[SETUP] Workshop Wars

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[SETUP] Workshop Wars

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Sat Nov 05, 2016 11:19 am

Post by MiniDeathStar »

Notice:
This post makes extensive use of colours for aesthetic purposes, and is designed with the default (black) theme in mind.

The workshop of a mad genius has been infiltrated by insidious rivals who want to sabotage her work! The scumbags have skillfully mingled amongst the newly hired assistants. In order to deal with the threat, the inventor has enlisted the help of a renowned (albeit somewhat paranoid) inspector adept at sniffing out the scum, and also her equally mad (although far less experienced) apprentice, who has already begun working on special gadgets to aid their cause. With the two brave investigators undercover, the assistants are hoping to send a message to the competition by exposing their agents and lynching them from the workshop. The scumbags, however, certainly haven't come unprepared...

Overview
The Workshop


1
Inventor
[3 gadgets; assembles and mails 1 per night; restocks after mailing all 3]

   
Gadgets:
weak flavour cop; 1-shot miller vig; hated modifier + read access to dead chat

1
Inspector
[flavour cop; also gets guilty ("scummy") on players who've been at L-1 at any point of the game]

7
Assistants
[vanilla townies]



The Competition


1
Toymaker
[3 toys; assembles and mails 1 per night; restocks after mailing all 3]

   
Toys:
fake flavour cop gadget that explodes in 2 nights; 1-shot blank vig; read access to a fake dead chat updated by the mafia

1
Observer
[rolecop; can also see items]



- Daystart
- Flavour investigations give "scummy" results on mafia, miller, and players who've been at L-1 (hated modifier included).
- Toys look identical to gadgets to everyone except the mafia.
- Items have random flavour descriptions (e.g. rusty gun, dusty radio). When a player possesses multiple copies of one item, they must specify which one(s) they want to use or mail.
- All items except guns can be mailed off to someone else.
- Whenever the mafia or the vig night-kill, they also steal their victim's items.
- Unassembled items from a dead Inventor or Toymaker are not stolen.
- The Inventor can't use items but can pass them along.
- After the Inventor or the Toymaker give out their stash, they can spend one night to make 3 more (unassembled) items.
- Inspector and observer investigations, mafia faction kills, restocking item stash, and mailing items do not count towards the night action limit.
- Assembling or using items is limited to one action per person per night.
- Mafia have a daychat and constant access to the fake dead chat.


Gadgets
Scumminess Meter™
. Can be used at night to detect if another person is scummy. However, it's so sensitive that it explodes if it gets close to actual scum (including visits by the Observer), killing the carrier. Can also be mailed by the current owner, in which case they don't see the result but don't die if the meter explodes. If mailed to mafia, explodes before the recipient gets close enough to the mailbox.
• The meter pings on scummy people (who've been at L-1 and Real Gun™ owners), but explodes on mafia.

• If the current owner is scummy, it always pings.


Real Gun™
. Can be shot once at night. However, gun owners are by default seen as scummy. Attempting to discard the gun or pass it off to someone else would be considered disposing of evidence, and therefore incredibly scummy. No honest person has the guts to do that.
• While in the Inventor's stash, the gun is disassembled and doesn't work, nor does it make them look scummy.

• The scumminess remains even after the gun has been used.


Deathwave Radio™
. It's tuned to transmit the voices of the dead (grants read access to dead chat). However, hearing voices and dealing with death is super creepy and gives everyone else the willies, to the point it takes 1 less vote for the owner of the radio to be lynched (unbeknownst to the rest). The radio can be mailed off to someone else during the night.
• The moderator provides a Google document that's regularly updated with dead people's conversations.

• The link is changed every time the radio changes hands.

• If a person has been at L-1 (L-2 on the formal tally) while owning the radio, they will be considered scummy.


Toys
Fake Scumminess Meter
. It's a carbon copy of the real deal, except it only makes the same sounds and lights without actually scumreading anybody. It does however come with a time bomb that explodes exactly two nights after it's assembled and given.
• When given, it can be mailed or used for one night (gives a fixed result), and will explode on the second night, exactly as if it's been triggered on the mafia.

• Cannot be mailed to mafia by the mafia.

• If mailed to mafia on the night it explodes, it will not kill that mafia.


Toy Gun
. Like the Real Gun™, it can be shot once on any night. Except this gun only shoots blanks. On the plus side, possessing a toy doesn't make anybody look scummy.
• The toy gun is ignored by the Inspector and the scumminess meter.


