mastina's 13p Pre-Designed Setup

[implosion]

So /approve, I guess. I'll go PM implosion.

Final Setup

Town Mason Tracker
Town Mason 2-Shot Vigilante
Town Jailkeeper
7× Vanilla Townie

Mafia JOAT (Rolecop, Roleblocker, Watcher)
Informed Mafioso ("this game contains at least one Masonry")
Mafia Goon

[callforjudgement]

/egosearch

Can't do much reviewing until the setup has been posted :-)

[mastina]

Wasn't quite sure what the process there would be.

The setup I had in mind was:
Mason-Tracker
Mason-Vigilante
Jailkeeper
VT x7

vs.

Mafia Rolecop
Informed Mafiate (Informed there's masons in the game but not who they are or how many there are)
Goon

I believe this is Normal, and my mental math for it has it work out to be in the right range; the town's roles become really strong with one mafiate alive but otherwise have virtually zero synergy, and the mafia have a fair amount of warning about them and the ability to hunt them down effectively.

What I wanted to avoid was the scum having too many ways to counter the town PRs, but also give them some fair warning about them.

[callforjudgement]

Scum absolutely need the town power roles dead quickly in this one.

Mason, Mason, Vigilante is townsided against a vanilla scumteam in a 10:3, but Mason, Mason-Vigilante is substantially weaker (as fewer townies are confirmed).

There's more synergy in the roles than you might expect: the Jailkeeper can keep a claimed Mason alive (they lose their power but losing the Tracker power early doesn't matter much), and the Jailkeeper stopping a kill (either way) synergises with the Vigilante pushing the setup onto evens.

I think that if the Vigilante gets off two kills (even if they hit town), and/or the Vigilante kills and the Jailkeeper stops a scum kill, then town are in really good shape. So the setup's going to have to rely on town power roles dying early. I fear that the Rolecop might be too slow for that? Their results are no real use until Night 2, so the Rolecop is no use in stopping the Vigilante killing twice; scum would need to hit the Vigilante naturally, and the odds of that are less than 1 in 4 (a bit higher because the information allows the scum to look for interactions, but it's hard to find a two-person team amongst 9 players on night 1). A third Vigilante kill would make the Jailkeeper into an incredibly strong role, assuming the game was still going; that's the case even if two scum were left (although by then probably only one would be).

I think the changes needed here are: a) buff the Rolecop (e.g. by making them into a Rolecop + Roleblocker JOAT, allowing them to block a power role N2 that they discovered N1); b) cap the Vigilante's effectiveness to help limit situations where town is running away with the setup (e.g. making them 2-shot or odd-night; in the latter case scum wouldn't need to be as powerful). It's a weird setup so I'm not sure that'd put it in the right place, but it'd have more of a chance of being balanced. It might be worth considering a swing warning, too; this setup is clearly very swingy, which makes the balance hard to measure.

As for Normalcy, I'm not 100% sure giving a player two roles, e.g. Mason and Tracker, is allowed, but it's equivalent to Informed Neighbour Tracker which would be. That said, I'm not sure how well this setup fits into the spirit of the Normal queue; it feels more like an asymmetrical multiball setup, it's just that one of the "scumteams" wins with town.

[mastina]

So the setup's going to have to rely on town power roles dying early. I fear that the Rolecop might be too slow for that?

I considered instead of a scum rolecop a scum JOAT with the powers of Rolecop/Roleblock/(either strongman or ninja but not both), but was worried that'd overpower the scum by giving them too much of an edge over the town.

Do you think that giving them that power would balance things out?
Or do you think it needs to be Informed Mafiate + Roleblocker + extra scum power in the form of something like a JOAT(Roleblock/Strongman/Ninja)?

b) cap the Vigilante's effectiveness to help limit situations where town is running away with the setup (e.g. making them 2-shot or odd-night; in the latter case scum wouldn't need to be as powerful).

I wouldn't want game balance to revolve around nerfing the vigilante by gating its shots (I'd opt for 2x over odd-night), but I am receptive to gating the vigilante for reducing swing, if you think that less shots would help lessen swing.

As for Normalcy, I'm not 100% sure giving a player two roles, e.g. Mason and Tracker, is allowed

I am, absolutely, 100% positive it is Normal, since it has been done in not just one game but multiple prior games. I could track them down if it'd make you feel better but I know for a fact it's something which has been allowed through in the past. And I am fairly certain it was allowed without it being considered the graylist role, so if it was allowed before without it being a graylist role, then it should still be allowed.

That said, I'm not sure how well this setup fits into the spirit of the Normal queue; it feels more like an asymmetrical multiball setup, it's just that one of the "scumteams" wins with town.

I wanted to design a game which had both masons and a vigilante in it but I wanted to have as part of the design the vigilante not shoot the masons; my solution was to give the vigilante TO a mason.

