[OLD] Open Setup Discussion and Nominations

[Zindaras]

Trash Talk Mafia looks very interesting.

[Zindaras]

Take a look at this game for how quick games can work. The rules need some tweaking (it used to be 7 days for an entire cycle, this is the first time we used 4 days), but it seems to be working well so far.

[Zindaras]

Speed's a different beastie, in my eyes, because there were no clear nights and days.

[Zindaras]

I also don't want to restrict to just "make the game go faster" restrictions; I could also see taking a standard open set up and making it a Lights Out game, for example.

I've seen games that do a 1 Day=1 Day thing. The only reason why it worked was because everyone was in the same time zone, though.

Personally, I think allowing discussion overnight is one way to make a game go faster.

[Zindaras]

Why don't you do it a bit like newbie games? Choose randomly from a list of roles?

[Zindaras]

What if there's a backup cop but no cop?

Then you laugh at the town.

I don't really see a problem with that one. The backup cop is just a vanilla who doesn't know it.

[Zindaras]

So if they get a bad break they lose not one but two cops?

Yes. Is there a problem with that? If I look at the setup, it's not very scumfriendly. I think it's a simple solution that makes sense.

Also, if there's a 50% chance of a specific role being in (I'm not sure what the chance is with this game), there's only a 25% chance of this being relevant at all.

[Zindaras]

If you disallow mason-monks, you should be careful about randomizing. First picking masons among non-mafia, then picking monks among non-mason non-wolves would make mafia monks more common than wolf masons. Instead, you should pick masons among non-mafia, pick monks among non-wolves, and then start over if you have a mason-monk... I think.

If my math is good, this is a correct statement. By first picking the masons, the chance for mason wolves would be smaller than mafia monks, as, due to a reduction in town numbers to be picked from (assuming that at most one wolf is a mason), the chance of a mafia getting a monk role would be larger.

In the second situation, the order you pick them in is irrelevant.

[Zindaras]

Taking a quick look at the setup and how the game went I'd say that the Serial Killer is the most important role off the bunch, as it decides on the balance between Town and Mafia. The fact that it got killed off N1 essentially made sure that the Mafia was free to switch off whatever they wanted.

How about giving the SK a one-shot NK immunity?

[Zindaras]

Damn, Fiasco's too quick for me. *sad*

But, essentially, I agree with him.

[Zindaras]

Eh, upon a little contemplation, I got this idea:

A Switchblocker: Town Aligned, can target any player, preventing the targeted player from switching off any other roles.

[Zindaras]

I feel that both setups are interesting and worth running again. I can only speak from experience, but 392 did seem to drag a bit in the end, mainly because no one was getting abducted anymore. The clause you put in Too Much Scum, that the non-killing scum would be able to kill after the killing scum are dead. This also dissuades the non-killing scum from lurking too much, because the Islamists could easily have done that in 392.

[Zindaras]

I like Cult C9. I would, however, add another role, namely an Alarmist (make it have 50% chance of being in or something, like in Pie C9). Uncultable, and basically a Cult Bodyguard in that he can protect a player from being cultivated.

[Zindaras]

Pair Mafia seems interesting.

[Zindaras]

Oh, I have no doubt that it'd suck if ran this way, probably more annoying than a Mountainous game. But the whole guessing thing seems pretty interesting.

[Zindaras]

Zindaras, any suggestion for fixing it or using the idea in another context?

edit: I guess requiring only two votes for a "lynch" could be interesting, except for the D3 quicklynch.

Kelly: I figured 1/9 + 1/7 + 1/5 for a town win.

The idea could be randomly used in a Mafia as a win condition, maybe in a Self Aligned player. Now, I'm completely unsure about the balance of this, but let's say the Town gets 4 chances. 12 players.

Day One, the Town picks 5 people. The Mod tells them how many of those players are scum.
Day Two, the Town picks 4 people, again, mod tells them how many are scum.
Day Three, Town picks 3 people.
Day Four, Town picks 2, and this one

has

to be correct.

I think I'd make it something like that. Maybe change the numbers around a bit, think about adding a couple of roles.

[Zindaras]

Probably. Maybe appoint one single player as "King", like in the Kingmaker games.

[Zindaras]

I'm thinking 2 scum in that setup.

[Zindaras]

Exactly. That's the way they want to set it up.

Of course, that's still pretty difficult.

[Zindaras]

OK, and town would still mostly want to vote suspicious people, as it's better to have both on the list than both off the list. I could see this getting interesting. On subsequent days the town may want to put some confirmed innocents on the list for that day, and maybe the most/least suspicious non-confirmeds, I'm not sure.

Exactly. There's a lot of strategy in picking people.

[Zindaras]

You can play with the numbers in any given way.

