[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

This forum is for discussion of individual Open Setups, including theoretical balance.
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Post Post #825 (ISO) » Mon Nov 04, 2019 8:30 am

Post by Jingle »

In post 824, RadiantCowbells wrote:God I hate conceited setups
Serious complaint?

Basically, the conceit of the setup is public cop halfway through each day randomly determined among all suspected parties. I'm really mostly concerned with fair balance. Town has more power than cop 9-er and it never goes away. Additionally, scum has the agency to shoot clears as soon as they pop up. 2v7 feels townsided and 3v6 seems scumsided, and that's where I'm most interested in feedback.
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Post Post #826 (ISO) » Mon Nov 04, 2019 8:45 am

Post by popsofctown »

Yeah I agree 2v7 is townsided and 3v6 is scumsided and I don't know where you go with that.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #827 (ISO) » Mon Nov 04, 2019 8:52 am

Post by Jingle »

Might try it as a 3v8, tbh.
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Post Post #828 (ISO) » Mon Nov 04, 2019 9:21 am

Post by Blatant Scum »

Assume there are 2 wagons and it's before midday, leading wagon is on town.
Scummiest/ random scum should vote random person right before the deadline, even if that makes him lynched the next day, right?
4v11 might be a more interesting setup.
Don’t forget about how when I asked him for a link to his scumgame, he linked THIS game. - Pyrrha Nikos
He usually never puts effort into reads like that, which does sometimes get him scumread, but since he was on an alt and we didn't know his meta, I can see CL!him making reads as an exception since he knows he'll probably be scumread otherwise.
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Post Post #829 (ISO) » Mon Nov 04, 2019 9:29 am

Post by Jingle »

There being only two wagons is proscum as it means there is no cop, so not at all.

The concept isn't interesting enough for a large, imo.

Actually, given plurality and thus no real concern about being in evens, it might be a decent 2v6.

I'll probably run it sometime soon and see how it shakes out.
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Post Post #830 (ISO) » Sat Nov 30, 2019 10:30 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

Send for Help
  • 7 Town, 3 Mafia, no power roles
  • No normal lynching or nightkills. Instead, each Day, the players vote for one player to "send for help". That player leaves the game (but continues to win/lose as a member of their faction). There are no Nights.
  • Town win if 4 Town players are sent for help.
  • Mafia win if 2 Mafia players are sent for help.


This is basically just Black Flag Nightless with reversed wincons. I'm really excited by this combination: the Flag mechanic seems to fix the worst problem with the Vote For Town mechanic, and vice versa (and Vote For Town is one of my favourite setups to play as it is).

Are there any big issues with this setup that I'm missing?
scum
· scam · seam · team · term · tern · torn ·
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Post Post #831 (ISO) » Sun Dec 01, 2019 5:24 am

Post by popsofctown »

Is it flipless?
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #832 (ISO) » Mon Dec 02, 2019 12:41 am

Post by callforjudgement »

I was intending to have flips as normal. (You could run it as flipless if you wanted a flipless game, but I don't see any reason to.)
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Post Post #833 (ISO) » Mon Dec 02, 2019 3:23 am

Post by popsofctown »

The balance is hard for me to brain.

It's maybe worth pointing out that this setup has a bizarre possible anomaly: it's possible for a Mafiosi to decide that it's the best play to lolhammer a partner to go off for help without any plan whatsoever of convincing the town it was a town lolhammer. And then you have an evil child hanging around the setup which is weird. Since it's a flag setup, completely eliminating the lolhammerer's chance of ever getting sent for help can still be defensible play. And since there's no lynching, the lolhammerer isn't removed from the game like they would be in standard mafia, they're just like, hanging around, and depending on moderator style they could possibly be required to post "game-related content" when all they want to do is confirm their slot scum and not give off associatives to the other partner. (is posting "My role PM says I'm scum" every 48 hours activity? In some sense isn't correctly and accurately stating a member of the scumteam the most meaningful activity you could possibly bring to the thread..?)
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #834 (ISO) » Mon Dec 02, 2019 3:39 am

Post by Blatant Scum »

What are the hypothetical win rates if all lynches were random?
I think that town wins in C(7,4)*[C(3,0)+C(3,1)]=140 cases.
And scum in [C(7,0)+C(7,1)+C(7,2)+C(7,3)]*C(3,2)=192 cases.
Did I get it right?
If yes, with 8 town, it's:
C(8,4)*[C(3,0)+C(3,1)]=280 cases.
[C(8,0)+C(8,1)+C(8,2)+C(8,3)]*C(3,2)=279 cases.
Which seems more balanced.
Don’t forget about how when I asked him for a link to his scumgame, he linked THIS game. - Pyrrha Nikos
He usually never puts effort into reads like that, which does sometimes get him scumread, but since he was on an alt and we didn't know his meta, I can see CL!him making reads as an exception since he knows he'll probably be scumread otherwise.
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Post Post #835 (ISO) » Mon Dec 02, 2019 3:48 am

Post by popsofctown »

My brain can't wrap my head around combinatorics the way it used to, but if you -are- right, 140/332 (42%) town winrate is where you want to be. The community has some divide on whether target town EV should be 50% or 40% in setups with a night phase, but nightlessness definitely shifts favor towards town.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #836 (ISO) » Wed Dec 04, 2019 6:39 am

Post by callforjudgement »

In post 834, Blatant Scum wrote:What are the hypothetical win rates if all lynches were random?
50%. The easy way to see this is to imagine that you continue lynching random players even after the game's over. Then you have 10 lynches, and each player is equally likely to be lynched in any of the 10 "lynch slots".

