[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[DrDolittle]

Wanted to run an open game with a little more hidden information and decision making. Love to hear your thoughts on this.

The Usurping Town

X Town Usurper

Y Mafia Usurper

Rules

Every Member is given a unique target in their own faction (that could be themselves?).
The win condition for a player is that the player's faction must win AND the player's target is dead.
The player does not have to be alive to win.
Mafia lynch is determined by voting system in their thread. Without a strict majority is a no kill. Mafia are allowed to kill members of their own faction.
The game's end condition to determine winners is checked when all mafia members are lynched (then each town member checks their usurp condition) or when nothing can prevent mafia from winning (then each mafia member checks their usurp condition)

[DrDolittle]

Who wins if mafia endgame town before any mafia die or vice versa

No one wins since no one has their win con satisfied.

[DrDolittle]

So first of all town has a way to confirm every townie as town. This possibility makes it feel pretty broken right off the bat, even if some individuals would choose not to use this strategy immediately to protect their usurper wincon
Second of all fewer than 4 mafia and every mafia will know who’s coming for them. This possibility also makes it feel broken

Good call. Maybe everyone should have a target that is not alignment indicative. Does that help?

[DrDolittle]

But then it's less interesting since mafia can just kill their person. Maybe change mafia to lynchers only.

[DrDolittle]

every mafia will know who’s coming for them. This possibility also makes it feel broken

actually this doesn't feel that at all since all it does is sow discord in the mafia, and makes coordination way more difficult. but the town part is still an issue you're right.

[DrDolittle]

After talking with some smart people, this is the redesigned version I'm hoping to run in the micro queue. Looking forward to fine tuning this some more.

Some Smart Setup Name

6 Vanilla Town
1 Blue Mafia
1 Red Mafia
1 Town Opportunist

Rules

• Blue and Red Mafia know each other and coordinate night kills in a PT under majority vote.
  
• Blue Mafia only wins if he survives and Red Mafia does not survive. And vice versa.
  
• Town opportunist wins either with town, or alone if both Blue and Red Mafia are alive in the endgame.
  
• If either Red or Blue Mafia dies, Town opportunist becomes a treestump if still alive.

Notes

A challenging part of this game is under 5 people LYLO. Blue Mafia knows that getting a mislynch will result in a loss, so would strongly push the lynch of the Red Mafia. But pushing too hard means that he will out himself and obtain a town win.

Meanwhile, the existence of the opportunist will `strengthen' the mafia faction in the LYLO situation by instead pushing for a mislynch.

The discord among the mafia makes it feel like this setup should be a town-sided. Another option is changing the Opportunist to scum-sided and knows who scum are, and leaves the game if one of them is lynched. However, that role might be a bit unfun to play.

[DrDolittle]

Donnie Brasco

3 Mafia Goons

1 Town-Aligned Donnie Brasco

8 Informed Vanilla Townies

• Mafia Goons
  and
  Donnie Brasco
  share the scum private topic and vote for NK via plurality.
  
• Each
  Vanilla Townie
  is informed of the identity of
  Donnie Brasco
  .
  
• Each
  Mafia Goon
  has access to
  Day Kill
  that only works on
  Mafia Goons
  and
  Donnie Brasco
  . The
  Day Kill
  command is privately messaged to the mod during day time.
  
• Donnie Brasco
  maintains a
  Prevent
  command on a Mafia Player that is privately messaged to the mod and can be updated each night.
  
• Mafia
  win when they equal or outnumber the
  Town
  , or if the
  Day Kill
  hits
  Donnie Brasco
  , and
  Donnie Brasco
  did not
  Prevent
  the killing player.
  Town
  wins if all
  Mafia
  are dead.

[DrDolittle]

thanks for the valuable feedback. im thinking about a revision where donnie never finds it optimal reveal in thread - because that's where the difficulty comes from.
My intention for prevention is actually pops' second option, that "a reasonable interpretation is that Brasco will die anyway, but the win condition will be prevented".

I don't understand the following "Donnie Brasco is in the scum PT, he knows who all the mafia are (presumably he is in the scum PT on a secret alt because otherwise the setup makes no sense and is absurd, scum read the PT access list and submit a daykill and win)". I was thinking that in the roll PM, it would just say "you and scum2 and scum3 and scum4 are in a chat together, but you know one of them is Donnie", which should functionally be the same as a secret alt?

