[SETUP] Disablers

[numberQ]

Disablers

2-3x

Town 1-Shot Nightkill Disablers

2-3x

Town 1-Shot Daytalk Disablers

2-3x

Town 1-Shot Role Cop Disablers

0-2x

Vanilla Townies

3x

Mafia Goons

This is a 12p game, with 9 town and 3 scum. 6 town roles are set in stone - 2 of each type of Disabler. To determine the remaining 3 town roles, randomly pull from the 3 types of Disablers. If a Disabler type is pulled that's already represented 3 times, that role is instead a Vanilla Townie.

If a Disabler is eliminated via day vote, the Mafia gain a special benefit.

• If a Nightkill Disabler is eliminated, the Mafia can eliminate 1 person the following night. This elimination does not trigger any Disabler effects.
  
• If a Daytalk Disabler is eliminated, the Mafia PT stays unlocked through the following day.
  
• If a Role Cop Disabler is eliminated, the Mafia can investigate 1 person the following night, to learn the name of their role.

The Mafia otherwise do not have any factional abilities besides nighttalk.

Disablers will not know precisely what type of Disabler they are. Instead, they will be presented with two possibilities in a random order. They are guaranteed to be one of them, and the other will be generated randomly, but they will not know which is which. Eliminations will flip with the type they actually are. An elimination must occur every day; if majority is not reached by day end, plurality rules will apply.

Spoiler: v2

Disablers

2-3x

Town 1-Shot Nightkill Disablers

2-3x

Town 1-Shot Daytalk Disablers

2-3x

Town 1-Shot Role Cop Disablers

0-2x

Vanilla Townies

3x

Mafia Goons

This is a 12p game, with 9 town and 3 scum. 6 town roles are set in stone - 2 of each type of Disabler. To determine the remaining 3 town roles, randomly pull from the 3 types of Disablers. If a Disabler type is pulled that's already represented 3 times, that role is instead a Vanilla Townie.

If a Disabler is eliminated via day vote, the Mafia gain a special benefit.

• If a Nightkill Disabler is eliminated, the Mafia can eliminate 1 person the following night. This elimination does not trigger any Disabler effects.
  
• If a Daytalk Disabler is eliminated, the Mafia PT stays unlocked through the following day.
  
• If a Role Cop Disabler is eliminated, the Mafia can investigate 1 person the following night, to learn the name of their role.

The Mafia otherwise do not have any factional abilities besides nighttalk.

Town know what kind of Disabler they are. Eliminations will flip with that information as well. An elimination must occur every day; if majority is not reached by day end, plurality rules will apply.

Spoiler: v1

Disablers

3x

Town 1-Shot Nightkill Disablers

3x

Town 1-Shot Daytalk Disablers

3x

Town 1-Shot Role Cop Disablers

3x

Mafia Goons

If a Disabler is eliminated via day vote, the Mafia gain a special benefit.

• If a Nightkill Disabler is eliminated, the Mafia can eliminate 1 person the following night. This elimination does not trigger any Disabler effects.
  
• If a Daytalk Disabler is eliminated, the Mafia PT stays unlocked through the following day.
  
• If a Role Cop Disabler is eliminated, the Mafia can investigate 1 person the following night, to learn the name of their role.

The Mafia otherwise do not have any factional abilities besides nighttalk.

Town know what kind of Disabler they are. Eliminations will flip with that information as well.

Spoiler: changelog

v1: Initial design.
v2: Randomize number of Disablers. Introduce mandatory elimination.
v3: Disabler role PMs now present one of two possibilities for their role.

Just thought of this last night. If the Enabler role makes certain powers exist in the game while they're alive, it stands to reason that Disablers make certain powers exist when they die. I've never seen it before, though I'm not claiming to have a ton of exposure to all the various setup stuff out there, so maybe someone's thought of Disabler as a role before. Either way, basing an entire setup around it could be interesting.

Not every type of Disabler is equal, which is the point. I think scum will always be angling for a nightkill, but the difficulty is in figuring out who it is, AND getting them eliminated. Plus, eliminating via NK deprives scum of that Disabler's effect. This also gives more information for town to work with. If you know a Role Cop was eliminated the previous day, what does that tell you about who people seem to be voting today? If you know the Mafia have daytalk, who looks like they're more coordinated with each other? Stuff like that.

