[OLD] Open/Semi-Open Design Challenge

Post Post #0 (isolation #0) » Mon Jun 30, 2014 11:55 am

We're finally back on track with getting cards published, and while we finalize the card list and text, we are coming up with a list of example setups to include in the rulebook. We have a number of setups which are on the approved open list, but would like to get a bit more variety both in terms of player-count and roles used, so I thought it would be a good idea to solicit ideas from you guys.

Rules for all submissions:
1. Setups must be open or semi-open, and must have a limited number of rules beyond what is on the role cards. Common variants (e.g. Nightless) which can be easily described in the rulebook and attached as a one or two word modifier to the setup are fine.
2. Most roles are limited to 1 in number; the following are exceptions: Mafia Goon (Many), Vanilla Town (Many), Mafia Lover (2), Town Lover (2), Werewolf (3), Mason (3), Vengeful Town (4).
3. Most roles on the Normal whitelist are allowed. Roles which don't make sense for FTF games are excluded (i.e. Neighbor, Mafia Encryptor). I will not give a complete list at this time - if you end up using a role which is currently not on the list, it might persuade us to make changes!
4. All setups assume a day start.

You can submit any setup you like; however, we are specifically looking for setups which fill gaps on our current list. Specific challenges include:
1. Even count (6, 8) and/or Non-micro setups (10-13 players). We have lots of 7/9 player setups.
2. Setups making use of any of the following roles: Mafia Godfather, Mafia Doctor, Mafia Suicide Bomber, Mafia Traitor, Mafia Ninja, Mafia Silencer, Town Bodyguard, Town Vigilante, Town Innocent Child, Town Miller, Town Beloved Princess.

Feel free to discuss any ideas in this thread. If we get enough participation, I am considering holding a marathon day in the near future to do a quick playtest of some of the setups. (I am also considering a final selection/voting process to declare a winner for the challenge, with a prize of a one deck of cards - international shipping may be separate in that, details when I decide on it.)

Post Post #25 (isolation #1) » Tue Jul 01, 2014 4:55 am

I'll be posting thoughts on setups as I have time...

Spoiler: shaft.ed

Even with the Jester (which we don't have; we do have blanks, though we won't be including setups in the rulebook itself which make use of them), it seems that if the Town Lover and Jester both claim, it's optimal for the Mafia Lover to claim as well - town threatens to lynch one at random, and either the Mafia Lover will die anyway, or the Jester is lynched which loses the game for both Mafia and Town. So the Jester shouldn't claim after all.

Spoiler: Voidedmafia

Think I lean toward 10:3 as well; probably still optimal for the Vig to always shoot, so it's effectively double-day while he lives.

Spoiler: Voidedmafia

I don't think there's really any WIFOM here. There's no reason I can think of for the Bodyguard not to protect an outed IC, in which case the Mafia just shoot there twice and be done with it; it's not like with the Doctor where the Mafia lose a kill over it. This also shouldn't be an even setup, town will have to no lynch at some point.

Spoiler: Voidedmafia

Spoiler: BBmolla

I prefer BBmolla's version, though Beloved Princess and Lovers don't punish the town for their demise if the count is even (since they would have to no lynch at some point anyway). Want to think on this some more.

Voidedmafia wrote:I also feel like there's a 13-player Pick Your Assassin

Agreed, someone work on this.

Mafia Silencer is the "you can choose one player who is unable to speak the following day" variant, which we are strongly considering dropping. But if someone comes up with a good use for it...

Spoiler: BBmolla

Miller is an auto-claim; it *might* present an interesting choice for the scum whether to counter or not, but I don't think they can, in which case the Miller may as well be an Innocent Child. If they counter and one is lynched at random, you have a 50% shot at the town being in amazing shape (scum probably has to try to pick off the Cop on no info, if they miss it's really bad), and a 50% shot at the Miller being lynched followed by scum the next day, down to 1:4 possibly with the Cop still alive to claim and act as the IC.

This is the challenge with the Miller, avoiding a situation where he won't be an uncountered claim day 1. Probably the only reasonable way to do it is make it semi-open. Something like:

Ignore all that; reading is important... Like the addition of the Mafia Rolecop in the revised setup.

K9

1 Mafia Tracker <-- Both to make use of it again and because I know what the art is <_<
1 Town Cop
5 Vanilla Town
2 Choose:

Mafia Godfather, Vanilla Town
Mafia Goon, Town Miller

Spoiler: BBmolla

Like this one just fine.

