[Setup] Legacy

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[Setup] Legacy

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Thu Jan 25, 2018 4:45 am

Post by mutantdevle »

Hello there. I have been playing mafia for 6-7 months but I only joined this site 3 months ago. I mostly came to this site to mod games (though I'll still be playing as well) and I signed up to mod the very day I qualified. I plan to mod games consecutively and have these games be mostly of my own design. Obviously, I have to use a known setup for my first game. But the setup I am about to present to you I’m thinking of hosting for my 2nd game but would like some feedback on it first :P

I want to make this setup as balanced and practical as possible to make it the best possible game it could be.

The setup includes the following roles:

- 1 Serial Killer
- 1 Bullet Proof Fanatic

- 1 Fruit Vendor
- 1 Night Kill Cop
- 1 Tracker
- 8 Vanilla Townies


And has the following mechanics:

- Simple majority lynch mechanics.
- Serial Killer + Fanatic are the scum team.
- The SK does not know who the Fanatic is but the Fanatic DOES know who the SK is.
- As such, there is no scum PT.
- The Fanatic will become the SK if the SK dies.
- Each town PR and the SK can !Legacy their roles.
- The SK's !Legacy creates a new Fanatic rather than a new SK.

Using your Legacy on a player basically turns them into the backup for your role. If you have a PR and die with a Legacy on someone, they will become your PR in your place. Players are not told if they are being targetted by a Legacy. Additionally, if you target someone who is already a PR with your Legacy then your Legacy will be unsuccessful and your role will be lost. In the case of the SK, their Legacy becomes the new Fanatic when they die. The person you target with your Legacy can be changed at any time.

Spoiler: To further elaborate on this, here are all the role cards:
Welcome X. You are the
Serial Killer
.

- Once per night, you may choose someone to kill.
- The Fanatic is a bulletproof player who is aligned with you. You do not know their identity.
- If you die, the Fanatic will gain your ability to kill at night and will continue your Legacy.
- At any point during the day or night, and as many times as you like, you may choose to Legacy a player so that they become the Fanatic when you die (the most recent player you Legacy will become the Fanatic).
- Alternatively, if the Fanatic is killed, the player you Legacy will become the new Fanatic instead. You will still keep the ability to Legacy.
- However, if you Legacy a player who already has a role, the Fanatic role will be lost. This includes the current Fanatic. This means that the new Serial Killer will not be able to Legacy. (You should Legacy a Vanilla Townie).
- Your alignment is Scum and you win when all those aligned with Town are dead.


You have become the
Serial Killer
.

- Once per night, you may choose someone to kill.
- You do not know whether or not there is a new Fanatic.
- If there is a Fanatic then they will gain your ability to kill at night and will continue your Legacy in the event that you die.
- At any point during the day or night, and as many times as you like, you may choose to Legacy a player so that they become the Fanatic when you die (the most recent player you Legacy will become the Fanatic). This will fail if there is currently no Fanatic.
- Alternatively, if the Fanatic still exists and is killed, the player you Legacy will become the new Fanatic instead. You will still keep the ability to Legacy.
- However, if you Legacy a player who already has a role, the Fanatic role will be lost if it has not been already. This includes the current Fanatic if there is one. This means that the new Serial Killer will not be able to Legacy, though this may already be the case. (You should Legacy a Vanilla Townie).
- Your alignment is Scum and you win when all those aligned with Town are dead.





Welcome X. You are the
Fanatic
.

- You are aligned with X who is the Serial Killer.
- X does not know your identity.
- You are immune to X's night kill.
- If X dies, you will become the Serial Killer.
- Your alignment is Scum and you win when all those aligned with Town are dead.


You have become the
Fanatic
.
- You are now aligned with X who is the new Serial Killer.
- X does not know your identity or that this role still exists.
- You are immune to X's night kill.
- If X dies, you will become the Serial Killer.
- Your alignment is now Scum and you win when all those aligned with Town are dead.





Welcome X. You are the
Fruit Vendor
.

- Once per night, you may choose to give someone fruit. They will then receive a PM that they received fruit during the night. The fruit does nothing.
- At any point during the day or night, and as many times as you like, you may choose to Legacy a player so that they become the Fruit Vendor when you die (the most recent player you Legacy will become the Fruit Vendor).
- However, if you Legacy a player who already has a role, the Fruit Vendor role will be lost. (You should Legacy a Vanilla Townie).
- Your alignment is Town and you win when all those aligned with Scum have been lynched.


