[MAY CHALLENGE]

[Jingle]

On a side note, having fully half of the player list not playing at any given time is probably boring AF. I would suggest at least giving inactive players a PT to discuss in.

[Jingle]

Probably the wrong place to put this, but not a mafia game:

Hidden Reversi.

N players, N is odd.

Each player is a reversi tile who can choose to be black or white. At the end of [deadline], the color which is chosen by fewer players wins.


Which lead me to an actual submission:

Hidden Reversi Mafia

3 Goons
10 VT

Each day, players choose White or Black. Standard lynching. All players with the more popular choice are lynched and all choices are revealed at the beginning of the next day. Each night, scum chooses a player to nightkill. White Flag.

[Rainn]

Coronation Ceremony V2

11 players

7 Monarchists

2 Revolutionary Lovers

2 Anarchist Lovers

The game is nightless, and there is no factional kill.

During the the first, second and fourth day, majority lynches may happen.

During the third and fifth day, a coronation ceremony may happen and is decided by majority voting

or

plurality voting, effectively crowning a player.

If no one receives a crow (no votes), the anarchists wins, and if the members of the anarchist faction are no longer alive, the revolutionaries win. If there is a equal amount of votes to different players, the first one to achieve that number of votes and that has maintained it since achieved is the one effectively crowned.

If a monarchist is crowned, they are effectively turned into an innocent child and confirmed to be aligned with the town. If either a revolutionary or anarchist is crowned, their respective faction wins and end the game.

A player/slot cannot be crowned twice.

Lovers are confirmed to have day chat.

The Monarchists win when either all anarchists

and

revolutionaries are dead,

or

when two

monarchists

have been crowned (the player most voted during a ceremony day).

The Anarchists or Revolutionaries win either if one of them is crowned, or when the number of members of the anti-town factions are equal or higher than the number of pro-town players alive.

During the

duration

of any day (between the day start until the deadline/last vote for a majority vote), any anti-town faction that still have

both

members alive can request and name one of themselves to escape the country. If there is such request, if the player is still alive during the start of the

next

day, he "escapes", effectively leaving the game. Only one member of each anti-town faction may escape.

If a request for escape is requested, it

cannot

, under any circumstances, be retracted

or

modified/changed.

Any request for escape when sent to the moderator must already have selected a name or it's considered an invalid request.

[Rainn]

I'm not sure about EV or any similar concept since I'm not really good on it. Instead I tried to go through the scenarios and...it's fairly balanced in my opinion?

Maybe a bit town sided, but roughly balanced?

I was wondering if I should remove the mechanic about allowing anarchists/revolutionaries to escape, or to put an odd/even day requirement for each faction.

It sounded a bit too much town sided to completely remove it though?

[Jingle]

Baron autowins D2 imo. Better to have them claim D1 and be crowned D2 than risk a scumwin out of the blue. Scum should never cc because while the player can be smuggled out if they survive D1, they have a 50% chance of instalose.

4/11 scum lynch D1. For ease of calculation, we can look at both scum teams escape and then both scumteams holster.

Both escape, either 7v1 or 6v1v1 on D3. 1/8 or 2/9 scumlynch.

Both holster, 6v2v2 or 7v2. 2/5 or 2/7 scum lynch.

Alternatively, it's an option to just no lynch D1 and 3 and treat it as a vote for town setup. you have a 7/11 chance for the first town coronation and a 6/10 for the second (in this case the escape is pointless), which means a 38% win rate for town. If you scumlynch D1, it turns into 58%. If you scum lynch and have an extradition, it turns into 75%. Town lynch and single extradition is 42% Town lynch and double extradition is 54%. Town lynch and no extradition is 33%. Basically, scum should never escape as just doing so makes it far more likely for a town win by coronation. Scum cannot win by majority if they escape. Scum win by majority is: (Lynch Town 7/11, Baron Escape, Lynch Town 6/10, Crown Town 5/9, Lynch Town 1/2 OR 10.6%)

Scum win by coronation (Assumed no escapes, Baron Crown D2): Each individual scumteam has a chance of 24.8%.

Town EV is 40.8%

Game ends after D6 regardless.

Multiball, with theoretical win ratio of 40.8:35.4:35.4 doesn't seem bad at all. Escaping skews towards town, an opposite team scumlynch increases a team's chance of winning. Probably wouldn't play it personally, but seems fairly balanced. Probably more fun without the Baron, tbh. Could start with 11p, make it Coronations on D3 and 5 and not have a player who is basically guaranteed a win without changing your EV.