I wanted the prevent mechanic such that on 2 scum 1 DB, scum's win rate is not 50 percent, but pops is right - the design concept is awful - that it is just roll a D3 or flip a coin. This mechanism is taken inspiration from the accusation/bribe in zor's fortnight games, but I guess it's not too popular.

design goal is to do AITP, but like not random lynching as the optimal strategy

[DrDolittle]

Donnie Brasco - v2

2 Mafia Goons

1 Town-Aligned Donnie Brasco

X Informed Townies

8-X Vanilla Townies

• Mafia Goons
  and
  Donnie Brasco
  share
  Mafia PT Access
  and vote for NK via plurality.
  Mafia Goons
  only know the identity of players with
  Mafia PT Access
  .
  
• Each
  Informed Townie
  know the identity of
  Donnie Brasco
  .
  
• Both
  Donnie Brasco
  and
  Mafia Goons
  flip with the identity of having
  Mafia PT Access
  .
  
• Upon lynch,
  Mafia PT Access
  players have access to the
  Accuse
  action in the Dead PT can target any other player.
  
• The game ends either when
  Mafia
  equal or outnumber the
  Town
  , or 48 hours after all players with
  Mafia PT Access
  has died. All threads are open at all times before game ends.
  
• Mafia
  win when they equal or outnumber the
  Town
  , OR if both
  Mafia Goons
  successfully
  Accuse
  Donnie Brasco
  .
  Town
  wins if all
  Mafia
  are dead, AND if
  Donnie Brasco
  is
  Accused
  by one or less
  Mafia Goon
  .

Theme: Donnie Brasco has infiltrated the mob! Who has infiltrated the police force. Can our hero stop them before the mob destroys the police from the inside? Lynches are arrests, and if both mafia accuses Donnie rather than each other, then the court cannot convict and send the bad guys since it's a he say she say situation.

[DrDolittle]

Donnie Brasco - v2

2 Mafia Goons

1 Town-Aligned Donnie Brasco

X Informed Townies

8-X Vanilla Townies

• Mafia Goons
  and
  Donnie Brasco
  share
  Mafia PT Access
  and vote for NK via plurality.
  Mafia Goons
  only know the identity of players with
  Mafia PT Access
  .
  
• Each
  Informed Townie
  know the identity of
  Donnie Brasco
  .
  
• Both
  Donnie Brasco
  and
  Mafia Goons
  flip with the identity of having
  Mafia PT Access
  .
  
• Upon lynch,
  Mafia PT Access
  players have access to the
  Accuse
  action in the Dead PT can target any other player.
  
• The game ends either when
  Mafia
  equal or outnumber the
  Town
  , or 48 hours after all players with
  Mafia PT Access
  has died. All threads are open at all times before game ends.
  
• Mafia
  win when they equal or outnumber the
  Town
  , OR if both
  Mafia Goons
  successfully
  Accuse
  Donnie Brasco
  .
  Town
  wins if all
  Mafia
  are dead, AND if
  Donnie Brasco
  is
  Accused
  by one or less
  Mafia Goon
  .

Theme: Donnie Brasco has infiltrated the mob! Who has infiltrated the police force. Can our hero stop them before the mob destroys the police from the inside? Lynches are arrests, and if both mafia accuses Donnie rather than each other, then the court cannot convict and send the bad guys since it's a he say she say situation.

Any more comments? I want to run this - ideally under micros so I'll throw in a pair of masons for balance.

[DrDolittle]

That way town doesn't have to theater a game of mafia where all the mafia are dead.

I thought that's a feature and not a bug! Though once more town gets a buff if that were the case, since mafia gets "more" information from the theater maybe. I'm think of adding a loyal neighbourizer instead of masons to bump up town power and be more coordinated in theater.

You are right. Let's make a private accusation and Donnie doesn't need to accuse.

it would definitely be interesting to see two consecutive goon lynches and a low number of informed and watch DB accidentally endgame. In which case... What happens?

