[SETUP] Paired Mafia.

[BBmolla]

There is no uninformed majority.

[BBmolla]

Massclaim day 1 creates a clear so that's probably ideal way to play.

[BBmolla]

creates two clears*

If you claim "pos town" and "neg town" you can also do so while hiding a possible doc

[BBmolla]

I guess opt strat is for scum/3p to cc vt and pos town in which case neg town becomes confirmed town

[BBmolla]

I'm really bad with setups that need math for balance or have a bunch of swing so I'm not one to ask.

I can try to really brainstorm some stuff tomorrow about it. But I do think playing a game that is 2:1:1:6 would be kind of daunting as town to deal with, that's just my two cents.

[BBmolla]

Yes, the balance is a bit different in the fact that town almost have 1-shot BP vests.

But like I said I have no idea how that affects things.

I think with the presence of a maybe jester/cult the setup can not be balanced by mafiascum standards. But that isn't particularly important.

[BBmolla]

What I mean by that is it's highly unlikely a setup with a variable jester/cult would enter the open queue rounds if that makes sense.

I guess it depends on your intent. But as an example, if my 3p are survivor/jester I think I'm significantly more likely to win than if the scum are malicious savior(aka a mafia traitor)/cult.

I do have a question about the cult, does being culted change your alignment? Or is it more like Aids Giver from Anything Goes? (Alignment unchanged but told they were given "Aids." Wins in addition to whoever else wins if everyone has Aids.)

[BBmolla]

Yes, the balance is a bit different in the fact that town almost have 1-shot BP vests.

But like I said I have no idea how that affects things.

I think with the presence of a maybe jester/cult the setup can not be balanced by mafiascum standards. But that isn't particularly important.

Was going to ask why presents of jester/cult in this setup can not be balanced by any mafia standards, but then I saw that you said mafiascum standards. Then you say that isn't particularly important and I am wondering why you said that.

Perhaps you think mafiascum operates by a different standard than other mafia sites? In what ways does setup analysis operate differently here than elsewhere?

Mafiascum operates under creating the most balanced setups as possible. Jester/Cult reward play that is counter-intuitive to mafia.

Jester because his role creates an environment that discourages lynching scummy people, which is literally the point of the game.
Cult because alignment changes create unfun situations many of the time. Imagine you're town and you found all of the cult members and killed them all, but then get culted and lose? Wouldn't you be upset for putting so much work in only to lose due to an uncontrollable alignment change?

People put a lot of effort into their games, they go on for months and months. The more investment you get in the game, the more frustrated one will feel if they felt like the odds were unfairly against them.

Other sites don't care about this as much.

[BBmolla]

SC2mafia, for example, tends to have games extremely focused on nightplay. As more players from SC2 and ToS come over to MS you've kind of seen a shift in some of the queues to these more night action heavy games with more swing.

The Open Queue is run by Llamafluff, who is kind of in charge of what setups get played in it, and Llamafluff especially is a person who tries to enforce a focus on open setups with dayplay and balance.

That's kind of a rundown of site meta atm.

[BBmolla]

Another example to support this is we literally play mountainous games here and there, something I never see at any other site because it's "boring."

[BBmolla]

With that being said, I come from EpicMafia, a site where d1 mylo was common and typically reliant on choosing between counter claims and with some ranked setups with a jester. This makes complete sense for chat mafia.

In addition, you'll notice a lot of the setups run in Marathon tend to be silly: Grand Idea was run multiple times and it's probably the most unbalanced setup in existence.

My point is, if this was designed to be run as a quick game with like 48 hour deadlines or something, it might be fine. I have a hard time judging because I wouldn't play in a setup that I feel would screw me over from the start unless it was intentionally horrendously balanced like Grand Idea.

I do want to point out that you'll see a lot of Mafiascum setups designed specifically around Jester and Cult that get run time to time, but they're designed with those roles in mind and balanced specifically for them. With the jester and cult only being 2 of 4 possible 3p roles, I don't feel like that's the case here.

[BBmolla]

Imagine if you were playing a setup and it said "Town gets two of the following roles: Cop, Voteless Townie, Double-Voter, Baker(hands out bread every night, when he dies anyone without bread dies)"

Wouldn't you feel ripped off if you played in the voteless townie/baker setup?

[BBmolla]

This game is being reviewed off site as well. Thought I would see what people thought of it here. So far it looks like you have been the only person to look at it and have deemed it to be unbalanced, but I am not sure if you are clear enough on your reasons other than saying that mafiascum doesn't do setups like this here.

My main reason is that the variance in the 3ps can create such vast difference in setup that one could play the same and lose or win depending on which 3p are in play.

Uh-huh.. why is that? Is it important for all factions to have an equal shot at winning? What are the exceptions?

No, but it is a general expectation that one does not get screwed via which setup was randomed. For example, a big issue with the old newbie setup 2of4 was how significantly easier some setups were for town than others. Doc/Jailkeeper's winrate was far significant to say that of solo Doc. Losing from luck in general is a frustrating thing when you have as much investment in a game as people put in here.

No, its not. What gave you the idea that it was similar? I gave the whole setup in the OP, not sure why you thought it was like aids at all. The way cult works in this game is that once a player is recruited they die and their win con remains the same and the Cultist is then taken out of the game once they have fulfilled their win con. The difference between this aids concept (which I find offensive) and mine is that the only NA that effect a persons recruitment is the Cultist targeting that player and bringing their HP down to 0. So if the Watcher were to target the same player the same night as the Cultist, the watcher would not at all affect the targeted players HP while the Cultist's recruitment would lower the HP of that player by 1.

Just so I have it correct, basically the Cultist has a night kill that deals 1 damage and wins if he kills a player?

(the aids concept to describe the mechanic isn't mine, you can go tell UT or Quadz that you're offended)

What is a mountainous game? Is that like, a game where a ton of people play in it, cuz I know of another site that does that too.

Where there are no power roles.

Why is that?

P-Edit: Not sure what you're getting at.

This setup is specifically designed with the jester role in mind. It has a way of dealing with the jester and the jester is the focal point of the setup.

With yours, town has no adequate way to dispose of a jester and with the variant setups. In general with jesters players get annoyed post game when they don't expect it or their scum reading is hampered because they do expect it. A jester in general has a huge negative impact on a game.

Your cultist isn't really a true cult, he's like a mini sk, so I don't have as much trouble with him anymore.

[BBmolla]

Does Jester end the game? If not, what is the reasoning to not just ask them to claim day 1 and lynch them?

[BBmolla]

Also keep in mind I'm not the authority of open setups so I can be wrong and you can disagree.