You have become the
Fruit Vendor
.

- Once per night, you may choose to give someone fruit. They will then receive a PM that they received fruit during the night. The fruit does nothing.
- At any point during the day or night, and as many times as you like, you may choose to Legacy a player so that they become the Fruit Vendor when you die (the most recent player you Legacy will become the Fruit Vendor).
- However, if you Legacy a player who already has a role, the Fruit Vendor role will be lost. (You should Legacy a Vanilla Townie).
- Your alignment is Town and you win when all those aligned with Scum have been lynched.





Welcome X. You are the
Night Kill Cop
.

- Once per night, you may choose someone to investigate. If they have the ability to kill at night then you will be told of this. (This means they are the Serial Killer). Your possible results are either "[Player Name] CAN kill at night" or "[Player Name] can NOT kill at night".
- At any point during the day or night, and as many times as you like, you may choose to Legacy a player so that they become the Night Kill Cop when you die (the most recent player you Legacy will become the Night Kill Cop).
- However, if you Legacy a player who already has a role, the Night Kill Cop role will be lost. (You should Legacy a Vanilla Townie).
- Your alignment is Town and you win when all those aligned with Scum have been lynched.


You have become the
Night Kill Cop
.

- Once per night, you may choose someone to investigate. If they have the ability to kill at night then you will be told of this. (This means they are the Serial Killer). Your possible results are either "[Player Name] CAN kill at night" or "[Player Name] can NOT kill at night".
- At any point during the day or night, and as many times as you like, you may choose to Legacy a player so that they become the Night Kill Cop when you die (the most recent player you Legacy will become the Night Kill Cop).
- However, if you Legacy a player who already has a role, the Night Kill Cop role will be lost. (You should Legacy a Vanilla Townie).
- Your alignment is Town and you win when all those aligned with Scum have been lynched.





Welcome X. You are the
Tracker
.

- Once per night, you may choose someone to track. You will be told who, if anybody, they targetted during the night. Your possible results are either "[Player Name] visited [Player Name 2] during the night" or "[Player Name] did not visit anyone".
- At any point during the day or night, and as many times as you like, you may choose to Legacy a player so that they become the Tracker when you die (the most recent player you Legacy will become the Tracker).
- However, if you Legacy a player who already has a role, the Tracker role will be lost. (You should Legacy a Vanilla Townie).
- Your alignment is Town and you win when all those aligned with Scum have been lynched.


You have become the
Tracker
.

- Once per night, you may choose someone to track. You will be told who, if anybody, they targetted during the night. Your possible results are either "[Player Name] visited [Player Name 2] during the night" or "[Player Name] did not visit anyone".
- At any point during the day or night, and as many times as you like, you may choose to Legacy a player so that they become the Tracker when you die (the most recent player you Legacy will become the Tracker).
- However, if you Legacy a player who already has a role, the Tracker role will be lost. (You should Legacy a Vanilla Townie).
- Your alignment is Town and you win when all those aligned with Scum have been lynched.





Welcome X. You are a
Vanilla Townie
.

- You may become a role if you are targetted by a Legacy. This may cause you to change alignments.
- Your current alignment is Town and you win when all those aligned with Scum have been lynched.



Possible problems / things to note about the game:

- This setup is bastard since Vanilla Townies can change alignment in becoming the Fanatic.
- Whenever this occurs, reads essentially have to be fully reset as anyone that isn't a PR can suddenly have a different win objective.
- The Fanatic cannot be detected by the investigative PRs.
- Town cannot hunt by association upon a SK flip but can hunt by association upon a Fanatic flip.
- No NK basically acts as a public announcement that the SK knows who the Fanatic is.
- Lynching the Fanatic also serves as a public announcement that the potential knew Fanatic is of the SK's choosing.
- The only benefit this has to the SK is that they can narrow down who to target with their Legacy.
- The Fanatic is somewhat expendable since the SK can simply choose a new one. (However, every Fanatic death increases the chance that there won't be a new Serial Killer).
- When the Fanatic replaces the SK, they will not know who the new Fanatic is since they were chosen by the SK.
- The purpose of the Fruit Vendor is simply to increase the chance other PRs are lost.
- Due to the design of the game, Legacy games will usually be quite long.
- This setup could potentially be swingy depending on if people are unlucky with who they Legacy.
- A claimed VT is good for both scum and town as they know who to Legacy.
- The effects of mass claim is also good for both town and scum. Town pros: They have confirmed PRs that won't change when scum is lynched + outed results + hunt scum by PoE. Scum pros: They know who to kill + they gain an advantage in who to legacy next since the town PRs won't know who is lying.
- If scum fake claims a PR then the specific PR will know they are lying which reduces the chance that PR is lost but scum may have to fake claim a PR to survive PoE.
- Town PRs announcing who they are going to legacy can help town avoid losing roles but also helps scum kill them again.
- No one will be aware how many PRs are still in play after the first PR flip.
- It will be unclear how many more times town needs to lynch scum after the first scum flip. So, unless scum has never been lynched, no one will know if the town is at MYLO.