Post Post #26 (isolation #2) » Tue Jul 01, 2014 5:02 am

Actually, the interesting thing about the K9 setup above is that it is optimal for the Mafia Tracker to claim Miller *some* of the time when partnered with a Godfather (if he claims Miller 100%, then it's a 50-50 for lynching Miller claims and town should probably just do that - hitting Miller isn't the worst thing in the world because it confirms to the Cop that there is no GF; if he never claims Miller, a claimed Miller is again basically an IC). However, FTF the Tracker doesn't know which card his partner got!

Post Post #33 (isolation #3) » Tue Jul 01, 2014 8:18 am

In post 32, Voidedmafia wrote:
In post 25, mith wrote:I don't think there's really any WIFOM here. There's no reason I can think of for the Bodyguard not to protect an outed IC, in which case the Mafia just shoot there twice and be done with it; it's not like with the Doctor where the Mafia lose a kill over it. This also shouldn't be an even setup, town will have to no lynch at some point.
...Oh, yeah, they will. Still, the point of the setup is to include a more likely target to be killed over others from the outset, with the BG and the Mafia trying to outguess if they'll protect said person. But I don't want to include another PR if at all possible, or something like that. Then it just feels a little too role-heavy.

Yeah, I get the intent, I just don't see any reason for the Bodyguard to not protect the IC. Even if the Bodyguard were out himself and confirmed by lack of counterclaim and believed himself to be the stronger player... the Mafia could just kill him directly.

Watcher is a better interaction with the IC, though I find that pairing may be overpowered.

In post 25, mith wrote:Mafia Silencer is the "you can choose one player who is unable to speak the following day" variant, which we are strongly considering dropping. But if someone comes up with a good use for it...
Including or excluding a vote?

I don't think we actually came to an official decision on that, so in the event that it's used, whatever works best for the setup that uses it?

It actually wouldn't be that bad to prevent a follow-the-cop type game. Can't kill the cop because he's protected? Silence him instead! (That would only work with the non-voting version, of course.)

Post Post #36 (isolation #4) » Tue Jul 01, 2014 9:04 am

In post 34, BBmolla wrote:
In post 25, mith wrote:iller is an auto-claim; it *might* present an interesting choice for the scum whether to counter or not, but I don't think they can, in which case the Miller may as well be an Innocent Child. If they counter and one is lynched at random, you have a 50% shot at the town being in amazing shape (scum probably has to try to pick off the Cop on no info, if they miss it's really bad), and a 50% shot at the Miller being lynched followed by scum the next day, down to 1:4 possibly with the Cop still alive to claim and act as the IC.

This is the challenge with the Miller, avoiding a situation where he won't be an uncountered claim day 1. Probably the only reasonable way to do it is make it semi-open. Something like:
?

Read the italics, if the miller dies, the cop can't investigate anymore. The Miller is a cop enabler. AKA, you claim, cop is boned.

Right right right. Was just reading roles, not extra rules because we're trying to limit those.

Miller claiming D2 is probably optimal in that case, but it's less obvious. (Assuming Cop still gets N2 result, since Miller isn't dead yet. If neither Cop or Miller get hit randomly by the Mafia or lynch D/N1, Mafia seems to be in trouble whatever they do.)

Post Post #40 (isolation #5) » Tue Jul 01, 2014 9:26 am

BBmolla: The point is that when the Mafia has a Godfather, they know there isn't a Miller, so it is safe for the Tracker to claim Miller (if he knows there's a Godfather... which he may not FTF; if I were modding, I would figure out some way to reveal that roles of all Mafia members to the group so they are on the same page, as that's the sort of info they should have).

A Town Miller should still claim D1, but doing it this way means he's not completely confirmed by lack of counterclaim. It works ok your way too, though - in this case the Tracker can (but shouldn't always) claim when there is no Godfather, while in the Miller setup the Mafia get compensation for the Cop not having to bother investigating the Miller.

Post Post #43 (isolation #6) » Tue Jul 01, 2014 9:40 am

That's only if the fake claim goes well, though, which is a big if. The other thing is that in either version, if the non-Tracker scum flips, town now knows if the Miller claim was legit. The Tracker claim would be extremely risky... but is probably still worth it some small percentage of the time.

The other fix is to randomize both and just tell the scum if there is a Miller or not, but that's inelegant.

Post Post #44 (isolation #7) » Tue Jul 01, 2014 9:41 am

Maybe making Miller a sticker would be more interesting. Miller-Beloved Princess could be fun in a semi-open; Miller-PR wouldn't be as likely to claim immediately.

Post Post #52 (isolation #8) » Tue Jul 01, 2014 12:05 pm

Spoiler: Voidedmafia

What is the Mafia Doctor intended to do in this setup? Can't heal the suicide.

