[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[zoraster]

just out of curiosity, what reason would a mentor have in revealing himself to his protege?

[zoraster]

I'm not getting much bite from the theme test market, so I thought I'd float it here. This isn't for the open queue (it'll be a large theme), but since it is a completely open game (ideally there should be absolutely no hidden or closed elements), I thought discussion here would be good.

Parallel Universe Mafia

30 players overall. 15 per game. 2 games going simultaneously.

Game 1:
1-shot Mafia A Teleporter
Mafia A Goon
Mafia A Goon

Town 1 Teleporter
Vanilla x 11

Game 2:
1-shot Mafia B Teleporter
Mafia B Goon
Mafia B Goon

Town 2 Teleporter
Vanilla x 11

Town Teleporter role: Each night may either teleport a player a player away from the game or pull a player from the other game into their own. In the first three nights, they must teleport twice and pull once in any order. In the next three days they must teleport twice and pull once, etc. They may not teleport themselves.

A teleported or pulled player may not be teleported or pulled again the next night.

When a town teleporter is killed, lynched, pulled or teleported, they lose their power and become a vanilla townie and a remaining townie (picked at random) is made the new teleporter (perma backups, in other words... the town will always have this role around). The new teleporter is held to the same restrictions as the old (e.g. if it's n3 and the previous teleporter pulled once and teleported once, the new teleporter MUST teleport)

Mafia Teleporter role: They may teleport a player away at night OR day, but they may only do this once during the game. They may not teleport themselves.

Each mafia may shoot once per night. They may shoot with any player that is still alive, regardless of which game they are in.

Win conditions:
Any town member in the FIRST game that wins, automatically wins and cannot be pulled or teleported into the other game. A game is won by town when all mafia forces are eliminated (by lynch or teleport) in that game.
Town members in the second game win only when they eliminate all remaining mafia.
For town: the game you die in is the game you win or lose in.
Mafia A and B win whenever they win a game in EITHER game. They can go for the amazing DOUBLE WIN if their faction somehow manages to win both games. They win when there are no longer any other forces in the game other than their Mafia team and not before (even when normally they would be autowin... they could be pulled/teleported). Mafia teams are opposed to each other, and a Mafia A player always wins whether they are in that game or another.

Thoughts about balance (is 15 a side the right number to make it?)? Do you think this would be fun to play? I wanted to keep the game as vanilla as possible to accentuate the mechanic involved, but it's possible I could be convinced to add a power role or two if it makes sense.

I like the way the town gets to play off the other game. In some ways the towns are playing for a common purpose (if one town lynches a mafia member, that mafia member can't cause any harm in their game later on), in other ways they're opposed (the teleporter might try to teleport scummy people to the other game or pull good scum hunters). Also, it creates a cohesiveness between two separate games that I think gives an interesting flavor to the game. I love that each mafia side could get super greedy and go for a DOUBLE win. It'd be a huge coup for any scum team, and probably worthy of a scummy nomination just for accomplishing it.

Some questions about order of actions:
Within the same game is (1) Mafia Kill (2) Town Teleporter (3) Mafia Teleporter make sense?

Between games, how do we resolve tension? Should the town that goes into night first have its teleporter/mafia kill's actions go first? Or should it be that whichever game ends night has its teleporter/mafia kill's actions go first? This could be problematic in a situation where a teleporter is attempting to pull a player but that player is also being shot at by the mafia.

Last question: I've made the mafia teleporter's 1-shot because I don't want people to get TOO frustrated with how much player swapping is going on. Does anyone think I should up this to a 2-shot power?

EDIT: Oh! Last and most important question: given that the town will always have a teleporter, are there any breaking strategies that you can think of? For example, would it be an effective strategy for the teleporter to always claim since this is likely to clear the person and the mafia can't do anything about it until the night?

[zoraster]

I have it as nonfunctional at the moment. It gives a pretty big incentive to each town to win faster than the other town which is a dynamic I like. I could turn it into a vig though, i suppose.

[zoraster]

Full Rules

Teleportation Mafia (renamed from Parallel Universe Mafia)

This is a Large Theme Game. All information is completely open.
The game will have 30 people to begin split evenly and randomly between two games.

Universe 1:
1-shot Mafia A Teleporter
Mafia A Goons x 2
Town 1 Teleporter
Across the Universe Mason
Vanilla Townies x 10

Universe 2:
1-shot Mafia B Teleporter
Mafia A Goons x 2
Town 2 Teleporter
Across the Universe Mason
Vanilla Townies x 10

Role PMs:

”Town Teleporter”

You are the Town (1 or 2) Teleporter. You start the game in universe (1 or 2) that can be found here. Keep an eye on the other universe as it may come in handy. You can find that here

You have the power to either teleport or pull someone at night. You must pull once for every two teleports, and this can be done in any order (T,P,T - T,T,P - P,T,T).

