Mafiascum.net

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Town Vigliante
Town Simple Doctor
Town N1 Universal Backup
7× Vanilla Townie
Mafia Goon
Mafia Voyeur
Mafia Doctor Enabler

Haven't really thought about daytalk for this one, but it's likely on the townsided side and thus I'm leaning towards yes. (It doesn't serve any structural role in the setup.)

Oh, and a role interaction ruling: if the Vigilante and Doctor both die N1, the Backup inherits the role of the player killed by scum (which must be the Vigilante in this case, as they wouldn't have shot themself).

So town is almost guaranteed to gain a mislynch via the vig, and town has one conftown in the vig. Between the doctor and the vig it's unlikely town will gain two mislynches, and mechanically speaking the N1 UB just ensures no town PR dies N1.

So pretty much, all of town's power (ignoring the qualitative effect of a doctor protecting strong players) is an extra mislynch and a single conftown. In return, scum have one PR that's basically useless and one that will actively mislead them. Doesn't feel like enough town power to me.

I agree that the power is primarily in an extra mislynch and a single conftown. I think that's a lot of power, though. (Also, I don't think the "two extra mislynches" scenario is as unlikely as you do, although it's still fairly unlikely.) It's worth noting that if the Vig dies N1, the UB becomes conftown too (this is a bit of a structural issue in the setup as it means that the scum are punished rather than rewarded for shooting the vig N1, but I can't see an obvious improvement).

The scum power is there partly to make it unlikely that the Doctor stops a vig kill on scum, and partly to suggest claims that won't break the setup in either direction. (The Doctor Enabler's also there to tone down what I believed to be the townsidedness of the setup, although apparently you disagree on that?) It's also to give a clear hierarachy of value among the scum (Voyeur > Goon > Enabler), which makes the decisions about who to bus/save a bit more interesting.

It's probably closer to balanced than my initial thought was. Some very rough math says that mountainous with an extra mislynch and a conftown is approximately as balanced as no mislynches and 3 conftown which is an established open setup.

Now I think closed friends + enemies is considered somewhat scumsided and the fact that scum can basically fakeclaim whatever they want and probably not get called on it (as long as they claim after N1 so they know not to claim vig) is what contributed to me saying that.

And, I don't think the vig dying N1 really affects any of that too much; all it means that town will have one conftown on D2 rather than one with a chance for zero, because whoever dies N1 is obviously conftowned whether or not they were a vig.

Honestly I feel like the simple doctor is very weak in a way that doesn't make the setup more interesting. (When you roll simple doctor you expect that there will be valuable VT's you might want to protect; I think being the simple doctor here would just feel bad.)

I like the vig + N1 backup as the majority of town's power but I think the remainder of town power should be a bit more potent.

In post 6, Something_Smart wrote:(When you roll simple doctor you expect that there will be valuable VT's you might want to protect; I think being the simple doctor here would just feel bad.)

I'm assuming there may well be valuable VTs just based on the game's dayplay. Obviously, you can't affect this via setup design, but it's quite common for someone to end up obvtowning just by playing really townishly. That's the sort of valuable VT that the doctor is there to protect.

It's unclear what sort of power would need to replace that otherwise. I guess if it were more mechanically powerful, we could switch the doctor enabler to a vigilante enabler in order to compensate, but that feels a bit less elegant.

What if you made it a regular doctor and upgraded the voyeur to a watcher?

The idea behind the Watcher being that if the Vig claims, you use it to find the Doctor and kill the Doctor the next night, the Vigilante the night afterwards? That would work in a large Large, although it seems a bit slow for a Mini or smaller Large.

I think the "protect the power role" interaction is mostly a negative one rather than a positive one, though ( in a vig setup as it makes it rather more likely that town will buy a second extra mislynch). The setup's power-light, so the Simple Doctor can protect almost every slot as it is.

Or they fake a guilty on the doctor like a boss

Yeah, it is a bit slow. I guess you're right that letting the doctor protect the PR doesn't really make the setup more interesting, but I guess that raises the question, why have a doctor at all? Just so strong townies are less likely to die early?

Have you ever tried to quantify what exactly keeping strong townies alive does to the EV? It seems pretty hard to measure, and it also seems to me like the effect would be fairly small except in extreme situations.

I agree that it's hard to measure. I tried a thought experiment but it was inconclusive, and as far as I know there are no actual experiments. Results from truly-Nightless games suggest a fairly large effect, though, and anecdotally it seems like the death of a strong VT is often a serious blow to a town.

