[GUIDE] Common Mistakes in Setup Making

This forum is for discussion of individual Open Setups, including theoretical balance.
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[GUIDE] Common Mistakes in Setup Making

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Tue Jun 28, 2016 10:15 am

Post by BBmolla »

This is meant to be a basic guide to stop you from making the mistakes people make time and time again when making their first setups.

For purposes of a "mafia setup" I will define mafia as an informed minority of two or more players vs. an uninformed majority. (with possibility for multiple informed minorities)

Spoiler: Not Mafia via no Informed Minority or Uninformed Majority
Emergency


9 Players

3 Police

3 Firemen

3 Paramedics

  • Players know who one other team mate is, in a circle. There is no night talk.
  • The team whose player was eliminated gets a night kill that night given to a team mate at random.

Issue:
While a game like this could be fun, it doesn't fit the definition of mafia. With all equal teams, there is no uninformed majority or informed minority, resulting in a game where an elimination is nearly impossible to achieve at some points.

Spoiler: Not Mafia via 1 scum
SK Deduction 6p


6 Players

1 Serial Killer

5 Townies

  • The first player who is eliminated selects a player. If that player is the SK, the SK loses. If that player is town, they are revealed as such and the game continues.

Issue:
Mafia is a game of finding mafia through lies and connections. Key word being connections. Being able to partner search is an integral part of the game and without any partners a large aspect of the game is removed (partner searching).

Spoiler: Jester/Cult
Other Fellas


9 Players

2 Mafia

1 Cult Leader

1 Jester

5 Townies

  • If Mafia is culted, they may no longer perform the nightkill.
  • If the Jester is nightkilled, he may vengekill someone.
  • If the Cult Leader is killed, the Jester, if alive, becomes the new Cult Leader.

Issue:
Coming from sites that focus on nightplay, many players love to include cults and jesters in their setups. The problem is that cults and jesters are very difficult to balance around and can not just be thrown in to "add chaos". Cults are an issue because factional conversion as power is exceedingly powerful without balances within the setup. Jesters are an issue because it punishes town for recognizing someone acting scummy, which is the point of mafia.

Spoiler: Mass Power Roles
Mass Power Roles


7 Players

1 Mafia Roleblocker
1 Mafia Rolecop

1 Town Cop
1 Town Doc
1 Town Roleblocker
1 Town Tracker
1 Town Watcher

  • Rolecop recieves full role name but not alignment.

Issue:
Coming from sites that focus on nightplay, many players love to include as many named roles as possible to create a game that is "more fun." This does not work at mafiascum for multiple reasons. First off, and most obviously, having too many named roles allows for the breaking strategy of Mass Claim. Players simply claim their roles day 1, forcing the mafia to fake claim a role. This increases the chance of a town victory ten fold by creating multiple confirmed town players and eventually confirmed scum. Second off, the more power roles you include the swingier the game becomes. Third off, Mafiascum as a site focuses on day play, and it's typical for open setups to sometimes only contain 2-3 power roles.

Spoiler: Cop/Doc Combo
Original Newbie Setup


7 Players

2 Mafia Goons

1 Town Cop
1 Town Doc
3 Vanilla Townies

Issue:
This setup is broken via Follow the Cop. Follow the Cop strategy is where the Cop claims day 1, allowing the Doctor to protect him every night and confirming him as town if the mafia do not counter claim. He will survive for as long as the Doctor does, ensuring at least 1 night of public reports and likely more.

Spoiler: Setups Based On One Role
The Super Coptor


9 Players

1 Mafia Godfather
1 Mafia Goon

1 Town Super Coptor
6 Vanilla Townies

  • At nights targets a player, protects and checks if they are mafia. If town, creates a private that allows the player to discuss with the Super Coptor. During the day can private message the mod to ensure only one of two players can be eliminated. Also can vig instead of Cop Doccing if he wants.

Issue:
This setup is far too based on one role to make it interesting/fun. If the role dies night 1, the whole possible mechanic of the setup is over with and it becomes an uphill battle. Implementing a mechanic into the setup instead of specifically one player is generally a good away to avoid "Super Roles."

