[CHALLENGE] May Challenge

[Alyssa The Lamb]

See April Challenge for last month's challenge.

Design a setup with the following characteristics:

At least

two

of the following:

• Unusual Role Interactions
  
• Unusual Win Conditions
  
• Unusual Lynch Mechanics
  
• Unusual Nightkill Mechanics
  
• A non-player slot exists that can be acted upon
  
• >50% of slots having a single role that is not Vanilla
  
• The game lasts a specific amount of phases.
  
• Nightless

I'm hoping this is extensive enough to be workable while also restrictive enough to require some level of creativity.

[Something_Smart]

Unusual Role Interactions

Can you give an example of this?

[Alyssa The Lamb]

Paranoid Cop + Godfather

[Something_Smart]

Okay so I guess it's pretty broad lol. That's not even a role interaction :X

[Alyssa The Lamb]

I mean it as like normally a role would have a specific purpose, but instead it has ome that it usually wouldn't have

So yeah it's pretty broad lol

[ceejayvinoya]

You mean like placing a tracker in a setup with compulsively visiting townies and mafia ninjas

[Alyssa The Lamb]

You mean like placing a tracker in a setup with compulsively visiting townies and mafia ninjas

This would work, yes

[Datisi]

Unusual Win Conditions

Would both factions need to have an unusual win condition for this to be fulfilled? Also, does something like the White Flag mechanic count as "unusual"?

[Alyssa The Lamb]

No and Yes

[Awoo]

Nightless is a rather unusual nightkill mechanic if I do say so myself.

[ceejayvinoya]

Unnamed semi open.

Setup 1

2 Mafia Visitors

1 Tracker
1 Voyeur
3 Watchers
3 Vanilla Townies

Setup 2

2 Mafia Watchers

1 Follower
1 Voyeur
3 Visitors
3 Vanilla Townies

Setup 3

2 Mafia Ninjas

1 Tracker
1 Follower
3 Watchers
3 Visitors

role related stuff

• Tracker knows who their target visited but not their action.
  
• Follower knows their target's action but not who they visited.
  
• Voyeur knows the actions performed on their target but not who visited them.
  
• Watcher knows who visited their target but not the action used.
  
• All night actions are compulsive.
  
• vanilla townies and ninjas will give the same result when visited by a tracker or follower.

[Auro]

Chromavalon v1.1

[Mafia]

Red Goon
Blue Goon
Green Goon

[Town]

Red Merlin
Blue Merlin
Green Merlin
5x Vanilla Town

[More information]

• Goons are given a set of 5 town including the 3 Merlins and 2 random VTs, but they don't know who's who. Mafia cannot NK any of these players on the first night.
  
• Each colored Merlin knows their color, and the identity of their correspondingly colored goon.
  
• If Goons fail to achieve parity, they can win by identifying the colors of all Merlins correctly.
  
• Only alignments reveal on flip.
  
• Daytalk is always present, and dead Goons can continue to chat in the scum PT after death.
  
• Percival is given the set of 3 Merlins, without their colors.
  
  
• Merlins know the other Merlins, but not colors.

Still refining the idea but thought I'd post it here. Partial credit to Popsofctown ^_^

Changelog

:

• After a discussion with BBMolla, added Percival. Also added the condition that Mafia cannot NK in their Merlin pool on N1.
  
• Removed Percival after further thought, to prevent Massclaim from being too beneficial from town (considering Merlins are N1 unkillable)

[BBmolla]

I think without any flips the endgame mechanic becomes borderline impossible

My suggestion would be to flip Merlins as Merlins, if some Merlins aren't dead by the end they can remain unflipped. Or, flip only alignments during game but reveal all dead merlins if scum lose.

In the worst case scenario where all three Merlins are flipped, scum have a 1/6 chance at guessing the correct combination.

What were your math thoughts on it?

[Isis]

SOLVE THIS GAME

12

Vanilla Town

(in pairs)

3

Mafia 1-shot Dayvigs with Compulsively Loyally Vengeful

Nightless
Selecting a target who will actually die as Vengeful is compulsive.
During Day 2, the mafia keeps an updated preference list of which townies they would like to become a Helper. The list is locked in when the Day 2 lynch is hammered.
When the Day 2 lynch is hammered, the topmost living townie on the preference list becomes the Helper. They become bulletproof are given scum PT access so that they can help the mafia Solve This Game.
On Day 3, the town votes to bless a player instead of voting for a lynch. If they bless the Helper town wins. If they bless anyone else or fail to bless, mafia wins.