[Rainn]

Thanks for the review Jingle, and yeah, Baron is a bit problematic right now but I felt he was a good balance for town to not win so easily. However now i noticed he is kind of only dragging the game for longer because town might get cold feet and just crown him to counter a scum win.

I might either modify the role or remove it yes.

About the escape mechanic if we're only talking about the numbers yes, it's suboptimal to escape, however considering the strategic plays and the fact that a weak buddy might be getting in the way of a win, it has value in leaving it there I guess.

[Jingle]

Oh, yeah, definitely leave the escape in. It's a WIFOM-y trick that can hail mary shot for a team. It's just irrelevant to the EV calcs because the only way to suitably calc EV is to assume random lynching, and random lynching says it's never the right play to make.

And yeah, town should always coronate the Baron D2 as is. It ups their win by 3%, (which admittedly is not much) over the course of the game. Town should actually have a higher win % than 40.8% because they have two optimal strategies and should always follow the one with the higher winrate. But that is a more complicated probability tree than I'm willing to look at at the moment because it requires value judgments.

[Rainn]

Probably wouldn't play it personally, but seems fairly balanced.

Just asking to know what could maybe be improved in this one or even in future setups i create:

what do you think it's kinda unfun or not very attractive about the setup?

this question is also open to anyone that may want to answer it

[Rainn]

Coronation Ceremony V3

12 players

7 Monarchists

1 Baron

2 Revolutionary Lovers

2 Anarchist Lovers

The game is nightless, and there is no factional kill.

In odd days, a majority lynch may happen.

In even days, a coronation ceremony may happen and is decided by majority voting

or

plurality voting, effectively crowning a player.

If no one receives a crow (no votes), the anarchists wins, and if the members of the anarchist faction are no longer alive, the revolutionaries win. If there is a equal amount of votes to different players, the first one to achieve that number of votes and that has maintained it since achieved is the one effectively crowned.

If a monarchist is crowned, they are effectively turned into an innocent child and confirmed to be aligned with the town. if the Baron is crowned, he individually wins and escapes the game. if either a revolutionary or anarchist is crowned, their respective faction wins and end the game.

A player/slot cannot be crowned twice.

Lovers are confirmed to have day chat.

The Monarchists win when either all anarchists

and

revolutionaries are dead,

or

when two

monarchists

have been crowned (the player most voted during a ceremony day).

The Anarchists or Revolutionaries win either if one of them is crowned, or when the number of members of the anti-town factions are equal or higher than the number of pro-town players alive.

The Baron wins either if he is crowned,

or

if he is

alive

when the Monarchist's win con is achieved. If the Baron is crowned, the following day obligatorily turns into a ceremony day. If the Baron is lynched, any alignment confirmed player (crowned monarchists), dies, however even dying they are still counted as a successful crowning towards Monarchist's win con (two successful monarchists crowned).

The Baron is considered pro-town aligned and his identity is known to the anarchists and revolutionaries.

During the

duration

of any day (between the day start until the deadline/last vote for a majority vote), any anti-town faction that still have

both

members alive can request and name one of themselves to escape the country. If there is such request, if the player is still alive during the start of the

next

day, he "escapes", effectively leaving the game. Only one member of each anti-town faction may escape.

If a request for escape is requested, it

cannot

, under any circumstances, be retracted

or

modified/changed.

Any request for escape when sent to the moderator must already have selected a name or it's considered an invalid request.

What changed:

Baron now if crowned forces the next day in a ceremony day again, what effectively turns useless for town crowning him, that if not negative utility since all it effectively does is remove one pro-town player from the game making it easier for anti-town factions control the vote/reach majority. His identity now is also known to the anarchists and revolutionaries, and if lynched he has a negative utility that again makes it easier for anti-town factions control the vote/reach majority.

Because of that, although he has the option to claim being the Baron since day 1, town has no incentive to crown him, and scum has some motivation, depending on the circumstances, to risk counter-claiming him although it's somewhat rare. Anti-town factions depending in the game state (both lovers being unable to get enough votes), also have reasons to pile their votes into crowning the Baron to make it easier to get crowned in the next days (what also can be used as a scum-hunting tool by town if a baron gets crowned).

I wanted the Baron to be some kind of wild card that would make the game more flavorful, and I think that now he's effectively making the game a bit more spicy indeed?

