[MARCH CHALLENGE]

This forum is for discussion of individual Open Setups, including theoretical balance.
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Post Post #100 (ISO) » Wed Apr 03, 2019 2:18 pm

Post by Jingle »

Edited 90 to include DDL's setup.
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Post Post #101 (ISO) » Wed Apr 03, 2019 2:25 pm

Post by implosion »

ty~
I will also vote at some point in the next two days!
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Post Post #102 (ISO) » Wed Apr 03, 2019 3:13 pm

Post by BBmolla »

I'll vote tonight
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Post Post #103 (ISO) » Thu Apr 04, 2019 9:39 am

Post by Jingle »

/inb4 I'm the only one who votes. :shifty:
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Post Post #104 (ISO) » Thu Apr 04, 2019 10:23 am

Post by Irrelephant11 »

CYOA – I like mine a lot.
Pick 5 – I like it! I thought about my options as scum and each time I thought I’d gamed it the town choices were a good counterbalance.
Microtown – Feels like the role list could maybe be better? But I’m very interested to see it played regardless
Lost Heirs v3 – Easy to understand, interesting
Leveler Mafia – Not exciting to me, but good
PYAE – I do enjoy Grandest Idea games and the like (which is why this is in my top half), but I feel like this system for *getting there* is a little overly complicated, and the results are less wacky and more, just, guaranteed unbalanced.
Jingle’s setup – It’s fine
Martyrs updated – Too screwy for my tastes in opens
Pizza mafia – If I understand this right, everyone will claim d2, and scum will just try to *be lucky with claims* and look for the pepperoni. Not the worst setup, but doesn’t sound like every win would feel deserved.
I’d Take a Bullet – Doesn’t feel all that fun to play, especially as scum, though I *get* it.
DDL’s setup - feels a little overly complicated, and as Jingle mentions it has not yet worked out the kinks
Inventions and Stability – It’s not intuitive to me what would make this one fun to play
Last edited by Irrelephant11 on Thu Apr 04, 2019 11:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Post #105 (ISO) » Thu Apr 04, 2019 10:58 am

Post by Jingle »

In post 92, DrDolittle wrote:is not nice you missed me relly
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Post Post #106 (ISO) » Thu Apr 04, 2019 11:09 am

Post by Irrelephant11 »

Oh weird I read it and remember thinking of where in the rankings it should go
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Post Post #107 (ISO) » Thu Apr 04, 2019 11:26 am

Post by ceejayvinoya »

Pick 5 - This game looks great. I love the role selection in this.

CY Own Adventure - Very fun looking game, especially if it's done with pregame discussion I think.

Microtown - there is too much going on in this setup for me to appreciate it properly but I can tell it's well made.

Leveler Mafia - Very townsided but with the right tweaking I'd love to play something like this.

I'd Take a Bullet - hate the fixated mechanic. Other than that, it's good.

Jingle's - kinda boring ish :lol

Martyrs - This looks like a headache to play, especially if I roll PR. I'd be constantly worried which wagon I was on.

PY Almost Everything - Oh it's grand idea plus pick your power. Okay.

Lost Heirs v3 - not a bad setup. Not very interesting to me tho.

Inventions and Stability - weird setup. Needs to be more clearly worded because it looks unbalanced to me under the wrong circumstances.
Last edited by ceejayvinoya on Thu Apr 04, 2019 2:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Post #108 (ISO) » Thu Apr 04, 2019 1:37 pm

Post by Jingle »

Dammit, cj, you were supposed to skip DDL so we could continue the trend and you could edit it in later.


You've ruined everything. :evil:
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Post Post #109 (ISO) » Thu Apr 04, 2019 2:02 pm

Post by ceejayvinoya »

There I edited it out.