The Beloved Princess needs some sort of uncertainty as currently worded ("skip next Day phase if

lynched

"). Otherwise it's an autoclaim, and the setup has to account for that (make it worthwhile for the scum to counter). I'm not sure which version is better, though - the current version is a bit more fair for inclusion in closed setups, while the primary version ("skip next Day phase whenever the BP is killed, by any method") is more interesting for open setups (find/protect the BP).

Spoiler: Voidedmafia

Rolecop is unaffected by Miller and Godfather. Ninja doesn't do anything in this setup either.

Spoiler: The Bulge

Bulletproof-Bodyguard doesn't make sense. We also probably won't have the Hider, due to the complexity of resolving the night actions when the Hider is around.

Spoiler: Aronis

Interesting role, though we are sticking to existing (and mostly normal-approved) roles for this deck. Could certainly appear on a "suggested uses for blanks" wiki page at some point.

Spoiler: Aronis

I like the Ninja/Strongman pairing (we actually don't have Strongman on the list right now, but it gets around my concern about Ninja, namely that it doesn't just make itself immune to the Tracker/Watcher, it makes the whole group immune while it lives because it should just make the kill every time).

I'd be tempted to go for a massclaim in any game with 3 named town roles out of 8 players, though, and especially one with a Vig and no Mafia Roleblocker or Doctor. Vig is uncounterable (let them shoot each other), and any other counter you lynch one and Vig the other if necessary.

Not sure what the fix is, other than expanding it to a larger game and making it more like Classic Rivals.

Post Post #67 (isolation #9) » Wed Jul 02, 2014 4:55 am

Mafia Vengeful (which needs a better name, someone get on that) will be in the rulebook, along with some other vanilla variants.

Post Post #68 (isolation #10) » Wed Jul 02, 2014 6:19 am

Spoiler: Aronis

We're only going to have 1 Vig; otherwise, it's a fine core idea, and similar to one of quadz' suggestions (his version is 11p, only 1 Vig, and Mafia also get a Roleblocker). I really like the Mafia Doctor/Vigilante pairing because it makes the Vig strictly worse than a random lynch (but still better than a scum kill, so vig should probably still always shoot except for endgame parity situations).

The one with the SK is interesting, too. SK definitely needs some benefit, and 1-shot BP is my favorite version (and should be doable with sticker).

Spoiler: shaft.ed

Beloved Princess should claim, and I don't think Mafia have a good incentive to counter (lynch one of the claims, if it's scum town is in great shape, if not after all the nightkills and the scum lynch D2 it's down to 1:2, which is a coinflip unless scum have managed to hit both other named roles). So might as well be an Innocent Child, really. Probably not unbalanced, otherwise? Watcher-IC would be more interesting because mind games.

Spoiler: Voidedmafia

Don't think the Silencer is that strong in either version to warrant that much town power vs. two scum. I do like the Silencer as another way to get around the Cop-Doctor pairing, though.

Spoiler: Aronis

I quite like the idea of a limited-shot Cop and a Traitor

if

the Traitor comes up innocent pre-recruit and guilty post-recruit. Gives the Cop an interesting decision on when to use the investigation. For 8p though, the game may not last long enough for it to matter.

This setup would be especially interesting if the Mafia knew who the Traitor was (rather than the other way around) - arguably the scum might deliberately no-kill N1 to trick the Cop into thinking the Traitor had been recruited, potentially getting an innocent on the Traitor the next night. (In a bigger setup, anyway.)

Spoiler: Aronis

With no protection, Mafia can just kill the IC at night; the Suicide Bomber does give the option of taking out the IC if he's about to be lynched the same day the IC comes out, but really all that does balance-wise is skip an opportunity for the Vig to shoot (Mafia lynch, IC NK, next day lynch is the same as Suicide Bomber take out IC, lynch, except for the NK window for the Vig). Not an unreasonable setup though - and not totally sure what the optimal timing is for IC coming out (though I could argue that he should come out day 1 so the Vig can go ahead and use his shot at night and not have to worry about hitting the IC; you don't want the Vig to get killed before he using his shot, because that's effectively a no lynch in this setup).

Post Post #81 (isolation #11) » Wed Jul 02, 2014 11:21 am

Split the maths stuff out to avoid derailing: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=58302

Post Post #88 (isolation #12) » Thu Jul 03, 2014 4:11 am

BBmolla: Scum claiming or countering Lover is a bad idea; losing the Lovers is not a big deal compared to getting that first scum lynch, and there's also the chance the JK will block the kill of the other scum and win the game immediately. Worst case it's 1 Mafia, 1 JK, 5 Townies which leaves town in great shape.