I'd love to host a game like that.

[Zindaras]

Lemme see.

Traitor will always claim Cop and try to make it look like standard Dethy or Conspiracy. The Lyncher will claim Cop as well, but will have a harder time fabricating results because he doesn't know who the scum is. I guess the Mafia will also always claim Cop and try to get a Conspiracy vote.

I think the Lyncher would have a horrible time winning. Scum will never fake a Paranoid or a Naive Cop, so he can only get the Sane/Insane Cop lynched, I think.

[Zindaras]

Well, yeah, everyone will claim Cop (at least at first; there's reasons to claim lyncher on D2). I thought that was kinda obvious.

I thought it goes without saying that the cops don't know what sanity they are, but I guess if you aren't familiar with dethy...

I know dethy.

However, I am also under the impression that in a game with two scum, it's not that difficult to find out sanities.

Day or Night start, by the way?

[Zindaras]

Yes, that one jumped my mind for a minute.

I don't know for sure, but I just think that it would be extremely difficult to get a specific person lynched in that game.

[Zindaras]

I don't think Minis should have more than 3 possible kills, and I don't even like 3 standard kills (Vig, SK and Mafia is bad).

[Zindaras]

Of the set-ups given, I like Wild Berry the most. Lovers are always fun. Maybe it's a nice idea to add some more interesting Mason pairs. For example, you could have:

1 Mafia Godfather
1 Goon
4 Lovers (so 2 pairs. One of the pairs contains a Pimp or a Treacherous Lover or whatever you may call it)
1 Doc
5 Town

[Zindaras]

Nominate

Wild Berry 4

Love Mafia

2 Goons
3 Lovers
1 Treacherous Lover
1 Doc
5 Town

Day Start

Two Lovers are tied together, and both die if either dies. The Treacherous Lover is mafia, and does not die if the lover she is tied to dies, but her Lover does die if she dies.
Both pairs of Lovers are able to PM each other at night.

I'd have the Treacherous Lover die with her partner.

Also, I'm amused that you're automatically assuming that the female Lover is the treacherous one.

[Zindaras]

Then she wouldn't be nearly as Treacherous, would she?

Well, yes, it's all flavourful and such, but the moment her partner is lynched and she doesn't die, she's screwed.

oops, did I just hint at my Treacherous past?

Note to self: Do not get involved with Adel.

[Zindaras]

I swear that I'm going to eventually get a game accepted.

Big Love Mafia

1 Godfather
2 Goons
1 Treacherous Lover (member of the mafia)
5 Lovers
1

Doc

9 Townies

Day Start

The Lovers are tied together in pairs. Each pair is able to PM at night. Each pair dies together, even the Treacherous Lover.

That's a setup I'd like to see.

[Zindaras]

It's Adel's setup. It's up to her to nominate it, but I'd like to tweak it into perfection before doing so.

Also, the reasoning for picking a Doc over a Cop is to protect outed Lovers, if necessary, plus the fact that I don't think a Cop would be nice in a setup like that.

[Zindaras]

You don't have to feel like a moron, Addy. It happens to everyone. You wouldn't believe some of the things I've missed.

Nominate Big Love

Now just to get my many beloveds to sign up for it.

[Zindaras]

Big Love has been wiki'd, though it's not very large.

[Zindaras]

Big Love Mafia Redux

4 Goons
1 Doc
14 Townies

Day Start

The Lovers are tied together in pairs. Each pair is able to PM at night. Each pair dies together. The Lover pairs are determined randomly and regardless of role (Doc could be a pair with a Goon, two Goons could be in the same pair, things like that).

I'd wait with running this setup until Big Love is finished (for balancing purposes), but it looks like a lot of fun to me.

[Zindaras]

Doctor Duality

3 Mafia
7 Townies
1 Doctor
1 Roleblocker

The thing that is different about this setup is that the Doctor and Roleblocker receive the exact same Role PMs. So they're pretty much shooting in the dark.

I don't know about the balance of the setup, I've been thinking about giving the town something extra, but I'm not sure.

[Zindaras]

2-2-lynch Mafia

(yes, horrible name)
1 SK
1 Jester
1 Lyncher (target is townie)
1 Survivor
8 Townies

The catch here is that at all points in the game, it is only 2 to lynch. Which makes the job for the Lyncher and Jester a lot easier. To counteract this, the town will elect a Mayor (and elect a new one if the first dies). The Mayor can veto one lynch per day (but not his own). If the Mayor vetoes the lynch of the Jester or the Lynchee, the Jester/Lyncher loses and leaves the game.

The other problem with the setup is that there are many sides who can win together. In fact, only the SK has a win condition which flies straight into that of any other group. The amount of possible winners should probably be limited to two or three (groups).