I modified the old post version into one of the Jingle's suggestion about how to remove the Baron but keep the same EV. But I'm very biased towards letting the Baron in the game because I like for there to be lots of possibilities, interactions and roles. However, since it's also one of the challenge's propositions to have a variable player number, I think that having a version 11p without the Baron and a 12p with the Baron, is a good solution.

I think the changes also forces the game to necessarily end by day 5.

Recommended deadline is 7 days for all days or 10 days for day 1 and 7 days for the rest. More than that makes it kind of too slow since I'm expecting plurality crowning to be a common thing and therefore it'll be often hard for there to be an consensus agreement on who should be crowned, especially with so many scum.

[popsofctown]

Thanks for the review Jingle, and yeah, Baron is a bit problematic right now but I felt he was a good balance for town to not win so easily. However now i noticed he is kind of only dragging the game for longer because town might get cold feet and just crown him to counter a scum win.

I might either modify the role or remove it yes.

About the escape mechanic if we're only talking about the numbers yes, it's suboptimal to escape, however considering the strategic plays and the fact that a weak buddy might be getting in the way of a win, it has value in leaving it there I guess.

I find post 52 very attractive. edit: 58 looks great too. It looks fun to play and pretty balanced.
I am angry other people are so much better at setup design than I am. It's ok, I can be good at other things. I'm good at my career. Not really. I'm good at Puzzles and Dragons. There's that.

[Jingle]

what do you think it's kinda unfun or not very attractive about the setup?

Multiball is iffy. Nightless is iffy. This particular setup is multiball nightless in a way that gets rid of the best part of multiball (trying to dodge the opposing NK) but keeps the worst part (It's definitely to scum's advantage to get rid of the other team, so scumhunting via "Are they scumhunting?" doesn't really work well).

It's not that it's a bad setup, necessarily, just not the type of setup that I'm personally interested in.

[Jingle]

A player/slot cannot be crowned twice.

This is a notable addition that is good to have, although I had assumed it to be the case.

Scum can no longer viably reach a majority scum win (Game ends after at most 2 lynchs). Town winning through scum lynches is similarly unlikely.

Assuming Baron claim D1 (which is still probably the likely to be correct option) EV shifts to 45:28:28 with no possibility of scum teams joint win. Yes I'm aware that adds up to 101%. Rounding.

Honestly, I think setup two was better if you include the no doubling up on crowns line.

[Rainn]

Thanks for the review Jingle, and yeah, Baron is a bit problematic right now but I felt he was a good balance for town to not win so easily. However now i noticed he is kind of only dragging the game for longer because town might get cold feet and just crown him to counter a scum win.

I might either modify the role or remove it yes.

About the escape mechanic if we're only talking about the numbers yes, it's suboptimal to escape, however considering the strategic plays and the fact that a weak buddy might be getting in the way of a win, it has value in leaving it there I guess.

I find post 52 very attractive. edit: 58 looks great too. It looks fun to play and pretty balanced.

thanks for the feedback!

A player/slot cannot be crowned twice.

This is a notable addition that is good to have, although I had assumed it to be the case.

Scum can no longer viably reach a majority scum win (Game ends after at most 2 lynchs). Town winning through scum lynches is similarly unlikely.

Assuming Baron claim D1 (which is still probably the likely to be correct option) EV shifts to 45:28:28 with no possibility of scum teams joint win. Yes I'm aware that adds up to 101%. Rounding.

Honestly, I think setup two was better if you include the no doubling up on crowns line.

To be honest I think that without the first version Baron, scum cannot win by majority in this setup anyway (even in the version without the baron?), so I'm thinking as well about removing that aspect and the focus indeed being the coronation (and scum hunting helping to thin down the possibility of a scum coronation and improving chances of a monarchist coronation).

About the Baron, I'm not sure if it's reflected in the numbers, but it's actually bad for town to crown him, because it's one less pro-town vote available (what makes anti-town factions job easier). Then if Baron claims day 1, he is never getting crowned, and that's what he needs to decide. Town might not win the game, but he can as long as he gets crowned. It's up to the Baron the option of wheter he wants to try to be crowned or if he simply wants to be a semi-IC (and later run the risk of being fake counter-claimed, and if he is dead he automatically loses).

Anti-town factions also might indirectly help him get crowned to avoid an another faction win, so it's not really set on stone what the best strategy for a Baron is imo.

[Rainn]

what do you think it's kinda unfun or not very attractive about the setup?

