[SETUP] Psychopaths

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[SETUP] Psychopaths

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Fri Feb 23, 2018 7:39 pm

Post by Beefster »

This was inspired by the recent thread on SKs. Rather than trying to buff the SK, nerf everyone else instead.

1-shot bulletproof Serial Killer

Compulsive Vigilante
1-shot Doctor
5 VTs

Okay... So it isn't really Mafia because there's no informed minority... But maybe this can work with a Mafia with no factional kill:

2 Mafia Goons (No factional kill)

1-shot bulletproof Serial Killer

Compulsive Vigilante
1-shot Doctor
6 VTs

I'm not sure I have the right number of VTs in either variant. I think it has to be a somewhat shorter game though
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Sat Feb 24, 2018 2:08 am

Post by mutantdevle »

With the 1v7 setup, the immediate problem I see is that reclaiming easily breaks this setup for the most part.

If the vig claims, and there is no doctor claim to confirm they were protected. The vig will know who they shot is the SK and hence have them lynched.
- The SK cannot counterclaim vig because the town is just going to lynch 1 vig claim and then the other. So unless at MyLo, if the vig claims and the doctor doesn't then the SK will lose whilst being unable to do anything.

If the vig claims and the doctor also claims to have protected their target then, even though the SK isn't discovered this way, this results in 3 confirmed townies for that day. Again, the SK cannot counterclaim either the doc or the vig as they will simply be lynched the day after if not that very day. The earliest this can take effect is day 2. By this time, 1 townie would have been lynched and the SK would have shot a townie. This leaves 6 players, 3 of which are now confirmed town leaving it as a 1 in 3 chance of lynching the SK. After the lynch, there are only 2 players left not confirmed. The Vig will then shoot one whilst the SK shoots the vig starting day 3 with a confirmed doc, a confirmed townie and the SK. Hence the SK loses. If this happens on any night past night 1 then the vig is guaranteed to be lynched or shot the following cycle.

Furthermore, even if the vig is hesitant to claim, the doctor can always claim instead with the same result. As soon as the doctor uses their 1-shot ability they essentially become an Innocent Child that they can activate at any time. If it just so happens that there were less than 2 kills during the night, it's obviously best they claim immediately. If the vig shot someone else and they survived, the vig will claim and have them lynched. If the vig's target died, the vig knows that the doctor's target is a vanilla townie and hence won't be shooting at them, but obviously, they can also claim vig who shot the dead player and all 3 of the players will be confirmed townies. The only thing that would prevent this from being the case is if the vig and the SK had the same target which is unlikely at best.

If the above situations don't occur by 1 day before MyLo, the doctor and vig should claim and publically announce who they will be targetting (if they still can target). This way, they will know who the vigs target was and that the doctor isn't protecting them. If the vig is the only player to die, they know their target was the SK and hence they'd be lynched.

Basically, with this setup, the SK HAS to hit a PR night 1 in order to win. The 1-shot doctor is in the setup to make it so that the vig doesn't immediately know who the SK is, but instead, it creates too many confirmable townies which only delays the problem as the doctor has no reason not to claim after using their 1 shot. Instead, I would suggest removing the doc and perhaps having 2-3 bulletproof townies? This gives the SK more freedom to fake claim without it meaning they just die the next day and instead of having the PRs become exempt from the lynch pool, they become the lynch pool (with the exception of the vig who is now much less likely to claim). The bulletproof lynch pool also takes a lot more time to investigate due to the vig not being able to instantly narrow the lynch pool down, all the while the SK will be hunting those outside the lynch pool in order to hit the vig.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Sat Feb 24, 2018 6:27 pm

Post by Beefster »

Right. Didn't realize that the 1-shot bulletproofness effectively makes the vig into a cop. That clearly doesn't work.

I like the idea of bulletproof townies. Of course, they wouldn't be bulletproof to the SK. So:

1-shot Bulletproof Serial Killer

Compulsive Vig
2 1-shot Bulletproof Townies
3 VTs

-- or --

2 Mafia Goons (no factional kill)

1-shot Bulletproof SK

Compulsive Vig
3 1-shot Bulletproof townies
4 VTs

...

Unfortunately the issue with the mafialess variant is that it is broken by massclaim:

If the SK claims bulletproof, the town then has more than enough time to lynch the 3 bulletproofs and guarantee a win.
If the SK claims VT, the town has 3 confirmed town and a lynch pool of 4. The Vig kills one of the claimed VTs and gets killed by the SK and the town still has a guaranteed win.

The variant with a mafia isn't quite as broken by massclaim AFAICT.

Assume the goons always claim VT.

If the SK claims bulletproof and the vig claims vig, the vig gets one shot to find a goon among the VT claims before going down even if the town only lynches bulletproofs. SK is reduced to a kingmaker in this situation and the town depends on luck to win.
If the SK claims bulletproof and the vig claims VT, you have a similar situation with more luck
If the SK claims VT, you get 4 confirmed town and not much else. He would never do this. But since the town knows this, they would avoid massclaim to avoid depending on SK kingmaker.

If it were reduced to 2 bulletproof townies, the vig goes down the same way as the mafialess variant and the game is reduced to a nightless.

So it may actually be best to not have the serial killer be bulletproof.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Sun Feb 25, 2018 6:33 am

Post by Beefster »

You could replace the Vig with a vengeful townie and reduce the player count. I think to make SKs work at all, the mafia has to not have its factional kill.

2 Mafia Goons (no factional kill)

Serial Killer

Vengeful Town
5 VTs

For the SK to win, he must survive for 4 days and kill/lynch at least 1 Mafia in the first 3 days/nights.
For the Mafia to win, they much lynch the SK and then beat the town in day play. They're best off lynching the SK on day 3.
The town has the best chance to win if they lynch the SK first, which reduces the game to nightless with a vengeful.

Interestingly enough, this setup would have no ties. SK > Mafia > Town
It might also be slightly SK-sided and anti-mafia-skewed due to the strategy the mafia has to use, so the vengeful might actually be better on the goons (make the first one to die vengeful or give the surviving goon a 1-shot kill the next night)

I'm not sure how the vengeful works into things. It might actually be better to go full vanilla.
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