Spoiler: Unfun Mechanics
The Game of Unfun


9 Players

1 Mafia Silencer
1 Mafia Bus Driver

1 Town Secret Death Miller
1 Voteless Townie
1 Town 50% Vigilante
1 Town 25% Vigs
2 Vanilla Townies

Suicidal Survivor

  • Silencer target can not talk or vote for the entire day.
  • Death Miller recieves a VT PM.

Issue:
Silencer, whether removin vote or just ability to talk, typically just ends up with a player not having fun. Death miller is not as fun as you'd think. Percentage roles can make a team lose just because of luck. All of these roles can work in certain setups, but in general be wary of them.

Spoiler: Doctrain
Doctrain Express


9 Players

2 Mafia Goons

2 Town Doctors
5 Vanilla Townies

Issue:
The Doctors can claim day 1, protecting each other and causing them to both become unkillable, making the game nearly impossible. Even if a Mafia Roleblocker is included, if the roleblocker dies they become bulletproof, creating an enormous swing within the setup. This is generally fixable by making the Docs macho.
Last edited by BBmolla on Wed Sep 02, 2020 7:50 pm, edited 11 times in total.
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Tue Jun 28, 2016 10:40 am

Post by mith »

Another common one: Too many named roles. Often the strategy in such a game is an immediate massclaim, which forces Mafia in a bad spot - either the named roles are confirmed, or the Mafia must counterclaim and put themselves in a 50-50 situation. While having the power roles out obviously makes them vulnerable to being killed, the EV gain from improving lynches is more significant, even before considering whether the outed power roles can further help the town by coordinating their abilities.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Tue Jun 28, 2016 10:58 am

Post by BBmolla »

Lemme know other ones any of you guys can think of. I consistently see the mistakes I've listed over and over in the open setup discussion but I know there are more.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Tue Jun 28, 2016 6:17 pm

Post by Hoopla »

In post 1, mith wrote:Another common one: Too many named roles. Often the strategy in such a game is an immediate massclaim, which forces Mafia in a bad spot - either the named roles are confirmed, or the Mafia must counterclaim and put themselves in a 50-50 situation. While having the power roles out obviously makes them vulnerable to being killed, the EV gain from improving lynches is more significant, even before considering whether the outed power roles can further help the town by coordinating their abilities.
This is probably the biggest problem that I see over and over again. It turns the value of a powerrole into a process-of-elimination device by way of claiming during the day, without fully utilising its night potential, which doesn't make for a fun game. A lot of open setups have been broken by massclaiming or partial claiming strategies.

Some good ways to counter this problem is adding a higher ratio of VT's, make the setup variable (0 or 1 Trackers, 1-2 Doctors etc.), or add mechanics that disincentivise claiming on D1 (or at all), for example; the daykill mechanic in Masons and Mafia which allows scum to daykill a mason if they name one correctly.

Another design strategy to dodge the named role is to design a game based entirely around mechanics rather than roles, such as Double Day Unlimited, or to give each player the same role like Duck, Duck, Goose!.

And then sometimes the best design decision is start over again and not force inelegant tweaks onto a setup just for the sake of making it work.
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Tue Jun 28, 2016 6:37 pm

Post by Realeo »

Can this be stickied?
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Wed Jun 29, 2016 2:17 am

Post by MURDERCAT »

What about mistakes that don't involve balance issues? For example, including unfun mechanics or roles. And what about issues of swing? What's good swing and what's bad swing?
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Fri Jul 01, 2016 1:43 am

Post by callforjudgement »

Excessive swing is, in my experience, a mistake that happens far more often in Closed games than Open games. (The usual cause is flooding the game with roles like Tracker that get much more powerful when there's only one scum left; trackers can get both innos and guilties when there's one scum, but only guilties when there are more.)