Fixes to these problems/things would I consider changing:

- Current SK and Fanatic gain a PT if the Fanatic is targetted by the night kill. (Increase scum power).

- Fanatic is not bulletproof. (Decrease scum power).

- SK is told who the Fanatic is. (Increase scum power).
- SK and Fanatic have a PT by default. (Increase scum power).
- SK does not keep the ability to legacy if Fanatic is killed. (Decrease scum power).

- Tracker is replaced by Role Cop. (Increase town power).

- Tracker is replaced by Watcher. (Increase town power).

- Night Kill Cop is replaced by Cop. (Increase town power).

- Fruit Vendor is replaced by a more useful PR. (Increase town power).
- PRs of either alignment are told if a recently deceased player tried to target them with their legacy. (Benefits individuals. This is especially good for scum, however, town can share this information at the cost of a role claim).


Code: Green = changes I like, Red = changes I don't like.


I'd also like to say that this setup/concept isn't entirely my idea. Rather, it is adapted from a game I played on my old site. Here is a link to that game: https://forums.everybodyedits.com/viewt ... p?id=39942
If you read over that game then you'd know it was a disaster. 2 PRs were lost in the first 2 nights, we had no idea of the setup so were assuming there were still 3 scum. A lot of players were inactive either due to not taking the game seriously or being banned from the forum and this eventually lead to the mod straight up quitting the game. The game failed due to the nature of that forum and bad decisions by the mod which I hope I have somewhat rectified with my changes but I get the feeling that the game might be a bit scum sided.

Here are the changes that I have made:

Original --> My version.
Closed game ---> Open game.
SK does know who the Fanatic is --> SK does not know who the Fanatic is.
Fanatic does not know who the SK is --> Fanatic does know who the SK is.
Fanatic can investigate who the SK is --> Fanatic is bulletproof but otherwise has no abilities.
Doctor --> Fruit Vendor.
Role Cop --> Tracker.
Unspecified whether Fanatic gains Legacy ability when they replace the SK even if the SK Legacies someone with a PR --> Fanatic does gain Legacy ability even if the previous SK chooses to Legacy a PR, however, the Legacy will not work. (Giving the impression they can still Legacy even though practically they can't).



So what are your thoughts? I'm interested to know whether people think this concept is just fundamentally terrible and should be scrapped or if they do like it, what changes would they make to help balance it and why? Personally, I quite like the concept. But I'm currently unsure of how balanced it actually is. I'm more interested in people's balancing opinions but non-constructive opinions that simple deem the setup as a bad one are still welcome since they help to give a general idea of how many people would actually be willing to play it.
Last edited by mutantdevle on Fri Jan 26, 2018 7:35 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Fri Jan 26, 2018 4:37 am

Post by Mathdino »

On a conceptual (high level) basis:


The reason alignment-switch games are considered bastard is because it fundamentally changes the strategy of the game. It's no longer perfectly viable to just lynch scum and get it over with. For example, suppose a particularly skilled VT scumhunter and scum player figured out X was fanatic. Well now the best thing they can be doing is softclaim VT and powerlynch the fanatic to join scum. Every VT is liable to get recruited, and this makes it more viable to dodge the NK and try to lynch fanatics later.

Because the power roles can't be recruited, it's basically a game of "power roles try to lynch scum until SK fucks up and legacies a PR while scum dies". This makes VTs a massive liability. Any VT claims HAVE to be lynched on sight because if they lynch scum, of course scum is going to legacy the VT.

But then if SK guesses wrong on the 1/3 chance, and fanatic ever dies, now it's SK against 2 for-sure investigatives (this breaks the game). Plus it's not even SK's fault fanatic got lynched because SK doesn't know who fanatic is.

Another weird issue is that if you're a PR and you catch the SK, outing yourself and lynching the SK might result in the SK just legacying another VT and shooting you. So do you even out?

