[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[callforjudgement]

Nightless games tend to win above EV, but we don't need theoretical calculations in this case: we have lots of actual results for 4:2 Nightless White Flag. Scum have won over 68% of the time, so without the White Flag modifier, town have very little chance.

[Jingle]

I disagree that the comparison is perfect. The inclusion of Jesters makes the game dramatically longer AND means scum has an incentive to not just lynch the weakest player. ime, the length of nightless games and the inability of scum to weed out strong voices is why nightless games townside over EV. That said, I agree with you that if there's a way to boost town v scum here that doesn't alter the core of the setup, that's good for the overall health of the setup.

Still doesn't really change the fact that what I'm looking for here is a boost to town that doesn't effect Jesters though. I'm not a big fan of IC's in nightless setups, tbh, but that is a potential solution. White Flag or variations thereof might work, but I feel that's a mite too punishing for Jesters. Adding players makes the game tedious, and removing mafia removes associations. I could see a vengekill for the first town lynch, but it seems inelegant. Investigations are largely the same.

[callforjudgement]

Simplest boost is a fifth townie. That shouldn't have a noticeable impact on the Jesters.

[Jingle]

Not only did I just say that I wanted to avoid adding players because the game length is already a point of minor concern, that would bump the setup from a micro to a mini. I am 0% interested to wait through a mini queue for a meme setup designed to maximize the potential for a player who wants an opportunity to be a Jester to roll Jester.

[TemporalLich]

Pocket Splash

11 players

2 Mafia Goons

2 Werewolves

1 Town 1-Shot Alignment Cop

6 Vanilla Townies

This game has a Dusk (or 1st half of Night) Start. The Mafia alters the playerlist order during the Dusk phase. Failing to do so will generate a random playerlist order. If all Mafiosi are dead, Dusk phases are skipped and the Werewolves alter the playerlist order.

After that comes Midnight (or 2nd half of Night), where the Werewolves are notified in their PT of the Mafia's playerlist order and may swap one pair of players in the playerlist. If all Werewolves are dead, Midnight phases are skipped.

There are no factional nightkills in this game.

The Day phase comes afterward, where players vote to lynch a player. However, lynching a player in this game not only lynches that player, but also the the player before and after in the playerlist. (wrapping around if a player at either end of the playerlist is lynched)

Lynching is compulsive. That means plurality voting is in effect and voting No Lynch is not allowed.

The Town 1-Shot Alignment Cop submits their action during any time, and gets results in the form of

Town

,

Mafia

, or

Werewolf

.

Mafia and Werewolves may communicate privately at any time.

Either scumteam wins when the other scumteam is dead and they control 50% of the votes.

2 Mafiosi, 2 Werewolves, and 1 Townie is a draw for both scumteams (townies still lose).

Mini variant of Splash Damage (this is 2:2:7, while Splash Damage is 3:3:11). Should last a maximum of 3 cycles instead of 5.

I intend to potentially run this as a marathon (if I qualify).

[Jingle]

Alignment Cop seems iffy, given they're > IC. AC probably claims D1 (being IC adjacent isn't safe, it just means you get lynched from the other side) then activates in LYLO.

#s

11 -> 8 -> 5 -> Endgame

You have to average 1.3 scumlynches per day to win as town, and you have to lynch 2 scum in the first two days.

I assume 1v2v2 and 0v1v1 result in scumdraw, since in both situations town has lost and scum has no method of breaking a tiebreaker internally. 2v2v1 should result in larger scumteam win, because town can't win. (Team of two won't vote for an option that kills both of them, team of one won't vote for an option that kills them.)

[TemporalLich]

idk if that means town need more power, less power, or just a more direct influence.

if it's that the town needs less power I could just use an Activated Innocent Child

[Jingle]

If the goal of the setup is to reduce the original Splash damage, I'd suggest reducing it out of multiball (a guess would be that 8v3 is more appropriate with just mafia choose list order). If the goal is to marathon-ize splash damage, it's already a fairly decent marathon setup if you can get the people for it. It's relatively short, there's no huge problem to meme-lynches and it's mechanically simple enough to pull off, assuming you think you can keep track of a 17p votecount in real time.

