[SETUP] Two Scoops

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[SETUP] Two Scoops

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Mon Mar 05, 2018 7:16 pm

Post by northsidegal »

EDIT: I have since reworked this setup .


13 Players

3 Mafia Goon

10 Townies


I have the basic framework for a setup similar to Stack the Deck, would like to hear people's thoughts on the specifics of it.

There is a list of 5 scum powers and 10 town powers. Each one scum power is tied to two town powers in a randomized fashion. Pre-game, the scumteam
must
choose two of the groups ("scoops") – they will gain the powers they selected and town will gain the powers tied to the ones the mafia chose.

It may help to look at it like this:

Scum Role 1

Town Role 1

Town Role 2
Scum Role 2

Town Role 3

Town Role 4
Scum Role 3

Town Role 5

Town Role 6
Scum Role 4

Town Role 7

Town Role 8
Scum Role 5

Town Role 9

Town Role 10



So, for example, if the scumteam selects role 3 and role 5, town will gain roles 5, 6, 9 and 10.

By forcing the scumteam to choose two "scoops" it solves one of the problems with Stack the Deck, that for the scumteam simply not picking powers is often the best strategy. The randomization in how the town roles are connected to the scum roles should ensure that each game is different enough to keep the setup fresh after multiple times played.

Problems I forsee:
-Broken by massclaim?
-Coming up with 10 town roles that can ensure a reasonable semblance of balance even through randomization?
-Coming up with 5 scum powers that will all be desirable? (ie no dominant ability that gets chosen every time)

Ideas for changing the setup:
-Don't have 5 explicitly scum roles and 10 explicitly town roles, just have a list of 15 roles and randomize the scum/town placement entirely
Last edited by northsidegal on Fri Dec 21, 2018 10:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Mon Mar 05, 2018 7:17 pm

Post by northsidegal »

Alternatively, something entirely different:

Role 1

Role 2

Role 3
Role 4

Role 5

Role 6
Role 7

Role 8

Role 9
Role 10

Role 11

Role 12
Role 13

Role 14

Role 15



Role groups are randomized, like normal. However, this time scum choose two of whatever roles they want, as long as they're in different groups. Town gets the 2 other roles that scum didn't choose from each group.

So, if scum chose role 2 and role 10, town would get roles 1, 3, 11, and 12.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Mon Mar 05, 2018 7:27 pm

Post by RadiantCowbells »

at massclaim unless there's seriously heavy overlap in the groups it won't be possible for a single scum to claim pr
so you'll have 4 ICs with powers or 3 sets of masons one of which is actually scum

so has the potential to go very awry
2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Mon Mar 05, 2018 7:45 pm

Post by northsidegal »

making the potential groups not public would solve that i think, but i feel like that would also make the setup less enjoyable or interesting.

perhaps if all of the scum powers are placed into roles, the group could be revealed publicly upon the death of whatever mafia member had that role. so for example, if scum chose a roleblocker, upon the death of the roleblocker the two town power roles associated with it would be made public. (to go back to the first post, if scum chose scum role 3, then upon the death of whatever scum member had that role, that group would be made public, revealing that town roles 5 and 6 exist in the setup).
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Tue Mar 06, 2018 8:57 am

Post by Sukima »

Doesn't that basically make town gain 2 ICs basically once they get a scum lynch? I think if there was enough overlap, it could work as basically another Matrix6 where a scum PR lynch sort of reveals setup but doesn't fully reveal it? I think it also depends on the PRs in the groups.

I don't know if the second idea works unless if you either disallow mafia from picking certain PRs (Basically Vig can't really be a choice, and Mafia Cop is useless) or if there's some VTs layered in there along with less powerful roles.
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Tue Mar 06, 2018 5:42 pm

Post by Mathdino »

1-shot vig can be a choice.

Brainstorming for the first version:

Scum roles:
Encryptor (if no daytalk)
Roleblocker
Rolecop
Ascetic
Neighborizer
JOAT (ninja, strongman)

Town roles
Powerful:
Cop
Neapolitan
Watcher
Vigilante

Moderately powerful:
Roleblocker
Jailkeeper
Tracker
Follower
Universal Backup
Neighborizer
X-Shot BP
Doctor

Weaksauce:
Innocent Child
Commuter
1-shot Vigilante
Rolecop
Fruit Vendor
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:20 pm

Post by northsidegal »

In post 4, Sukima wrote:Doesn't that basically make town gain 2 ICs basically once they get a scum lynch? I think if there was enough overlap, it could work as basically another Matrix6 where a scum PR lynch sort of reveals setup but doesn't fully reveal it? I think it also depends on the PRs in the groups.

I don't know if the second idea works unless if you either disallow mafia from picking certain PRs (Basically Vig can't really be a choice, and Mafia Cop is useless) or if there's some VTs layered in there along with less powerful roles.
Upon a scum PR flip, there would be two roles that become confirmed to
exist
. Scum can still counterclaim if necesssary, however.

You're right on vig, and even if i personally wouldn't include cop in the list of roles, it could still be there – even if mafia would never pick it, it would disincentivize them from picking either of the roles in the same group as it.

