[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[izakthegoomba]

Mayo SuperScum

1 Mafia Doctor
1 Mafia Roleblocker
1 Mafia Goon

1 Bulletproof Serial Killer

2 Compulsive Vigilantes
6 Doctors

• Daystart
• Each Doctor protects against a single nightkill
• Nobody can target themselves
• If a Compulsive Vigilante fails to submit a nightkill, they will target a random player

other than themselves

• Kill flavours are not distinguished

This aims to address balance issues in Mayo Clinic - in particular, fixing a breaking strategy I recently encountered.

It gives the Mafia an RB, which let's them mess up plans the town make, and makes the SK non-compulsive, hopefully letting them "take a third option" if in a difficult situation. Also, it bars all players from targetting themselves (academic aside from the docs, but should be spelt out clearly anyway), and subsequently stops the vigs randomly targeting themselves (which is just plain stupid).

This setup will hopefully mean crazy night phases, while allowing daytime scumhunting and preventing breaking strategies.

I'm pretty new to designing games, so I really appreciate any help and comments.

[izakthegoomba]

@Quilford no, just that no role can self-target.

For example, a doc can't protect themself.

[izakthegoomba]

That's an... interesting setup.

Wouldn't it be really swingy though? Who gets what powers would be, essentially, random.

[izakthegoomba]

That would definitely add to the swingyness. Probably too much so.

[izakthegoomba]

Still not sure about it. I think it's the kind of game that will need to be tested, because both how people play it and chance will make a massive amount of difference.

[izakthegoomba]

EBWOP: like, really thoroughly tested, but I'm not sure how you do these things.

[izakthegoomba]

3rd

I REALLY want to play this.

[izakthegoomba]

That last one would make it really scum-sided.

What does a mafia bookie do?

I think this setup would be somewhat spoiled by adding a PR.

[izakthegoomba]

I think it should be kept all-vanilla. PRs would just make it too swingy and unpredictable.

And I'm not entirely sure how to run EVs, but I might try to figure it out. Is it just a probability-based simulation of the game assuming random lynches and actions?

[izakthegoomba]

Hoopla, serious question. How do you make

so many

setups so fast?

[izakthegoomba]

Can they kill anyone, or just those on their wagons?

[izakthegoomba]

The odds are stacked against the scum. Seriously.

[izakthegoomba]

That would make it potentially viable, but it would throw away the core of the setup (that the scum don't know each other).

A deeper problem is that Mafia is a game of Uninformed Majority vs Informed Minority. You're turning it into Uninformed Majority vs

Un

informed Minority.

The 50% Serial Miller (have you been reading "worst role ideas"?) could work, just not like this.

If the Goon kills the ScumTraitDoc, does he join the Goon instead of dying?

[izakthegoomba]

Could work, but an SK with only one shot? The other factions would have to be very weak, or very small.

[izakthegoomba]

And then the town would have to lynch Attila to find out Broodmothers' role? I don't think I'd want to be a player in that.

[izakthegoomba]

Sounds too swingy. The game could easily be decided by the order of the playerlist.

[izakthegoomba]

Whatever statistics you can come up with, I just don't like the idea.

[izakthegoomba]

Actually, those PRs aren't weak by any stretch of the imagination. Tracker is almost a Cop in a small, PR-light game, and Watcher isn't far off either.

[izakthegoomba]

That's the kind of thing that just needs EVs run to balance it. I guess we assume Mafia always shoot confirmed Werewolves.

[izakthegoomba]

Oops, missed that.

In that case, EVs won't (fully) work, because we can't tell how often the Mafia can get a Werewolf lynched.

Perhaps if the Mafia had a 1-shot factional daykill?

[izakthegoomba]

I'll probably second it, but I want to look into the balance (and, if necessary, my suggestion) first.

[izakthegoomba]

But Meran does have a point about the likely imbalance. The mafia seer helps, but mafia needs a better way than lynching to get rid of a werewolf they find.

Hence my thought of a 1-shot factional mafia daykill.

[izakthegoomba]

Why not make one yourself? You can always bring it here to be refined.