Post Post #99 (isolation #13) » Mon Jul 07, 2014 8:38 am

Will get to more setup reviews at some point today. If people want to post a few favorites, that would be awesome too.

Post Post #100 (isolation #14) » Tue Jul 08, 2014 8:30 am

(Or I lied and didn't have time. Soon, though.)

Post Post #107 (isolation #15) » Mon Jul 14, 2014 6:00 am

Will be leaving this open for the rest of this week (hopefully will be able to go through the setups in that time frame), and Monday should have a shortlist of setups for possible inclusion in the rulebook, at which time I may open up the Marathon forum for testing them.

Post Post #108 (isolation #16) » Mon Jul 14, 2014 6:10 am

And an additional challenge role: Supersaint. (We have SS3, I'm not convinced that this warrants a separate card over just using a blank.)

Post Post #109 (isolation #17) » Thu Jul 17, 2014 10:42 am

Spoiler: BBmolla

Prefer the Rolecop version, yeah. And if we make Cop-Enabler a sticker, we don't even need the extra rules.

Spoiler: BBmolla

Probably ok, and your version of Traitor is what I prefer. Don't love Suicide Bomber as a fix for Jailkeeper claim (I would just take the trade if I were the JK), but Doctor and Traitor nerf the JK's investigative ability to the point that I doubt a JK claim is that good.

Spoiler: Prof Fridays

Spoiler: Aronis

90% certain cult is
in expansion
torn into little pieces in a fire atm

FTFM.

Spoiler: Aronis

Combo roles like this won't fly, unless we include stickers for roles as well as modifiers (probably not). Not a fan of concentrating all the power in one role anyway, would rather see it spread out.

Spoiler: Aronis

Reasonable (assuming we go with the Miller sticker). JK needs to stop a kill to gain a lynch. Roleblocker-JK combo I could do without.

Spoiler: Voidedmafia

Non-normal role, probably not. This one looks pretty tough on Mafia.

Spoiler: Bullish

The balance at either end seems off, especially 1/2/3 (2:6 with a Doctor and nothing else is already tough on the town, and you're adding something that completely negates the Doctor and also an extra Vengekill for the scum). I would do some rearranging, get rid of the Vengeful part (put Doctor on one end, and maybe add a one-shot Vig on the other, so in those games the town has a chance to get an extra lynch).

Spoiler: FakeGod

Like, and I think we've established it's balanced.

Spoiler: xfdagentz42

Assuming that's supposed to read "Vengeful Town"... Probably not too unreasonable, just swingy.

Spoiler: xfdagentx42

JK claim day 1?

Spoiler: xfdagentx42

Mafia is way too strong in this one.

Spoiler: Jackal711

Pretty reasonable?

Spoiler: Titus

Not so reasonable. Aside from the logistical concerns (Matchmaker isn't in the deck nor will it be, we don't have Werewolf PRs at the moment), 2:2:8 is probably not balanced even with all the scum role shenanigans.

Post Post #112 (isolation #18) » Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:11 am

Spoiler: Archetype

Not really a fan of the cross-alignment Lover thing.

Spoiler: Le Cupcake

Fine, but not different enough from the other 9-player setups we have, I think.

Spoiler: PHANTOM

The problem with variable numbers of millers who don't know they are millers is that it basically turns the Cop into a (partially) Random Cop. If we had Vanilla Cop in the deck, this might be an interesting setup (with the semi-open part randomly determining some named roles like Miller, Lover, or Vengeful Townie)? Except for the Cop-Doc combo of course. Meh.

Spoiler: BBmolla

This would end up a 3:5? Even with the Vig and a potential PGO, Vengeful, or Supersaint, this seems like it couldn't possibly be balanced. Or am I misunderstanding the semi-open part?

Post Post #113 (isolation #19) » Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:14 am

In post 111, Prof Fridays wrote:Hey, now, I feel like my version of cult is reasonable.

I have long (but not always) been in the "Cult is a bad role because alignement changes are bad/no-fun/etc." camp. But for more constructive criticism: In your setup, the Cult is at best a two-person group, with no kill; they are strictly inferior to the Mafia (who have a kill), and would have a very hard time winning even if the Mafia both went down before a Culty died.

Post Post #114 (isolation #20) » Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:16 am

Going to go through my posts this evening and come up with a shortlist of setups I like. And then figure out what the heck to do next.

#	TOWN	MAFIA
1	Vanilla	--
2	Wild	--
3	Doc	1x Strongman
4	Wild	--
5	Cop	Godfather
6	Wild	--
7	Tracker	Roleblocker
8	Wild	--
9	Vanilla	--