Ignore the math, I calculated awfully and don't have the time to fix it atm.

[TemporalLich]

If the goal of the setup is to reduce the original Splash damage, I'd suggest reducing it out of multiball (a guess would be that 8v3 is more appropriate with just mafia choose list order). If the goal is to marathon-ize splash damage, it's already a fairly decent marathon setup if you can get the people for it. It's relatively short, there's no huge problem to meme-lynches and it's mechanically simple enough to pull off, assuming you think you can keep track of a 17p votecount in real time.

Ignore the math, I calculated awfully and don't have the time to fix it atm.

I'm gonna have to agree. Splash Damage is actually doable as a marathon, though I'd put this as a Mini version of Splash Damage.

One-fold Splash Damage

11 players

3 Mafia Goons

8 Vanilla Townies

This game has a Night Start. The Mafia alters the playerlist order during the Night phase. Failing to do so will generate a random playerlist order.

There are no factional nightkills in this game.

The Day phase comes afterward, where players vote to lynch a player. However, lynching a player in this game not only lynches that player, but also the the player before and after in the playerlist. (wrapping around if a player at either end of the playerlist is lynched)

Lynching is compulsive. That means plurality voting is in effect and voting No Lynch is not allowed.

Mafia may communicate privately at any time.

Mafia win when they control 50% of the votes.

Alternate names include Collateral Damage and Splash Damage Basic

Alternate names do not include Splash Mountainous

[Jingle]

/prein whatever setup gets named Splash Mountainous. I will likely retract this pre-in at some point in the future.

[Jingle]

Assuming mafia space themselves out to prevent double maf lynch is optimal (It might be? I'm not sure, but it seems like a reasonable strategy):

2/11 triple town D1.
Leads to 5v3
9/11 single scum.
Leads to 6v2

5v3
1/8 double scum into 3/5 LYLO
7/8 single scum into 1/5 LYLO
OR (Choice is scums)
3/8 double scum into 3/5 LYLO
1/4 Scumwin
3/8 Single Scum into 1/5 LYLO

6v2
1/4 Triple town into 3v2 LYLO, 1/5 town win.
3/4 1 Scum into 4v1 LYLO, 3/5 Town Win.

~45% Town EV. The difference in the scum choices is about 1% and it's the option which allows for an autowin for scum D2 which favors town, slightly.

Gonna go ahead and say it's theoretically balanced, unless someone thinks of a better strat for scum.

[James Brafin]

Have a setup. Nothing fancy, but has a neat twist: scum gets to steal PRs from the day 1 lynch and NK, but there are a number of semi-negative PRs available, as well as semi-positive scum-PRs, and the same is true of town.

Scum
Town Rolestealer x2
Mafia Goon

Town
Doctor
Tracker
Vengeful Townie
1-shot Governor
Hated Townie
Follower
Odd-night Commuter
Roleblocker
Borrower (Absorber, but only gets 1 shot for each absorption)
1-shot neighborizer

[Irrelephant11]

So the first problem I’m seeing is if this setup is open it ends in D1 massclaim...

[James Brafin]

Why? Not seeing why that’s a town necessity.

[Irrelephant11]

Because if the list in your post is public information scum have no fakeclaims

[Jingle]

Bb explains it well in the common mistakes thread, which is definitely worth a read. As far as balancing the setup, I could see three options. Total rework to be a semi open with variable roles, conversion to a small town, or transition to a closed setup, in which case you want to have this discussion in a pt.

[James Brafin]

Ok. Options 1 or 3 would prob be best

[Jingle]

Now that I'm not mobile, I'll elaborate a little. Option one would be something along the lines of


Each of the following roles has a 33% chance of being included in this game. Any roles which are not included will instead by VTs.

Doctor
Tracker
Vengeful Townie
1-shot Governor
Hated Townie
Follower
Odd-night Commuter
Roleblocker
Borrower (Absorber, but only gets 1 shot for each absorption)
1-shot neighborizer

Smalltown is shorthand for a setup in which all of the roles are known, but the alignment of said roles is unknown. Thus you would have that list and three ability thieves, and randomly 3 among those players are scum.

Making a closed setup is pretty self explanatory, although you could either post a request for setup help in the looking for reviewers thread with your gimmick (scum action thiefs) or simply PM people you think might be willing/able to help you with balance.