We should probably add "broken by circle-targeting" / "broken by pair-targeting" (these are much the same strategy) to the list at the start. Also, "broken by repeated no-lynch". Both of these are fairly common mistakes in making role-heavy Opens.
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:38 pm

Post by BBmolla »

yeah I'll edit it before bed to add those
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Sat Jul 02, 2016 11:03 pm

Post by BBmolla »

In post 5, MURDERCAT wrote:What about mistakes that don't involve balance issues? For example, including unfun mechanics or roles. And what about issues of swing? What's good swing and what's bad swing?
Thoughts on some unfun mechanics?
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Sat Jul 02, 2016 11:04 pm

Post by Plotinus »

governors that aren't limited to 1-shot with 48 hour twilight


edit: really long twilights, mechanics that make stalling the game out to a no lynch be a viable tactical for either alignment
Last edited by Plotinus on Sat Jul 02, 2016 11:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Post #10 (ISO) » Sat Jul 02, 2016 11:05 pm

Post by Realeo »

The one in my unfun mechanics list will be role swap. I have no problem with cult (alignment change), but a mafia roleswap with town is just dumb.
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Post Post #11 (ISO) » Sun Jul 03, 2016 2:04 am

Post by MURDERCAT »

Tree stump from the start is an obvious one that comes to mind (I have seen it suggested for a setup before).
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Post Post #12 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:29 am

Post by hitogoroshi »

In post 8, BBmolla wrote:
In post 5, MURDERCAT wrote:What about mistakes that don't involve balance issues? For example, including unfun mechanics or roles. And what about issues of swing? What's good swing and what's bad swing?
Thoughts on some unfun mechanics?
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Post Post #13 (ISO) » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:41 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

Anything that allows a player who doesn't have the scum wincon to know the identity of the entire scumteam is broken (this includes all groupscum → something else alignment changes). If you put enough restrictions on to prevent it breaking the game by itself, the restrictions will themselves make the game oppressive.

Post restrictions to prevent players claiming are always a bad idea (and something new mods try surprisingly often).
Last edited by callforjudgement on Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Post #14 (ISO) » Tue Oct 04, 2016 8:28 am

Post by RyanK »

In the Cop/Doc combo, wouldn't the follow the cop strategy fail if the mafia fake claim cop?
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Post Post #15 (ISO) » Tue Oct 04, 2016 10:24 am

Post by callforjudgement »

That's a commonly tried counter (and the one used in, say, Original Newbie to bring town win rates down to around 50%), but it puts scum into a 1v1 right at the start of the game, which is typically seen as undesirable. It also means that scum need to be aware of the optimal strategy for the setup right from the start of D1, which is reasonable on sites which play hundreds of marathon games in a row, but not on a site like this one where a player might only ever play a given setup once.
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Post Post #16 (ISO) » Tue Oct 04, 2016 11:56 am

Post by BBmolla »

If it fails it almost guarantees scum loss.
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Post Post #17 (ISO) » Tue May 12, 2020 11:18 pm

Post by Isis »

if this topic is open for discussion anyway -

can we tweak the angle on cults/jesters?
specifically cults, I don't love the treatment cults get here. The red card thrown is "balance", but a few users have decently colorable arguments that they can balance a cult recruiter. And even "Even night cult recruiter" is arguably enough, without requiring something fundamentally different from cult be presented.
Setups with balance measures have been proposed/played on site, including large closeds like D&D, Cultist Recruiter (fundamentally different: town gets to recruit cult back), CultD3(fundamentally differentish because cult is capped at 3), and NK's micro closed (he did what was functionally even-night cult, cult lost by a landslide, and it'd be really easy to see town winning more than 40 games of 100 runs of that experience.)
Cult games are nowhere near mainstream, and that is due to their similarity to jester: a townread on a slot based on a previous dayphase gets punished if it continues to be followed. Large numbers of players don't want to mess with that, independent of each faction's probability of winning. I'm one of those people.
I'm just not very confident "don't put CL in your setup because balance" is much more palpable than "don't put ungated Sane Cop in your setup because Balance", they're almost as dramatic. Cult Leader is undeniably more dramatic - it's just, not by an entire order of magnitude, I feel.
I'd prefer the same discouragement with the "you get punished for incentives mafia generally encourages"(like jester), or discouragement due to it being rolled in under "game is based around one extremely powerful role". It is incredibly easy to argue Korina's Cult D3 falls in line with the latter characterization, it makes just about no attempt to give a cultist a fighting chance if the cult leader openwolfs day1, the game goes to 1:7 nightless.
Just a thought I guess.
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Post Post #18 (ISO) » Wed May 13, 2020 8:49 am

Post by callforjudgement »

There are three, mostly unrelated, problems with cults.