That balances the universe, right? :lol:
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Post Post #110 (ISO) » Thu Apr 04, 2019 8:25 pm

Post by BBmolla »

Life is a mess. Sorry I dont have time to vote.
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Post Post #111 (ISO) » Thu Apr 04, 2019 9:08 pm

Post by Jingle »

<3 BB. You do you and make sure to take care of RL. We're gonna need you more next month anyway, when everyone brings their A game and we have 30 awesome setups, unlike the shitshow I put out this time. :shifty:
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Post Post #112 (ISO) » Fri Apr 05, 2019 4:55 am

Post by DrDolittle »

SS – I like this a lot. It’s basically what a good theme needs. A standard mafia game with an added level of complexity in decision making.

Elephants – It’s a good one. The theme is excellent. I wonder how much of the game is dictated completely by the pregame though.

NSG – kind of vanilla but cute. Gameplay-wise, basically restricting the claim and PR space. Some of these roles seem inherently better than the other tho? Like Neap and Cop and JK

Ceejaynova – I have a soft spot for cute games, and this one thematically not bad at all. Jingle’s right no-lynch x2 seems like a good strategy, so maybe needs a small modification, but definitely workable.

NK 15 – Fun little setup… a bit nervous about the VIP + Inventor swing, but there’s good stuff in the uncertainty on how to distribute the roles. Perhaps toning down the power of the two roles would be good.

BBM – Pretty funny setup. I’m a bit worried about strong town then having to clamor to coordinate who is hammering etc, and who is protected etc., and it might get messy.

CFJ – I don’t like smalltowns too much, and but I think this one might be fun to play. A key issue of smalltown is that even though the role is public, the usage of the role is subjected to WIFOM. I would personally put in more redirection roles though, because it feels like with high p, the game can unravel by day 2.

TL: The idea is there like Elephants, and I do like it. Need to think about unravelling as there’s not that many options for WIFOM ccs (since 2 power level is def fixed, and can be claimed in thread)

BNL: I think the concept of D R N is interesting, but might end up being too confusing in a game where a lot of targeting is involved. Caution that deaths might be able to confirm a lot of townies if BG keeps cycling back, and fake scum pr claim is possible but really fucking hard to do.

Jingle – It’s a game that’s playable! But it's boring :(

Oka – I don’t like games that too swing-y and draw dependent. They’re no fun.
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Post Post #113 (ISO) » Fri Apr 05, 2019 11:20 am

Post by implosion »

I'd take a bullet: I'm very skeptical of balance just because balance here seems really damn hard to evaluate. But this is really innovative in a good way.
Microtown: I love the idea of a smalltown setup that's runnable as a more typical open and not a one-off theme. Surprised it hasn't (to my knowledge) been explored before. The set of roles is intriguing.
Choose your own adventure: this is risky because the options need to be balanced really well for it to work. But it's a nice way of doing what it's trying to do, i think.
Lost heirs: a solid idea in the vein of chosen, etc.
Pick 5: Straightforward, but not a bad idea.
Martyrs: Another one with some interesting stuff, but hard to imagine how it'd play out.
Pick your almost everything: might have balance issues? I like some of the ideas here. I'm not sure if it'd work well though with people likely just picking whatever is best for their alignment and then scum having to do a lot of work to fakeclaim well.
Jingle's setups A & B: Yeah, it is a little boring :p. It certainly looks playable. Watcher + bodyguard vs goons 9p is the setup of one of my most memorable games! Though it was closed.
Levelers: Afraid this might be vulnerable to early claiming strats of some sort.
Counterstrike: Maybe interesting; don't think it's my kind of thing.
Pizza mafia: the issue here is that there's a lot of potential for it to be anticlimactic... it'd feel very bad as scum to commit to a claim and then lose for lack of luck.
Inventions and stability: there might be something here but it looks just to be more complex than it needs to be for what it's trying to do? I'm not 100% sure what it's trying to do.
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Post Post #114 (ISO) » Fri Apr 05, 2019 11:40 am

Post by Jingle »

Assuming no further votes, Relly is the clear winner, so I'd suggest he think up a set of criteria.

Honestly, I'm kinda sad that we had so much less setup tweaking this time. A few of these could probably have been much better with a bit of feedback.
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Post Post #115 (ISO) » Fri Apr 05, 2019 11:50 am

Post by Irrelephant11 »

In post 114, Jingle wrote:Assuming no further votes, Relly is the clear winner, so I'd suggest he think up a set of criteria.

