[JANUARY CHALLENGE]

[Irrelephant11]

Spoiler: based on this

Would anyone be interested in a monthly contest?

I'm unsure exactly how it'd be run but it's been on my mind.

My thought on how it'd go is we'd give restriction that people would have to follow and see who comes up with the best setup. For example:

Must contain the following:

• 10-11 players
  
• Mafia Cop

Must contain at least one of the following:

• Town Babysitter
  
  
• Town Neapolitan
  
  
• Lyncher

If this doesn't interest anyone that's fine but I thought I'd start a discussion for it at least.

I, uh, just decided to take this upon myself and see what happens

January Challenge

Create a new open setup.

Must contain the following:

• 11 players
  
• A brand new combination-role (like jailkeeper, which combines roleblocking with doctor protection)

Must contain at least one of the following:

• 0 VTs
  
  
• Mafia Traitor
  
  
• Town Neighborizer

Submit your setups as posts in this thread. You may re-submit and/or edit until January 28th, at which point we'll do a voting thing I'm still working out. Setup makers will

have

to vote, but if you want to vote w/o making a setup, just say so!

Winner will be in charge of the requirements for next month's challenge, and PenguinPower will mod the setup in the Open Queue!!!

[Irrelephant11]

There’s more than these but I don’t have time rn to link to them all

Entries

Spoiler: Rogue Agent

Updated Version

Rogue Agent

2 Mafia Goons

1 Rogue Agent

(Mafia Traitor Compulsive-Vigilante Flag Bearer)

8 Vanilla Town

The Mafia do not have a factional night kill. The Mafia Goons know who the Rogue Agent is, but the Rogue Agent does not know who the Mafia Goons are. If the Rogue Agent is lynched, Town wins.

EV is 49.72%, with the Flag Bearer and removing activation. (Mafia should activate immediately after a town lynch D1, to get rid of the FB, if they are allowed to do so.)

Spoiler: Balance is lol

1x Town Weak Friend-Seeker

(Alternating Neighbouriser/Masonizer) - When Masonizes, if hits Scum Traitor, converts to town and masonizes instead of dying. When Neighbourising, dies either way if targets Scum. Same chat either way.

1x Town Escort

(Bodyguard + Hooker)

1x Town Empath

(Follower + Voyeur)

1x Town Obvious Victim

(Lightning Rod + Virgin)

1x Town Prejudiced Color Sheriff

- Gets Red, Yellow, or Green for alignment, but doesn't know what each one means. Meaning randomizes at the beginning of each Day, then the Sheriff chooses a color. They must kill the player if the player is of that color.

1x Town Angel of Death

(Non-Consecutive Night Doctor + Delayed Rodder) - Docs, then the following night that player becomes a lightning rod.

1x Town Obsessive-Compulsifier

- Makes a player so they must take an action each night for the rest of the game, and must target the same target until that target is dead.

1x Town Idolator

- Removes a player from any chats they are in until the end of the next day phase. That player cannot be protected or roleblocked.

1x Scum Traitor Escort

(Bodyguard + Hooker)

1x Scum Moriarty

- Godfather + Framer

1x Scum Love-Seeker

(Alternating Neighbouriser/Nymphomaniac)

Spoiler: Raw As Hell, But

2 Mafia Goon

1 Mafia Neighborizer/Poisoner

1 Weak Neighborizer

7 VT

Poisoner poisons everyone he neighborizes, they die at the beginning of the next night.

Probably needs EV tweaks, but I like the complexity strategy wise.

Spoiler: Guilt Neighborhood

2 Mafia Goons

9 City Planners

(Venge-Neighborizer)

When a City Planner is lynched, the entirety of their wagon is added to a new neighborhood.

Spoiler: Track or Watch

3 Mafia 1-shot Tracker/Watcher

8 Town 1-shot Tracker/Watcher

The Tracker/Watcher, if used, will return a list of all players who targeted that player or got targeted by that player. Track/watch results are not distinguished, and a player will not show up more than once on the list even if they would appear on the list more than once.

Mafia can kill and action.

Wincon is standard

Spoiler: Panic Room

In the original version Mafia had essentially a forced victory if one of them were recruited D1 by killing the recruiter, recruiting another mafia D2 and then hardbussing the bomb.

Panic Room v2

11 players:

1 Mafia "Bomb" (Compulsive Multi-Vengeful)

2 Mafia Goons

1 Town "Recruiter" (Compulsive Day Neighborizer)

1 Town Recruit

6 Vanilla Townies

• Upon the death of the Mafia Bomb, everyone not in the Neighborhood is killed. After this point, the game becomes nightless.
  
• The recruit begins the game in the neighborhood along with the Recruiter.
  
• The most recent living recruit is always the one with the ability to recruit.

Still can't decide if 3 mafia or 2 is more balanced, but right now I'm kind of leaning towards 3. This version makes it such that the neighborhood will never not have someone in it.

