[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[IceGuy]

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.

Could be fixed by having doctors with different treatments. If there are several doctors, and they all use the same treatment, the patient is protected; if they use different treatments, the patient dies.

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.

The current PYP version is rather boring, since the optimal strategy is to always select Doc and RB (and this has been chosen in all three completed PYP games).

I like the concept, but the choices for scum should either be a real alternative (for instance, scum picks either Doc and RB, or Cop); or scum gets powers depending on the powers town got.

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.

Polygamist Mafia is interesting since you can't bus your partner to lynch. You have to keep both yourself and your partners alive without anybody drawing connections between them, and this strategic angle is missing in True Love.

Tread Carefully

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

Too swingy, I think.

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.

Bin them; there are more than enough similar and better setups.

[IceGuy]

Russian Roulette Mafia (again, an IRC-style setup - it IS Open, but I just don't see this hitting the rotation outside "Experimental")

SS3 (as above)

Too Much Scum (this should be an easy one; I'm just going quickly at the moment)

Trendy and Subversive

Vanilla Nightless (this page can probably be deleted or replaced with something better)

Vigilante Mafia

Gotta bin 'em all.

[IceGuy]

To be fair, Trendy and Subversive was popular for a while, and while it's probably just me Russian Roulette Mafia doesn't sound like total drudgery (at least with fixes to the mechanic).

While I agree the mechanics (backup roles without the normal ones/daykills with ascending probabilities) might be something to think about, the setups themselves should not be kept around. Salvaging them would mean completely redesigning them anyway, so I'm in favor of binning them and, if somebody has an idea how to incorporate the mechanic into a good setup, letting that setup go through reviewing.

Also, don't forget post 239.

They also should be binned.

[IceGuy]

Also, don't forget post 239.

They also should be binned.

F11 should be binned?

Yes. It's unbalanced and we have 2of4 as a worthy successor.

[IceGuy]

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.

For some reason, I misremembered 2of4 was 2:9. Oh well.

[IceGuy]

*

The New C9

Bin and replace with a C9++ variant.

*

Assassin in the Palace

Not Mafia (informed majority vs. uninformed minority) and broken beyond repair anyway. Bin.

*

Dethy

I really like this setup (or rather, the idea behind it), however, it is broken and very town-favored. Also, setups like this one have a tendency to stifle scumhunting in favor of logic puzzling.
As a replacement, I propose the following 9 player setup:
2 Mafia Goons
1-3 Sane Cops
1-3 Insane Cops
1-3 Paranoid Cops
1-3 Naive Cops

Day start. Generate setup by generating a seven-letter string of S, I, P, and N (every letter with an equal probability) and insert roles as by the letters. Throw out and generate a new string if the setup would be illegal.

*

Mayo Clinic

Swingy, but seems to be somehow balanced. Might be OK for an experimental game.

*

Paris Mafia

If both mimes need to die by lynching, can't town simply win or force a draw every time by no-lynching?

*

Quack Mafia

Add one townie, make it Day Start and make the Mafia Goons Mafia Doctors.

*

Quack Multiball

Not necessary to have both Quack and Quack Multiball. If you want to keep it, same as for Quack Mafia.

[IceGuy]

I disagree on the basis that the assassin is informed. If any one townie had the information that the assassin has, the game would end on Day 1 or 2 and the assassin would have only a small chance of winning.

I don't get what you're trying to say here.

The assassin is uninformed (doesn't know who the king is), and in the minority.

The town is informed (knows who the king is), and in the majority.

You seem to assume that town can't do better than random in looking for the assassin without giving away the king's identity. I disagree. Find scummy-acting players, and lynch them.

Except that this process will help the assassin WAY more than the town. This is the basic problem in uninformed-minority games: The majority has no desire to gather information, as it will help their adversary more than themselves.

If they want to let the mafia to win they can?

There's a Vig.

[IceGuy]

The town is informed regarding who the king is, and the assassin is informed regarding who the assassin is. If any town player had the assassin's information (especially if it was a guard and not the king) the assassin would be in trouble. So the assassin has information they want to hide. Everyone is informed, even if they're not informed of the same information.

Knowledge about one's own alignment isn't the "information" I'm talking about here. Just as the town isn't "informed" because the players all individually know they're town.

That's just an assertion...? I could as easily say "Except this process will help town way more than the assassin." I think the burden of proving that scumhunting is fruitless falls on the setup's detractors, if the goal is to disallow the setup from the experimental category of the open queue for that reason.

Straw man. I can't "prove" scumhunting is fruitless, obviously. Just as you can't "prove" it isn't.

That's a shitty definition of "a broken game". A broken game is a game where a strategy exists that gives town better chances to win without scumhunting. You have no idea if town could improve on that 60% by scumhunting. I'm pretty sure they can, because if they scumhunt poorly and actually gain no information, you are back at that 60%.