Honestly, I'm kinda sad that we had so much less setup tweaking this time. A few of these could probably have been much better with a bit of feedback.
I think this particular challenge made for complicated setups that were hard to give feedback on. Not necessarily a bad thing, since complicated setups can be cool, but something to keep in mind I guess.
I’ll try to make next month’s simpler (though I’ll wait a few hours to see if there are more votes before assuming I’ve won).
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Post Post #116 (ISO) » Fri Apr 05, 2019 11:59 am

Post by Jingle »

Eh. I definitely have feedback I could give, now that the month is over. I just didn't have time/motivation earlier.

I gave feedback on every setup in a way already. There's a couple (BB's and Oka's) that I just don't like, but for the most part I think there was a real room for improvement that went beyond 'I don't like X central theme of your game'.

For example, I think CJ's setup is better with a larger topping pool and a rolecop instead of an 'informed every night'. You still get the whole scum are incentivized to fakeclaim without incentivizing keeping the player pool as large as possible. VIP had a lot of promise, but the balance of it wasn't looked at very carefully imo. At least, I didn't look at it until judging setups. Lost Heir actually got some attention, and the later version of the game was way more polished than the early one. My only real issue with Levelers is the balance (seriously, I think it's broken for town if both town levelers choose High Power) and that's something that could be worked on. (My suggestion would be making the Lowest and Highest setups scumsided and leave the center setups as is so that the town wants their levelers to pick opposite choices without coordinating.
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Post Post #117 (ISO) » Fri Apr 05, 2019 12:19 pm

Post by Jingle »

Spoiler: Leveler Setups
TL wrote:All Possible SetupsLow Power Level

1 Mafia Leveler
2 Mafia Goons
2 Town Levelers
1 Town Tracker
7 Vanilla Townies (may be blue)

Medium Power Level

1 Mafia Leveler
1 Mafia Neapolitan
1 Mafia Goon
2 Town Levelers
1 Town Tracker
1 Town Jailkeeper (may be blue)
6 Vanilla Townies (may be blue)

High Power Level

1 Mafia Leveler
1 Mafia Neapolitan
1 Informed Goon
2 Town Levelers
1 Town Tracker
1 Town Jailkeeper (may be blue)
2 Town Masons (may be blue)
4 Vanilla Townies (may be blue)

Special Power Level

1 Mafia Leveler
1 Informed Goon
1 Mafia Goon
2 Town Levelers
1 Town Tracker
2 Town Masons (may be blue)
5 Vanilla Townies (may be blue)


I just realized that despite the fact that it doesn't deserve the win imo, this is probably the most interesting setup to me and thus there's no reason NOT to provide my input. Maybe it can be polished further outside of the contest.

Claims here are bad, but there's a slight mitigation to that. Low power gives 3-4 conftown by claim players (depending on identity of blue). That's about the maximum.
Medium has 4-5, but the interesting thing is that one of those is only confable if a town player picked high power (Which they always should, but we'll get to that). I like that interaction, where scum knows whether JK is town, but town doesn't necessarily. As is, it's probably too powerful for town (Neopolitan doesn't really give the scumteam much utility.)
High is broken in town's favor. As soon as a mason claims, you can have all PR's claim. That's 5 or 6 players who are confirmed town. Sure, scum can counterclaim Levelers, but that's pretty much irrelevant, because it narrows the list. Scum can't win through 6 conftown D1. Scum super can't win through 6 conftown D1 with multiple investigations.
Special is less broken due to the absence of the JK, meaning less confirmations, but the number of D1 clears is still egregious.

Additionally, like in many opens, you don't have to claim specific roles. You have to claim confirmable/nonconfirmable. If the right number of confirmable players claim, then you can just leave the more useful ones (Tracker) hidden. If you have a discrepancy, then you continue the claims process.