Spoiler: Key to the Bunker

• 7 Town Bunker Guards
  
  
• 1 Town Conspirator
  
  
• 3 Mafia Goons
  
  
• Day Start; daytalk is not available for either faction
  
• Modified victory condition: town win by eliminating 2 of the 3 Mafia and then going through a Night phase with no town deaths (either by killing the third scum, so that there can be no kill, or by blocking the nightkill)
  
• Each night, a town Bunker Guard may (it isn't compulsive) let a player of their choice into the bunker for that night. (They cannot self-target due to bunker security measures.) If a player outside the bunker submits a nightkill on a player inside the bunker, it will fail. (Membership of the bunker never becomes public until postgame, i.e. scum just have to submit a kill and it will work if no townie targeted the victim or some townie targeted the killer.)
  
• The Conspirator is a modified Neighbouriser; they choose a target during the day phase, and their target is permanently added to their neighbourhood at the start of that Night (thus, it's useful faster than a Neighbouriser normally would be in a non-daytalk setup). Additionally, once during the game, they can attempt to kill someone at night, but it must be a member of their neighbourhood (and if someone lets their target into the bunker, the kill will fail unless someone lets them into the bunker too). Flavour is of someone constructing a team of townies (a conspiracy) to take on the Mafia, but who isn't entirely trustful of all of them.

Bunker Guard is a combination of Doctor and Strengthener. (It started out as just the combination, then I added the flavour, to make it more intuitive how the setup works.) Conspirator is sort-of a combination of Neighbouriser and Vigilante, although it's not a pure combination. So the setup clearly obeys both requirements (a clear combination role and 0 VTs), and also obeys both requirements a second/alternative time in a more twisted way (a modified combination role and a modified Neighbouriser).

The basic idea here is that townies can control the game by only targeting other townies (and lots of them). I suspect there are no breaking strategies simply because scum who know that they've been strengthened can kill anyone they like without giving away information, so town can't coordinate them except via the neighbourhood (and thus probably want to keep scum outside the neighbourhood, especially because it would let scum know who the confirmable townie is). The Conspirator was originally just added in an attempt to shift the balance, but I really like where the role ended up (e.g. they can recruit someone, and kill them the same night if they decide after overNight questioning that their target was scum). The modified win condition helps prevent the game dragging out if a townbloc is correctly identified, and also adds a "semi-White-Flag" effect that helps to balance the setup.

[Irrelephant11]

tw made a Google poll which was nice of him: https://goo.gl/forms/DLt0aUerS8DUs1sB2

Voting starts now and goes until 72 hours from now!

voting

Voting will be based on the Song Contest method, detailed as follows:

Once all entries are finalized, you will have 72 hours to vote before the end of the month. You will vote by

PMing me

clicking the link to the Google poll: a ranking of the open setup submissions, aside from your own submission. You do not have to submit a setup to vote. Each position on the rankings will be worth a point value. The point values are as follows:

12 points - 1st
10 - 2nd
8 - 3rd
7 - 4th
6 - 5st
5 - 6th
4 - 7th
3 - 8th
2 - 9th
1 - 10th

If there are fewer than 10 submissions, simply rank all of the submissions you didn't submit. The point values from the above list will still apply.

Every participant in the Open Setup Challenge must vote.

Those who do not vote will be penalized 20 points.

Please rate fairly by giving all setups some thought. Ask yourself if you'd enjoy playing it, if it seems well balanced (or misbalanced in a way that is still fun for all alignments), and if it provides a unique open setup experience worth including in our open setup rotation. Please do not try to base ratings on who submitted them, or in such a way as to game the voting system.

As with any open setups posted in this subforum, losing setups may be run, mod willing. However, only the winning setup is guaranteed to be run by PenguinPower and have a strong chance to become a regular setup on the site (depending on how fun it is when played).

[Irrelephant11]

I'm gonna go messy here and say if the combination role

feels subjectively

like it still functions somewhat like a town neighborizer or mafia traitor, then yes it fills the requirements. If the town neighborizer is combined with, say, a vig role that immediately kills anyone it neighborizes (this is an extreme example but I think you get the idea), then no.

If you're super unsure or it becomes hotly debated whether or not a combination would fit the requirements based on the above metric, it doesn't fit the requirement.

this may or may not cause an argument but that's mafia amirite??

[Irrelephant11]

are multiple submissions allowed?

what if I use my alts?

I feel like for fairness I should say no, but also the point of this is to generate interesting open setups...
How about: you can post multiple setups, but either:
- I will find a way for the voting process to balance against your increased likelihood of winning, or
- You pick your fav by the 28th to actually be in the running, and the others will just exist in the world (its own prize, am I right?) w/o winning this challenge

Whichever of these makes more sense to me closer to deadline (though of course you can always just choose the second option).