No. No, they're not.

If town scumhunts badly, they are hurting their chances, because the assassin will gain information regarding the king.

And scumhunting in AitP is rather hard, since there is only one scum player and no night actions (except for the final kill).

[IceGuy]

No. Scumhunting in a one-man scumgame is hard because there are no possible connections to find. Everyone has a vested interest in not being the person lynched (since it's bad for their team, no matter who they are), there's no opposing team that makes scum worry about not being "too effective" and being Night-killed, and there's no other people the one-man scumteam has an interest in not dying that can be used as connections.

This.

[IceGuy]

I believe you can consider the last six setups as "binned", or rather "binned until somebody comes up with a way to save them".

[IceGuy]

In principle, I don't have a problem with hypo* strategies as long as they are not infalliable or almost infalliable.

Weak M.D. and Gurgi EC8 provide too few possibilities for scum to interfere with town's plans. JK9++ has the possibility of a hider but enough unknown variables to make a hypo* strategy beneficial but not (almost) game-breaking.

[IceGuy]

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.

I don't think a factional NK would ruin the elegance of the setup. Might require a modification in the number of VTs, though. I'd also consider switching odd- and even-numbered days to give town more information on D1 (N0 is nomination only, no kill). If you're allowing no-lynches on non-nomination days, you also need a special mechanic for LyLo because losing although you got the scum figured out is frustrating.

[IceGuy]

The current setup doesn't have endgame problems that require special rules.

This is only necessary if you allow no-lynching.

[IceGuy]

Was there a lot of logic puzzling in the game?

[IceGuy]

I agree with Hoopla.

[IceGuy]

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).

Also, I'd really, really like to bring this to a 13-player, daystart game.

[IceGuy]

I mean predictable for the SK.

[IceGuy]

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.

He won't know, but it's most beneficial for both parties in the beginning.

[IceGuy]

Thinking of it, there might be a simpler breaking strategy.

You make a list of all players and have one town "designated survivor", i.e. somebody who is almost confirmed town.

In the night, everybody shoots the person below them on the list, except for the person above the designated survivor.

Scum has the following possibilities:
Both of them commute - they survive, as well as the two town players below them, and the designated survivor. It's now a 2:3 situation where the scum are known; you lynch one, 1:3, all town commutes the next night, still 1:3, lynch the last one, town wins.
One commutes, one shoots - the shooting player dies and can take either the designated survivor or the person below one of the scums with them. 1:2 situation, scum known, town wins.
Both shoot - they both die, town wins.

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.

[IceGuy]

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

You're right.

(I thought it was a 9p setup, not a 7p.)

[IceGuy]

Joining Forces

1 Sicilian Mafia Goon

1 Calabrian Mafia Goon

1 Jailkeeper
1 Single Goon Cop
9 Vanilla Townies

At first, the Sicilian and the Calabrian Mafia Goons don't know each other, have separate NKs and SK-like win conditions.

At any point, they can indicate to the mod they'd like to "join". When both of them have indicated their desire to join (and they're alive), they'll become Mafia Goons at the beginning of the next Night. That means they'll get a QT with nighttalk, have a factional NK (instead of their separate ones) and their win condition becomes the usual Mafia one.

The Single Goon Cop gets a "guilty" on both Goons, but only up until including the Night they joined; after that, they always get "innocent".

[IceGuy]

- Setup is townsided if the scum join forces while the jailkeeper is still alive (compare to say 10v2 Mountainous, this is 11v2 w/ Jailkeeper).

EV of 2:11 Mountainous is 36.2% according to the Wiki. So together with the JK I'd consider it balanced.

- Setup is *probably* townsided while the scum are separate. Not only do you have the Cop, but the Jailkeeper can be functionally like a cop as well, and if the town lynches scum, see above.

I don't think a 2:11 with cop, JK and double kill is townsided.

- Setup allows for practically zero scumhunting, certainly zero connections until there's a join.

Not zero scumhunting - it's essentially double SK hunting.

- If the mafia crosskill, it's almost certainly town win.

That's true, and is one of the factors that should entice scum to join.

I'm not sure what I would recommend changing -- I tend to like my mafia's informed from the beginning and this is about the opposite.

From what I see you simply don't like the basic premise of the setup.

[IceGuy]

I'm obviously biased towards that the setup is balanced or mildly unbalanced, so I'd like some more people to weigh in.

[IceGuy]

I'm thinking of how to repair The New Recruit.

I think 11:2 with a JK is reasonably balanced - the question is how to balance the 10:3 possibility.

I considered the following:
JK/JK? Probably too swingy.
Hider and similar roles have the problem that they make hypoclaiming a good strategy when scum can't interfere with them.
JK/Tracker? Similar problems to JK/JK
JK/A bunch of 1-shot roles distributed throughout town? Has the disadvantages of telling more townies how many scum there are.

Any other suggestions?