Just an idea I was kicking around that would make Stack the Deck less scumsided and hopefully give scum a little more of an incentive to choose powers (since the best strategy in current Stack the Deck is almost certainly to take nothing).
Setup:
2
Mafia Goons
1
Mafia Traitor
10
Vanilla Townies
The traitor is not bulletproof and is endgamed if both full members die.
The mafia can choose up to 3 of the following powers:
Town starts with 3 role points. For every power the mafia take, town gains 1 role point.
Then, town is given roles totaling the number of points they have:
The distribution is determined by giving each pair of points a 50% chance to become one 2-point role and a 50% chance to become two 1-point roles. Each role cannot be given more than once. The roles are distributed randomly among the town players.
I'd suggest from the possible setups just roll a die (so each setup would have equal chance of being rolled)
Also I think the setup is a bit townsided given that cop 13er with an n0 is a balanced setup on mu and this seems to take some scum power while giving town some (example setup would be cop + fn vs non-buffed mafia, fn is a bit stronger than the n0 result, and mafia doesn't have the full team)
<Embrace The Void>
“A flipped coin doesn't always land heads or tails. Sometimes it may never land at all...”
I disagree that Stack The Deck is scumsided in the first place, but I agree that it has other flaws that could warrant overhaul.
That said, at first glance, the town power roles seem way too powerful and able to create confirmeds. For example, 2 Masons + Friendly Neighbor already makes this equivalent to Friends & Enemies but with a traitor instead.
Maybe if town started with 2 points instead?
"I just want to play mafia, not Economics Wonderland." - cytheflyguy
2 points is not enough. If town gets one PR that dies N1 they're completely boned, and traitor doesn't really change that much as they can always go 3-for-1 with a townie by faking a guilty.
One thing that makes Stack the Deck scumsided in my opinion is that scum can fakeclaim very easily if they didn't take a lot of power. Which means that (a) they might be able to talk their way out of a lynch easier and (b) the actual town PR's might not be believed. Same reason that running an open setup as closed is more scumsided than it would be as open.
The Bulletproof is much weaker than the other 1-point town roles. I'd suggest removing or replacing it.
For what it's worth, starting from a 3-goon baseline (i.e. 4 points for town), most of the setups I'm looking at seem slightly townsided. So going role madness might be a better strategy for scum there, which is presumably what you were looking for. One awkwardness in the setup is that the immunity roles (such as the Godfather) might randomly end up not protecting against anything; perhaps picking the Godfather should force there to be a killing or role-investigation role in the setup (likewise for Framer forcing a role-investigation role, Roleblocker forcing an active role).
The bulletproof is weaker, yeah. I only added it because I wanted to have 6 one-point roles and couldn't think of anything better. Maybe non-consecutive bulletproof? Or babysitter is another thing I was considering.
I agree that there's swing based around whether the scum counters have anything to counter. One idea is to let them pick how many points they want and then see the town's PR configuration before deciding on the exact upgrades. That would make fakeclaiming even easier, as well, and might remove the slight townsidedness. (And I designed the setups to be slightly townsided due to the fact that scum have almost unlimited fakeclaiming ability.)