I keep going back and forth about the number, here's my most recent effort at making this winnable for scum.
I thought about adding an escape mechanic then realized just adding more scum opens up those kinds of plays due to the game's structure.

I found a halfway point between Lovers being too harsh and nonlovers being too soft.

[Auro]

My suggestion would be to flip Merlins as Merlins, if some Merlins aren't dead by the end they can remain unflipped. Or, flip only alignments during game but reveal all dead merlins if scum lose.

I am flipping alignments. They have only a 1/60 chance of guessing from the pool of 5, but remember that it's scumsided mountainous without this. Town has to have information flow from Merlins to up their chances, which would bring down scum's guessing chances from 1/60.

[RadiantCowbells]

Village can force an exactly 50% chance of winning if they want to in Chromavalon

[Auro]

Merlins out and one of them produces a random lynch order, or something along those lines?

On further thought only one Merlin would need to out since there's no chance of a CC anyway. They can out along with their guilty, and then produce a random lynch order.

[RadiantCowbells]

I wonder if you can't set up an Avalon style system of m1s

Where everyone on D1 claims two people non aligned and you devise an order of lynching that covers them all with room for Merlin's who were forced to claim wrong and VTs to retract later

[Auro]

Running calculations for these cases seems difficult :$

[RadiantCowbells]

I'm working on this I'll respond to your PM later BBMolla

[BBmolla]

all good

[callforjudgement]

The Wizards' Circle is preparing its most powerful spell yet, the Grand Ritual. Some of them are a little forgetful or untrustworthy, but lots of redundancy has been built in to try to make sure that it's cast without a hitch.

Their rivals, the Warlocks, would love to humiliate them by disrupting the spell. Not only are they planning to intervene by attacking with spells of their own, they have another line attack: they bribed a few WIzards to screw up the ritual from inside the Circle.

Wizards versus Warlocks

Player slots:

• 8 Wizards (the town equivalent; each controlled by a human playing the game)
  
• 3 Warlock Sympathizers (the scum equivalent; each controlled by a human playing the game)
  
• 3 Warlocks (non-player slots; all these slots' actions are entirely determined by the Warlock Sympathizers via their factional PT, there isn't a player in the slot)

Warlocks do not have a vote, cannot be voted for, and are confirmed as scum at the start of the game. Apart from those three differences, they have all the same abilities as the other players in the game; they can die (for reasons other than being lynched), can have mana and spellbooks, can cast spells, can be the target of spells. If an action (such as spellcasting) normally has to be taken publicly, then when a Warlock is directed (by the scum) to take that action, the moderator will make public that that Warlock is taking that action. If a Warlock would gain information, that information is posted in the Sympathizers' factional PT.
Wizards and Warlock Sympathizers have all the same abilities as each other, except that the Warlock Sympathizers have a factional PT with daytalk, know each others' identities, and can decide which actions the Warlocks take.

To win, the Wizards need 6 points of progress towards the Grand Ritual to be completed (or to reach a gamestate where nothing can prevent this); this is an immediate win even if there are still Sympathizers alive at that point. The Warlocks and their Sympathizers win if this becomes impossible (e.g. because spellbooks worth 6 points of progress were destroyed without completing the rituals within). The Warlocks/Sympathizers also win if they ever control half or more of the votes.

There are no night phases, and three things that can be done during day phases: voting (which works the same way as in a normal game of Mafia), spellcasting, and transferring spellbooks. Each player (including Warlocks) has a mana total, a number that starts at 5, which is spent to cast spells. (The only way to replenish mana is to cast Upwelling.)

Spellcasting is done using bolded announcements in the game thread (e.g.

Cast Upwelling

). Casting a spell locks you out from casting further spells for a certain period of time. There are two types of spell, cantrips and rituals.

Cantrips are cast simply by paying a certain amount of mana and making the appropriate bolded public announcement. After casting a cantrip, you cannot cast another spell for 24 hours. Apart from requiring enough mana (and not having cast a spell since the last vote count), there are no other restrictions on cantrips; players can cast them as many times as they like. There are 5 cantrips:

• Upwelling
  : Cost 0 mana. The caster gains 1 mana. This is not a targeted spell.
  
• Ward
  : Cost 1 mana; targets a player/Warlock. For the rest of the game, all cantrips targeting that player will cost 1 additional mana. A player can be warded any number of times (but Ward is one of the cantrips whose cost is increased by Ward, so it gets more expensive with each casting).
  