[Zindaras]

My big issue with this is that you're calling it mafia, without a mafia. Informed

individuals

is fine, as long as you maintain the informed

minority

.

I don't really see this as winnable for the town, because they're forced to find people who have no connections - only motives, and those are easily disguisable.

Town does not rely on connections to catch scum. According to your statements here, SKs can only be stopped by claims or by Mafia killing them.

EBWOP: (argh, quadruple post now! I suck!)

I thought of something after hitting enter:

The thing that makes the SK difficult is that he has to work alone.

The setup is completely broken, because as long as the 2 killing roles are quick enough, a mass claim can result in an SK/jester/lyncher win simply by being faster at voting than everyone else.

Result? The SK can completely REMOVE his lone-ness and work with two people other people - not a hard thing to do if a quick, easy win is involved.

Two things I would do to the setup: 1)replace the lyncher and his target with two goons and 2)only allow one team or individual to win.

That is the exact same thing I thought of, which is why I added the Mayor to the mix. I think that significantly reduces the chances of this being a successful strategy.

I may not have been 100% clear on how the Mayor works: once a Lynch is reached, the thread is closed and the Mayor gets 48 hours to decide whether or not he'll veto the lynch.

Edit: The same principle used in Consulmaker (once a lynch is vetoed, it cannot simply be made again) goes up here.

[Zindaras]

Wait, can the lynch not EVER be made again, or just that day?

If the former, this setup is even more broken since either the jester or lyncher could get a guaranteed loss.

If the latter, the same dilemma still applies.

Just that day. As said in my original post, if a Lynchee or Jester lynch is vetoed, the Lyncher/Jester in question automatically loses.

And, yes, this makes it a lot more difficult for the Jester/Lyncher. However, seeing how they have a very easy time in a game like this, I think it balances things out. A nightkill on them is quite unlikely, and the Town does need something to be able to deal with them.

[Zindaras]

I don't think that any setup which can result in a living party who is unable to win is a good setup.

If the game continues and they're allowed to live, all they'll cause is total havoc, because a player who can't win has no incentive not to screw the other players over.

Get rid of the auto-lose, get rid of the lyncher get rid of the possibility of multiple winniing teams, and add a mafia, then it will be a good setup.

A player who has lost the game will be gone, just like a player who has won the game. The moment a player has lost or won the game, they simply get out of there.

Adding a Mafia only allows them to speedlynch on their own when the SK is dead and they have the Mayor position.

[Zindaras]

On the first paragraph... hmm, I'm still not that pleased with the idea of them just losing for interference after attaining their goal.

The main problem I see is that it would be a correct town strategy to veto one lynch a day, therefore making life very difficult for the Jester/Lyncher.

But with my proposed version, there is no incentive for any claiming whatsoever, so the mafia is likely to be NK'd before they can ever try something like that.

I do not really understand this.

[Zindaras]

They will know the lynchees's alignments, as far as I can tell, which is something.

[Zindaras]

It isn't that much of a disadvantage.

Eh, we should continue this discussion in Adel's thread.

[Zindaras]

That game is a small version of Kelly's Jungle Republic. I personally think Jungle Republic is more interesting than that version. More players, less weird occurences.

[Zindaras]

12 players, 2 scum is most often used for mountainous. I rather like Mountainous Nightless, in which case I'd use 3/12.

[Zindaras]

I don't, they're produced by simulations. Naturally they assume that all moves are made randomly. In practice the town does better than predicted because over time they have the ability to gather information and make better lynch decisions.

edit: It's well known that towns have done badly with vanilla setups, but I think you still have to assume that towns make

some

progress, or else we really may as well design for 50% odds and have towns roll dice when in doubt.

This is true. However, the Mafia also does better than random.

[Zindaras]

I think the setup for Formula One doesn't lend itself to an open game.

[Zindaras]

What about:

______ Mafia

(I don't have a name)

1 mafia
1 mafia rb
1 gf
1 cop
1 doc
1 weak doc
1 random cop
4 townies

Balanced? Thoughts?

I really, really don't like the addition of the random cop - it is far more of a hinderance than a help here. Furthermore, it will ruin the results of the real cop.

I'm not sure about the weak doc, but I don't really see why it is in there either - surely another weak power role such as a one-shot vig would suffice.

Two docs help with mass claiming (I'm assuming here that the docs don't know which one they are). I also don't really see a problem with the random Cop.

[Zindaras]

what would prevent the town from autowinning by NLing every day after the investigator claims?

The one-shot Dayvig?

The point is that the Town should No lynch before the investigator claims. Give him enough Days to investigate everyone, then you're set.

[Zindaras]

Exploding Hammer is a lot like Dynamite Stick.