Undertale Semi-Open Dead PT

[popsofctown]

This is the dead PT, but I'm also using it for peanut gallery comments.

[popsofctown]

Alphys was kind of meh for several reasons, complexity isn't exactly the only reason I wanted to exclude her.

I'm not following the math on the thesis that outing the PR and sparing it is a breaking strategy since the scum get to shoot in pacifist but maybe I'm dense. We'll see what happens.

[popsofctown]

I understand the break now
I think this is mega townsided

I kept trying to push to scumside the setup more but I didn't whine hard enough mayhaps

[popsofctown]

Wow post 174 is such level 1 mafia. The wine right in front.

But really I'm not sure I pay attention to that enough. That might be a level beyond me in its way.

[popsofctown]

After rethinking about it better the balance on claiming the PR and sparing it isn't terrible. The LyLo on sparing 1 scum in the other 3 spares is a 3 man LyLo with an IC, not a 1v1, I miscounted. The mafia shoots the PR, the freshly spared player is an IC and participates in the MyLo discussion but there are 3 unconfirmed players.

It's seems kind of like silly design for the PR to get used that way though. As said during design for this setup, I think it would be sweet if it was redesigned as a smalltown (not a rolemadness smalltown though, gate the powers by route and additional conditions so only about 2 actually end up working)

[popsofctown]

Using this thread to draft a death scene

[popsofctown]

"Are you a wizard, like me? Or are you one of the more troublesome monsters that are the reason why things have been more tense lately?"

"Come now, don't come striking at me like that. I can show you I'm one of the good monsters. I'll show you maaaaaaaaaaagic"

"Well, this isn't going well at all, but I don't think you'll get past these orbs. Never understimate the power of magic!"

Gamma Emerald

who was a

Town Madjick, Vanilla Townie

, was murdered Night 1.


Who would do this? Who would bring evil into our peaceful city of monsters? There's no magic left to tell us.

[popsofctown]

Deadline:[countdown]0.00[/countdown]

[popsofctown]

Post 326: I can post, just not about your alignment S_S :p

I agree Gamma I feel like Oversoul should be more of a focus and they should be digging even more into the gambit to determine whether it's a town gambit or scum Gambit.

No one noticed that he claimed the role that chemist kinda crumbed day1.

[popsofctown]

Happy cakeday

[popsofctown]

I thought about the setup a bunch today and I think the thing that is the most problematic is how the EV on spare spare spare kill is identical whether or not the spares are town, in cases where the kill was an obvscum. I spent a lot of time brainstorming solutions but I don't have anything I like figured out yet.

[popsofctown]

The mafia gets an extra kill if one scum is spared. So it comes out that there is an unconfirmed pool of 3 players and 2 ICs, so the mafia has to mislynch an unconfirmed, shoot a confirmed, and mislynch the unconfirmed.

[popsofctown]

Oversoul kind of accidentally pointed out a breaking strategy for the setup.

1.Lynch until you hit scum, ideally day 1.
2.Begin sparing scummy players (and tell undyne not to even use her power really)
3.If you spare a scum, the next nightkill comes up missing. You immediately win. But this is unfair, you are checking a player without killing it. If you don't confirm that player to be mafia, instead they are an additional confirmed innocent when the core is reached. This is pretty broken.

All the EV calcs we did for the setup didn't consider this I think so I gave him this weird ruling that being spared protects you from night actions but doesn't keep you from using them. The setup technically doesn't say exactly what removed from game means. Since I fought so hard against having PRs that aren't neutered in this setup the unintended consequences of letting PRs keep shooting isn't too nasty but I'm still worried people will be pissed at me for being dogmatic

[popsofctown]

Chennisden's solitary confinement is hilarious

[popsofctown]

mod can a spared PR still use their power from the spared room to affect non-spared players?

Yes

Oh this was not my intention lol, but I guess it's my fault for not making it clear

It's very irritating I can't respond to this post, for impartiality's sake.
My reading of the rules always unconsciously had "spared mafia players continue to access the mafia PT" to mean "spared mafia players keep submitting nightkills" EVs and situation-specific EVs were based on this assumption. It was easy not to think about -who- would be carrying out that kill because none of the roles interacted with whom was designated to perform the nightkill, even in S_S's broader setup.

