[CHALLENGE] July Challenge

[mith]

Soul Gem Mafia being 7:2 mountainous is mostly because I wanted a micro that wasn't nightless or any color of flag.

Yeah Soultrap doesn't affect the EV at all, it's basically a near-kill that gives you a PT.

If it really does cause a parity problem then there aren't correct numbers for Soul Gem Mafia (there might be for one-sided Soul Gem Mafia, where town deciding to soultrap doesn't affect the mafia NK, but really one-sided Soul Gem Mafia is so close to mountainous it's not worth considering).

It would be better at 2:8, EV-wise. Not a micro then, obviously. It's a fine setup really, it's just essentially Vanilla as is and very close to Vanilla at 2:8.

[mith]

Spoiler: Ircher, Skygazer

Carl Tuckerson (Dance Party) - That's a lot to read. I'll save this for later.

Ircher (The Four Seasons) - This is good. It's a less breakable verson of Cinnamon's, really. Probably scumsided except in the rare cases town manages to clear a bunch of players? The big issue I see is the potential for coming up with a pre-game strategy that is known (even if no communication is allowed) - for example, everyone stays in Winter with 85% probability, picks another season with 5% probability each. Most but (probably) not all players will end up in Winter, and town can get a better investigation that way. Neighborhoods not being publicly revealed is basically irrelevant - you can force everyone to claim a neighborhood, and scum don't have much room to lie (I guess worst case is there is an empty neighborhood and a single scum in another neighborhood, and scum in the other two neighborhoods, and scum can claim the empty neighborhood and get a 0 scum on the sensor if that neighborhood is picked. Probably better for town to sensor Winter in that scenario though? Anyway, aside from that cavaet, it could be interesting.

Skygazer (Divide and Conquer) - This is a fine and balanced Vanilla Variant; unfortunately, it's also not an original idea, apart from Mafia choosing how the townies are split.

mith (Take Two) - Hey, I know that guy.

List so far: mith > OkaPoka > Ircher > Cinnamon >> irrelephant11 > Skygazer > TemporalLich > Oversoul

[popsofctown]

Collected the latest setups posted by people.

idk which one of popsofctown's setups to put in

I'm torn because I think Descent into Madness Mafia is the best design, but the Scythes is the only one people would vote for. But I don't think people generally vote for my setups anyway.

Overall I want to "die fighting", I'd like to withdraw the Scythes and submit Descent into Madness. Only one person has ranked so far and they might not need to change.

[popsofctown]

Descent into Madness Mafia

9 Town Mad Scientists

2 Scum Mad Scientists

Collective Town Power : Savage Mutation

The mafia factional nightkill is compulsive.
Each day starts with players only allowed to post naked votes regarding the Savage Mutation power (this restriction includes factional PTs). If "Don't Mutate" receives a majority or 2 real days pass, the power is saved, perhaps to be used on D2, after which it goes away completely. If "Mutate: Playername" receives a majority, that player becomes a

3-nights-to-go-poisoned, unlynchable, bulletproof, voteless third party savage mutant with a 3-shot factional nightkill

. That player loses all posting privileges, even voting, for the rest of the game. If that player was previously town, that player's win condition becomes

"Fennecbeast: You win the game and leave the game when you kill a member of the mafia."

If that player was previously mafia, that player's win condition becomes

"Sharktobeast:You win the game and leave the game just before shooting when you target the same player at night that the mafia targetted"

The Savage Mutation power becomes unavailable after it has been used once, after day 2, or after a Scum Mad Scientist is lynched.
After the decision regarding the power, players can post opinions that may persuade the up-to-one savage mutant in the mutant's silence, but more importantly posts opinions about a standard majority lynch.
After a

Sharktobeast

win, the remaining shots are fired at townies at random over the remainder of the nights (after the factional nightkill is resolved).

[TemporalLich]

Here are my votes I guess...

I've edited the setup collection post to have Descent into Madness Mafia in it.

EDIT: Edited my vote to include chennisden's actual setup.

