[Setup] Bus Service

[mutantdevle]

Setup:

• 1 Town Cop
  
  
• 1 Town Bus Driver
  
  
• 8 Town Backup Bus drivers
  
  
• 3 Mafia Goons

Alongside the factional night kill, the mafia also have a factional bus drive.

To clarify, driving works by targetting 2 people. Any night action performed on a targetted player will affect the other player targeted by the Bus Driver. Eg. if a cop targets person A, they will receive the result of if they targetted person B.

People who are driven will not know they have been driven. People will not know if their target has been driven. The factional drive will always be applied before the town drive in the event that they both target the same person. If the town bus driver dies, the new bus driver will be randomly chosen out of all the backup bus drivers.


Role PMs:

Spoiler: Cop

You are a cop. You are aligned with the

town

.

Each night, you may investigate a player. You will be told if they are

town

or

mafia

.

However, you will not be told if your target is driven. This means you may receive the result of a different player.

You will win when all mafia members have been killed.

Spoiler: Bus Driver

Bus Driver

You are a bus driver. You are aligned with the

town

.

Each night, you may drive 2 players. This will result in any actions directed towards either of them being swapped.

The mafia's factional drive will be resolved before yours. You may drive yourself.

You will win when all mafia members have been killed.

Spoiler: Backup Bus Driver

Backup Bus Driver

You are a backup bus driver. You are aligned with the

town

.

In the event that the town bus driver dies, you have a chance of becoming the new bus driver.

You will win when all mafia members have been killed.

Spoiler: Mafia Goon

You are a mafia goon. You are aligned with the

mafia

.

Each night, you may talk with your fellow mafia members X and Y [here] to discuss who you want to night kill.

You will also need to discuss which 2 players you want to drive. This will result in any actions directed towards either of them being swapped.

The mafia's factional drive will be resolved before the town's drive. You may drive any member of the mafia. You may drive the night kill target.

You will win when the mafia gain majority.

This setup makes cop results unreliable. This means that cops can never really clear anyone and mafia members can still get away with having a guilty claimed on them. It's worth considering by the mafia to also not kill cop claims as they could cause more harm than good depending on whether or not the town wants to lynch guilties. Bus drivers are not able to protect both themself and the cop and protecting anyone with the drive ability will always result in someone else dying. That said, a bus driver could also redirect the kill back at the mafia and make them kill themselves. Whilst I think it might be optimal for bus drivers to always claim, it does come at the cost of them being more predictable to the mafia. Additionally, unless the cop is dead and the bus driver dies during the night, Lylo will always have 1 confirmed townie.

My current thought is that this setup is town sided. What do y'all think and what do you think could be done to change that? My idea for balance right now is to change all the bus driver backups to vanilla townies. But I want to know what y'all think of this setup as a general premise.

[Gamma Emerald]

You’re trying to reinvent the wheel a bit here
Transporter is already known as Bus Driver

[callforjudgement]

What happens if both bus drivers target the same person (e.g. one faction swaps A and B, one faction swaps B and C)? (The only action resolution system I've seen that even attempts to answer this question is RAR.)

Depending on the answer to that question, this setup may well be broken via Follow the Cop. The results won't be 100% reliable, but if the town Bus Driver always swaps the cop with a random null- or scum-read, the cop will be effectively unkillable, and there's no reason for the Bus Driver themself to stay secret (they might be killed but then town will get a new Bus Driver the next day).

[mutantdevle]

You’re trying to reinvent the wheel a bit here
Transporter is already known as Bus Driver

Yeah fair enough, I'm a town of Salem scrub :3

What happens if both bus drivers target the same person (e.g. one faction swaps A and B, one faction swaps B and C)? (The only action resolution system I've seen that even attempts to answer this question is RAR.)

Depending on the answer to that question, this setup may well be broken via Follow the Cop. The results won't be 100% reliable, but if the town Bus Driver always swaps the cop with a random null- or scum-read, the cop will be effectively unkillable, and there's no reason for the Bus Driver themself to stay secret (they might be killed but then town will get a new Bus Driver the next day).

As explained in the thread, the mafia's factional bus drive will always be resolved first. So if the town bus driver targets A and B, and the mafia target B and C, then C and B would be switched first. This means the town bus driver actually targets A and C, thus switching them. If the cop was B, mafia could both drive and night kill B and hence kill them.

You're right that it's theoretically optimal for the bus driver to claim. That's also something I mention in the thread and I propose that perhaps the soloution to that is simply remove all the backups. However, since the mafia's drive resolves first the mafia are almost in full control of whether the bus driver lives or dies as if they are deflecting actions away from themselves they can simply drive the town bus driver so that they are no longer doing so. You'd also have to factor in how some players wouldn't want to claim out of fear of being killed by the mafia. The mafia may also choose to leave PRs alive if they think that they are doing more harm than good to the town. This setup means that every PR has the power to be anti-town.

[the worst]

This is like the "GOD NO WHYYYYY MAKE IT STOOOOP" version of watchmen wanted. very interesting. I'm pretty tired and can't think of optimal strategy rn but I'm getting the feeling it's probably pretty close to mountainous with 2 ICs by way of TPRs?

actually I think the bus driver can generate innos more reliably than the cop can. heh.

[Gamma Emerald]

Honestly I wanna see a test run of this

[mutantdevle]

Anyone is welcome to run this setup. If no one else does so, then I'll run this after the game that I've just inned to mod is over.

