[SETUP] Two-Fold Chosen Mafia

This forum is for discussion of individual Open Setups, including theoretical balance.
User avatar
Umlaut
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 5980
Joined: August 3, 2016
Location: Somewhere out there

[SETUP] Two-Fold Chosen Mafia

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Tue Jan 24, 2017 5:26 am

Post by Umlaut »

I was idly considering a multiball setup based on Chosen Mafia. I've just thrown this together without thinking it through at all.

2
Mafiosi

2
Werewolves

2
Chosen Townies

2
Fated Townies

T
Townies


Mechanics
  • Day start.
  • Pre-game, the Mafia and Werewolves each select one player in the game to veto. These player cannot be "chosen" or "fated" respectively. Four of the remaining townies are randomly selected by the moderator to be the Chosen Townies and Fated Townies.
  • The Mafia are told who was Chosen and the Werewolves are told who was Fated, but no one else is told, including the Chosen and Fated themselves.
  • As long as both Chosen Townies are alive, neither can be shot or endgamed by the Mafia (i.e., 1 or 2 Mafia vs. 2 Chosen is a town win).
  • As long as both Fated Townies are alive, neither can be mauled or endgamed by the Werewolves (i.e., 1 or 2 Werewolves vs. 2 Fated is a town win).
  • Chosen Townies flip "Chosen Townie"; Fated Townies flip "Fated Townie".
  • The town cannot no-lynch; plurality deadline rules apply to lynches.

Upon writing this setup out, I've already got two obvious questions and one less obvious one:
  1. Does anyone actually want to play this?
  2. What's the correct value of T?
  3. How can the mod select Chosen and Fated Townies fairly? (Or, for the mathematically inclined, how do we uniformly choose disjoint size-two subsets of {1,...,T-1} and {2,...T}?)
User avatar
Something_Smart
Something_Smart
He/him
Somewhat_Balanced
User avatar
User avatar
Something_Smart
He/him
Somewhat_Balanced
Somewhat_Balanced
Posts: 23115
Joined: November 17, 2015
Pronoun: He/him
Location: Upstate New York

Post Post #1 (ISO) » Tue Jan 24, 2017 5:44 am

Post by Something_Smart »

I think this is likely to play out just like a regular multiball game, except with even higher chances for crosskills.

As scum, leading a lynch on a chosen/fated townie paints a huge target on your back, and the odds of two chosens of one type surviving to endgame are very slim.

The best strategy is probably to just ignore the chosens but use the knowledge that they are town to help guide your kills (making crosskilling easier), and hope that one of them is either lynched or killed by the other scumteam.



Now, an idea might be to make one set of chosen townies that is common for both scumteams. That would eliminate one of the problems, namely the chance of a chosen being killed by the non-corresponding scumteam.
User avatar
Umlaut
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 5980
Joined: August 3, 2016
Location: Somewhere out there

Post Post #2 (ISO) » Tue Jan 24, 2017 5:55 am

Post by Umlaut »

Hmm. If both factions share a group of Chosen, they may be able to identify one another by looking for people casting shade on Chosen, which would up the town win rate through increased crosskills.
User avatar
Creature
Creature
Solve This Game
User avatar
User avatar
Creature
Solve This Game
Solve This Game
Posts: 46072
Joined: January 26, 2016
Location: Lands of Fire

Post Post #3 (ISO) » Tue Jan 24, 2017 6:46 am

Post by Creature »

I wonder if it would work if both factions had each other as "Chosen townies".
Sigh
User avatar
Gamma Emerald
Gamma Emerald
She/It
Survivor
User avatar
User avatar
Gamma Emerald
She/It
Survivor
Survivor
Posts: 69101
Joined: August 9, 2016
Pronoun: She/It
Location: Hell on Earth (aka Texas)

Post Post #4 (ISO) » Tue Jan 24, 2017 6:48 am

Post by Gamma Emerald »

Maybe make it 2 mafia, 2 ww, 3 chosen, 5 VT ala Friends and Enemies and Enemies
<Embrace The Void>


My pronouns are she and it, please respect that. I don't mind the occasional slip.
User avatar
Umlaut
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 5980
Joined: August 3, 2016
Location: Somewhere out there

Post Post #5 (ISO) » Tue Jan 24, 2017 6:53 am

Post by Umlaut »

Creature wrote:I wonder if it would work if both factions had each other as "Chosen townies".
Do you mean that as a possibility or as the exact setup? That is, do you mean
  • Chosen are selected from all non-mafia except the one vetoed; they may or may not be werewolves. Fated are selected symmetrically.
    or
  • The mafia and werewolves know one another's identities but cannot night-kill one another; they must get them lynched instead.
The latter is interesting (actually, very interesting) but maybe too far from the spirit of Chosen Mafia.
User avatar
Creature
Creature
Solve This Game
User avatar
User avatar
Creature
Solve This Game
Solve This Game
Posts: 46072
Joined: January 26, 2016
Location: Lands of Fire

Post Post #6 (ISO) » Tue Jan 24, 2017 7:17 am

Post by Creature »

I mean't the latter. The former might be swingy.
Sigh
User avatar
Umlaut
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 5980
Joined: August 3, 2016
Location: Somewhere out there

Post Post #7 (ISO) » Tue Jan 24, 2017 7:24 am

Post by Umlaut »

What if they share a PT as well?

