[SETUP] The Circle of Life

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[SETUP] The Circle of Life

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Tue Jul 27, 2021 4:24 pm

Post by implosion »

This setup is a really bad idea probably but I'm interested in experimenting with "merlin-like" setups. Setups like the one I ran once here, where there is some mechanic wherein the mafia actually hold the power and if they figure out information that the town is hiding at the end of the game, they win.

The setup could easily be varied in a lot of different ways including player count, but let's start here:

2 Mafia Goons

7 Vanilla Townies


Nightkills are mandatory, probably. Each vanilla townie is, in their role PM, told the identity of one other player, and informed that they are also a vanilla townie. This is done in a circular fashion so that all of the vanilla townies form a single loop. The mafia win normally if they reach parity. If the town eliminates both mafia, then the mafia's alternate win condition mechanic activates: they pick a player as the "start" of the loop, and PM the moderator a guess at the order of the loop starting from that player. If they make any mistakes, the mod tells them where the first mistake was, and they get a second chance. If they fail that, the town wins.

Example: the town are labeled A-G and their loop is in that order (A -> B -> C -> D -> E -> F -> G -> A). The mafia guess the chain E -> F -> C -> B -> G -> A -> D -> E. The moderator tells them that the chain is correct up to F. They then guess E -> F -> G -> A -> D -> C -> B -> E; this is still incorrect, so the town wins.

Easiest way to change balance in principle is removing the mafia's 2nd chance or adding more chances.

If the town doesn't use their information at all and pretends the game is mountainous, they'll be at a severe disadvantage (7:2 mountainous is 30% EV). If they openly massclaim, then they'll be able to determine exactly who the scum are but the scum will win automatically. So it's about finding a happy medium between not taking advantage of the setup and being too open with information.

One obvious strategy is that before hammering, if a player can claim the hammeree as their clear, they do so. However, doing this more than a couple of times has a lot of risk, and mafia could interfere with it by having one mafia claim the other as their clear; if town then refuses to carry through with an elimination it could be tricky to get back on track.
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Wed Jul 28, 2021 11:31 am

Post by OkaPoka »

i presume flips don't reveal who they have as a clear
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Wed Jul 28, 2021 11:54 am

Post by implosion »

Correct.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Thu Jul 29, 2021 2:47 am

Post by Kerset »

It would be really hard to guess 7 players correctly. Even with second try.
giv me pagetop :(
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Thu Jul 29, 2021 6:01 am

Post by Cook »

Perhaps this would be too mechanic-heavy, but:

On Night 1, all players privately submit one vote to nominate someone as the head of the circle. Plurality rules and ties are broken favoring Town and lowest votes at the end of the day. If you need to break ties again, go for whoever in the tie was voted initially last.

If a Mafia member is elected to be the head, then Mafia win.

If not, then everyone in the Town is informed of who the head of the circle is and knows they are Town.

If the Mafia all die, the Mafia may submit a guess as to who the circle is. If they are correct, Mafia wins. If not, Town wins.
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Fri Jul 30, 2021 1:00 pm

Post by Isis »

IT'S THE CIIIIIIIIIRRRCLEEEEEEEEEE
THE CIRCLE
OF LIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFFEEEEEEEEEE
choral sounds
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Fri Jul 30, 2021 1:01 pm

Post by Isis »

Can't the town just nominate X players to be totally open about their clear and Y players to not breathe a word?
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Fri Jul 30, 2021 4:11 pm

Post by implosion »

That's an option; however, it may well give scum enough info to decipher the rest of it. And it's definitely a nontrivial exercise to find the right values of X and Y.
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Sat Jul 31, 2021 4:34 am

Post by Cook »

In post 4, Cook wrote:Perhaps this would be too mechanic-heavy, but:

On Night 1, all players privately submit one vote to nominate someone as the head of the circle. Plurality rules and ties are broken favoring Town and lowest votes at the end of the day. If you need to break ties again, go for whoever in the tie was voted initially last.

If a Mafia member is elected to be the head, then Mafia win.

If not, then everyone in the Town is informed of who the head of the circle is and knows they are Town.

If the Mafia all die, the Mafia may submit a guess as to who the circle is. If they are correct, Mafia wins. If not, Town wins.
I'm gonna adapt this one into a different open setup.
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