The other roles were designed to revolve around the resulting mason-vigilante. Masons are Normal and a Vigilante is Normal and I wanted a way for the vig to not SHOOT the masons (because while you can balance around the possibility of vigs shooting masons, it's something I felt players would be visibly upset by) and literally the only other way I can think of to have that happen is for the Vigilante to be an Informed Vigilante with the information being "You know that playername and playername are masons", but that'd give three conftown in the game (vig shot goes through, confirms vig as town, vig knows masons and vouches for them) rather than just two.

[callforjudgement]

Ah, OK, I see what you're going for with the mason-vig combo.

I think the problem here is basically that there's a lot of things that can randomly go right for town. So I'd mostly be looking to get potential swing to town under control, rather than balance to town. That's why I wanted to gate the vig; the most positive town swing possible is the vig surviving for ages. You can do a pure swing reduction via limiting the vig to two shots, or impact on balance as well via changing them to odd night; it sounds like the two-shot version is what you'd want there.

The main thing to remember with vig setups is that the dayplay goes faster than expected, relative to nightplay (vig shots are basically dayplay in effect). There's highly likely to be six deaths by the morning of D3, four town-controlled and two scum-controlled. In a non-vig setup, missing the lynch four times is game over; in this setup, it's lylo, and yet scum have only just managed to make use of a pure Rolecop's results (in time to kill investigatives to deny their results, but not other sorts of roles). A 4:3 lylo is normally very hard for town to win, but if their power roles are alive, they have the tools they need to make a decent shot at it, even though they should be more or less lost at that point.

So I'd say that we need to gate the vig so that at least they aren't killing on all three of the first three nights (which would lead to a runaway town situation if the JK managed to stop a kill); that's why a 2-shot modifier helps. If you do that, plus change the Rolecop to a Rolecop/Roleblocker JOAT, I think we're probably within range; I'm still a bit concerned about townsidedness but we nearly always aim too scumsided, so I guess that's OK. (Given that the Mafia aren't Multitasking, there are no loop scenarios that require special resolutions; everything is based off the Golden Rule. It's important that moderators know that the JK can block the RB if the RB is aiming for someone other than the JK, though.)

[mastina]

So I'd say that we need to gate the vig so that at least they aren't killing on all three of the first three nights (which would lead to a runaway town situation if the JK managed to stop a kill); that's why a 2-shot modifier helps. If you do that, plus change the Rolecop to a Rolecop/Roleblocker JOAT, I think we're probably within range; I'm still a bit concerned about townsidedness but we nearly always aim too scumsided, so I guess that's OK. (Given that the Mafia aren't Multitasking, there are no loop scenarios that require special resolutions; everything is based off the Golden Rule. It's important that moderators know that the JK can block the RB if the RB is aiming for someone other than the JK, though.)

Hmm. Idea then. Would giving scum a minor defensive ability overpower them? What I mean by that is this:

Mason-Tracker
Mason-2x Vigilante
Jailkeeper
VT x7

vs.

Mafia JOAT (Rolecop/Roleblock/Rolestop?)
Informed Mafiate (Informed there's masons in the game but not who they are or how many there are)
Goon

The rolestop is probably too strong here because it blocks literally every town PR. (I'd suggest Asceticizer as an alternative but that's not whitelisted so it can't be that.) Doctor instead would allow both the tracker and jailkeeper to still work as intended while providing minor defense against the vig.

Alternatively, instead of protecting a scumbuddy the third power could be a Commute (should be weaker because I do believe that without said multitasking modifier you can't both commute and kill) or if that's still too strong Activated Bulletproof.

I think you can get the idea of what I'm going for here though: something built into the JOAT beyond the roleblock/rolecop to ever so slightly give scum just the smallest of boosts such that the setup isn't townsided.

[callforjudgement]

The ideal defensive ability would be something that's most useful when the scumteam is small, rather than when it's large. So letting them protect each other wouldn't be great. That said, a lone scum can't activate power roles anyway if they want to be able to kill.

I considered putting Ascetic on one of the other scum but it has too many problems (basically that it blanks the Tracker until it dies, as nobody else should be doing kills, and can give misleading JK results if it's the last scum left).

Perhaps the correct third shot for the JOAT is Watcher. That gives scum flexibility in how they can catch the town power roles, but using Rolecop and Watcher together isn't broken because it's too slow to make much of a difference.

It strikes me that given that the setup has no plain Masons, it's going to be quite hard to word the Informed information in a way that doesn't give the game away. Perhaps "The Town contains at least one Masonry" would look natural enough that people don't suspect that the wording is trying to hide something.

[mastina]

So, this?

Mason-Tracker
Mason-2x Vigilante
Jailkeeper
VT x7

vs.