The main goals of the Doctor are to allow strong VTs to be kept alive and to give town a chance at earning the second mislynch (it also has some potential to confirm itself / a kill target via claiming to have stopped a kill, although of course the cause of a failed kill won't always be known). It's not meant to be a hugely strong power role, though; it's more just that the setup feels like it needs a protective.

Oh, I also just noticed a modWIFOM aspect with the Doctor: if you save a VT one night, the scum will be scared to kill claimed power roles on future nights. That isn't intentional but I don't think it hurts?

I thought the point of the doctor enabler was to make scum scared to kill claimed power roles from the beginning.

In a game where town's entire confirming power is a single vig being confirmed, and town's power doesn't give any other information on any living players, I feel like an investigative would fit in the setup better than a protective. Unless your goal is to psych out the scum with the doctor enabler, which to be honest you could do just as easily without there actually being a doctor.

It may just be that I'm discounting things that can't be quantified, but I don't really think the simple doctor is likely to benefit town that much (not to mention that it's very unlikely that they get a save when scum know there's a doctor). How would you feel about putting in a weak investigative instead of or in addition to it?

The point of the Doctor Enabler was to give scum a safeclaim that's believable as town in the setup – they're likely to claim their actual role, and it'd make sense as town just as well. It also serves to reduce swing a little if the Doctor Enabler dies early.

I think a weak investigative would mostly just add swing; either it does something useful, which gives town a huge advantage, or it doesn't, which doesn't. Weakening investigative roles is basically a case of reducing the probability that they hit, but it's hard to reduce the value of a hit much below 1 confirmation.

Well, it would add swing, but it would also add power.

If you want to hear my math, it's based on a simplifying assumption that town creates a townblock on day 1 of the size required to win and lynches randomly outside of it while scum kill a random townie inside it.

Under those assumptions, Friends and Enemies (three clears, no mislynches) has an EV of 16.7% whereas a hypothetical "one clear, one extra mislynch" situation has an EV of 15.9%. Obviously these EV's are not right in an absolute sense but I think it makes sense to compare them in a relative sense.

So, idk, I think it's in the ballpark of balanced as it is, but I definitely don't think adding a weak role like a one-shot vanilla cop or something (town backup voyeur would be funky, maybe) would make it less balanced, since scum already have a lot of info about the setup with which to fakeclaim.

I guess my issue is that although I'm not opposed to adding weak roles like that, I don't see how they help town. If you think the setup needs a 1-shot vanilla cop, we can add one; I think it's very unlikely to have any balance impact, so I'm not opposed to the change. I don't, however, understand it.

I don't know. I don't think it NEEDS it, I just feel like a setup where town is incapable of gaining any information at all through their PR's (except that the vig is town) is going to feel very frustrating to play, and for that reason people may be too inclined to trust any sort of investigative claim from scum.

I think it's the player side of me speaking, but there's definitely a modding style element, in that I tend to favor situations where the power of a PR is dependent on how it interacts with other PR's.

I will pass either version, but my vote's for the vanilla cop one. I don't think the setup loses anything by adding it, I think it will be a little more fun to play as town and scum (and not because more PR's = more fun), and I think it will be a little less likely to be a scum sweep.

I was about to write up the vanilla cop version, but noticed an action resolution issue: what happens if the vanilla cop and another town power role both die night 1? Unlike in the Vigilante case, it's not obvious who made which kill, so it's hard to write a fair rule for which role the Universal Backup inherits without leaking information.

I think just use the same rule of inheriting the mafia kill. That scenario's unlikely and the information leaked is very small, I wouldn't worry about it.

Also if the vanilla cop uses their shot N1 and dies, the UB will get no shots, right?

Right.

It seems pretty weird that we can have a Simple Doctor and a 0-shot Vanilla Cop die N1 and the UB can inherit the Vanilla Cop's lack of shot rather than the Doctor ability, but I guess it's at least consistent.

So you do want to go with the vanilla cop version, then. I guess all that's necessary is role PM's and then we're done For reference the final setup is:

Town Vigilante
Town Simple Doctor
Town N1 Universal Backup
Town 1-Shot Vanilla Cop
6× Vanilla Townie
Mafia Goon
Mafia Voyeur
Mafia Doctor Enabler

cool

did you know that any time you bold the phrase "@implosion" in any thread on this forum, including any that I don't have access to, it pings my brain in real life?

Well, there's also a mod note about how to resolve the Universal Backup because its interaction with a vig hasn't been standardised yet. (If two town power roles die, the Universal Backup inherits the role of the player killed by scum.) Apart from that, we're done.