Well, Donnie stays alive for the rest of the game, Mafia can correctly guess since there is one player left who is donnie so mafia wins

a low number of informed

I'm thinking just to ask town players when confirming to given teh number of informs they'd like, take the median, and randomly distribute. Or I can ask Donnie his preference. Or I can just set it to be 3. decisions decisions.

Oh, also there should probably be a separate town and mafia dead pt, since correct play from town after being lynched is just to never post again which defeats the point of a dead thread.

people's egos are too big to never post again, but we could just have the mafia never leave the Mafia PT even after death, and not go to the dead PT

[DrDolittle]

realized an issue: if 1 goon and 1 donnie is alive and its 5p, and townie 1 has 1 vote, if groon votes townie 1 and donnie doesn't quick hammer, then donnie is confirmed to scum as donnie.

I just need to add to the rules that all members of the alive in the PT cannot vote for the same person. This adds in additional VCA deduction power from town, which should bias the the game to the town side again

[DrDolittle]

what about 5p lylo with 3 towns 1 groon and one donnie brasco

[DrDolittle]

dang then if that's the case it has to be an open game and open games fill slow joe

[DrDolittle]

im not opposed to citizen's mafia, but I don't understand why it has to be played with 5 players? Then all the rules following it seems to be such that the game is balanced around 5

[DrDolittle]

Citizens Mafia Modified

7 Players (5 Town-aligned, 2 Mafia-aligned)

14 Artifacts

11 Named Vanilla Artifacts
1 Named Jailkeeping Artifact
2 Named Evil Artifacts

In this game, players do not lynch each other, instead they vote to purge artifacts.
Each player owns two artifacts whose name is public knowledge. The alignment (normal, evil) and ability of the artifacts is not.
For every town player, neither of their artifacts are evil.
For every scum player, one is evil and one is not.
Players are alive all game and purge whatever artifacts they please every day.
Mafia selects an artifact to destroy every night. They can destroy their own.
One random artifact allows the owner to perform a jailkeep action. This artifact is always owned by town.

Win condition for Town: Remove all Evil Artifacts. Win condition for Mafia: Remove all Normal Artifacts.

[DrDolittle]

This is just double-day I think:
https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Double_Day

[DrDolittle]

mountainous is 11-2 standard and apparently it is still scumsided.
double day is 13-3

I think you need to run at least 9-2 for balance [otherwise your game would be in lylo in day 2 (in the double day language)]

[DrDolittle]

Good Reads Club

1 Mafia Multitasking Roleblocker

1 Mafia Multitasking Backup Roleblocker

7 Random Cop

Let

T

and

M

be town and mafia left in the game, respectively.

• Random Cop
  gives town results with probability
  T/(T+M)
  .
  
• In addition to an investigation target,
  Cops
  submit a read list with players grouped into TOWN UNKNOWN MAFIA categories. This list is scored: For every correct placement of player aligned with town, the list gets
  +M
  points, and for every incorrect placement, the list gets
  -M
  points. For every correct placement of player aligned with mafia, the list gets
  +T
  points, and for every incorrect placement, the list gets
  -T
  points. UNKNOWN placements are worth
  0
  .
  
• The
  Random Cop
  with the top scoring list becomes
  1) Sane 2) Strongman 3) Bulletproof
  for the night.
  
• The
  Random Cop
  with the second and third scoring list becomes
  1) Sane
  for the night.
  
• Players are not informed whether their investigation is sane, no the points of their list.
  
• Mafia
  win when they equal or outnumber the
  Town
  .
  Town
  wins if all
  Mafia
  are dead.

[DrDolittle]

Oh sorry I wasn't very clear. I meant that Random Cop is literally randomized result in the sense no matter who is checked, the result is town T/(T+M) times, and scum M/(T+M) times. Thus, effectively the result is bogus. I prefer this over the "naive cop"/"paranoid cop" because I want people to internalize they could have bad reads conditional on flips of both alignments.

List ties --- probably just randomize who gets first second and third.

@Kerset see above. I meant for the bad-reads club cops to have no investigative power, while hiding from the players themselves who has the good reads and who has the bad reads.

[DrDolittle]

PS - the point system has the nice feature that if you place everyone in your list on MAFIA/TOWN/UNKNOWN, you point total is always 0.