[izakthegoomba]

That sounds... interesting. I'm not sure how we'd go about balancing it.

[izakthegoomba]

Actually, it would be 2 Goons, JOAT (Cop/Vig), 6 Townies.

I'll try one too:

Original Roll String: 4d20

4 20-Sided Dice: (5, 16, 7, 7) = 35

[izakthegoomba]

Crap.

Original Roll String: 4d20

4 20-Sided Dice: (17, 7, 10, 18) = 52

[izakthegoomba]

2 Goons, 1-shot Vig, Macho Innocent Child, 5 Townies.

Hmm.

This will certainly give out some odd setups. Probably swingy.

[izakthegoomba]

Are you serious about that being a good Newbie setup? I can't see Newbies playing as Masons or Trackers or Vigs very well.

In fact, I'm surprised 2of4 is working, with a Rolecop and sometimes a JK.

[izakthegoomba]

The 'by PM' version of Innocent Child means they are only confirmed when they request it from the mod.

[izakthegoomba]

Yeah. Automatic D1-confirming (which makes sense, given the role's name) just slightly raises the towns chance of getting scum D1.

With confirm-on-request, you can play some really crazy, high-risk gambits, and have confirmation to fall back on if it all goes wrong.

[izakthegoomba]

Frankly, I don't think it's possible to make a truly balanced C9++ type game this small.

[izakthegoomba]

Aah crap, thought this was the Open Setup reviews. Please ignore what was in this post.

[izakthegoomba]

That would be really OP.

[izakthegoomba]

Well, maybe not overpowered, but certainly more powerful than you might be lead to believe. When one person dies, it becomes a cop.

[izakthegoomba]

Yeah, it should be fine in this setup.

The point was, the can-target-dead-people variant is essentially a cop. When one scum dies, the MS can just target that dead scum, and one other player.

[izakthegoomba]

If the game continues after a fool is lynched, there's no incentive for the town to avoid lynching them.

[izakthegoomba]

But no moreso than a regular mislynch. There needs to be extra reason to avoid lynching a fool. And the odd/even day thing means it's not too easy for them to win.

[izakthegoomba]

Exactly my thoughts. There's definitely nothing wrong with the role. I'm not sure about the rest o the setup, I'll take another look at it.

Junpei, you know HTML doesn't work here, right?

[izakthegoomba]

Whiskers... this is MD...

[izakthegoomba]

IMO Jesters are fine in Open setups. It's unnanounced Jesters in non-bastard games that are the problem, right?

[izakthegoomba]

So, why don't they work?

[izakthegoomba]

Plus, town has 2 PRs in this one. How about this:

1 Fool
1 Mafia Rolecop
1 Mafia Goon
1 Town PR
8 Townies

• Daystart
• Fool can select investigation immunity or 1-shot BP/lynch immunity it wins when lynched, but only if it's lynch means the mafia immediately win.
• Town PR is randomly one of the following: Cop, Doctor, Jailkeeper

Because Tracker would be functionally identical to Cop when it's the only Town PR, I took it out. It might be good to take out Jailkeeper, too.

[izakthegoomba]

How are we supposed to even

start

balancing that?

[izakthegoomba]

If an investigative role is redirected, are they informed?
Who can a Vengeful kill?
What does a Town Janitor do, and how do they act?
Can two people take the same role, even if it's not duplicated in the list?

[izakthegoomba]

Perhaps replace Janitor with Janitorizer, then?

[izakthegoomba]

But as people said, that's unlikely, and if it happens, the scum deserve the win.

[izakthegoomba]

I don't know if something like this has been suggested before (and I'm not going to read 172 pages to find out), but I just this idea for a vengeful game that doesn't place more responsibility in the hands of one Mafioso than another. On paper, it's also more balanced.

Vanilla Vengeful

2 Mafiosi
3 Townies

• If a Townie is lynched on Day 1, they can make a vengeful kill.
• If a Mafioso is lynched (killing doesn't count), the Town immediately wins.