D1 lynch scum, D2 spare(sane cop + double protect actually) scummy player, D3 spare(sane cop plus protect actually) scummy player, D4 spare(sane cop actually) is a disgustingly powerful line of play for town in the subset of games where the town finds a D1 obvscum if the rules are interpreted to roleblock players while they're in spared PT. Scum loses immediately if any of those were a mafia. Unlike a lynch, even if town screws up all those times, they get all of those players back, scum are being forced to win 9-2 mountainous with 2 auto-docs. All the townies come back into the game and one is shot, leaving it a 5 man game with 2 confirmed and 3 unconfirmed. But keep in mind these 2 confirmed innocent players are SCUMMY, the town was trying to cause a nightkill to go missing earlier, so there's huge value here. With the feedback and input of 2 players that would normally be out of the game in vanilla mountainous, the scummiest of the 3 unconfirmeds is lynched. Another confirmed townie is shot. Then the mafia has to win the 1v1, as it is 2 unconfirmeds against 1 confirmed.
It should be uphill for a mafia who lost his buddy n1. But this is just far too brutal. Not only is the solo scum player being forced to get a very, very high ranking in apparent towniness due to becoming -responsible- for shooting the town's -scumreads-, but input from players who would have been removed from a game of mountainous is available for the solve.
Assistance from the PR hurls this over the edge. Optimal play from Toriel and Undyne is to only claim at Spare-1, it'd be a waste for them to be spared, this allows more accuracy sparing the solo scum and deprives the scum of one of very few strategic nightkills they're getting access to. If Toriel and Undyne can dodge the nightkills, they claim when the core is reached and immediately get a mechanical win.
Optimal play from Asgore is to never claim, he should even silently allow himself to get spared if that's what happens. He's not allowed to interact with the Night 4 kill, but if he survives that kill, he can win the game by roleblocking one of the unconfirmeds. If someone dies his target is confirmed innocent and it's a -win by confirmed innocent- parity. If there's no deaths that night he's found scum. No killing does nothing because he's informed when he changes.

It's very unlikely this run of the setup follows any of this pattern at all, but I have to mod objectively, ignoring what has been done in the game and who is doing well or poorly in the game. If there is an ambiguous rule that would break facets of the setup (and I think no kills from Spare PT virtually makes this a D1 Flag setup) interpreted one way and create an acceptable but imperfect game interpreted the other way, I have to take that interpretation. Read on its face, I don't have a basis for preventing PRs to shoot from the spare PT if I let mafia shoot from the Spare PT, and I need to be able to do so for the neutral route to stay reasonable (the neutral route thing works just fine if the Kill is D2, btw).
The question raised is does allowing Toriel to shoot from the spared PT -also- break the setup. It doesn't. Toriel can save one player. She can't clear the player, the mafia just shoot the same target again and that's it. She can clear the player if it's the very last night, sure, but that's a d8, we were rolling like d3s to see if the town could force a mechanical win as a reward for finding 1 scum earlier. The double spared mafia win is totally unchanged. The 1 mafia spared win on a N1-2 Toriel protect just slightly increases the options the players have for sparing the fifth townie and keeping that spare clean, because one player is left alive from the mafia having to "finish off" up Toriel's clear. The solo scum has to win a 5 man mafia game with no confirmeds and getting 1 mafia player spared is pretty comparable performance to the solo mafia in neutral who lost his partner early- but that guy was forced to win 5 man mafia with 2 confirmeds, which was unreasonably brutal.

[popsofctown]

Oh, the effect of a Toriel hit from the spare PT is a slightly stronger if the game goes neutral.

But it's just a 6p game that goes to 4 man mylo instead of a 5p game that goes to 3 man lylo.
Still fine but that's definitely the more impactful case since you get solve power from the rescued player.

If no mafia is spared there will be a conftown in the 6p day if Toriel saved on the last night, but the conftown can be removed before LyLo.

[popsofctown]

[popsofctown]

"Let me share my lava with you! It has healing powers! I will heal us through all this stress."

"No, don't hurt me! Some of my lava will spill out. You want it. It will feel good."

"Please, spare me, I can heal the other monsters when they get hurt... do you even understand the words I'm saying?"

DrDolittle

, who was

Vulcan, Vanilla Townie

, has been vaporized Night 2.

It is now Day 3. With seven unspared players alive, it takes four votes to make a decision.

The deadline is in eleven days.

[popsofctown]

I think people are gonna find post 521 scummy

[popsofctown]

The postcounts in the game thread are pretty wild:

Dr Easy Bake 20
Emperor flippyNips 24
Something_Smart 79
Elements 66
Adorable 11
volxen 15
Oversoul 134
popsofctown 24
Chemist1422 50
DrDolittle 29
Gamma Emerald 15
chennisden 63


I think chennisden might would be leaving if his spared PT posts were added.
it seems the more townread players seem to have fewer posts.

[popsofctown]

This is a good post

[popsofctown]

RC suggested looking at setup balance in terms of where mafia have to stand in "towniness rankings" to win and I think that's a really interesting way to look at it.