• Oblivion
  : Cost 1 mana; targets a player/Warlock. Has no effect unless the target was previously affected by the ritual Doom. If the target was previously affected by Doom, then they die.
  
• Counterspell
  : Cost 2 mana; targets a player/Warlock who is currently casting a ritual (i.e. has spent at least one mana on it, but it hasn't completed or been ended yet). That ritual immediately ends, to no effect (unless the ritual specifically lists an effect of being counterspelled). The identity of the counterspelled ritual is revealed publicly at the next vote count.
  
• Pillage
  : Cost 3 mana; targets a player/Warlock. All spellbooks held by that player/Warlock are destroyed. At the next vote count, the moderator will publicly reveal how many and which spellbooks were held by that player/Warlock before they were destroyed.

Rituals are more complex. Starting to cast a ritual requires an appropriate spellbook, which is destroyed at the start of the ritual as its magic is drained; you must also have enough mana to be able to complete the ritual. (Each ritual has its own spellbook, e.g. Spellbook of Doom; players are always aware of the identities of the spellbooks they hold, but spellbook holdings are not public.) The cost in mana of a ritual also determines how much time it takes to cast; spending mana on a ritual has to be done 1 point of mana at a time, with a bolded announcement in thread each time a point of mana is spent, and after spending a point of mana on a ritual you cannot cast another spell, or spend further mana on the ritual, for 24 hours. The action of spending mana on a ritual is public, but which ritual you are casting is kept secret from the other players until the last point is spent; when spending the last point, you publicly reveal which ritual it is that you cast. (If you hold multiple spellbooks, you must let the moderator know, e.g. via PM or factional PT, which ritual you are casting when you start it.) Of course, you can publicly claim to be casting a particular ritual, but nothing forces you to tell the truth.

As an example, to cast "North Pattern", a 4-mana ritual, you would make four posts in the game thread:

Start casting ritual

,

Continue ritual

,

Continue ritual

,

Complete ritual: North Pattern

. Each of these would have to be separated by 24 hours, you would lose 1 point of mana each time, and you could not spellcast for 24 hours after completing the ritual. Once you start casting a ritual, you cannot cast any other spells until the ritual is either completed or Counterspelled.

There are 11 rituals:

• West Pattern
  : Cost 3 mana. If/when completed, contributes 1 point of progress towards the Grand Ritual.
  
• East Pattern
  : Cost 3 mana. If/when completed, contributes 1 point of progress towards the Grand Ritual.
  
• Enclosing Pattern
  : Cost 3 mana. If/when completed, contributes 2 points of progress towards the Grand Ritual.
  
• North Pattern
  : Cost 4 mana. If/when completed, contributes 2 points of progress towards the Grand Ritual.
  
• South Pattern
  : Cost 4 mana. If/when completed, contributes 2 points of progress towards the Grand Ritual.
  
• Central Pattern
  : Cost 5 mana. If/when completed, contributes 3 points of progress towards the Grand Ritual.
  
  
• Doom
  : Cost 2 mana. Targets a player, specified privately to the moderator when starting the ritual, and revealed publicly when the ritual is complete. If/when completed, the target becomes a legal target for the Oblivion cantrip for the rest of the game.
  
• Charisma
  : Cost 3 mana. If/when completed, the caster gains an additional vote for the rest of the game. If the caster is a Warlock, this causes them to gain a vote (that can be moved around by the Sympathizers via their factional PT); if the caster is not a Warlock, this effectively makes them a Doublevoter (double vote weight variant).
  
• Quine
  : Cost 3 mana. If/when complete, the caster privately selects two different players/Warlocks (they may select themself, but do not have to); each of those players gains a Spellbook of Quine at the next vote count.
  
• Fortune
  : Cost 4 mana. Targets a player, specified privately to the moderator when starting the ritual, and revealed publicly when the ritual is complete. If/when completed, the target is protected from all
  future
  uses of Doom, which will have no effect on that target. This does not remove Doom's effect from a player who was already affected.
  
• Vortex
  : Cost 5 mana. Does nothing when completed, nor when counterspelled before spending 2 mana. If Vortex is counterspelled after you have already spent at least 2 mana on it, the player/Warlock who cast Counterspell dies.