I believe it has a perfect 50/50 EV (sorry if this is formatted wrong):

40% Scum lynched D1 (town win)
60% Town lynched D1 (makes kill)
- 30% Scum killed (next day)
- -10% Scum lynched D2 (town win)
- - 20% Town lynched D2 (scum win)
- 30% Town killed (scum win)

Town win: 40% + 10% = 50%
Scum win: 30% + 20% = 50%

[izakthegoomba]

Why would it be any more boring than the Vengeful we have?

Also, the game only ends instantly if the Mafioso is

lynched

.

[izakthegoomba]

And the Mini Normal queue was pretty long and slow last time I looked. I'd definitely just do two Opens in a row.

[izakthegoomba]

Wut?

[izakthegoomba]

...as could town...

[izakthegoomba]

Well, it has a 50% EV. I agree that you should test it in marathon first.

[izakthegoomba]

RTFT

[izakthegoomba]

That is an inherent part of Must Lynch.

[izakthegoomba]

Seems very scum-sided.

[izakthegoomba]

I've been working on this semi-open for a while, and I think it'll work.

Multiball Mayhem

1 Mafia Spy
1 Mafia Goon

1 Werewolf Roleblocker
1 Werewolf Goon

1 Cop OR 1 Seer
1 Doctor OR 1 Angel
1 Gunblocker OR 1 Maulblocker
1 Bulletproof OR 1 Wolfsbane
5 Townies

• Town PRs are chosen randomly, and can appear in the following combinations:

- Cop/Angel/Gunblocker/Wolfsbane
- Cop/Angel/Maulblocker/Bulletproof
- Seer/Doctor/Gunblocker/Wolfsbane
- Seer/Doctor/Maulblocker/Bulletproof

• Kills are distinguished by flavour - "shot" for Mafia and "mauled" for Werewolves

• Gunblocker and Maulblocker prevent the target shooting and mauling anyone, respectively. They do NOT prevent other actions by that player.

• Scum power roles can kill and use their power in the same night, even if their partner is dead.

• Mafia Spy investigates role type, and can receive:

No Power (Townie/Werewolf Goon)
Investigative (Cop/Seer)
Protective (Doctor/Angel)
Blocking (Killblocker/Maulblocker/Roleblocker)
Self Protective (Bulletproof/Wolfsbane)
No Result (only received if roleblocked)

My biggest concern with this setup was that completely random town PRs would make it too swingy, so I whittled it down to those four combos.

Thoughts?

[izakthegoomba]

Hmm...

Of course, I could give both teams the same PR for balances' sake, but I'm not sure that would work well in practise. The Spy probably needs to check more than just the type of role, but if I let it act like a Rolecop, it can find the Werewolf RB too easily.

Also, one last-minute change I made was renaming "Killblocker" to "Gunblocker" (there's even one place I forgot to change it). I think I want "Maulblocker" to be "Clawblocker", to match.

[izakthegoomba]

Another potential issue with that game having a full Rolecop is that it would immediately know who a PR is harmful to.

But I can't think of a better scum information role. Any ideas?

[izakthegoomba]

Watcher and Tracker could be worth looking at. I think a PR Cop would be underpowered when put up against a Roleblocker.

Actually, I'm more concerned about the town. I think they might be a bit overpowered.

[izakthegoomba]

It's an interesting mechanic. I have no idea if it could be made to work in an open setup, but I think it's worth attention.

[izakthegoomba]

Why? How?

[izakthegoomba]

An interesting idea, but it looks very scum sided.

How are the mafia supposed to scumhunt? What would you do, give them two week long nights?

[izakthegoomba]

Ok, perhaps it's not scum-sided, but it's swingy. The mastermind's death could give the town a massive load of information.

Suppose the scum hit one of their own with the NK. Suddenly, a town win is far more likely.

How do you expect the scum to agree on a target THROUGH VOTES so fast?

The town will also have a much harder time finding scum, because all the tells will be completely different.

This setup goes directly against the core of Mafia - uninformed majority vs informed minority. You are taking away a huge chunk of the Mafia's knowledge - their confirmation.

[izakthegoomba]

By Hooker, I assume you mean Roleblocker?

