized it was kinda a trick question.

how so?

[Hoopla]

It’s 100% since you only ever have 1 negative spot, which with the circle formation results in them always being adjacent

i mean 3 in 4 sequences like 1/2/4, 4/5/7, 4/6/7, 9/10/2 etc.

something like 1/5/8 or 2/3/7 doesn't qualify.

[Hoopla]

You might be interested in skimming Deathlist since it was a somewhat similar setup.

i just checked that out. really interesting concept!

[Hoopla]

I like the statistical mindset, but I think that specific solution goes against the original setup idea
The setup seems based around the static locations of the players. Taking that away creates a chaotic not-really-system that just seems less interesting.

this is pretty much my thoughts.

i'm sure there could be more specific tweaks made to ensure a greater likelihood of a balanced scum distribution. but additional complexity to shave off potential outliers seems like an unnecessary trade off at the expense of elegance/simplicity.

[Hoopla]

btw I think we should do a few runs of that trapdoor setup using the different ideas proposed during the upcoming marathon weekend

mmm true.

i'll make sure i'm around in some capacity to mod and/or play