Suppose everyone locks in a unanimous reads ranking D1 and it never changes, what placements do the mafia have to get to win? If the PR were removed in Undertale, its:

Pacifist: One mafia needs to appear to be 5th towniest player in the game or better. The potential to clean sweep doesn't affect win%.
Genocide: One mafia needs to appear to be the 5th towniest player in the game, but successfully claiming both the 6th and 7th positions claims a sweep. And the sweep happens before the player with the most LOVE is revealed.
Neutral: I'll come back to this sometime Neutral is complicated.

With 2 potential players on the team potentially hitting that fifth place spot the town probably does need some power, I should keep that in mind when I design smalltown.

I really like setups that are hard on town but also in a way I like the idea of doing a redesign that is easier on town because having just 1 weak PR is unhelpful to town kind of randomly when that player would have been townread anyway and the power whiffs.
I want the setup to have like a 1-cop of unconfirmed alignment for example and then we get the same clear, but it's a clear that someone selected instead of me going on random.org before this game and deciding Chemist would eventually be an IC this game.

[popsofctown]

I still think this setup is amazing as is.

I just want it to be even better.

[popsofctown]

"Ah cool you're too cool for curfews too. They're so dumb. I'm max chill."

"This game needs more action, sparing is boring"

"Wait, no, not me. Come on, killing the guy with sunglasses is too cliche!"

"Tell Snowdrake..... I dig him...."

Emperor flippyNips

who was a

Chilldrake, Vanilla Townie

, has been nightkilled.

With five unspared players alive, it takes three votes to make a decision.

Deadline: (expired on 2019-08-30 02:00:00)

[popsofctown]

Votecount 4.0

Kill votes:

Something_Smart -----(0)
Oversoul --------------(0)
Dr Easy Bake ----------(0)
volxen -----------------(0)
Adorable----------------(0)

Spare votes:

Something_Smart -----(0)
Oversoul --------------(0)
Dr Easy Bake ----------(0)
volxen -----------------(0)
Adorable----------------(0)

Voting for a Kill (0):

:

Voting for a Spare (0):

:

Not voting at all (5):

Something_Smart, Oversoul, Dr Easy Bake, volxen, Adorable

With 5 unspared alive, it takes 3 votes to make a choice.

Deadline: (expired on 2019-08-30 02:00:00)

[popsofctown]

Next time I'll make a separate mod notes PT, this is getting sloppy. Sorry guys, it felt like my game already had too many PTs already and I didn't realize I would use this as much as it turned out.

[popsofctown]

Flip flavors have all been based on the players. Snowdrake seemed like the best fit for you among what I could find.

I actually had to fight a truckload of Chilldrakes in my progress on the genocide run on Tuesday, it turns out that he replaces Snowdrake for the rest of the game if Snowdrake is killed and the snow area doesn't have a large pool of enemies to begin with so there's a lot of him.

The game is pacifist so far so it's a flavorfail for me to give you a Chilldrake flavor, but I made Gamma Emerald a Madjick when we haven't "reached the CORE" yet, so whatevs. Chilldrake is pretty dope.

[popsofctown]

So, there are two things I want to improve in the setup:

1. Neutral route is messed up in terms of overly similar win%s
2. Pacifist + named townie is even more problematic than Named Townie in general. You can balance around it but it's not satisfying gameplay for the named townie to just claim and get spirited away to the spared PT where the mafia can't NK them. And I don't want to fix that by giving scum some kind of "window" to kill players that are going to be spared because the fact that you can develop a strong group townread all in one day and profit off of it while sequestering that player is unique to this setup and not present in normal mafia (your collective townread just gets NKed). The only problem is that named townie clears are Not Mafia.

To try to kill 2 birds with 1 stone I'm trying to brew a smalltown setup where most of the power roles only dictate how neutral route win/losses work. I'm not married to that solution but I think it's interesting. I'm going to put an initial draft in here. I can't post it in open setup discussion while the game is ongoing because it could reflect on how scumsided/townsided Undertale Mafia is going right now and could influence the game.

[popsofctown]

Overall system mods: Add an exception rule that says the mafia and only the mafia do stuff from the spared PT.
Scum can nightkill scum.
Genocide route no longer does the LOVE thing.
Neutral route no longer reveals the alignment of players in the spared PT and neutral route has a normal typical N4 kill.
Neutral route is now only won by the town scoring 5 townpoints. Townpoints start at zero and can go negative. They are kept secret from the town but printed in the scum PT whenever they change. Scum win the neutral route by locking the town out of their 5th townpoint.
In addition to power roles, the ways to earn townpoints are:
Lynch scum: 1 town point.
Spare two townies: 1 town point.
Spare scum: -1 town point.
Nightkill another scum as scum: -10 town points
Lynch a scum who has killed scum this game: +20 town points

Toriel: Pacifist: Night 3 doctor.