Problem 1: Cults, in effect, change the town win condition from "lynch all scum" to "either lynch all scum and don't get culted, or lynch all town and do get culted". The latter win condition is much harder to play towards than the former, because you don't have direct control over whether you get culted or not. (In the extreme case, imagine town mislynches in MyLo. The cult now has to cult someone to win; it doesn't matter who from the cult's point of view, the cult wins either way, but it definitely matters from the point of view of the person who gets culted! Although you can create an exception for MyLo, comparable (but smaller) issues exist even earlier in the game.)

Problem 2: An unmodified standard Cult Leader is so powerful that if they don't die early on, they nearly always win. This makes the game hugely swingy.

Problem 3: If at any point in the game, the setup has a very large town/scum ratio, then scumhunting becomes mostly meaningless and the dayplay is not very interesting, causing everyone to become demoralised.

I believe that problem 2 is fairly easy to fix using modified or variant Cult Leaders or cult mechanics. I would still go as far as saying "don't put an unmodified standard Cult Leader in your game ever", but I'd be less wary about excluding cults as a concept in general for balance reasons.

Problem 3 is a real problem that's caught out good mods in the past; it's the reason we rarely play 11:2 mountainous nowadays, for example. Cult games often have even more extreme town/scum ratios on day 1. In a game consisting of Vanilla Townies + 1 unmodified Cult Leader, optimal play is not to look at your role PM at all, or try to forget what role you have when the mod forces you to, because there is literally reason to play any differently until N1 starts and you have a scumteam. That makes D1 useless for scumhunting, when normally it's the most informative day. This problem is also fixable, but a cult that avoids it will look particularly weird and non-standard.

Problem 1 is the real killer, and the hardest to fix. It's the primary reason why cult games require a warning during signups, to exclude townies who dislike the "town vs. cult" win condition. It looks very hard to fix during setup design; you might be able to do something where townies have some level of control over whether they get culted, but it's hard to see how that would be interesting to play as cult.

I would have no problems with a cult game that had a good solution to all three of these solutions (and would consider playing in it myself if I had the time, but I probably wouldn't). If a game fixed only two out of three, I wouldn't automatically consider it a bad game, and there would probably be people who enjoyed playing it, but I wouldn't consider playing it myself.
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Post Post #19 (ISO) » Wed May 13, 2020 9:06 am

Post by Isis »

I myself care a lot about #1, but we have large swaths of players who indicate that #1 doesn't really impact how much fun they expect to have.
#3 isn't reflected by this OP in general but is a really good point that's on my mind during design lately. Some cult nerfs can help, see Her Name is Thaumiel for a cult game with very minimized harms from 3 and as a result one of my favorite cult designs. But it's. Pretty important.
Would you object to the OP focusing it's treatment of the problem on (1)? I think for those starting out designing setups, restricting yourself to the fraction of players who tolerate the win condition instability of cult is starting on hard mode, at the least.
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Post Post #20 (ISO) » Wed May 13, 2020 9:47 am

Post by callforjudgement »

I think #1 is the largest of the three problems, so it's probably the right one to mention in the OP.
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Post Post #21 (ISO) » Wed May 13, 2020 10:09 am

Post by BBmolla »

I think cults should be the sort of thing that is discouraged but people who understand that can break the ruie

I have yet to see a cult setup where the best strategy isn’t to just pray to get culted

Well that’s sort of a lie, the cult leader who literally took over the accounts it culted was balanced but that’s different
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Post Post #22 (ISO) » Wed May 13, 2020 10:13 am

Post by Isis »

I agree
"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?'"
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"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #23 (ISO) » Wed Sep 02, 2020 7:59 am

Post by NotAJumbleOfNumbers »

OP needs to be edited to remove problematic wording
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Post Post #24 (ISO) » Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:50 pm

Post by BBmolla »

on it
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