Plus, what happens if scum just keeps legacying vanilla townies? What if they don't even kill at all on the risk that they kill potential recruits (I'm thinking this might be optimal strategy)?

It leads to a lot of weird strategies. Some of the mechanics you've come up with are interesting, but you're right that it'd be mad swingy for an open setup. Those high-level issues need to be looked at before discussing slight modifications like swapping out power roles.

Less relevant notes:
- Watcher is a lot more powerful than Tracker.
- If PRs are told that someone tried to legacy them after a scum death, it's massively townsided because everyone knows there's just 1 scum left.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Fri Jan 26, 2018 7:32 am

Post by mutantdevle »

In post 1, Mathdino wrote:On a conceptual (high level) basis:

The reason alignment-switch games are considered bastard is because it fundamentally changes the strategy of the game. It's no longer perfectly viable to just lynch scum and get it over with. For example, suppose a particularly skilled VT scumhunter and scum player figured out X was fanatic. Well now the best thing they can be doing is softclaim VT and powerlynch the fanatic to join scum. Every VT is liable to get recruited, and this makes it more viable to dodge the NK and try to lynch fanatics later.

Because the power roles can't be recruited, it's basically a game of "power roles try to lynch scum until SK fucks up and legacies a PR while scum dies". This makes VTs a massive liability. Any VT claims HAVE to be lynched on sight because if they lynch scum, of course scum is going to legacy the VT.

But then if SK guesses wrong on the 1/3 chance, and fanatic ever dies, now it's SK against 2 for-sure investigatives (this breaks the game). Plus it's not even SK's fault fanatic got lynched because SK doesn't know who fanatic is.

Another weird issue is that if you're a PR and you catch the SK, outing yourself and lynching the SK might result in the SK just legacying another VT and shooting you. So do you even out?

Plus, what happens if scum just keeps legacying vanilla townies? What if they don't even kill at all on the risk that they kill potential recruits (I'm thinking this might be optimal strategy)?

It leads to a lot of weird strategies. Some of the mechanics you've come up with are interesting, but you're right that it'd be mad swingy for an open setup. Those high-level issues need to be looked at before discussing slight modifications like swapping out power roles.
Do you have any solutions that you can think of for these problems or is it generally considered a huge nope when it comes to alignment changes? Obviously, alignment changes are in most cases a no-no but I'd personally like to see it done at least moderately well and I don't think the concept of this setup is too bad of an attempt. The main problem with this setup is that I'm making the assumption that players play as town when they are town. Unfortunately, not everyone is going to play like that as you pointed out.

Two things you have pointed out to me that I previously had not considered was how the SK may abstain from killing as well as how VT's would be lynched for being as such. I overlooked these 2 strategies and I can see how both could be utilised in a game like this.

I'm currently thinking that this setup would work better as a 1-off closed setup where you don't know alignment changes are a thing (but of course you're told before signing up it will be bastard in some way). I personally quite like the concept of this game so I wouldn't like to see it straight up scrapped but the things you have said do make me believe it probably isn't suitable for an open setup because I have no doubt there will be some game throwers who try to get recruited as a Fanatic.

And yeah I agree that Watcher is better than Tracker. For some reason, I was assuming the Tracker was essentially a PR Cop with the added benefit of potentially solving a night kill (but of course a Goon or PR not performing an action goes undetected).
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Fri Jan 26, 2018 10:07 am

Post by Mathdino »

Sure, alignment changes are a fair closed bastard mechanic. Just know closed makes most things scumsided.

Legacy mechanic is gonna swing the game 100% of the time. Hell, that's half the point of it; the only way to eradicate scum is if scum can't find a VT to legacy. You then have the issue that even if a PR somehow figures out both scum (maybe tracker tracks SK to the fanatic), this is actually anti-town to reveal, because then SK will never legacy the newfound tracker (and will then just kill the tracker).

Don't think town can win a closed version of this if they can't prep for that "SK weasels out of every lynch" mechanic.
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Fri Jan 26, 2018 10:18 am

Post by mutantdevle »

In post 3, Mathdino wrote:Don't think town can win a closed version of this if they can't prep for that "SK weasels out of every lynch" mechanic.
Yeah. I think this was one of the major town screws in the version of this setup I played on the old forum. We were all playing the game with the impression we had to look for scum tells rather than prioritising PR tells. The thing is I really want this concept to work; in theory, it seems like a really fun a cool kind of game. But the more I think about the setup the more I feel like it deserves the label 'Cool concept, but not practical'.
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