Mafia JOAT (Rolecop/Roleblock/Watcher)
Informed Mafiate (Informed there's at least one Masonry in the game)
Goon

[callforjudgement]

Right. I think that would work. There's still a lot of swing (which makes it hard to gauge the balance) but it seems to be within the normal bounds.

[callforjudgement]

So /approve, I guess. I'll go PM implosion.

Final Setup

Town Mason Tracker
Town Mason 2-Shot Vigilante
Town Jailkeeper
7× Vanilla Townie

Mafia JOAT (Rolecop, Roleblocker, Watcher)
Informed Mafioso ("this game contains at least one Masonry")
Mafia Goon

[implosion]

Please also write role PMs here bc we might as well provide them

[mastina]

My Role PM formatting may take approval. Especially since I can't find official word in the changes thread RE: daytalk. I'm writing these PMs with the assumption both masons and mafia have it, but that's easily changed.

Mason Tracker

Welcome,

Playername

.
You are a

Mason Tracker

.

Playername

is confirmed town to you.
You may talk in this private topic with

playername

at any time.
During the night, you may target a player. You will receive results in the form of "

Target

visited

Playername(s)

", "

Target did not visit

", or "

No Result

".

You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town player is alive.

Confirm via PM.

Game Thread link.

Mason 2x Vigilante

Welcome,

Playername

.
You are a

Mason Two-shot Vigilante

.

Playername

is confirmed town to you.
You may talk in this private topic with

playername

at any time.
During the night, you may target a player. Should your action succeed, you will attempt to kill that player. You can only use this action twice in the game.

You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town player is alive.

Confirm via PM.

Game Thread link.

Jailkeeper

Welcome,

Playername

.
You are a

Jailkeeper

.

During the night, you may target a player. Should your action succeed, you will protect that player from a single attempt on their life that night. You will also prevent that player from performing any action that night.

You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town player is alive.

Confirm via PM.

Game Thread link.

Vanilla Townie

Welcome,

Playername

.
You are a

Vanilla Townie

.

You have no special powers.

You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town player is alive.

Confirm via PM.

Game Thread link.

Mafia Goon

Welcome,

Playername

.
You are a

Mafia Goon

.

You have no special powers.

Your partners are

X

and

Y

.
You may talk in this private topic with your partners at any time.

During the night, you may target a player. Should your action succeed, you will attempt to kill that player. You may not both kill and use another action.

You win if all non-mafia players are dead and at least one mafia player lives, or nothing can prevent this.

Confirm via PM.

Game Thread link.

Mafia Informed Mafioso

Welcome,

Playername

.
You are a

Mafia Informed Mafioso

.

You are aware

This game contains at least one Masonry

.

Your partners are

X

and

Y

.
You may talk in this private topic with your partners at any time.

During the night, you may target a player. Should your action succeed, you will attempt to kill that player. You may not both kill and use another action.

You win if all non-mafia players are dead and at least one mafia player lives, or nothing can prevent this.

Confirm via PM.

Game Thread link.

Mafia JOAT

Welcome,

Playername

.
You are a

Mafia JOAT (Rolecop, Roleblock, Watcher)

.

During the night, you may target a player with one of the following abilities:

• Rolecop:
  You will receive the target player's role, but not alignment. If your action fails, you will receive "no result".
  
• Roleblocker:
  Should your action succeed, you will prevent that player from performing any action that night.
  
• Watcher:
  You will receive results in the form of "
  Playername(s)
  visited
  Target
  ", "
  Target was not visited
  ", or "
  No Result
  ".

You may only use one of these abilities per night. You may only use each of these powers once.

Your partners are

X

and

Y

.
You may talk in this private topic with your partners at any time.

During the night, you may target a player. Should your action succeed, you will attempt to kill that player. You may not both kill and use another action.

You win if all non-mafia players are dead and at least one mafia player lives, or nothing can prevent this.

Confirm via PM.

Game Thread link.

[implosion]

Psyche has been given access to this thread, and this setup is now his.

[Psyche]

Thanks guys. This is a really cool thing you're doing.

[Psyche]

should note that the mafia role pms here seem to technically give each member of the faction their own killing ability

[mastina]

The listed abilities here:

Your partners are X and Y.
You may talk in this private topic with your partners at any time.

During the night, you may target a player. Should your action succeed, you will attempt to kill that player. You may not both kill and use another action.

Are all factional abilities, thus, the kill is factional, and limited to one person. (Not the best wording, but message gets across.)

[callforjudgement]

I think factional abilities need to say they're factional. If you don't already know it can be hard to guess.

"You may not both kill and use another action, and may not kill when one of your teammates is killing." would be clear enough.

[Psyche]

hello, would like to open this thread up for the postgame

[callforjudgement]

You'll need to contact implosion, I don't think anyone else has admin rights to this thread.