Sans : Genocide: Sans makes a list of players on Night 3. During a Genocide night 4, the mafia is notified they cannot target the highest living player on this list with the factional nightkill.

Dogert: If Dogert is in the game thread, Dogessa can't be spared.

Dogessa: If Dogessa is in the game thread, Dogert can't be Killed.

Monster Kid: You can't spare Monster Kid.

Undyne: Bodyguard

Jerry: If Jerry is mislynched or nightkilled, town receives 1 townpoint. Jerry is unable to selfvote. (Jerry sometimes loses in 4 point "happily ever afters").

Temmie: If Temmie is town, gain one town point when she is scared but do not count her towards the "spare two townies" condition.

Metatron: 1-shot Predictor: Target a player. If that player dies tonight, gain one townpoint and lose this ability.

Moldsymal: 1-shot psychologist. When Moldsymal obtains a guilty result, the guiltied player is no longer worth townpoints when getting lynched unless Moldysmal is mafia.

Motion dog: 1-shot. Target a player. If the player is scum, receive 1 town point (you are not informed of your success).

[popsofctown]

This post is becoming a list of role ideas:

Vulcan: On day 2 or 3, Vulcan may govern a Spare or Kill from the spared PT, immediately spare a player, make a single post in the game thread, and die. The next mafia NK is skipped. After votes are reset the town can resume the same selection they made if the single post was not convincing enough.- really cool but the setup is already complicated

Papyrus: N3 cop. Using the ability costs 1 town point - Wifom around Papyrus being left alive seems too intense.

Super Training Dummy: Can't be killed before CORE - I like having some simple roles but being unable to lynch your top scumread is probably bad gameplay.
Final Froggit: Can't be killed or spared unless (smalltown role X) has been killed or spared.
Madjick: During the Pacifist special kill, Madjick may try to predict the kill and also target a player that was "removed without flipping". If the kill is predicted correctly, Madjick sane cops that player.

Aaron - N3 Lightning Rod, genocide only.

Froggit: As a day action from the spared PT, can swap 1 player in the spared PT with 1 unspared player. Requires the approval of 1 other player in the spared PT.


Tsundereplane - If Tsundereplane is alive in 5p Genocide LyLo, she may loverize one other player. If that player is mafia, she dies. If that player is town, Tsunderplane becomes lovers with that player and the mafia become lovers with eachother.

Muffet - If Muffet is alive when the core is reached in Genocide, she becomes bulletproof for the rest of the game.


Snowdrake: If Snowdrake is NKed,

town

receives 1

townpoint

.

[popsofctown]

Smalltowns are astonishingly rare on-site, huh?

[popsofctown]

So, looking over this, Froggit seems like the weak link in the setup. He adds complexity and he encroaches on some of the uniqueness of the spared PT and there's no reason to kill the beauty.

Meanwhile genocide looks like the least attractive route here without the love investigation, I think. Bodyguard on Jerry - > Spare Temmie is a more appealing opening play than kill Jerry -> Bodyguard Temmie, assuming Jerry is getting null-read D1. So let's come up with a genocide route replacement for Froggit.

Aaron - N3 Lightning Rod, genocide only.

Tsundereplane - If Tsundereplane is alive in 5p Genocide LyLo, she may loverize one other player. If that player is mafia, she dies. If that player is town, Tsunderplane becomes lovers with that player and the mafia become lovers with eachother.

Muffet - If Muffet is alive when the core is reached in Genocide, she becomes bulletproof for the rest of the game.


I like Aaron the most, the other two seem way too strong. Maybe even Aaron is too strong though.

[popsofctown]

Spared PT activity overview:

chennisden 99
Elements 9
Chemist1422 8
popsofctown 5

[popsofctown]

I thought of a good one.

Moldys - Genocide double backup: Bodyguard if Undyne was NK'ed, learns Moldysmal's N1 result at Core if Moldysmal was NK'd.

[popsofctown]

depending on the roles in the smalltown, not every run of a small town will be 50% winrate scum 50% winrate town. This quality is vastly, vastly overrated though, netrunner taught me that.

[popsofctown]

Here's a weaker version of Aaron that I think could replace Froggit to put Genocide where I want it:

Veggie - After the day 2 Kill, if both day 1 and day 2 was a Kill, Veggie publically chooses a player. That player becomes bulletproof for the night.