Fool (normally called Jester around here) is normally a bad role, especially as a single role.

[izakthegoomba]

In a closed setup, a Jester will almost always win, disrupting the town in the process. Even if it doesn't end the game, it's awful.

In an Open setup, it's far harder for the Jester to win, but it creates massive paranoia.

Jesters belong in Bastard games, and nowhere else.

[izakthegoomba]

Dethy is rubbish in forum mafia.

Epicmafia is not like forum mafia.

Dethy is probably rubbish on Epicmafia anyway.

[izakthegoomba]

I'm with whiskers on this one, it's VERY scum-sided.

A 2:7 with no scum power needs about the same amount of town power as a 10:3 with no scum power.

You've got a 2:6. You need

more

town power than the above just because of the numbers, and the two scum PRs mean you will need

more than that many

extra town PRs.

And it shouldn't have a negative utility role. Or a Godfather.

Finally, you say the point is to scumhunt. Of course it is. That's the point of mafia. But if I put you into a 6:5 mountainous situation, do you think you could scumhunt your way out of it? No? Then obviously, there are limits.

[izakthegoomba]

That again? Really?

[izakthegoomba]

And it's called a Jester!

[izakthegoomba]

*stabs Whiskers*

There's a reason you haven't seen a Jester yet.

[izakthegoomba]

Why would newbies try to bring in botched ports of EM setups, anyway? In the seven months I've been here, I've suggested a grand total of two setups - one was a very slight adaption of an existing one in the hope of improving balance, and the other I had been thinking out for weeks - and I'm still not sure if it's fit to be run.

This chess mafia is overcomplicated and probably unbalanced - I won't pretend to know how or why it's tilted, but I'm pretty sure it is. And it's pretty swingy. It almost certainly doesn't belong in the Open Queue. If you really want to mod it, wait your time, get some modding experience, iron this setup out, add some pawns as townies, get it reviewed, and run it in a theme queue.

[izakthegoomba]

Apparently so.

Also, he's gone and put in some kind of Serial Killer/Survivor spawn of satam himself. Almost certainly a bad thing.

[izakthegoomba]

Iceguy is right.

The SK is bad because it's wincon doesn't require it to be the last player standing, just to be alive at the endgame.

No-vanilla or few-vanilla open games often fail, whether due to massclaim or something else.

And as for balancing, there's no definitive way of doing it. Different people have different methods, but there are multiple guides for game design and modding on the wiki. I don't claim to be some sort of expert in balancing (I'm a long, LONG way from that), but I can tell when a design is just bad.

I'm not saying this is complete trash, but it needs a lot of attention if it's ever going to get run, especially in the open queue.

[izakthegoomba]

The goon and the RB are always there. It's a 7P.

And it's swingy, and probably scum-sided.

Town needs more power or scum needs to lose the RB. And the watcher needs to go. Find another fix.

[izakthegoomba]

Whiskers, EM is terrible compared to MS. I made an account there, and abandoned it before I even joined a game. It was that bad.

You can't expect to find rational play there.

[izakthegoomba]

Whiskers, EM is terrible compared to MS. I made an account there, and abandoned it before I even joined a game. It was that bad.

You can't expect to find rational play there.

That's like saying "French Fries are terrible. I bought some, but never ate them. They were that bad."

No. I'd heard it was bad, but I also knew it was faster, so I decided to give it a go. But when I got an account and took a look around, I just gave up on it. A lot of the setups were poorly designed and imbalanced, and easily broken. The standard of play was awful compared to what we see here. Not to mention the website itself.

PEdit: there are many, many setups like that. Have a quick look around the wiki, or take a look at some finished games. Setups just have to be designed properly so that a massclaim can be useful in the later stages, but doesn't break the game, thus making it poor play to claim early.

[izakthegoomba]

Basically, if a game relies upon a pre-set strategy and luck to determine the winner,

even if it's still theoretically balanced

, it should never be run, because you may as well run an RNG to determine who wins.