Take Two (mith) - I like the idea of having strict 1of4's instead of flips in this setup. A very interesting setup with a interesting way of "revealing" alignments.
Descent into Madness Mafia (popsofctown) - This is a good themed open setup, the alignment change makes this a bastard setup, but it's bastard in a fun way.
Group Investigation (Cinnamon) - Really a good setup, the neighborhoods and investigation are an interesting idea.
The Four Seasons (Ircher) - A "choose your neighbors" setup with a powerful seasonal sensor ability that detects how many scum were in a neighborhood. I like how the scum can collude in the neighborhood selection phase.
Open Box of Silver (Irrelephant11) - A really fun setup, I'd like to play this. I like the penalties that prevent the scum from just hoarding the watcher action. The randomness in assigned actions is less than ideal though.
Don’t Gooch Your Neighbor (Boonskiies) - The scum rolestopper is a powerful role here, and this is a very chaotic neighborhood setup indeed.
Divide and Conquer (Skygazer) - I like the idea of this setup.
Soul Gem Mafia (TemporalLich) - My setup. It's sadly a lot like mountainous, and like mith said it would be better as a 2:8 mini than the 2:7 micro it is.
Pick A Neighbor (chennisden) - I had overlooked this setup thinking it wasn't valid, but it is. It's a pretty nice addition to what normally would be mountainous.
1 of N/2+1 (OkaPoka) - An interesting power choice. Good at clearing, though the WIFOM that ensues when using it with both scum alive might be bad for this setup. A D1 scum lynch is pretty much a town win.
Dance Party Mafia (Carl Tuckerson) - A very townsided and convoluted setup... the theme and concept are good though
Council Infiltration (Not Known 15) - okay this is just confusing... interesting idea though
Job Application (Oversoul) - This is so scumsided the setup name should be colored red.

[chennisden]

it's a neighborhood PT yes.

[chennisden]

Pick A Neighbor

(a 13 player setup)

Mostly mountainous, with one fun powerup!

During

any day,

you may vote to give the

Pass-it-On-Neighborizer

power to someone.

Make sure that the scum don't get it!

If you are the

Pass-it-on-Neightborizer,

you target someone during the night and you give them your power. They become your neighbor for the following

day-phase

ONLY. If you are killed, the power still passes to the other person. They just don't get a neighborhood. If your target is killed, you keep your power, but you don't get a neighborhood.

Uh TL I have a non-joke setup pls look

I think this is actually a semi-decent setup but ig my joke setup didn't help it be seen

I think it's obvious but

This is the Actual Setup I'm Submitting

[TemporalLich]

gonna edit that in and change my vote... I swear I thought singletonking disqualified that setup but it is a valid setup.

[chennisden]

In order from most favored to least favored setup:

1. The Four Seasons (Ircher): First of all, it is my own setup. Though it may be swingy, I really like the choose your neighbors-type mechanic in it. It also reminds me of another game I played here that actually did feature that part of the mechanic.

2. Group Investigation (Cinnamon): While a simple setup, I like the idea.

3. Take Two (mith): It's an interesting setup, though it may be a little frustrating since there are no flips.

4. Open Box of Silver (Irrelephant11): I think it's a cool setup, and I like how you model it after a series of closed games. That said, I don't think randomness is that great of a thing, and I also think watcher abilities tend to lead setups that swing too wildly against scum. Jailkeeper is also apparently a strong power to give out as well, so I think the balance of the setup may significantly favor town.

5. 1 of N/2 + 1 (OkaPoka): Having played Liars and Millers by Psyche, which was very similar to this, I'd say this mechanic is pretty fun. The only concern I have is again balance--in Liars and Millers, the setup swung wildly in town's favor. This version seems to be even more swingy especially the longer people wait on doing this power.

6. Dance Party Mafia (Carl Tuckerson): The setup seems interesting, but not one that I'd personally like to play.

7. Don't Gooch Your Neighbor (Boonskiies): This seems like a wild and fun setup, but I'm not sure I fully understand it. If I did, this setup would probably have been higher in my list.

8. Divide and Conquer (Skygazer): A simpler setup that seems to be balanced. (It's a lot less fun though when scum get to choose neighborhoods.)

9. The Scythes (popsofctown): This setup just didn't really interest me that much.

10. Job Application (Oversoul): This setup doesn't look balanced at a glance. It also didn't interest me that much, sorry!

11. Soul Gem Mafia (TemporalLich): While I like the mechanic, this setup is basically 7-2 mountainous, and the site as a whole agrees that pure mountainous setups are bad.

12. Council Infilitration (Not Known 15): While you tried your best to shorten it down, it is still too long and complicated for me to really even try to understand it. I could if I had unlimited time, but I do not. Furthermore, I think that will be a large problem when running the setup in practice--people will not understand how it works because it is so long and so complicated.

13. Invite the Neighbors (chennisden): This setup does not fit the spirit of the rules and should be disqualified.

also re: my setup i think it's obvious that was a joke setup/not my entry and i have a legitimate setup - "pick a neighbor"

[chennisden]

gonna edit that in and change my vote... I swear I thought singletonking disqualified that setup but it is a valid setup.

He did but I changed it slightly to make it work.

[TemporalLich]

gonna edit that in and change my vote... I swear I thought singletonking disqualified that setup but it is a valid setup.