Multiball is iffy. Nightless is iffy. This particular setup is multiball nightless in a way that gets rid of the best part of multiball (trying to dodge the opposing NK) but keeps the worst part (It's definitely to scum's advantage to get rid of the other team, so scumhunting via "Are they scumhunting?" doesn't really work well).

It's not that it's a bad setup, necessarily, just not the type of setup that I'm personally interested in.

I see

it's just that I actually don't like nightkills..at all. I know it's weird but I feel that especially in multiball, it's something completely outside of town capacity to control and it makes the game less about manipulation/scum hunting and more about a bit of luck.

(Almost all of my setups ideas are nightless or at least partially nightless, because mafia killing the best townies imo is kind of boring)

I agree though that multiball always will have a bit more of a difficulty about scum hunting since the game changes a bit, but to the extent of not changing let's say..."the spirit of open setups" by not making it too wacky, I tried to make some scum hunting tools, albeit a bit different than in a normal game:
- Survivalism, scum can't afford to be lynched or to have their partner lynched.
- Associatives in case that one member of the team escapes, and wonder why they escaped.
- Restrict willingness in crowning options, since they need to be crowned themselves in the end.

I understand though your opinion.

I'll be thinking about the Baron thing, and thanks for running the numbers for me. I think one appetizing option is to make the Baron being crowned even more negative utility in some way, so that the anti-town factions has very clear motivation for crowning him (and therefore since he has that help, he has less reasons to straight up claim), and that also turns into a scum-hunting tool if a Baron is crowned or claim later in game, since it would be possible to see who supported the Baron's crowning.

[Rainn]

Actually, maybe making the Baron negative utility for town if crowned, and positive utility for town if lynched (and his wincon needing him alive with a monarchist win), might solve the "Baron claim" problem entirely. I'm not sure yet what effects I should place in each case though.

Maybe positive utility in lynching him because that gives town some kind of extra lynching power, and negative utility in crowning him because he escapes the game, kills any confirmed townie and forces a ceremonial day in the next day?

That would make the anti-town factions support his crowning if their own isn't a popular option, and also make him unable to claim.

Giving town extra lynching power by lynching Baron also is a way to maybe make it possible for a win by majority by the anti-town factions. I'll think about it.

Does that sound bad?

[Rainn]

I think that the next version will be the final one, I think that I already figured out the problems with the setup and what might fix them.

Thanks for the help pop and Jingle.

edit: I think I'm going to need to maintain the "if Baron is crowned, next day is ceremony day again" because if not, the game can get a bit dragging reaching day 6 or so. I think the longest I want it to be is day 5.

[Jingle]

In V2 and the version where you just have coronations on D3 and 5 and no baron, there is a 10.6% chance of a mutual scumwin through endgaming.

This not being there isn't necessarily a bad thing, just worth noting in that a mutual scumwin possibility adds to the win percentages of both scum teams allowing for a larger town win percentage that is close to the individual scumwin percentage. It's an easy answer to the old multiball question of "Is it correct to balance for 50:25:25 or 33:33:33?"

As far as the Baron-nation changing the EV, it's actually irrelevant. The Baron being coronated reduces the number of players, but it doesn't reduce the number of mislynches or lynches required to win, nor does it change the portion of the cycle you're in.

The assumption that is afforded by Optimal play is that the Baron is never lynched. This is because claiming Baron as scum necessarily lowers your win chance (while raising the win chance of the opposite scumteam), so any Baron claim can be treated as trustworthy and thus town, regardless of the day it comes on.

The subjective influence of Baron reads is also not something that is relevant to EV, as the individual player in the slot needs to be considered in order to figure out the impact. To simulate this, you use a fully random lynch pattern among all slots that can reasonably be lynched. This, coincidentally, is why 50% EV =/= Perfectly Balanced. There are things in the game that don't impact EV but do impact the actual game.

Consider, for a moment: 7v2 mountainous. From an EV standpoint, that's identical to 50v2 where 43 of the town are D3 suicidal ICs. I'd bet that no one would think they're exactly the same town win chance.

[Rainn]

The assumption that is afforded by Optimal play is that the Baron is never lynched.

Yeah, that's the problem right now. I want to make it so that town has lots and lots of incentive to lynch a Baron, while scum has incentive to crown it.

That will make him not claim + increase the odds of him being crowned + give a bit of scum-hunting tool to town + give a third option solution for scum in a ceremony day where both lovers aren't a popular option.

I'll think about it, and thanks again for the help, I'm not skillful with EV.