Teleportation

targets another player in your universe and puts them into the other universe.

Pulling targets

another player in the other universe and puts them into your universe.
You may not teleport or pull someone who was teleported or pulled the previous night.

If you are killed, teleported, pulled or lynched, a random townie will take your place as teleporter. They will have to maintain the 1 pull to 2 teleport ratio.

Win condition: You win when the town that either you are currently in or dead in wins. That town wins when they have eliminated all Mafia within their universe. Once this has happened in a universe, the other universe may neither teleport to or pull from your universe.

”Townie”

You are a vanilla townie. You can’t do much except vote to rid your universe of mafia. You start the game in universe (1 or 2) that can be found here. Keep an eye on the other universe as it may come in handy. You can find that here.

Beware! You may be teleported to the other universe! If your towns current teleporter is killed, lynched, teleported, or pulled, you may be selected as the new teleporter.

Win condition: You win when the town that either you are currently in or died in wins. That town wins when they have eliminated all Mafia within their universe. Once this has happened in a universe, the other universe may neither teleport to or pull from your universe.

”Across the Universe Mason”

You are an Across the Universe Mason. You have a mason partner that starts in the other universe. You start the game in universe (1 or 2) that can be found here. Keep an eye on the other universe as it may come in handy. You can find that here.

Beware! You may be teleported to the other universe!

You may talk with your mason partner, day or night. You can find your quick time here: XXXXXX

Win condition: You win when the town that either you are currently in or died in wins. That town wins when they have eliminated all Mafia within their universe. Once this has happened in a universe, the other universe may neither teleport to or pull from your universe.

”Mafia Teleporter”

You are the Mafia (A or B) 1-shot teleporter. You start the game in universe (1 or 2) that can be found here. Keep an eye on the other universe as it may come in handy. You can find that here.

Once during the game, you may teleport a player away at night OR day, but they may only do this once during the game. You may not teleport yourself.

Teleportation

targets a player in your universe and puts them into the other universe.

Pulling targets

a player in the other universe and puts them into your universe.
You may not teleport or pull someone who was teleported or pulled the previous night.

As a member of the Mafia (A or B) team, you can talk at night, even across universes. Your quick-time is found here: XXXXXXX

At night, your team may choose to shoot one person. You may shoot someone in any universe that your team has a player alive in.

Win condition: You win when your team wins in EITHER universe you are in. You win a universe when you have eliminated all other mafia team members and all townies within that universe.
DOUBLE win condition: You get the very rare and amazing DOUBLE WIN if you manage to achieve victory in BOTH universes. I will automatically nominate any mafia team that manages this for a scummy.

”Mafia Goon”

You are the Mafia (A or B) Goon. You start the game in universe (1 or 2) that can be found here. Keep an eye on the other universe as it may come in handy. You can find that here.

As a member of the Mafia (A or B) team, you can talk at night, even across universes. Your quick-time is found here: XXXXXXX

At night, your team may choose to shoot one person. You may shoot someone in any universe that your team has a player alive in.

Win condition: You win when your team wins in EITHER universe you are in. You win a universe when you have eliminated all other mafia team members and all townies within that universe.
DOUBLE win condition: You get the very rare and amazing DOUBLE WIN if you manage to achieve victory in BOTH universes. I will automatically nominate any mafia team that manages this for a scummy.

Teleportation Mafia Rules:
1. You may only speak in the universe you are currently alive in.
2. If at any time a player receives a majority of the vote, they are lynched.
3. Each day has a deadline of 2 weeks.
4. All nights last precisely 48 hours. Any actions not given within this time will be seen as “no action.”
5. Night begins precisely when the majority vote post falls or the deadline is reached.
6. In the case of a conflict between actions between universes, the universe that exits night first will have all their actions performed first.
7. A mafia’s teleport will be considered to be done the instant the PM is sent.
8. One town may get "ahead" of another town by lynching quickly. This may or may not be helpful.

General Rules:
1. Have fun.
2. All votes should be bolded. Unvotes are unnecessary.
3. Please put your vote at the beginning of a line. Votes in the middle of a line are very annoying and easily missed.
4. Don’t be a jerk. I reserve the right to remove any jerks.
5. I prod by request. You may request a prod at any time on anyone. That person will have 36 hours from when I send the PM to post in a substantive way.
6. All communication with the mod should be bolded.
7. There will be a quicktime for the dead.
8. Once one universe has been won, that game is frozen and the other universe may neither pull from nor teleport to that universe. The teleporter becomes a vanilla townie.