[popsofctown]

Something I'm noticing here is that this process here of adding 1 more town player to the game, then immediately killing off one town player, there's a lot of signal to noise ratio. In runs of the setup where the named townie ICs like this time around, the mafia get to pick which conftown to remove, but it's not a particularly fascinating decision and not worth 48 hours.
The significant part is the risk of town immediately losing the game when they spare the 5th player. That needs to be kept. The empty nightkill doesn't though.

I think maybe it should be reworked to this, in both semi-open and smalltown variants of the setup:

When the CORE is reached, if all four spared players are town, town immediately wins. Otherwise, the players remaining in the game immediately spare a fifth player. Shortly after that player is spared, the unspared players are removed from the game without flipping, and the spared players are returned to the game thread to select the remaining mafia by majority vote. If they choose correctly, they win, and if they choose incorrectly, they lose.


So, it's a 4-1 with 1 conftown that designated to be a LyLo arbitrarily. It's a little stronger for town to have an additional cleared participant in the decision, but it skips the mostly meaningless nightphase. In my Smalltown setup there is no clear so I think pacifist is significantly weaker and the extra player is more than acceptable, in the original setup maybe you need to do something else because pacifist is already pretty strong. If scum want to sweep pacifist 1 spare is the free PR spare, they have up to 1 correct spare they can do for towncred then every single other spare has to be scum. Sweeping on the fifth spare can happen some. Overall I think pacifist needs a nudge though. I think this run wasn't a town sweep because the mafia are performing well.

[popsofctown]

volxen + Adorable scumteam best scumteam huge giant robot and tiny little puffball ultimate shipping

used unethical modding practices and lack of randomization to achieve that scumteam 11/10 would get banned by MariaR again

[popsofctown]

their solidarity in the special spare phase was so beautiful doesn't a single tear roll down your cheek at the beauty

[popsofctown]

Do you really exist chemist do you really

[popsofctown]

but is it the place

[popsofctown]

chemist was actually undyne, he just asked me really nicely if he could be toriel instead

[popsofctown]

proof positive that manners will get you anywhere

[popsofctown]

Let's say the volxen/adorable team is true

Then volxen says "gamma, chennis, adorable, elements town" and hides his agenda behind oversoul's bullshit

And what that really does is gives some form of credit to the guy they're nightkilling (so that doesn't really matter), does little for my slot since like it was well established im town, subtly gives a decent amount of credit to the partner who was a "middle read" (sorta lurky, wouldn't be lynched but also not nightkilled in a normal game), and sort of "buddies" the next strongest town (elements) so he can continue on with his agenda.

And the explanation for killing gamma would be "he's on the wagon," and they couldn't kill elements in fear of PR protection. But that doesn't make too much sense since oftentimes PRs can have a substantially different mindset than the collective and there's only a 1/3 chance of elements being spared, and gamma was not very likely to be spared until much later. I don't know how Gamma would've really presented a threat to Volxen/adorable.

Elements was protected that night! You're so close to the correct solve chennis! You need to give chemist more credit he literally asked can I become Toriel so I can protect Elements. You have a chennis-elements-SS townbloc that can close the game right here!!!

[popsofctown]

Chennis fairy pokemon and fairy pokemon can't be on a scumteam together I don't like your solve at all

Please ship the fairy pokemon with the steel/fighting pokemon

[popsofctown]

you know what? maybe the team is volxen/adorable but it's more funny if i be an ass and insist it's os/adorable because it changes nothing

chennisden has been blacklisted from all future games I moderate for this post

[popsofctown]

I don't see the protown functionality in your fakeclaim but your other player seemed to accelerate the dayplay in beneficial ways

[popsofctown]

Pops is the scumteam Chennisden/Oversoul? That would seriously be pretty funny.

I really am town guys.

No, but that is the scumteam that random.org gave me before I decided to ignore it, funnily enough.

[popsofctown]

No one let Adorable go back to her home site, her posts are fun to read

[popsofctown]

In 2008 she would be a hyperposter.

She has not been prodded all game

[popsofctown]

volxen adorable otp

[popsofctown]

volxen it's fun to goof around but when people come to the dead thread they tend to just want closure. They have gone through a lot of anxiety and stress trying to find the scum in the thread. There has been intrigue there has been lies. For you as scum it is fun to take potshots. But it is kind of rude and mean to the townies. Especially in a game that you have probably won, as Adorable's recent AtE and reasoning looks destined for success to me. You know that neither Oversoul nor Elements are scum, please be more sportsmanslike than this.

Though I just have to ask, why did you let Adorable select every single nightkill? Admittedly the way she is explaining them all in the thread looks pretty masterful right now, but at the time she offered no reasoning at all, and said "just trust me", and you just went with it. Elements seems really towny and it really seems like you should have shot him earlier, I think you added a little risk to a 100% lock win by leaving him alive just because Adorable kept saying "trust me".