Nevermind, I'll host it now.

[Jingle]

Um... I think it's broken by copclaim D1.

[Jingle]

Yeah, cop claims D1. Cop outs results every day, if manipulated by bus driver, bus driver claims. Bus driver dying is never really a problem, because there's a new one the next night. Scum has a 1 / PoE pool chance of hitting cop each night, and kind of has to keep themselves in the target pool so they might end up shooting themselves. When the cop dies, there should be at least a few innos, and the mafia is facing an uphill battle against a town with potentially unkillable ICs.

[Jingle]

My guess, change cop to a tracker and it's completely viable, but I'll look at numbers when I'm a little less busy and see if it's balanced or needs adjustments.

[mutantdevle]

You're aware that the mafia has a factional bus drive that resolves before the town bus driver right? So even if the bus driver claims their targets, there is always the risk that the mafia has messed the targets up which means they are still unreliable and they can kill the cop at any time by changing who the bus driver targets.

I bolded the part that says this because I think some people are just reading the setup part and then not reading anything else in the thread.

[Jingle]

Like I said, I'll have to sit down and confirm the numbers, but the odds are your first few investigations are trustworthy AFAICT.

[Sukima]

If cop claims, mafia just swaps cop with a random person A, and shoots them. Unless if bus driver manages to random A with some other person, the cop is dying the night he claims.

[Jingle]

Scum bus driver swaps cop and a. Bus driver swaps cop and b. Scum kills a.

Scum bus driver hits. Now town bus driver switches a and b. Scum kill hits b.

I really do like the setup, FWIW. And when I have the time I really do want to sit down and run the math on it. I’d just rather the potential problems get worked out so that it might become an open queue mainstay.

[Sukima]

Hmmm.... would it work that way? I thought it was as the following.

Scum swap cop and A. Town swapping cop and B. Scum shooting A.

So first swap happens and whatever targets cop targets A, and whatever targets A targets cop. Town swap is now swapping A and B. So whatever targets A targets B, and whatever targets B targets A. Kill targets cop because of the first swap occuring before the second one? So initially targetting cop gets you cop -> A -> B. Initially targetting B gets you B -> cop -> A. And initially targetting A gets you A -> Cop because the scum swap had priority.

Basically in your example, the scum kill would get swapped by the mafia's busdrive first before the town busdrive resolves so to speak.

[Jingle]

Hmm. That would solve potential massclaim issue.

Edit: Derp. Yeah, mutant already said as much in post 3. My concern there is unfounded.

[Gamma Emerald]

Hmmm.... would it work that way? I thought it was as the following.

Scum swap cop and A. Town swapping cop and B. Scum shooting A.

So first swap happens and whatever targets cop targets A, and whatever targets A targets cop. Town swap is now swapping A and B. So whatever targets A targets B, and whatever targets B targets A. Kill targets cop because of the first swap occuring before the second one? So initially targetting cop gets you cop -> A -> B. Initially targetting B gets you B -> cop -> A. And initially targetting A gets you A -> Cop because the scum swap had priority.

Basically in your example, the scum kill would get swapped by the mafia's busdrive first before the town busdrive resolves so to speak.

lol no
All swaps should happen before kills. Although the swapping it so A and B are swapped by the town bus driver is an important problem that needs addressing

[mutantdevle]

K, so this is how it would work:



Cop can be changed with a claimed town bus driver or just any random person for the same result.


So the scum team can always cancel out the town bus driver's protection. The bus driver can then counter that by either coincidently choosing the same targets as the mafia to cancel out the swapping altogether or just not try to protect them at all and just let the mafia kill the person they are swapping with the cop.

[Gamma Emerald]

I think I hate this setup

[mutantdevle]

The only problem I can see with this setup is that if the bus drivers claimed every day then there'd always be a confirmed townie. That being 2 confirmed townies when there is a claimed cop. These factors probably make the setup town sided.

2 things to potentially give the mafia more power:
- Replace all backup bus drivers with vanilla townies.
- Allow mafia to choose the next bus driver so that RNG has less effect on whether or not a strong town player gets to be an IC for a day.

[mutantdevle]

^^ Tbh I think that 2nd idea is better design for the setup because there's no fun in losing a game because of RNG. It also allows players to read into why they or someone else was chosen by the mafia to be a bus driver.

I think I hate this setup

What is it about the setup that you hate and do you have any ideas on how to fix said problem?

[Jingle]

I like 2 from a theoretical angle. I keep coming back to needing to look at EV though. Stupid RL getting in the the way of math problems.

[Gamma Emerald]

^^ Tbh I think that 2nd idea is better design for the setup because there's no fun in losing a game because of RNG. It also allows players to read into why they or someone else was chosen by the mafia to be a bus driver.

I think I hate this setup

What is it about the setup that you hate and do you have any ideas on how to fix said problem?

the fact town is basically at the mercy of scum here

[Gamma Emerald]

The only problem I can see with this setup is that if the bus drivers claimed every day then there'd always be a confirmed townie. That being 2 confirmed townies when there is a claimed cop. These factors probably make the setup town sided.

2 things to potentially give the mafia more power:
- Replace all backup bus drivers with vanilla townies.
- Allow mafia to choose the next bus driver so that RNG has less effect on whether or not a strong town player gets to be an IC for a day.

lol mafia does not need more power ffs

[mutantdevle]

Huh, so you think that it's scum sided? Even despite the fact that town will probably always have someone confirmed each day?