Players/Warlocks can transfer a spellbook to another player/Warlock via privately contacting the moderator (this is not a public action), or (for Warlocks/Sympathizers) by posting the transfer in the factional PT. The transfer is not immediate; the spellbook does not leave your possession (nor enter the recipient's possession) until the next vote count after you request the transfer (and will only go through if you have the spellbook at that point). The recipient will know which spellbook they received, but will not know who/where it came from.

Players/Warlocks start with no spellbooks. At the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, …, twentieth, twenty-second vote count from the start of the game (regardless of which game Day it falls on), a random spellbook is given to a random non-Warlock player, subject to the requirements that only one copy of each spellbook can be created this way, no player can receive more than one spellbook via this mechanism, Enclosing/North/South Patterns cannot be given out until the eighth vote count at the earliest, and Central Pattern cannot be given out until the twelfth vote count at the earliest. As such, only 11 points of progress towards the Grand Ritual can ever be obtained. Spellbooks obtained via this mechanism look identical to spellbooks that were received via a transfer.

Additionally, whenever a Warlock Sympathizer dies, a spellbook of Doom is created in the possession of a random Warlock at the next vote count.

When a player/Warlock dies, all their spellbooks are destroyed if they were a Wizard, or transferred at the next vote count to a random non-Warlock player if they were a Warlock or Sympathizer; spellbooks destroyed this way are revealed publicly at the next vote count, spellbooks transferred this way look identical to spellbooks that were transferred voluntarily. If they were in the middle of a ritual, that ritual ends with no effect, and the identity of that ritual is publicly revealed at the next vote count (although the target for Doom/Fortune is not revealed).

OK, so this is blatantly a Theme game, but it's fully open so I think it's valid for this thread (especially as it was heavily inspired by the challenge restrictions).
I particularly like the Warlocks (the non-player slots), which solve several problems that a lot of games using these sorts of mechanics have; they basically serve as a mechanism for the scum to do things that are blatantly scummy without needing some separate mechanism for doing things secretly/privately, and also serve as a way to make mana generation / action economy more balanced between the scum and town.

Out of the eight restrictions in the OP, all eight of them either a) are conformed to by this setup, or else b) aren't directly present in the setup but were used as a source of ideas that inspired something within it.

I haven't tried to balance this yet, and would love some help with the balancing; this setup is so out there that I don't have anything much to compare it to. I'm fairly happy with the basic mechanics, though.

[Isis]

The strongest strategy seems to be to assume the first player in the playerlist is town, ward them lots and lots of times, and gift them books so they can start casting rituals, starting after the 8th votecount but using a complicated formula for selecting the spellbook that better mimics the ritual point density of the entire game.
Anyone besides the first player in the playerlist who casts a ritual has their spell countered on the assumption they must be trying to Doom the first player in the playerlist.
You use complicated probabilistic gifting formulas to give the firstie books in such a way that they don't have too many all at one time, so that Pillage never becomes more efficient than Counterspell, which will only be castable a few times per game by the sympathizers, probably not enough times during the game for scum to ever win. You can nerf the winrate to where town only get to 20% by using a Ward Voltron, and at that point they'd be getting 0% by not using a Ward Voltron, it seems like you always use a ward voltron and that doesn't seem like the intent of the setup.

[callforjudgement]

The intention is that if town spend all their mana ridiculously warding someone, scum will be able to destroy spellbooks via random pillages on the unwarded players and/or will have enough manage a couple of interruptions on the warded player (the ward cost grows quadratically, the counterspell cost linearly). Also, scum may well ward a Warlock to the extent that town can't afford to counterspell their rituals (or start casting rituals other than Doom with the warlock in the hope of wasting town's mana on counterspells).

Of course, it might not end up working out that way.

[mith]

The second Fogey game currently running (and still in need of one replacement) qualifies for this. Not really a submission since this game is already running, more a plea for replacements...

Hollywoodland Hospital

4 Mafia Pharma Bros (Mafia Goons)
11 Town Vanilla Ice Cream Lovers (Vanilla Town)

Until the first Mafia is lynched, the game is a standard vanilla game with nightkills.

Once the first Mafia is lynched, the rest will get skittish - they will stop killing at night. However, lynched Mafia (including the first one) will get a vengekill - when they are lynched, they will immediately choose one Townie to take out with them.

Additionally, they will have to choose a "Flag Bearer" from their group - if the Flag Bearer is lynched, the Mafia are immediately exposed and lose.

The Town wins by lynching the Flag Bearer; the Mafia wins when they comprise at least half of the living players.

I quite like the delayed flag bearer mechanic, may repurpose it here for an actual submission.