I went back and forth as to whether having only 2 of each Disabler and then a group of 3 VTs made sense. That would give the scum team a bit more room if claims came up I guess. But it does dilute the symmetrical nature of the setup somewhat. Open to hearing thoughts on that, or the setup as a whole.

[StrangeMatter]

Very interesting idea for a game. Town NK disables really doesn't want to be voted out I'm assuming by this setup. However, I'm wondering it seems like a game that can swing very hard in town's favor, since a NK Disabler miselim Day 1, wouldn't that mean there's two chances for either NK disabler (I'm assuming they are able to disable Mafia NK once?) to catch the scum NK?

Even then, we have to consider what if the NK disablers just outright claim day 1, couldn't that essentially stop scum from having a NK at all unless they fakeclaim NK disabler?

[StrangeMatter]

I say we should give Mafia a single N1 kill to avoid that I think, but maybe there is a better way to make it less townsided.

[Something_Smart]

D1 massclaim seems pretty obviously best. That's not necessarily a flaw, but you should take it into account. Scum pretty much have to claim 1 of each to avoid confirming 3 townies, and even then you're in a spot where a lucky elimination could confirm 2 or 3 people as town.

[numberQ]

Very interesting idea for a game. Town NK disables really doesn't want to be voted out I'm assuming by this setup. However, I'm wondering it seems like a game that can swing very hard in town's favor, since a NK Disabler miselim Day 1, wouldn't that mean there's two chances for either NK disabler (I'm assuming they are able to disable Mafia NK once?) to catch the scum NK?

Yeah, scum NK could catch one of the other NK Disablers, which would make them miss out on a potential future NK. So part of the scum game is figuring out who the NK Disablers are, which will be possible because like you said, they will be trying very hard not to get mislimmed. I do see the swing, though.

Maybe eliminating all Disablers of a certain type should unlock that ability for the Mafia permanently? It wouldn't happen until N2 at the absolute earliest, and that's assuming a lot of things fall into place. So there's some potential townsided swinginess early game, but it has the potential to even out.

Even then, we have to consider what if the NK disablers just outright claim day 1, couldn't that essentially stop scum from having a NK at all unless they fakeclaim NK disabler?

That's something I forgot to mention in the OP. I did consider that mass claiming would put scum in a tough position. I wasn't quite sure how to address that though. It almost makes me think that the NK shouldn't be disabled at all, scum just have it like normal. I'm not sure what to put in its place though, plus I feel the NK Disabler is the core of the setup. Daytalk and Role Cop disables aren't really as interesting without the NK also being disabled.

pedit: Maybe a single N1 kill would solve it, yeah. Could also make for an interesting situation where a D1 NK Disabler mislim would sort of be a waste for scum, since they're getting the NK anyway. Does that stop a D2 mass claim though? Feels like we're just pushing the problem back a day.

[RadiantCowbells]

That's not true

There's only one way to play this setup for scum and that's to all claim nightkill enabler or else scum winrate is terrible

If you claim 1 of each then town systematically eliminate nightkill enablers. If the scum in the pool is first or second scum mechanically autowin. If the scum is third, then town have either 7/8 or 8/9 winrate depending on whether scum pop two in one pool or not. Scum lose immediately if their buddy is not at least the second most town member of that pool and only win a tiny fraction of the time if their buddy is the second towniest.

If scum all claim NK enabler then whichever faction has the towniest NK enabler wins, which is 50% winrate ish.

[RadiantCowbells]

Wait I did the math wrong for claiming all in one pool, it's bad.

Regardless this setup as is doesn't work very well.

[Something_Smart]

Yeah I think it's heavily townsided with massclaim no matter what scum do.

[RadiantCowbells]

So 1 of each is actually the optimal claiming strategy and you're giving scum around 28% winrate, bit it's actually a bit better because you can put your best scum in the NK enabler pool

[numberQ]

Dang, I thought I was onto something with this. I still like the setup conceptually, but maybe I have to break the symmetrical purity a little to handle a mass claim strategy.

[Something_Smart]

Probably the best way to do that is to have a variable number of each role. So maybe 2 of each and the remaining 3 are randomly chosen among the options, or something like that.