PEdit: there was a big thing in MD about the Micro Queue proposal, and mith said he'd look into it, before he went on hiatus. If that happens, there probably won't be an experimental queue, because people will use Micro to test out game

mechanics

. I guess you could run a cut-down open to test out a game concept.

PEdit2: that is actually a brilliant idea. I am not kidding. Please run this NOW.

[izakthegoomba]

I'd love to help design it; perhaps a co-mod thing? I could research some prolific players from both sites. I'm not too confident about hurt/heal, I'll have to look into past games of that type.

And you generally need 1 year on site as a

minimum

to become a List Mod.

[izakthegoomba]

Hey, by the time they get through all the inevitable debate and discussion, any of us here would probably be eligible

[izakthegoomba]

Uh, I'm pretty sure Flay would choose... but Jun could probably do it.

Actually, Jun, are you an alt?

[izakthegoomba]

Maybe you're just a good actor

I've made about twenty setups already, but most of them will never get run.

[izakthegoomba]

Yes, 20. But a fair load are probably imbalanced, or need more attention. Only a few are properly polished and fit to be reviewed.

[izakthegoomba]

Aha!

It just got necro'd.

[izakthegoomba]

Isn't it unusable for all the same reasons C/9 is?

[izakthegoomba]

So in other words...

Isn't it unusable for all the same reasons C/9 is?

[izakthegoomba]

Is the general consensus on this site, regarding cults, is that they're a no-no? I'd really like to run a large theme with a cult and two other types of scum.

Discuss.

Unannounced

cults in a non-bastard game are a horrible idea. If you let people know that there is/could be a cult in the game beforehand, it's not nearly as bad, since they know what they're getting in to. And in a bastard game, of course, pretty much anything goes.

[izakthegoomba]

Horribly scum-sided.

[izakthegoomba]

Is a Governor even allowed?

[izakthegoomba]

Because it's horrible?

[izakthegoomba]

I momentarily forgot Opens don't have to follow Normal guidelines, sorry.

[izakthegoomba]

So is it revealed when someone gets hit?

[izakthegoomba]

Vote-Only Mafia

?

Some balanced number of VTs and Goons (I have no idea what's balanced). If no lynch decided by deadline, a plurality lynch happens.

The idea is, players can only post votes. Nothing else. D1 would be a crapshoot but in subsequent days you'd have to use vote analysis to determine who's scum.

What the fuck did I just read?

[izakthegoomba]

...you mean mith had that idea too? Wow.

[izakthegoomba]

Nope. Not cool at all.

[izakthegoomba]

Variation of Assassin in the Palace

Roles:

• 2
  Assassins
  
  
• 1
  King
  
  
• 1
  Prince
  
  
• X
  Guards

Game Mechanics:

• Day start.
  
• If the King is lynched, the game continues, and the Prince becomes the new King.
  
  • If the Prince (now the King) is lynched or nightkilled, the game is over.
  
  
• If the King is nightkilled, the game is over.

Why would the guards lynch the King?

[izakthegoomba]

This is more of a rough idea, as well as the number of Vanilla Townies may be unbalanced, but I'd like to know what you guys think.

No Lynching Cultists

Roles:

• 3
  Mafia Goons
  
  
• 1
  Cult Leader
  
  
• 2
  Cultists
  
  
• 7
  Vanilla Townies

Game Mechanics:

• Day start.
  
• Whenever a Cultist is lynched, a no lynch will occur.
  
• A Cultist may be be nightkilled.
  
• The Cult Leader may be lynched. If this happens, all Cultists commit suicide.
  
• If the Cult Leader is nightkilled, all Cultists are on their own, and may not recruit other Cults.
  
  • The Cultists still may not be lynched, but they may be nightkilled.

This is silly and cult-sided. If the Cult gets a leader who is remotely good at looking like town, they win. Swingy as hell.

EDIT: also the No Lynch when the town lynches a cultist is a bit of a give away, right?

[izakthegoomba]

This setup is really just a rough thought, but I'll post it anyway.

Nightless Super Saint Jester Mafia

Roles:

• 1
  Town Day Vigilante
  
  
• 1
  Super Saint Jester
  
  
• 1
  Jester
  
  
• 5
  Vanilla Townies

Game Mechanics:

• Nightless.
  