He did but I changed it slightly to make it work.

alright, sorry for missing a valid setup I thought was invalid.

[popsofctown]

Descent into Madness

popsofctown

Divide and Conquer

Skygazer

Soul Gem Mafia

TemporalLich

Group Investigation

Cinnamon

Open Box of Silver

Irrelephant

N/2+1

OkaPoka

Four Seasons

Ircher

Take Two

mith

Council Infiltration

Not Known 15

Dance Party Mafia

Carl Tuckerson

Pick a Neighbor

chennisden

Job Application

Oversoul

Don't Gooch your Neighbor

Boonskies

Edit history: moved Okapoka up 3 spots after I saw mith's EV calcs (past mith's own setup XD)

[Skygazer]

Neat! I'm an accidental plagiarist!

(whoops)

[popsofctown]

I made a very long post about all thirteen setups but mafiascum timed out my login and I lost the post when I went to submit it. I am devastated. I can't go that in depth again but I will do tldrs of everything I said.

Descent into Madness: Onesided persuasion is supposed to be the unique element.
Divide and Conquer: Mechanic influences dayplay, the EV is great.
Soul Gem Mafia: Balanced tree stumping
Group Investigation: Secretly a fixed version of the "one scum must be on wagon" 7p
Open Box of Silver: Objectively great but closed variants might be even better
Four Seasons: Greatly dislike pregame choices that are "roll a d4"
Take Two: I'm just hating on the flags in a great setup
Council Infiltration: Assuming I understood the setup by the middle of d1 it's probably interesting
N/2+1: Townsidedness concerns
Dance Party Mafia: Way too much flavor written in the setup submission itself. Save it for the role pm once you've convinced me the design is good and I've /inned.
Pick a Neighbor: Not sure if the intent is that the shot fails when it hits mafia, based on the "tip". Kind of too mountainous if you disbelieve neighborhood power the way I do (except tree stump neighborhoods)
Job Application: These mechanics make the flag condition even less appealing.
Don't Gooch Your Neighbor: I read the setup twice and maybe I'm still misreading it but it reads like mountainous with neighbors.

[mith]

Spoiler: Not Known 15, popsofctown, Boonskiies

Not Known 15 (Council Infiltration) - This looks like a big mess and my brain isn't working well enough to sort out whether it's a good mess. I like the general concept of players moving around on a map, but I have no idea if this is a good implementation of that or not.

popsofctown (Descent Into Madness) - I... don't hate this? Though I suspect town should always use the Savage Mutation immediately, which means it will be basically chosen at random. Picking a town mutant is obviously beneficial, and even picking scum won't be too far off 2:9 Vanilla, I think? (The worst case I can come up is the mutant hits the first night so only one player is killed, and then two are killed each night after, with an EV of 37%, which is actually higher than 2:9 Vanilla's 35.21%)

Boonskiies (Don't Gooch Your Neighbor) - It's not clear to me how the chaining works. Presumably town can figure something out by how the Mafia neighborhood splits, but without understanding the intentions of this I have no idea if that's good or bad.

List so far: mith > OkaPoka > Ircher > Cinnamon >> popsofctown > irrelephant11 > Skygazer > Not Known 15 > TemporalLich > Oversoul > Boonskiies

[mith]

Spoiler: chennisden, Carl Tuckerson

chennisden (Pick A Neighbor) - This isn't actually a complete setup description (how many scum?). I'm not sure the mechanic adds much to the game beyond Vanilla (see comment on TemporalLich's).

Carl Tuckerson (Dance Party) - I'm going to limit this to the 12 player setup for my sanity. So this is basically 3:9 with a one-shot dayvig and a whole lot of "census" information due to the initial pairings. It's not clear whether the bouncer has to use his ability publicly or not, though I don't think it matters much for EV. It should be used immediately for parity reasons, and there is a not insignificant probability of reducing to 2:9 with 3 ICs, and a 4th if the first lynched scum's partner isn't already dead. A miss is probably rough, even with all the information; might be reasonably balanced overall, really. But it's a lot of swing on that first decision.

Final list [edit]including setup names, and some rearranging within "tiers"[/edit]

Take Two (mith)
1 of N/2+1 (OkaPoka)
Group Investigation (Cinnamon)
The Four Seasons (Ircher)

Dance Party (Carl Tuckerson)
Descent Into Madness (popsofctown)

Divide and Conquer (Skygazer)
Soul Gem (TemporalLich)
Open Box of Silver (irrelephant11)
Council Infiltration (Not Known 15)

Pick A Neighbor (chennisden)
Job Application (Oversoul)
Don't Gooch Your Neighbor (Boonskiies)

[Ircher]

In order from most favored to least favored setup:

1. The Four Seasons (Ircher): First of all, it is my own setup. Though it may be swingy, I really like the choose your neighbors-type mechanic in it. It also reminds me of another game I played here that actually did feature that part of the mechanic.