[Jingle]

FTR, this isn't a "Good at calculating EV" setup. It would take longer to write the program than to brute force the probability tree for a scum team and a joint scum win (which is what I've been doing for this setup).

Baron actually doesn't have any incentive to claim prior to threat of being lynched in the current incarnation.

I could see changing Baron to: If it would be lynched, instead, the Baron loses, Deadline is extended by :blah: and the Baron exits the game in shame. If it would be crowned, instead, the Baron wins, Deadline is extended by :blah: and the Baron exits the game in glory. Either way, the day continues as before.

I believe this would have a slight bump to both scum wincons while not meaningfully dropping the town wincon, but can't be sure without checking the numbers. It does mean the Baron still has the option of being a semi-IC from the outset, but has a reasonable course of action of hide-and-coronate while leaving it as a protown role. It also means both lynching and coronating a Baron are theoretically more valuable for scum the later in the day it happens, especially if the deadline extension is short.

[Rainn]

That is a good fix, but I really want to make the Baron unable to claim, so I thought of:

- Deadlines are fixed at 7 days because days need to be relatively fast for this to not get stale with no nightkills/some mechanics

- If Baron is lynched, any confirmed crowned monarchist turns into a day vig during odds days (and the first time he gets lynched, it's given a 48 hour extension for a possible vigilante to choose their target).

- In ceremony days you can, along with your vote, also vote for "end the day", and when "end the day" reaches majority, the day is ended (note that they still need to vote for someone, but since plurality is in effect and maybe people won't want to change their mind, to not freeze the game there needs to be an option to end it once everyone is satisfied with their votes)

- if Baron is crowned, he escapes the game (no ceremony day in the following day or killing the confirmed townies, removing it)

- Baron wins either when crowned or when monarchists achieve their win con and he is still alive.

- Scum knows who the Baron is so they can support him in ceremony/defend his lynch.

With the above, the

maximum

a game can go on is until day 6, what is one day more than I would ideally like, but it gives way more space for different results, strategy and also includes a mutual scum win by reaching majority against town (what makes viable for scum to mislynch and buddy each other as well).

I think that's pretty much it? Baron can't claim anymore without town lynching him, and now he is kind of a viable choice for scum to crown if they can't crown themselves.

[popsofctown]

I really like V2 better, V2 is something that isn't being run all the time.

Like, if people play V2 and somehow decide the problem with it is it feels too mountainous (???) or V2 becomes the hot super popular setup to run over and over and then people want to play V2 but with a twist, that's when you'd need to add a baron role. But it seems like V2 already has a lot going on. Especially since the Baron doesn't "fix" any shortcomings of the setup as far as I can tell.

But like this is the thread where I think submitting a setup where everybody but N players dies on D3 is crazy and then Jingle tells me it's too mountainous so maybe it's just a me thing.


Do the anarchists know who the revolutionaries are?

[Rainn]

Like, if people play V2 and somehow decide the problem with it is it feels too mountainous (???) or V2 becomes the hot super popular setup to run over and over and then people want to play V2 but with a twist, that's when you'd need to add a baron role.

that's fair tbh

I just felt that V2 was a bit too mountainous but that might simple be me

Do the anarchists know who the revolutionaries are?

nop

[Rainn]

Yeah, looking back I'm going to 100% agree with Pop and Jingle here probably.

The Baron thing gives it a twist but it makes the setup a bit more complicated to implement as well. The V2 version without the Baron is simpler and because of that maybe even a bit more charming in the first glance.

It also clearly doesn't give scum much interest in scum hunting, although it's not like scum hunting isn't beneficial for them.

I guess I'll post here afterwards the V4 version just to add the possibility of a twist/variable player count, but my final submission is probably V2.

edit:

I'll be trying to run this setup in marathon btw, if anyone is interested

edit 2: yeah, looking back, a 40.8:35.4:35.4 EV for multiball is reasonably the best I could hope for without making the game too focused on being perfectly balanced. I'm satisfied with V2 without the Baron role.

[Jingle]

edit: I'll be trying to run this setup in marathon btw, if anyone is interested

Advertise in the open setup marathon group (link in my sig) when you know when you're able to run it and you'll probably get a few interested parties

[BNL]

Gonna try a simple setup, modified from one I’ve used:

The Defender

2 Mafia Goons
7 Vanilla Townies

Every Day, apart from voting for the lynch, players can also vote for a Defender. The Defender becomes a Bulletproof deflector for the Night.