• If either of the Jesters is lynched, that Jester wins, and the game is over, unless the Jester is "Super Sainted" by the Super Saint Jester, then the Jester wins.
  
• The only way for the town to defeat the Jesters is to vig them. If both Jesters are vigged, the town wins.

Call me back when a jester wins this.

[izakthegoomba]

Call me back when a jester wins this.

I don't know what you're talking about...

[izakthegoomba]

Or better, a week.

[izakthegoomba]

Call me back when a town wins this.

Actually, there's a trivial breaking strategy for town (the dayvig confirms by shooting someone, and the town repeatedly no-lynch until the dayvig is the only person alive). Only way the jesters could win would be if they were the last two players remaining, which would be very unlikely.

No, then it would be a tie, because the town nor the Jesters would have fulfilled their wincon.

No. The town just has to not lynch, meaning the Jesters can't win. The vig kills everyone, until it is the only one left. At that point, both Jesters will have been killed and neither lynched.

[izakthegoomba]

But when a Mason is lynched or killed, the partner is confirmed. When scum is lynched, game over.

[izakthegoomba]

And with scumhunting on top of the odds, I'd expect it to be a fair bit higher.

[izakthegoomba]

If you want to do something like that, get the experience, have it reviewed, and put in a large theme application. It'll never happen in the open queue.

[izakthegoomba]

Hated Supersaints are terrible.

And it's horribly scum-sided.

[izakthegoomba]

A bit swingy, too.

[izakthegoomba]

mcqueen, before you suggest a new setup, please let it rest for a day and think about it again.

A good setup requires a lot of thought.

mcqueen, please stop spamming this thread.

Subtle? WHERE?

[izakthegoomba]

Eh. Death Millers are pretty bad, but I suppose in the right setup they

could

work. Though an Open game would distort their nature a bit.

[izakthegoomba]

I think the only reason we haven't moved on to 12:2 or even 13:2 is the whole thing about "mini" criteria.

[izakthegoomba]

So what about 13:2?

[izakthegoomba]

So mountainous is a lost cause.

[izakthegoomba]

I think optimal play is to speed-no-lynch on day 1 without saying ANYTHING. Even then, the odds are slightly worse than 2:11 because scum can good rid of a strong town player.

[izakthegoomba]

Is duplication allowed for Diffusion of Power?

[izakthegoomba]

Or maybe scum can "upgrade" one of their kills to a strongman kill?

[izakthegoomba]

I feel like that would be better suited to mish mash, actually.

[izakthegoomba]

The thing is, in theory, it's perfectly balanced. But it's

very

likely to become unbalanced as soon as the townies pick their sides.

[izakthegoomba]

Yeah, mutations are better suited to MM imo.

[izakthegoomba]

What about having 2 towns, but no mafia?

All Town Showdown

Setup:

• 1
  Town A
  Sane Cop
  
  
• 4
  Town A
  Vanilla Townies
  
  
• 1
  Town B
  Sane Cop
  
  
• 4
  Town B
  Vanilla Townies

Game Mechanics:

• Sane Cops get results in the form of "
  Town A
  " or "
  Town B
  ".

Again: take it to mish mash. It still wouldn't work, but at least it would be categoriesed right.

[izakthegoomba]

I think it would be more balanced with 7 VTs.

[izakthegoomba]

...what does that have to do with WRM?

[izakthegoomba]

I agree with CFJ; neighbourhoods will almost always favour town massively. Iirc, it was information from the "masonry" that really made the mafia win in the end - but if CFJ had been town, and there were no mafia, it would have been an incredibly easy game for the town.

[izakthegoomba]

I didn't read the game

I think lots of your players were just fucking around?

These would seem to conflict slightly...

The game wasn't really a bastard game. The roles were almost all self-contained, and there was no random dickery on my part. It actually wasn't too far from a normal-ish game, especially in the later stages. Though I suspect there are better examples available.

[izakthegoomba]

That sounds like dethy on steroids.

This is exactly what I thought.