Order of Actions:
1. Mafia Kill
2. Town Teleporting or Pulling
3. Mafia Teleporting or Pulling
4. New Teleporter is selected if old one was killed, teleported, pulled, or lynched.
*Note that this means that if a teleporter is killed, their action does not go through that night.

[zoraster]

how much a greater ability to teleport? I still fundamentally want this to be a game where people can scum hunt and the like... I also don't want it to get bogged down with people constantly rereading, like a game of tons of replacements.

But I'd certainly be open to upping it to a 2-shot teleporter... or an alternative if you can think of one.

Keep in mind that per night two people will be moving already. If I add the ability for scum to be able to transport every night, that'll mean 4 people are moving. By the end of the second night, that'll mean that 8/30 (27%) will have been teleported or pulled.

[zoraster]

Maybe two-shot might work.

The one problem I can think of is that while the double win is appealing, I think the mafia are probably much more likely to just go for one, and as such they are going to very much dislike being teleported and will probably want to go back. I guess that's more incentive for them to influence the teleport I suppose.

Also, I love the masons. Great idea. Is that new?

Yeah I think you're right. I don't think mafia will probably go for the double win straight away, but I figured the ultimate accomplishment ought to be available, and it gives the mafia a reason to still fight if they've won a universe but they have a player alive in the other universe.

And yeah. I was thinking about the fact I'd like to connect the two universes a little more and thought maybe I'd add a role that could message the other game or something, but then I thought that was needlessly complicated, and masons separated would be a cool dynamic. It also gives the masons a reason to WANT to be teleported to the other game or have their partner pulled.

[zoraster]

I've renamed my game from Parallel Universe Mafia to Teleportation Mafia, given that there was a game with the same name that also involved subgames (but at least appears to be far different). This highlights the dominate mechanic in the game.

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 34#2019734

[zoraster]

interesting concept but...

Bus your cop enabler or shoot him at night if that fails.

8v2 with vig and doc.

play as normal. scum sided i think, especially given that if vig or town hits vig enabler, it takes away vig kill.

[zoraster]

Thats not too powerful of a strategy. Bussing a specific member of your scumteam right out of the gates enough to ensure the wagon is pushed through would be pretty hard to do without being obvious about it, and even if you succeed you still have to deal with one confirmed townie in the cop himself still being able to claim even if he can't investigate. It would be more 8v2 with a vig, doc, and an "Earl" and a whole day of (fairly predictable) interactions. Failing to bus and shooting one of your own members at night is even worse as under my interpretation of the setup the cop would still get one investigation in.

The point about the vig isn't too big because a sucessful vig kill puts the town very far ahead at that point anyway.

Cop Enabler claims cop to start? or vig enabler does so. busses his teammate the cop enabler. actually seems pretty interesting for fake claims. almost incentivizes them.

[zoraster]

@Tragedy: But no the mason-survivors would only know each other. The rest don't know if the informed minority are survivors or mafia- the deaths occur just the same.

Actuallly it would be simpler without the survivors - just 9 VT's.
Simplified version:
Day-start.
9 players

50 % chance of:
Regular mafia: 7 VT's-2 mafia.

50 % chance of:
9 VT's.
One random death each night.
Everyone loses on their third lynch - and everyone wins on a 'No more lynches ever' vote.

other than being super scum sided if there's scum, this setup fails because there's no evaluation, there's simply an optimum strategy.


lynch twice, if you never hit scum, say no more lynches ever. Because in 7v2 if you don't hit mafia by Day 3, your chances of winning are very small (it's 3v2 mafia) and most definitely smaller than 50%. It doesn't matter how sure you are someone is scum, the better play is to not lynch.


Given that, it's not really a fun design, it's a side show. You might as well make it "you have two days to lynch. If you don't hit scum, you have a 50% chance, chosen with random.org, of winning."

[zoraster]

Overrun

7 Town, 6 Mafia

Mafia only have night talk. Each night they

must

choose a MAFIA member to be a blood sacrifice (i.e. kill them). This is the only kill the mafia has. The goal is for the mafia to make a blood sacrifice of all but one of their members.

During the day, town lynches as normal.

Town wins if they lynch correctly

twice

before scum is completely eliminated. If it ever gets to the point where town cannot do so, the game is ended in a mafia victory (i.e. no successful lynches by D5).