I don't think any roles being not allowed to mafia is necessary in the second one – it's just a question of which 15 roles to use in the first place, really.
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Wed Mar 07, 2018 7:25 am

Post by Gamma Emerald »

Let's note cop is a powerful town pr so scum can take it to steal it from town anyway
I dislike people ignoring the idea of scum taking roles with the intent of depriving town of them
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Wed Mar 07, 2018 10:42 am

Post by Sukima »

Actually, what I was thinking was that if cop is a desired town role but a worthless scum role, for the scoop to work properly, you need the other two roles in the scoop to both be powerful roles in scum and less powerful in town hands, otherwise that scoop can only be defined as "Scum takes cop to deny town a cop" or "never pick this scoop". Same reasoning for if there was a powerful scum role but less powerful in town hands (see Vig), where the town roles paired with the Vig would have to be amazing to combat the fact that scum will have 2 NKs when picking that scoop.

Edit: Oops, I forgot the bit where the scoops are randomized from roles. Yeah... you really can't put roles here that are too good in scum hands otherwise they're going to snap pick that scoop if it comes up unless if RNG literally puts the best town roles along with them.
Last edited by Sukima on Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:50 am

Post by northsidegal »

I see what you're saying, and that actually acts as a point for changing the setup such that the scoops aren't randomized from a set list but acts as more of a semi-open where scum choose more from a modular setup.

I think this works as an example scoop that would balance cop.

Roleblocker

Rolecop

Cop





More thoughts – would increasing the playercount to 13:4 reduce the effect of essentially having 4 confirmed roles?
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Post Post #10 (ISO) » Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:55 am

Post by Mathdino »

definitely

but then you have to deal with balancing a large :P
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Post Post #11 (ISO) » Wed Mar 07, 2018 12:07 pm

Post by Sukima »

In that case, you have....

Scum RB vs town rolecop + town cop.
Scum rolecop vs town cop + town RB.
Scum cop vs town rolecop + town RB.

Dunno if I'd pick this scoop as Scum to be honest. The rolecop in town's hands does have issues of differentiating guilties and innos but it's a pretty solid PR hunter, on the assumption that goons turn up as vanilla, and that the setup has goons. Otherwise you either are giving town a RB to combat the NK in scenario 3, have a rolecop to find town RB and town cop in scenario 2, and a RB to protect vs town cop and town rolecop. Actually, on second blush, that doesn't sound too awful, but it depends on the other scoops.

I do agree that the scoops might have to be non-randomized otherwise you get runaway snap decisions.
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Post Post #12 (ISO) » Wed Mar 07, 2018 12:10 pm

Post by Gamma Emerald »

Also be careful with lower powered roles or you'll end up like Pick your Poison where the JK never gets picked essentially
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Post Post #13 (ISO) » Mon Mar 19, 2018 5:11 am

Post by callforjudgement »

Perhaps the best fix for the "scum flips confirm the setup" issue is to have scum flip as alignment but not role? Not knowing whether the dead scum had a power role isn't really hurtful to scumhunting attempts.

(Alternatively, you could give scum power roles as factional rather than personal abilities.)
scum
· scam · seam · team · term · tern · torn ·
town
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Post Post #14 (ISO) » Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:06 am

Post by Sukima »

It'd certainly reduce town's ability to snowball if scum's abilities were all factional. Might be a good incentive for things like that cop scoop which might get snowballed on with a guilty on the counter role.

I think we'd just need to come up with good scoops to play with and see if any of them are too good or not good enough. Also wonder if any gamebreaking scoop comboes would arise, things like cop/doc, though admittedly scum would have to opt-in on those and would presumably have tools to deal with those things.
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Post Post #15 (ISO) » Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:29 am

Post by northsidegal »

I've been rethinking this setup lately and had an idea which I think solves many of the problems which were originally brought up. Originally, I had it such that when scum picked a role from a "scoop", town would get the other two roles contained within that scoop. That runs into issues of 4 roles being confirmed once the scum choice has been confirmed, issues of there being 4 town power roles, and of scum knowing the entire setup.

My new proposal is this: scum pick two roles, each from an individual scoop. Town then gets three power roles randomized from the scoops that scum
didn't
pick, one from each scoop. That might be a little hard to picture just from words, so here's an example.

Redirector

Commuter

Neapolitan
Cop

Doctor

Watcher
Jailkeeper

Tracker

Follower
Roleblocker

Universal Backup

Rolecop
1-shot Vigilante

Fruit Vendor

Hider





Let's say these are the available scoops. Scum pick the Redirector and the Rolecop. The town roles are then randomized from the other scoops by rolling 3d3. Let's say you rolled (1, 2, 1). The town roles would then be Cop, Tracker, 1-shot Vig.

Through this method there will be 5 PRs total, maximum one from each scoop and scum only know which roles town can't have, not the setup exactly.

Thoughs? I've been doing a lot of tweaking of those groupings specifically to check the balance between scum picks and the randomized town roles, but I welcome alternate proposals for groupings or roles.
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Post Post #16 (ISO) » Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:32 am

Post by northsidegal »

I will say that the primary issue i've run into has been the potential for weak town rands when scum pick Watcher/1S-Vig
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