My biggest suggestion, I suppose, is getting rid of the levelers. If instead, everybody gets the option to add or abstain and you have a range of results then you can prevent the ability of town to simply confirm out through claims, while leaving the interesting core of the setup.
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Post Post #118 (ISO) » Fri Apr 05, 2019 1:35 pm

Post by Something_Smart »

Lost Heirs v3
Pick 5
Microtown
Choose Your Own Adventure
I'd Take a Bullet
Pick Your Almost Everything
Leveler Mafia
Boring Setup
Martyrs
Pizza Mafia
Counter Strike
Inventions and Stability
It's always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die. You don't know whose children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken. How many lives shattered. How much blood will spill, until everybody does what they're always going to have to do from the very beginning... SIT DOWN AND TALK!
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Post Post #119 (ISO) » Fri Apr 05, 2019 2:14 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

From best to worst:

Microtown: I still like this. I'm not sure it's balanced, but it'll be hard to balance without playtesting.
CYOA: I think the basic idea works, and there's lots of space for tweaking to avoid unbalanced combinations; additionally, there seems to have been quite a bit of effort put into avoiding unbalanced combinations in the first place.
Lost Heirs v3: There are lots of other setups playing round in this sort of space, so I know the basic idea works, and it's likely to be close to balanced. It hasn't really caught my imagination, though.
Pick 5: Some of the categories are unbalanced against others (e.g. the scum roles in other categories aren't strong enough to tempt scum away from disabling the first category for town). Scum will just go for the most scumsided setup, which I suspect is (Encryptor, JOAT). That said, given the additional information gained from the semi-open nature of the setup (in particular, that there are exactly three town power roles), this is probably close to balanced if the scum pick well, and scumsided if the scum pick badly.
I'd Take a Bullet: This is probably close to balanced, but I think it could suck to play as scum: if there are one or two very strong town players, town can arrange protection for them very easily.
Leveler Mafia: High is townsided, Special is probably townsided, so townies should pick H (perhaps with a small chance of L, as scum will probably also pick H). There are also swing issues in setups with a high number of town-controlled roleblocks, such as the High setup here, as they make it almost impossible for the last remaining member of the scumteam to win.
Martyrs Updated: This is surely townsided, isn't it? You have a 7:2 with two roles usable as named townies, plus a high degree of control over the scum nightkill, plus the potential to use the town power roles for good.
Jingle's: Setup B is probably scumsided (you can treat the two town power roles like named townies, making it closer to balanced, but that seems like a weird use of them), and I don't see any particular advantage from combining these two subsetups into one (there's no interaction that influences claim outcomes, for example).
PYAE: Setups like this have been run before, and they never turned out remotely balanced. This one has a nonzero chance of producing a balanced setup, but it's pretty close to zero.
Inventions and Stability: I don't really like the idea behind this, and also suspect it's scumsided if it's scum with the power roles (probably also if it's town with the power roles).
Pizza Mafia: I don't like the idea behind this one either.
Counter-Strike: I don't think this is really semi-open, given that the subsetups are identical up to permutation of location names.
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Post Post #120 (ISO) » Fri Apr 05, 2019 5:39 pm

Post by Jingle »

Yeah, CYOA has the most #1s and never dipped below #4. Obvious winner.


Gratz, relly. Make a new thread soon.

Also, has anyone actually run one of the contest winners?
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Post Post #121 (ISO) » Sun Apr 07, 2019 10:23 am

Post by Irrelephant11 »

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Post Post #122 (ISO) » Sun Apr 07, 2019 10:23 am

Post by Irrelephant11 »

In post 120, Jingle wrote:Also, has anyone actually run one of the contest winners?
Not as far as I know
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Post Post #123 (ISO) » Sun Apr 07, 2019 10:26 am

Post by BBmolla »

Grats! Was a good group of Setups.

I swear to mafia god I’ll vote this next month.
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Post Post #124 (ISO) » Sun Apr 07, 2019 2:56 pm

Post by BNL »

Challenge didn’t quite appeal to be but Irrelephant’s one definitely was the best. Congratulations!
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