This is interesting but I wouldn't want to call it "Two-Fold Chosen Mafia". Maybe one of us can make another thread for it.
User avatar
Creature
Creature
Solve This Game
User avatar
User avatar
Creature
Solve This Game
Solve This Game
Posts: 46072
Joined: January 26, 2016
Location: Lands of Fire

Post Post #8 (ISO) » Wed Jan 25, 2017 5:47 am

Post by Creature »

T = 0

Problem?
Sigh
User avatar
callforjudgement
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
User avatar
User avatar
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
Microprocessor
Posts: 3972
Joined: September 1, 2011

Post Post #9 (ISO) » Mon Jan 30, 2017 4:24 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

In post 8, Creature wrote:T = 0

Problem?
That's hilarious.

No idea if it's balanced (it probably isn't, to be fair), but it's so screwy that it likely doesn't matter. Normally, a game's balance doesn't matter if it's heavily swingy (likewise, its swing doesn't matter if it's heavily skewed, its skew doesn't matter if it has extreme kurtosis…); in this case, the game's so screwy that I think all of balance, swing, skew, and kurtosis go out of the window. It might be worth trying to rework into a Mish Mash game, perhaps?
scum
· scam · seam · team · term · tern · torn ·
town
User avatar
mhsmith0
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
User avatar
User avatar
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
Balancing Act
Posts: 10830
Joined: March 7, 2016
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Post Post #10 (ISO) » Mon Jan 30, 2017 5:13 pm

Post by mhsmith0 »

I think the chosen should be shared. So wolves and mafia submit a list of no gos, then two who are outside each list are chosen, and scum factions CANNOT kill any chosen at night while both survive.
Show
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?
User avatar
TierShift
TierShift
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
TierShift
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8384
Joined: November 5, 2013

Post Post #11 (ISO) » Tue Jan 31, 2017 1:06 pm

Post by TierShift »

I like the idea of scum working together to eliminate a set of townies. 3 chosen would be perfect. Scum have to work together to get at least two lynched. 2:2:3:5 as suggested by gamma emereld seems great.

Only two chosen is extremely easy for 4 scum to eliminate one of. When they need to get rid of twk, it's much more of a challenge.
User avatar
Umlaut
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 5980
Joined: August 3, 2016
Location: Somewhere out there

Post Post #12 (ISO) » Thu Jul 05, 2018 8:42 am

Post by Umlaut »

Bumping this old thread to see if there's any more feedback on the 2:2:3:5 variant; if it's well-received I might try running it.

Two-Fold Chosen Mafia, Mk. 22
Mafia

2
Werewolves

3
Chosen Townies

5
Vanilla Townies


Mechanics
  • Day start.
  • Pre-game, the Mafia and Werewolves each select one player in the game to veto. These players cannot become Chosen. Three of the remaining Town players are randomly selected by the moderator to be the Chosen.
  • The Mafia and Werewolves are both told who was Chosen, but no one else is told, including the Chosen themselves. Town role PMs simply say "Townie" and don't specify Vanilla vs. Chosen.
  • As long as at least two Chosen Townies are alive, none of them can be shot or mauled at night. If all Vanilla Townies die and at least two Chosen Townies are alive, the Town wins.
  • No-lynching is not an option; plurality deadline rules apply to lynches. (Mafia and Werewolves can still no-kill.)
“There are two kinds of people in this world: those who say, ‘There are two kinds of people in this world: those who say there are two kinds of people in this world,
and the other kind,
’ and those who
don’t
say. Well, then there’s me.” — J.R. “Bob” Dobbs
User avatar
callforjudgement
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
User avatar
User avatar
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
Microprocessor
Posts: 3972
Joined: September 1, 2011

Post Post #13 (ISO) » Thu Jul 05, 2018 8:41 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

I'm not a huge fan of the near-Prisoner's Dilemma here. (It's in both scumteams' interests to try to get the other team to take out the Chosen, and look scummier for doing so. But if neither team does, they'll both lose, unless town mistakenly does it for them.)

Scum should be trying to cross-kill at night until two Chosen are lynched (hitting a VT is pretty much the worst possible option for them, maybe worse than a no-kill). So at least that removes one common bit of screwiness from multiball.

I'm slightly worried that optimal town strategy may be to act scummy in the hope of being nightkilled (although obviously that backfires if you're actually Chosen, so it probably isn't). It's rare to have a setup in which the death of VTs has a decent chance of benefitting town!
scum
· scam · seam · team · term · tern · torn ·
town
User avatar
Umlaut
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Umlaut
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 5980
Joined: August 3, 2016
Location: Somewhere out there

Post Post #14 (ISO) » Fri May 12, 2023 7:46 am

Post by Umlaut »

Bumping one more time since I never got much commentary on this variant; CFJ's comments were good but more would have been nice. (Contrary to them, though, I sort of like Prisoner's Dilemma-esque mechanics.)

Would anyone be interested in playing it?
Does anyone have an opinion on the balance?
“There are two kinds of people in this world: those who say, ‘There are two kinds of people in this world: those who say there are two kinds of people in this world,
and the other kind,
’ and those who
don’t
say. Well, then there’s me.” — J.R. “Bob” Dobbs
Post Reply

Return to “Open Setup Discussion”