[popsofctown]

I was confused by the DDL kill over Elements as well. But Adorable did somehow pick all the people that I would have pushed as town spares, so maybe she knows something we don’t.

Also, does town only get one lynch after the core has been reached? Or can town no lynch?

S_S's writing of the setup is that it's ambiguous, so in rulesets that allow a no lynch that are implementing this setup you would be able to have that. However since there is always one cleared player in this gamestate the no lynch doesn't actually change much. You could shoot the least lynchable uncleared player if his reads are better and play the WIFOM of whether town will start deadsheeping since the clear wasn't murdered and that must mean something or that's just what the mafia wants them to think.
The most meaningful difference might be the doubled deadline.

Anyway, I wrote procedural rules against no-lynches in the setup this time around. Aside from my not finding the above scenario very palatable, I figured there was a broader possibility of unforeseen interactions and strategies if I allowed no-lynches, so it was a bit of a safety valve. I didn't use enough safety valves for the Toriel fiasco so I still agree with that approach for the first run of the setup.

[popsofctown]

I was protecting Elements every night until they got spared so

Hm that's true, and since Adorable is the one who would have to guess that I can't ask her until the game is over.

[popsofctown]

this Elements-Adorable 1v1 is *MichaelJackson eating popcorn*

[popsofctown]

Muffet bossfight. It's not close.

[popsofctown]

I was going to post Undertale music links this game but it's an extra mile I didn't get to with my modding here.

I am not really a mod at heart I am more of a player at heart.

But this setup is fantastic and was not getting run and I needed for it to be run.

[popsofctown]

All the Undertale songs are amazing so I don't feel particularly pressed about disagreeing with people about how to rank them.

[popsofctown]

It is such a good setup. I would play another run of this. Remember the secret scum strat I messaged you?

I looked it up. I won't out the strat in case you'd like to use it. It's not as applicable in the smalltown version.

I think this setup is very worthy of additional runs, as-is* (with a clarification letting scum, but only scum, act from the spared PT) (and I like my pacifism choose 1 of 5 suggestion but that's not critical). I like the idea of going smalltown even more but I think this setup is miles better than things people are running all the time. I'm hoping people besides me start to want to run it.

Maybe I should have contradicted additional aspects of how S_S would have modded it so he starts modding the setup out of indignation. He won the contest with this setup then went on to run some silly closed setup (silly closed setup simplifies to "closed setup" for me btw) when he should be running this one!

[popsofctown]

I don't know if you've read the whole dead thread but I've calculated the level of fake townspew needed for scum to win Pacifist and Genocide routes to be equivalent.

[popsofctown]

I don't know if you've read the whole dead thread but I've calculated the level of fake townspew needed for scum to win Pacifist and Genocide routes to be equivalent.

Both me and my partner didn't really like Genocide because it requires you to pull off four mislynches to win. Usually when scum needs four mislynches it's because there are three scum. Four mislynches is a lot to pull off when there are only two scum. Not to mention that Genocide gives town the most information by far, with consistent flips along with the LOVE mechanic, which can be leashed/controlled.

There are other reasons why Pacifist benefits scum as well. One big one -- which surprisingly wasn't brought up a lot in the game thread -- is that it usually is easier to fake a townread on a townie than it is to fake a scumread on them. With the Pacifist route, the game primarily revolves around townhunting rather than scumhunting, which appealed to both me and my partner. I think on some level the Pacifist route is easier than the Genocide (or even Neutral) route as scum, because with each mislynch wagon that you are on you open yourself up to more and more scrutiny as the town gains more and more information. Whereas the Pacifist route denies town of key information and allows the town (if it is not vigilant) to be lulled into a false sense of security. And in particular, it allows you push your partner towards a spare on the grounds that they are the towniest player in the game. You can do this without consequence as long as everyone is convinced that it is optimal to stay on the Pacifist route rather than switch to the Neutral route. Even if you are unable to get yourself spared after getting your partner spared, it still hurts town when the core is reached in the Pacifist route because no one can ever prove that you were scum.

The idea is that this 9-2 setup has one more mislynch needed than, say, a newbie queue micro, but far less town power. I kind of question the "far less town power" part and am usually the one in open setup design pushing against high town EVs, which is why I ran this setup with several of Something_Smart's more powerful potential roles excluded and suggested a last minute nerf for Asgore.
The prevailing belief when the setup was being workshopped is that Pacifist was generally the most attractive route. I think when there are strong arguments both ways and the answer seems unclear that's exciting.