You could also maybe change the setup fundamentally by making the town power roles repetitive (if there's 6 town trackers, scum can fakeclaim tracker) but doing so mean you need to have a very weak PR base and it seems pretty geared towards not having a bunch of the same PR as it is.

[James Brafin]

I am hesitant to add too many VTs, because even one or two weakens scum considerably, because most of scum’s power relay on good PR hunting. But if I did Mafia Janitor, some might be ok.

I do have a new list with extra roles, so I could do semi-open.

Scum
Town Rolestealer x2
Mafia Janitor

Town (Random)
Doctor
Tracker
Vengeful Townie
1-shot Governor
Hated Townie
Follower
Odd-night Commuter
Roleblocker
Borrower (Absorber, but only gets 1 shot for each absorption)
1-shot neighborizer
1-shot Vig
Macho Babysitter
1-shot Strengthener
1-shot Deflector
Compulsive Weak Roleblocker

You could even make it a 9-person and just do two Mafia Janitor Town Rolestealers, just to for sure hide what’s been killed.

I kinda like having it semi-open mini Role Madness. You just have to make sure there is a decent mix of negative and positive scum utility roles.

[funkybike1]

Have a setup I'm thinking of running. Removing the flavor, it's:

2 Doctors
6 False Doctors

1 Goon
50% chance of another Goon, 50% chance of a Mafia Roleblocker (can both kill and roleblock on the same Night)

Lynching and all night actions are compulsive.

EV is ~40% with a second goon and ~35% with a Roleblocker.

[Jingle]

Any particular reason you're starting on evens?

I think it's probably scumsided if boring if you use roleblocker. Probably balanced-ish with goon. Not sure why you're making that semi open.

[Jingle]

I am hesitant to add too many VTs, because even one or two weakens scum considerably

What?

Every pr drop comes with a town power drop that is > than the scum power drop.

Also, looking at this I'm fairly certain you're going to be more satisfied making a closed setup at this point anyway.

[funkybike1]

Any particular reason you're starting on evens?

I think it's probably scumsided if boring if you use roleblocker. Probably balanced-ish with goon. Not sure why you're making that semi open.

The evens start was because I believe 9:2 to be a bit too townsided for this setup, while 7:2 is an obvious rout for scum. A single Doc save (which has, assuming random targets and via a Monte Carlo simulation, a 63% chance with a Roleblocker and a 72% chance with a Goon) brings it to odd anyway, so starting on even is preferable.

The Roleblocker exists to reduce the chances of a successful protection, as well as preventing strategies such as "everyone protect the player below them in the playerlist" from confirming whoever should have protected the victim as False/scum. (Thus sharply decreasing the chance they will themselves be nightkilled early, but that's heading into WIFOM territory.) It makes the setup a bit scumsided, but it removes gamey strategies via its threat, even in the half of the time it isn't present.

The remaining option to increase town odds is to replace compulsive lynch with a single allowed No Lynch, which I'm considering, but leaning against at the moment.

[Jingle]

Circle protect here is a terrible strategy, btw. It just outs the real doctor to scum if they get a save. A kill isn't incriminating, and a save still isn't a clear.

I get the idea of doc taking the game off of evens, but I think your doc save is significantly likely to only come late. (N1 doc save is 2/8*1/8+6/8*2/8 or ~22% assuming a scum lynch. It drops with a False Doc lynch and it drops dramatically with a Doc lynch.)

I don't think forcing a lynch is necessary at all. There's no reason that town wants to no lynch before MYLO or loss of all docs.

Similarly, I don't think 9v2 is unreasonable, given that town has no PRs who can avoid a lynch via claim.

[chennisden]

I've liked nomination mafia and have an idea for something similar.

Pass the Lynch

Alternatively, Listen to the Dead

3v6, NO NIGHTKILLS

N0 start. Scum pick a pool of 3 people. At D1 Town must lynch between those 3 people. Whoever is lynched must pick a pool of 3 people who must be lynched between. Lynching is compulsive.

To break ties, the lynched will produce a public ordered list between the three players. If there is a tie, the person given the lowest number will be lynched between the tied people.