2. Group Investigation (Cinnamon): While a simple setup, I like the idea.

3. Take Two (mith): It's an interesting setup, though it may be a little frustrating since there are no flips.

4. Open Box of Silver (Irrelephant11): I think it's a cool setup, and I like how you model it after a series of closed games. That said, I don't think randomness is that great of a thing, and I also think watcher abilities tend to lead setups that swing too wildly against scum. Jailkeeper is also apparently a strong power to give out as well, so I think the balance of the setup may significantly favor town.

5. 1 of N/2 + 1 (OkaPoka): Having played Liars and Millers by Psyche, which was very similar to this, I'd say this mechanic is pretty fun. The only concern I have is again balance--in Liars and Millers, the setup swung wildly in town's favor. This version seems to be even more swingy especially the longer people wait on doing this power.

6. Dance Party Mafia (Carl Tuckerson): The setup seems interesting, but not one that I'd personally like to play.

7. Don't Gooch Your Neighbor (Boonskiies): This seems like a wild and fun setup, but I'm not sure I fully understand it. If I did, this setup would probably have been higher in my list.

8. Descent Into Madness Mafia (popsofctown): I think the mutation mechanic is rather novel and interesting, but only to the one who manages to acquire it. I'm also not sure about the setup's balance.

9. Divide and Conquer (Skygazer): A simpler setup that seems to be balanced. (It's a lot less fun though when scum get to choose neighborhoods.)

10. Pick a Neighbor (chennisden): While I think the mechanic is sorta interesting, this looks more or less like 10:3 mountainous, which is definitely not a balanced setup.

11. Job Application (Oversoul): This setup doesn't look balanced at a glance. It also didn't interest me that much, sorry!

12. Soul Gem Mafia (TemporalLich): While I like the mechanic, this setup is basically 7-2 mountainous, and the site as a whole agrees that pure mountainous setups are bad.

13. Council Infilitration (Not Known 15): While you tried your best to shorten it down, it is still too long and complicated for me to really even try to understand it. I could if I had unlimited time, but I do not. Furthermore, I think that will be a large problem when running the setup in practice--people will not understand how it works because it is so long and so complicated.

EBWOP to include popsofctown's new setup and chennisden's non-joke setup.

[chennisden]

Spoiler: chennisden, Carl Tuckerson

chennisden (Pick A Neighbor) - This isn't actually a complete setup description (how many scum?). I'm not sure the mechanic adds much to the game beyond Vanilla (see comment on TemporalLich's).

Carl Tuckerson (Dance Party) - I'm going to limit this to the 12 player setup for my sanity. So this is basically 3:9 with a one-shot dayvig and a whole lot of "census" information due to the initial pairings. It's not clear whether the bouncer has to use his ability publicly or not, though I don't think it matters much for EV. It should be used immediately for parity reasons, and there is a not insignificant probability of reducing to 2:9 with 3 ICs, and a 4th if the first lynched scum's partner isn't already dead. A miss is probably rough, even with all the information; might be reasonably balanced overall, really. But it's a lot of swing on that first decision.

Final list [edit]including setup names, and some rearranging within "tiers"[/edit]

Take Two (mith)
1 of N/2+1 (OkaPoka)
Group Investigation (Cinnamon)
The Four Seasons (Ircher)

Dance Party (Carl Tuckerson)
Descent Into Madness (popsofctown)

Divide and Conquer (Skygazer)
Soul Gem (TemporalLich)
Open Box of Silver (irrelephant11)
Council Infiltration (Not Known 15)

Pick A Neighbor (chennisden)
Job Application (Oversoul)
Don't Gooch Your Neighbor (Boonskiies)

oh right 3 scum

[popsofctown]

*crickets*

[singletonking]

All right, I'm going to tabulate the results. I'll also normalize them by giving submitting non-voters a default vote of themselves above everyone else (tied).

[mith]

Cinnamon should be the winner - ties with pops and me, but hasn't voted. I should be second, tying with Ircher and pops but no other losses.

4 is not nearly enough voters, though.

[Skygazer]

i will sheep mith's exact votes if it's not too late

[Skygazer]

(i like mith's setup better than cinnamon's)

[mith]

That would make it a tie

[Flavor Leaf]

Split is a modifier, Neighborizer is the Role. It’s actually pretty anti mountainous.