If you have two scum in the first half, scum win. If you have two scum in the second half, town win. By symmetry, those two possibilities are equally likely, so it's 50% likely for scum to win.

FWIW, Vote For Town (which is also nightless and reversed-wincon) has a 50% EV and, so far, a 50% practical win rate, although the sample size is very small. I suspect that reversed-wincon Nightless games have a much lower town win rate than a typical Nightless.
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Post Post #837 (ISO) » Wed Dec 04, 2019 9:40 pm

Post by Jingle »

Hypothetical EV doesn't matter at all in this case, as we can extrapolate practical information.

Vote for town is evidence (although weak) that the reversal of wincons doesn't change the observed winrate.

Black Flag Nightless is a roughly balanced setup via observation.

Therefore, reversed wincon Black Flag Nightless can be expected to be roughly balanced. It's probably more fun than the normal variant, too, since good play is rewarded with leaving the game so people who get demoralized are incentivized to try harder not lurk.
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Post Post #838 (ISO) » Wed Dec 04, 2019 9:45 pm

Post by Jingle »

Btw, any nightless setup changed to vote for town would have exactly opposite theoretical balance by necessity. Town wins in the cases it lost before, and scum wins in the cases it lost before.
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Post Post #839 (ISO) » Thu Dec 05, 2019 4:25 am

Post by callforjudgement »

In post 833, popsofctown wrote:It's maybe worth pointing out that this setup has a bizarre possible anomaly: it's possible for a Mafiosi to decide that it's the best play to lolhammer a partner to go off for help without any plan whatsoever of convincing the town it was a town lolhammer. And then you have an evil child hanging around the setup which is weird.
I think the correct fix to this is to allow lynches (that don't advance town's wincon) in addition to sending players for help. It'll normally be a bad option, but it'll be good for getting rid of guilty children and the like. (I agree that in a reverse flag setup, exposing yourself as scum can occasionally be good play, although my guess is that it won't be most of the time.)
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Post Post #840 (ISO) » Thu Dec 05, 2019 12:15 pm

Post by popsofctown »

What about allowing suicide instead of lynches?

If someone prefers to live as guilty child and thinks they can get +EV from wifom I'm inclined to allow it
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #841 (ISO) » Thu Dec 05, 2019 12:16 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I guess the guilty child can do hammers
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #842 (ISO) » Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:17 pm

Post by Jingle »

I would totally play as a guilty child in a Vote for Town setup. That sounds hilarious.
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Post Post #843 (ISO) » Tue Dec 17, 2019 1:42 am

Post by Alduskkel »

I can’t sleep and I came up with a weird setup.
2 Mafia Reporters vs 7 Town Reporters

A reporter targets someone and learns if they performed a night action or not. They get a positive result on both players who perform a nightkill and on other reporters who used their action that night.

Genius or idiotic? I have no idea what the optimal strategy for town is other than that it’s clearly suboptimal for town if all 9 reporters investigate or if none of them do.
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Post Post #844 (ISO) » Tue Dec 17, 2019 1:55 am

Post by popsofctown »

If the Mafia Reporters aren't multitasking I think you have all players use unprovable randomness to decide whether to fire their shot and fire 40, 50, or 60% of the time, not sure the value, and assign specific players that they need to report on certain other players. The Mafia Reporter that performs the kill becomes responsible for ascertaining whether a player acted but not having their hands free to do so, requiring them to kill that player which the town should consider heavily in NKA, or make up a result which has huge double digit chances of suiciding. Order shouldn't matter if you first go around the room with "I'm not saying I acted, but if I did, I received result X", then going around the room with "I acted/didn't act".
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #845 (ISO) » Tue Dec 17, 2019 2:52 am

Post by Blatant Scum »

I am pretty sure that there is a way how can town mech win if they wouldn't lynch.
Don’t forget about how when I asked him for a link to his scumgame, he linked THIS game. - Pyrrha Nikos
He usually never puts effort into reads like that, which does sometimes get him scumread, but since he was on an alt and we didn't know his meta, I can see CL!him making reads as an exception since he knows he'll probably be scumread otherwise.
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Post Post #846 (ISO) » Tue Dec 17, 2019 7:37 am

Post by Alduskkel »

Oh, I forgot to mention that a Mafia Reporter can investigate and kill on the same night.

Worst case scenario for scum is it becomes pseudo-nightless but I think it won’t reduce to that.
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Post Post #847 (ISO) » Tue Dec 17, 2019 8:55 am

Post by Jingle »

First impression is scumsided.

Gut says assign a pool of players who are not allowed to act and a pool of players who investigate in the other pool. Second pool probably starts small (2-3) and increases to all but two on a scum lynch.
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Post Post #848 (ISO) » Fri Dec 20, 2019 10:36 pm

Post by Evenstar »

I have successfully run this open setup on MU once before.
It's deeply experimental, but seemed both fun and balanced last time around. Would love to try it here.

Her Name Is Thaumiel

1x Thaumiel, Lynchproof Bomb Loverizing Cult Leader
1x Cultist (Lovers with Thaumiel)
9x Vanilla Town

Thaumiel
must
cult every night. Town
must
lynch every day.

All Cult members are Lovers, so if any Cultist is lynched the Cult loses. (Thaumiel is immune, but wants to avoid being lynched before LYLO because it gives Town information.)
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Post Post #849 (ISO) » Sat Dec 21, 2019 11:18 am

Post by popsofctown »

Does the "Bomb" in Thaumiel mean the same thing as Super Saint
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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