The Rogue Agent is interesting! I do agree it's very focused on one slot, though. Maybe remove the white flag and throw in a town neighborizer

[Irrelephant11]

If I ever modded mafia games, I would offer to mod the winning setup, but alas.
If anyone wants to make that offer, though, I would think that person was very cool!!!

[Irrelephant11]

I want the Elephant to think I'm cool. I'll mod it.

!!!coOL!!!!!!

[Irrelephant11]

lol I was kidding but if that one wins I wasn't kidding

[Irrelephant11]

I was gonna come up with a voting system, depending on the number of entrants

[Irrelephant11]

I have done my best to put everyone's submissions into the second post of the thread - let me know if I picked the wrong version, or if you want to submit something else, etc. I'll keep trying to keep it updated as we go, but just lmk if I miss something!

[Irrelephant11]

I feel like for fairness I should say no, but also the point of this is to generate interesting open setups...
How about: you can post multiple setups, but either:
- I will find a way for the voting process to balance against your increased likelihood of winning, or
- You pick your fav by the 28th to actually be in the running, and the others will just exist in the world (its own prize, am I right?) w/o winning this challenge

Why?

I mean, if the point of the challenge is to create fun setups, why not let people submit multiple setups? The 'prize' is bragging rights for having created the best setup, and that's still valid if you submit one setup or 50..

Firstly, because rules are arbitrary and this feels right to me
Secondly, because I don't think our goal should be to get, say, two people coming up with three dozen setups each in hopes that by sheer force of statistics they have a greater shot to win this challenge, setup quality be damned; it should be to include as many people as possible in the collaborative effort of making a high-quality open setup we can add to our common rotation. I think the ability to discuss, sharpen, and present 1 high-quality setup should make someone a winner, rather than "the person who floods the entries with variants wins".

So I'm still open to people submitting multiple setups, but I think there would still be some soft balance in the voting. It'd be something simple, though, like "you can only vote for one setup from each entrant" maybe.

I'm also still open to discussing this, if other people also feel multiple submissions should be allowed/encouraged! This challenge is for the MS *community*, not just for me

Toxic Neighborhood

1 Mafia Heavy Smoker (Ninja + bomb)
2 Mafia Goons

1 Town Neighborizer
6 VTs

1 3p Psychopath (compulsive SK with a twist)

Mafia do not have nightkills.
If the heavy smoker is lynched they kill everyone on their wagon due to second hand smoke. They also do not have access to the mafia chat because they take too many smoke breaks.

Neighborizer can add one person per night to their neighborhood.

Psychopath is a compulsive SK whose kills fail if they target people inside their neighborhood if they are in one (to maintain innocent persona among his neighbors).

This sounded better in my head.

Is there an updated version for this? To put in the OP

[Irrelephant11]

You can discuss balance and things in this thread! It is welcome, and even encouraged, as you each interpret the guidelines differently

[Irrelephant11]

Ye sorry
Very busy IRL
tw made a Google poll which was nice of him: https://goo.gl/forms/DLt0aUerS8DUs1sB2

Voting starts now and goes until 72 hours from now!

[Irrelephant11]

Remember that setup-makers have to vote!!

[Irrelephant11]

Yeah I started this contest without a second thought about the logistics & don’t really have time lately for logistics. There’s almost certainly better voting methods and maybe better rules regarding submission. They’re all open questions worth discussing and I’m not sure I want to be in charge of next month’s contest in any real way if someone else thinks they’d be great at it

That said, if all voters vote honestly I think the best setup is likely to win. Any voting system *could probably* be rigged by its participants, but I like to think no one here will so desperately need to win this small contest (especially since the prizes for winning are also free to have for anyone who mods &/or starts their own Open Setup threads) that they’d try to manipulate things around to that end

[Irrelephant11]

Electoral college: for the first half of a game day, each third of the living playerlist votes for a representative; in the second half of the game day, these three determine the lynch. This goes away in mylo/lylo, replaced with king-making??

Though this challenge had its.... challenges, I’m already enjoying how much setup creativity it’s generating!

[Irrelephant11]

I think Rel is passing the reins onto the winner (assuming mith is keen to run the Feb one). I'm also more than happy to help with admin backup on the voting side of things. If you have an idea maybe shoot mith a pm and ask if he wants to run Feb or would be cool with you doing it?

Congrats mith! The next challenge is meant to be run by mith, yes, as part of the prize of winning. If he chooses not to run one, I suppose it’s up to him who runs it instead

[Irrelephant11]

I thought he was supposed to pick the setup criteria, not necessarily run it wholesale.

NSG's proposed vote system also seems like a decent alternative.

If mith would like me to run his setup criteria as a challenge, I will do so gladly! It’s not too much work, with tw’s help. My originally thought was that the winner would run the contest, though. Up to him!

[Irrelephant11]