Rank Your Roles

This forum is for discussion of individual Open Setups, including theoretical balance.
User avatar
Backhand
Backhand
Goon
User avatar
User avatar
Backhand
Goon
Goon
Posts: 760
Joined: April 27, 2017

Rank Your Roles

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Mon Jul 10, 2017 4:51 am

Post by Backhand »

I *know* there has been a game similar to this but I can't find it in the wiki. My intention is to run this for my face-to-face group, so with people who know each other pretty well (and complainers about how they're ALWAYS Mafia or Town) there should be plenty of fun WIFOM.

Rules


At the start of the game, everyone ranks five roles in preference order: Cop, Doc, Mafia, Vigilante, VT

1. Rank the three town power roles by number of players who selected them as their top choice (second choices if necessary as tiebreaker)

2. Add the top two to the game, randomly select from the people who had them as top choice. This is not public knowledge.

3. Add a Mafia power role, depending on the role that the most players chose.
If Cop: Add Roleblocker
If Doc: Add 1x Strongman
If Vig: Add Mafia Doc

Finally, randomly select your Mafia from everyone who put it as top choice (then second choice if necessary, etc.)

Any suggestions/improvements? And does 4:12 seem like a reasonable balance point? I think being able to discuss the lists is a slight advantage to town, but I'm not certain.
User avatar
Ircher
Ircher
He / Him / His
What A Grand Idea
User avatar
User avatar
Ircher
He / Him / His
What A Grand Idea
What A Grand Idea
Posts: 15170
Joined: November 9, 2015
Pronoun: He / Him / His
Location: CST/CDT

Post Post #1 (ISO) » Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:08 am

Post by Ircher »

1) Scum should prob. get 1 role MAX. In particular, the RBer should only be given for the Cop and nothing for anything else.
2) 12:3 or 13:4 are prob. going to have better balance than 12:4.
Links: User Page | GTKAS
Do you have questions, ideas, or feedback for the Scummies? Please pm me!
Hosting: The Grand Neighborhood [In Signups: 8/9 ONE MORE!]
User avatar
callforjudgement
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
User avatar
User avatar
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
Microprocessor
Posts: 3972
Joined: September 1, 2011

Post Post #2 (ISO) » Fri Jul 14, 2017 9:52 am

Post by callforjudgement »

I'm slightly worried that there may be a way to confirm players as scum based on a massclaim of role rankings, but I can't see one. (It's far too easy for scum to simply fakeclaim their list; there are several possible fakeclaims which couldn't possibly be disproven.)

The power role distribution is off for forum Mafia, I think (being definitely scumsided at 12:4; 13:3 is a more interesting argument on a site that plays like this one). However, you said this game is face-to-face, which is known to be more townsided than forum Mafia; I don't know by how much but I can just about believe 12:4 is plausible. (How concerned is your group generally about balance? Many real life Mafia groups I know don't care about balance in the first few games, and this sort of game often outlives its welcome once a meta develops.) Note that I disagree with Ircher with respect to player count; this game should be starting on evens, given the nature of its power roles, to give town more reward for using them accurately. By the way, either Doctor combination is considerably weaker than the Cop+VIg combination, given that the Mafia are guaranteed to have a viable Follow the Cop counter.
scum
· scam · seam · team · term · tern · torn ·
town
User avatar
Backhand
Backhand
Goon
User avatar
User avatar
Backhand
Goon
Goon
Posts: 760
Joined: April 27, 2017

Post Post #3 (ISO) » Fri Jul 14, 2017 10:52 am

Post by Backhand »

In post 2, callforjudgement wrote:I'm slightly worried that there may be a way to confirm players as scum based on a massclaim of role rankings, but I can't see one. (It's far too easy for scum to simply fakeclaim their list; there are several possible fakeclaims which couldn't possibly be disproven.)

The power role distribution is off for forum Mafia, I think (being definitely scumsided at 12:4; 13:3 is a more interesting argument on a site that plays like this one). However, you said this game is face-to-face, which is known to be more townsided than forum Mafia; I don't know by how much but I can just about believe 12:4 is plausible. (How concerned is your group generally about balance? Many real life Mafia groups I know don't care about balance in the first few games, and this sort of game often outlives its welcome once a meta develops.) Note that I disagree with Ircher with respect to player count; this game should be starting on evens, given the nature of its power roles, to give town more reward for using them accurately. By the way, either Doctor combination is considerably weaker than the Cop+VIg combination, given that the Mafia are guaranteed to have a viable Follow the Cop counter.
Thanks! I want the game to be balanced but the group isn't going to be too worked up about it, and I probably won't run it more than twice, once in "just write down preferences and don't think too much" mode and maybe a second go-round if there's interest in thinking about the strategy a little more. Do you think beefing up the doc makes sense? Maybe Doc + Nurse?
User avatar
callforjudgement
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
User avatar
User avatar
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
Microprocessor
Posts: 3972
Joined: September 1, 2011

Post Post #4 (ISO) » Fri Jul 14, 2017 12:28 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

This setup's quite a way away from my experience in balancing games (I'm not that good at balancing large games, Opens with few power roles, or face-to-face games, and this is all of them). So I can't be confident about what numbers are balanced. However, if you want the power roles to be balanced against each other, I think a decent buff to the Doctor would be to allow them to protect two players at once (although not self-protect); that brings them more in line with the other roles. (Note that the normal mafiascum.net fix, changing the Doctor to a Jailkeeper, runs into logistical problems in face-to-face games and so I wouldn't recommend it there.)

Incidentally, I'm not sure whether 1 is the right number of shots for the Strongman in a game this large. 2 might be too many, though, so I'm not really sure what to do in that case.
scum
· scam · seam · team · term · tern · torn ·
town
Post Reply

Return to “Open Setup Discussion”