Scumwave Radio
. It looks exactly like the Deathwave Radio™, and is also tuned to transmit voices. As in, the voices of the mafia posing as dead people! Grants read access to a version of the dead chat that looks identical to the real one, except it's actually updated by the (living) mafia. On the other hand, an ordinary radio gives nobody the creeps and doesn't affect the owner's lynch threshold.
• The moderator provides a Google document that's regularly updated with staged conversations by the mafia.

• The link is changed every time the radio changes hands.
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Sun Nov 06, 2016 7:15 am

Post by Gamma Emerald »

Um
Access to dead chat is not good at all.
S-P-O-I-L-E-R-S!
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Sun Nov 06, 2016 7:27 am

Post by Infinity 324 »

Well it doesn't seem overpowered in this setup, just too swingy.

I think the mod should have the option to keep a spoiler-free dead chat, which makes the ability very weak. Plus it's possible that whoever gets the item might not figure out either scum even if unspoilered, or they could figure out both. I also think it puts too much pressure on the scumteam to fake a believable dead chat. Maybe some sort of protective would work better.

Otherwise it seems like a cool setup.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Sun Nov 06, 2016 2:30 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

The dead chat thing is a logistical nightmare. The mod would need to copy all the posts into a new document to be able to fake the usernames in a fake dead chat.

The "L-1 makes you a flavour miller" and giftable Hate modifier mean that players would be highly incentivised to not vote, until the hammer. That tends to make games less fun as you can't rely on mod-provided vote counts.

Scum can use their fake flavour cop as an additional nightkill via gifting it to a buddy, then transferring it to a townie just as it's about to explode. That seems fairly broken.

I suspect this is townsided once you fix the scum's effective vigkill. (If town agree to never use the Inventor shot, thus making scum inventions easy to identify, the setup is heavily townsided, as it's basically Cop + Named Townie + 7 VT versus 1 Goon, 1 Rolecop; that setup is close to balanced if you remove the Named Townie and a VT, so is likely to be townsided with the extra mislynch and confirmability.)
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Sun Nov 06, 2016 10:20 pm

Post by MiniDeathStar »

In post 1, Gamma Emerald wrote:Um
Access to dead chat is not good at all.
S-P-O-I-L-E-R-S!
What spoilers? The whole idea is that dead assistants whose scumminess meter exploded can reveal the mafia, the real inventor can reveal who has their gadgets, the dead inspector can out reports, and the dead vigilante can give information on who they killed. Also nightkilled townies are probably good at scumhunting so they could be useful, too. It balances by being unreliable information and by giving the scum an opportunity hammer because of the hate-lynch.

Infinity 324 wrote:Well it doesn't seem overpowered in this setup, just too swingy.

I think the mod should have the option to keep a spoiler-free dead chat, which makes the ability very weak. Plus it's possible that whoever gets the item might not figure out either scum even if unspoilered, or they could figure out both. I also think it puts too much pressure on the scumteam to fake a believable dead chat. Maybe some sort of protective would work better.

Otherwise it seems like a cool setup.
Thanks! Actually the dead chat would be in this format:

MiniDeathStar:
Ugh, my meter blew up. I was checking Gamma Emerald. I wonder if I had the fake one though?
NJAC:
What are your other results Mini?
MiniDeathStar:
I don't have any, I literally got that thing last night.
alban:
I bet Gamma is scum.
MiniDeathStar:
Gamma is always scum, even if he doesn't know it yet.


A google document where each person writes their own name and some text. It makes it easier to fake and discourages quoting and giant walls o' text. I just thought the concept was interesting enough to warrant an experiment. ;)

I *was* thinking of including something protective, but I didn't want to potentially prolong the life of the cop in this setup, especially considering they could transmit their reports over the radio.

callforjudgement wrote:The dead chat thing is a logistical nightmare. The mod would need to copy all the posts into a new document to be able to fake the usernames in a fake dead chat.

The "L-1 makes you a flavour miller" and giftable Hate modifier mean that players would be highly incentivised to not vote, until the hammer. That tends to make games less fun as you can't rely on mod-provided vote counts.

Scum can use their fake flavour cop as an additional nightkill via gifting it to a buddy, then transferring it to a townie just as it's about to explode. That seems fairly broken.