I want to point out that the scum can leverage some of your benefits for the pacifist route when playing the genocide route! Day 1 in a standard 2 scum game, if day 1 is ultimately going to be a d1 correct lynch, a scumpartner either has to be placing a vote that is wrong, or helping shoot his own foot. In Undertale you can vanity wagon a spare on another player and lose far less towncred for failing to participate in the lynch. The spare was even correct!

I'm optimistic the smalltown design can create more tempting reasons to bail into neutral.

[popsofctown]

Alright alright alright, I won't torture Oversoul anymore. Yes, I am scum!

But the question is.... who is my partner?

Place your bets on Chennisden/Elements/Adorable being my partner. Win 100,000,000 Volxen dollars if you get it right!

I'm always a fan of torturing Oversoul, but the game is kind of an open book right now.

Wish I could change the rules on the fly to let you scumchat Adorable and help her out with this 1v2 she's gotten into but you'll have to rely on the honorary 3rd mafia Something_Smart trying to derail it.

Allowing scumchat between the RFG-not-flipped player and the solo scum doesn't seem gamebreaking and it kind of feels like a "fair" treatment for a scum who wasn't gotcha'd by the town directly to retain speaking privileges, it seems like something to look into for next time.

[popsofctown]

like, perhaps the plan was adorable deepwolves and presumably volxen maybe flips and like that's an avenue to push me, or to get me off balance at least.

Is volxen's scumgame that bad? I seriously doubt a volxen/Adorable team would count on Adorable to deepwolf.

Wow so mean.

[popsofctown]

Mislynches are -mostly- not the fault of the player being mislynched imo

[popsofctown]

Guys I can probably just write an endgame scene for Adorable lynch or Elements lynch and just use either one right.

Like this never swings chennis right

[popsofctown]

Yeah I thought that push from S_S was weird I was upset the rules thing blocked you guys from an otherwise optimal Adorable NK like 1.5 days in advance of it the night, it seemed like a pretty obvious night layout.

[popsofctown]

It would be interesting with the Pacifist route to have all non-spared but non-killed players still around in the game as tree-stumps after the core is reached. Meaning that said players could still post in the game thread (and the scum PT if they are scum), but they could not vote. I think that would be balanced, yes? And it would make sense since said players are technically not dead.

I've contemplated this design. My design with the special NK removed is a light step in this direction, actually.
I still lean towards pacificist being pretty townsided as it stands and the town not needing this to get their 50%-in-practice winrate (it obviously has zero EV value).

The closest I could come to this in something I'd be excited about modding is a smalltown role whose power summons 1 just player for additional inputs if the town chooses to spare that player.

If empirical evidence shows that your minority view that pacifist is the most scumsided route to begin with proves to be correct this is definitely a switch I would make.

It is actually a cute mimicry of some JRPGs in the genre.

[popsofctown]

Pops, I really would like to play this setup again with this same playerlist. After this game is finished, you should bribe MariaR so you can jump ahead of everyone else in the Mini Theme game mod queue and run this setup again as soon as this current game ends. Furthermore, for my amusement and enjoyment, please do the following for your second run of the game:

- Make me Undyne so we can follow the Genocide route and I can be a bulletproof IC badass.

- Make Chennisden and Oversoul be scum together for the lulz.

Thanks, I trust you will make all of this happen!

Sure thing

If I forget and accidentally make you Sans, just drop me a PM like Chemist did.

[popsofctown]

volxen I know you really bonded in the scum PT but if you roll scum without Adorable in my next game and play to her wincon over your own I will modkill you

[popsofctown]

But seriously, I could play this setup over and over and over and I really enjoyed this playerlist. This setup should be run consistently. This is like my favorite setup now.

I expect you to never stop modding this setup, Pops. You run this setup once and you have a life-long commitment to keep running it. It's in the fine print.

There's 3 possibilities:

1. Other people start modding it often enough I stop modding it (because I stop modding altogether).
2. I mod a smalltown variant and try that out.
3. People aren't interested enough in the smalltown variant and I just mod this one over and over again.

Maybe 2 and 3 can be melded, I could ask for a majority vote on which variant to play from the people in signups, before alignments are rolled. Is that precedented in the queue, or frowned upon??

[popsofctown]

I think Adorable is going to flip the lynch.

[popsofctown]

This is not for you guys to read it's just this PT is doubling as my modnotes thread so this is where my drafts go.

Spoiler: Game outcome

The group pushed Elements out of the lab, locking the door behind him. He would be on his own to journey and explore.

They walked back into the first floor of the lab. They felt more and more sure that Something_Smart was a pretty good person. Finally, they realized why: Something_Smart was Alphys, a true friend.

"I'm certain Elements was the problem, but we need to reclaim our friends in the fog. I have a machine that will help us." Something_Smart says, smiling.
"Our souls can power it and send out a signal that dissuades the barrier."