Expected value for this game heavily favors town, but the fact that scum make up a huge portion of the voting power makes it hard for town to get good votes, especially in the early days where EV is highest.

The game will likely be connection heavy, even more so than White Flag.

[zoraster]

Yeah. It's sort of pseudo-breakable by using some sort of random generation, but I doubt players who play it will want to do that.

[zoraster]

>Quadz: hehehe lets make coding this setup more complicated muhauhauhauha
>Me: fuuuuuuu

@Zor

Can you make a smaller version of your game? 8-9p?

You could do:
4v3, mafia have to blood sacrifice a mafia member each night. Everything is the same. Except Mafia lose if they don't blood sacrifice EVERY mafia member (i.e. town just needs one lynch to win). So town get 3 chances to lynch one scum.

EV for town is around 80%, but mafia have the ability to consolodate their power.

I don't like it quite as much as the other because part of the impetus for the design was "how can I design a game that has a whole bunch of scum in it without making a gigantic game?" and if you reduce it down to just 3 scum, you're sort of just back where you were with a 13p game. But I think the setup does work.

I feel like the mafia in Overrunned should possibly have daytalk.

I think mafia's power to coordinate themselves is already going to be pretty darn powerful without giving them daytalk. I suspect as described the game is somewhat but not astoundingly scum sided. That last Day will be especially hard for scum.

cant they just

get one mafia to quickhammer, then sacrifice him at night.

Sure, they could. But that's only one vote.

[zoraster]

Also, can we please call it 'Overrun?' Cause dear lord the grammar.

Yes.

[zoraster]

9of4

• 9 Townies, each of which are (independently randomized) a 1-shot Cop, 1-shot Doctor, Macho 1-shot Jailkeeper, or a VT.
• 1 Mafia Goon
• 1 Mafia Roleblocker
• 1 Mafia Backup Roleblocker

Had this idea a while ago while trying to figure out how to deal with the problem that 2of4 solves (having a known number of VTs/power roles locks scums into unavoidable 1v1s or 1v2s at lylo), and also the problem that it has (having more VTs in a setup can make it somewhat townsided, and likewise a lot of power roles can make it somewhat scumsided). OK, so the 9-townie version is probably not balanced (although still definitely winnable), but it's also mindblowingly unlikely; using a lot of weak power roles seems the best way to diffuse the setup sensitivity. The roleblockers are to make it very difficult for town to coordinate actions and break a specific setup. (The Macho on the JK is to avoid paradoxes; likewise, scum can't both kill and block.)

Probably too complex/large for a newbie game (although you could probably scale it down to 2:5 or 2:6 to make a smaller version, then it'd be the right size for a newbie but still too complex). But I think it might work well as an open.

You could just make the roleblock power factional since that seems to be what you're after with the RB and RB Backup

[zoraster]

they only have two mislynches?

[zoraster]

17p you start getting into games that are going to be tough to fill. And what do you mean "mafia has only one mislynch"? You mean that they can only have one person lynched on their team without losing? I mean, that's true, but that's pretty non-standard way to think about balance.

[zoraster]

Yes. It's unbalanced. The Town EV for the 13p setup you showed is 34% (regular 13p white flag, which most seem to agree is fairly balanced, has a Town EV of around 48% if I recall correctly).

What's the impetus for this attempt anyway? Maybe that can help me figure this out better.

[zoraster]

So are you saying that if mafia choose to get an extra mafia member and there are 25 players playing that there will be TEN mafia members?

Setup seems very, very, very scum sided. It also seems complicated for not achieving much.

[zoraster]

I'd like to bring this up again:

Overrun

7 Town, 6 Mafia

Mafia only have night talk. Each night they

must

choose a MAFIA member to be a blood sacrifice (i.e. kill them). This is the only kill the mafia has. The goal is for the mafia to make a blood sacrifice of all but one of their members.

During the day, town lynches as normal.

Town wins if they lynch correctly

twice

before scum is completely eliminated. If it ever gets to the point where town cannot do so, the game is ended in a mafia victory (i.e. no successful lynches by D5).

Expected value for this game heavily favors town, but the fact that scum make up a huge portion of the voting power makes it hard for town to get good votes, especially in the early days where EV is highest.

The game will likely be connection heavy, even more so than White Flag.

[zoraster]

It's tough for town, certainly, but once you get down to 4v3 and 3v2 with the information that you've hopefully gathered from the votes of previous days (7v6,5v4), you're in a pretty good position to make it.

Is there any way to solve the random problem? I mean, it generally gets frowned on here anyway, but is there something to do?