I suspect this is townsided once you fix the scum's effective vigkill. (If town agree to never use the Inventor shot, thus making scum inventions easy to identify, the setup is heavily townsided, as it's basically Cop + Named Townie + 7 VT versus 1 Goon, 1 Rolecop; that setup is close to balanced if you remove the Named Townie and a VT, so is likely to be townsided with the extra mislynch and confirmability.)
No, it would be pretty easy to handle the dead chat. See my explanation above.

Why do you think people would stop voting just because "L-1 makes you scummy"? If they brought someone to L-1, they probably really were scummy and got their wagon derailed last minute. They'd be irl millers in that case so I think they'd deserve what they got. ;) Hate modifier just makes radio owners want to claim when votes start piling up on them, especially since they can listen to the radio during the day, too.

Scum can't give the fake meter to fellow scum. The only way it'd end up in their hands intact would be if the townie who got it mailed it to the mafia on the very next night. It's also weaker than an extra kill because it can be passed to mafia when it's about to explode, and may essentially be a shitty vig shot if the owner correctly guessed the night on which it's due to explode. Besides, there's 9 townies and 2 scummies, to make up for the possible extra deaths.

Do you think a named townie would be more useful than the inventor? I don't think the toys are that much of a pain to warrant "omg no items pls" from town, and any claimed power role is just going to die since there's no doctors. Even if they hold off to their claim until LYLO, it's more likely they'd be rolecopped by then and completely wasted if the inventor decided not to give a radio.

In any case, I feel like a better way to balance it and preserve the concept would be to make both inventors compulsive. If it's still townsided, maybe get rid of one assistant.
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Sun Nov 06, 2016 10:35 pm

Post by Infinity 324 »

Still think the fake dead chat might be too difficult to implement. What if a dead scum decided to write under fake names in the real dead chat?

And if the person did get potentially significant information, you can run them up to L-1 to see if the item was fake. If it was real, they get lynched but you gain the info. And inspector could even claim their target so scum can't really hide the radio.
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Mon Nov 07, 2016 6:25 am

Post by MiniDeathStar »

Obviously disguising in the actual dead chat isn't allowed. ;) The site I played mafia before used google documents for dead and mafia chat so I know it's doable. I'm just not sure if it's balanced.

I think the real problem comes from a mass claim. Like, if there's two radios at the same time, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out which one is authentic (even if it takes a lynch). Whether the mafia gains or loses from that will probably depend on the game, but it does take away a lot of the fun factor I think.

Do you think it would work better as a closed setup? (As in, people know there's inventors and items, but only the actual inventor and the toymaker know what the items do).
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:27 am

Post by Gamma Emerald »

The problem with deadtalk is that people usually ask the first dead scum to out their buddies.
See the issues?
A better version would be to pick a person and see their most recent night action.
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:52 am

Post by callforjudgement »

In post 4, MiniDeathStar wrote:Why do you think people would stop voting just because "L-1 makes you scummy"? If they brought someone to L-1, they probably really were scummy and got their wagon derailed last minute. They'd be irl millers in that case so I think they'd deserve what they got. ;) Hate modifier just makes radio owners want to claim when votes start piling up on them, especially since they can listen to the radio during the day, too.
Putting someone at L-1 would make them immune to investigation in this setup (as it'd make them into a Miller, effectively). That's a bad thing for town. Forcing a player to claim early (via putting someone at L-2 when they're Hated) is also a bad thing for town. Putting players at L-1 is always avoidable (via using fake votes rather than actual votes). As such, I can't see any possible incentive for town to use regular votes in this setup, and all the voting-related mechanics will thus be nonfunctional.
Do you think a named townie would be more useful than the inventor?
Almost certainly not. My point is that there's a straightforward strategy that makes this townsided, and it doesn't use all town's powers. Thus, it would probably be
more
townsided if town made full use of them.
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Mon Nov 28, 2016 10:27 pm

Post by MiniDeathStar »

How exactly do you balance a townsided setup? I'd really like to preserve the unique mechanics. Do you think converting it to a closed setup would do the trick? Or perhaps not announcing the specifics of each role and invention except in the role PM?

Like...

Town roles -
Inspector: Investigates players at night. Players who look scummy return guilty results.
Inventor: Gives one gadget each night. Gadgets have active powers, but each comes with a known side effect.

Mafia roles -
Observer: Each night, discovers the role and any items the target may have.
Toy maker: Gives one toy each night. Toys look indistinguishable from inventor gadgets, but are rigged or ineffective.


Or maybe completely closed?
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