[numberQ]

That's not a bad idea. Though I don't know how I feel about the possibility of there being 5 of one kind of Disabler. Like if that's 5 NK Disablers, we've swung too far back into scum's favor I think. Maybe there can be a max of 3 of any type of Disabler, and any beyond that are converted into VTs. This has the knock on effect of providing VT players with a clue about the setup, because then they know at least one of the Disabler types has 3 slots. While still providing some leeway for scum to maneuver around mass claims. Because now they can claim VT or Disabler, and either one affects town's perception of the setup.

[Cook]

*raises hand from back*

why not make the setup 4 nk dis, 4 encrypt dis, 4 rc dis and then just draw nine from that vs 3 mafia goons

[RH9]

I think that you change all the Mafia Goons into Enablers with each enabling one of the Disablers.
That way, the Mafia can sacrifice one of their own in order for a reward.

[RH9]

And by the way, you can just make one of the Mafia the Enabler for every Town role. The other Mafia have to bus in a very inconspicuous way.

[numberQ]

*raises hand from back*

why not make the setup 4 nk dis, 4 encrypt dis, 4 rc dis and then just draw nine from that vs 3 mafia goons

This is a bit more swingy than starting with 2 of each and randomly filling in the rest. I think the possibility of there being only 1 NK Disabler hurts scum too much, however unlikely that may actually be.

I think that you change all the Mafia Goons into Enablers with each enabling one of the Disablers.
That way, the Mafia can sacrifice one of their own in order for a reward.

This is town strong I think. Mafia trading one of their own just for a chance at a NK is a bad deal for them, if I'm getting what you're saying. Plus, I don't think the Goons would be Enablers as you describe it here. They'd be like, Disabler Disablers. Which, granted, is kind of funny but probably too confusing lol

Now I'm getting flashes of a setup full of Enablers enabling each other... Sounds like a nightmare

[numberQ]

That's not a bad idea. Though I don't know how I feel about the possibility of there being 5 of one kind of Disabler. Like if that's 5 NK Disablers, we've swung too far back into scum's favor I think. Maybe there can be a max of 3 of any type of Disabler, and any beyond that are converted into VTs. This has the knock on effect of providing VT players with a clue about the setup, because then they know at least one of the Disabler types has 3 slots. While still providing some leeway for scum to maneuver around mass claims. Because now they can claim VT or Disabler, and either one affects town's perception of the setup.

I edited the OP to reflect this modification. Not entirely confident with it though - does including the possibility for VTs (i.e., a role that gives scum nothing upon vote lim) hurt scum too much?

[Gamma Emerald]

I feel like massclaim makes things automatically harder for scum because the utility of role cop is negated and they can’t push NK disablers as freely because town will be able to see them doing so

[numberQ]

Maybe it would help to allow a wider range of possible disabler slots. So instead of 2-3 NK disablers, there's 1-3. That gives more plausibility to pursue a mislim on a claimed NK disabler. However, that also makes it harder for scum, because now there's a chance they'll have fewer chances to NK. I was trying to avoid a situation where there's only a single slot of any particular disabler type.

[Cook]

why not just make the disablers uninformed, or give them a "one of two" possibilities in their role PM?

[numberQ]

That does seem to neatly solve the mass claim problem, remove the ability to know what to claim. Though I feel that removes some portion of scum's ability to plan, since part of the game when town is self-informed is for scum to hunt for the NK disablers. If town don't know what they are, scum can't do that, and they are basically arbitrarily pursuing mislims just hoping to land on something useful.

[numberQ]

Maybe a free N0 role cop would help with that, hmm

[Gamma Emerald]

I think one-of-two works because uninformed means NK disablers wouldn’t know to play towny so as to avoid getting miseliminated

[numberQ]

What about something like, "You know you are a disabler, but you don't know what kind"? Whereas VTs are explicitly told they're VTs. So basically just "one of three", but without the fiddly bit where the mod has to randomize a second disabler type for the role PM like with "one of two".

[numberQ]

Now that the game's in the queue proper, I'm going to update the OP with some of the recently discussed changes. Particularly, I've decided to go with the "one of two" approach. Maybe if I run this again in the future I'll tweak it a little.