Something_Smart pulled out a funny machine. It seemed to have 3 levers, covered in electrodes, jutting out from a golden cylinder. Atop it all was a radio dish.

"It takes three people to power."

Alphys pulled one lever, holding it down. A pale white, mystical flow traveled along her body and into the machine. She kept it held down.

"You guys now."

Adorable nodded, grabbing a lever. The stream flowed from her body to the machine as well, and the dish began a half hum signifying it was almost at full strength.

"You too", Something_Smart nodded at chennisden, after an adjustment of glasses. With a happy smile, chennisden reached for the lever.

At which point Adorable let go of her lever.

"Psyche, you disgusting creatures."

"We heard the monsters here were responsible for human deaths. So we ratcheted up the barrier to make its charge unstable, then came in so it'd start reaching for us. It's taken quite a while, but here it comes."

The nasty fog broke through a window. After several of Adorable's choice of words, they realized they were looking at a human - and had been, all this time.

"It's harmless to me, and it didn't harm volxen either. As for you - well becoming part of the barrier that keeps the underground empty forever doesn't leave you altogether purposeless, does it? But it definitely helped that you brought me to the geographic center of the underground. It helped the slaughter be so total and complete."

The monsters panic, and look for places to run, but the fog is at every window. Adorable is as calm as anything, laughing and laughing, and laughing. "And I'm so new! volxen has lots of EXP and LoVe, but he let me perform every kill!"

At a matching rate, Adorable's laughter grows more maniacal yet inaudible, as their existence is absorbed into the monolithic construct.

Congratulations to

Adorable and volxen

, the winners of Undertale SemiOpen! Well played to

Elements, chennisden, Dr Easy Bake, DrDoLittle, Oversoul, Something_Smart, Gamma Emerald, Chemist1422, and Emperor flippyNips

, the losers of Undertale SemiOpen!

[popsofctown]

I think they want to lynch Adorable, but Adorable posts about once per 24 hours, so it feels "jumpy" to lynch her when she is still catching up to the halfway mark on chennisden or Element's content.

What matters is that they're having fun. You're in the dead thread, if you're getting bored you can remember the funner times at the beginning and go queue another game.

[popsofctown]

I made a bunch of changes to my smalltown draft here: post 36

Some of it is based on his feedback about Pacifist vs. Genocide. I find a lot of it persuasive. Genocide being 2-9 mountainous is kind of like, balanced anyway, 2-9 mountainous is probably fine, and this new setup is stronger than 2-9 mountainous in the sense that you have options to bail into neutral if it offers a higher win%.
The Love mechanic was probably always about making Genocide less boring rather than more balanced, I think. So I put a genocide PR that is pretty interesting but a bit lower on power.
The current revision has two roles that can't be spared or are difficult to spare, which to me seems like a more interesting way to balance pacifist against neutral rather than jacking up the required number of spares to 5 or something. If the two roles that are both difficult to spare seem really townie this game, maybe this isn't the best time to go pacifist. If those two roles are both really scummy, cool go for it.
It'd be cool if I could manage more of that dynamic on the genocide side, but setting up a role that is just "you can't lynch this player" or "you can't lynch this player until X" happens is concerning. People get upset about governors and gladiators, and when there is no player's actions to blame for a mechanical inability to lynch someone who's openwolfing they might be even more upset. There is at least Moldsymal, a design a really like, who might get a hard guilty on night 1 but pretty much cuts neutral route out of consideration if he connects. And of course Metatron can verify an increase in townpoints and pull players towards neutral, that works on both pure paths.

EDIT: Oh wait, I lied, I did do a half-unlynchable slot. Ehhhh.. I think it's fine, it's too cute.

[popsofctown]

A major design flaw in this setup that I didn't notice in open reviews and am only able to notice now because I'm playing Undertale between posts.

Why did Something_Smart use the word Kill.

The menu option in the game is "Fight". I'm actually not even sure the word Kill appears in the game, it may but it's not predominant. And it naturally creates frustrating ambiguities with the factional nightkill and any vigs you want to add to the setup.

I always forgave in the review because I thought it was important to the flavor.

Vote for the new lynch word:
-Fight
-Dust
-Soulbreak
-Shiv
-Ballet Shoes
-Panslap
-Hurt
-Execute

[popsofctown]

VOTE: Ballet Shoes

[popsofctown]

This actually probably would have gone faster if chennisden didn't revote, because S_S hates hammering.

[popsofctown]

I was thinking "wow maybe xyzzy is right and games don't need deadlines" when all the days finished in the first third of deadline.

Then this lylo happened