New Newbie Setup

[Not Known 15]

(so that we can know which setups to keep, not because it's in question that s lot of the setups are bunk)

Sorry, wrong.
We

won't

be able to do that. And we

shouldn't

do that.
For two reasons:
1.
Essentially, each subsetup is influenced by the general setup.
A subsetup viable in one semi-open can be horrible in another, due to claim reasons. And the other way around is also possible.
2.
If you want to wait until you have more reliable statistics for subsetups then you will have to wait years.
And if it isn't in question

that s lot of the setups are bunk

then we shouldn't wait. Especially not

years

.

[Not Known 15]

I really like the setup the way it is. TBH it's the best subforum on the whole site. I think just a little tweaking to policies is all it'll take to get the area *just* right.

Well, the setup has some shortcomings for being a newbie setup. Mainly, there is a chance for extremely unfun things.
The part I dislike the most, and that caused me to no longer play as SE, is hidden in some setups.

A1: Mafia Goon, Mafia Roleblocker vs. Town Cop, Town Neapolitan, 5x Town Vanilla

Suppose you lynch a VT Day 1 and kill a VT Night 1(due to the PR's not sticking out/crumbing). Now the Neapolitan claims(yeah the thing he always does) a VT. Then the Cop suddenly claims to have an innocent on a different VT. If you don't CC it's game over. If they lynch the CC it's game over. Simply by POE.
And it has too many investigatives - there is even a reasonable chance of a double guilty Day 2.

B3: Mafia Goon, Mafia Rolecop vs. Town Doctor, Town Neapolitan, 5x Town Vanilla

This has the same problem, due to Neapolitan claiming Day 2. With just a Rolecop against doc+conftown+Nea 7p... you get loads of problems. It's easy to lose vs. POE.

B1: Mafia Goon, Mafia Rolecop vs. Town Cop, Town Tracker, 5x Town Vanilla

Like the previous setups, this has too many investigatives.

B2: Mafia Goon, Mafia Rolecop vs. Town Jailkeeper, Town Tracker, 5x Town Vanilla

This is worse than the previous. Jailkeeper and tracker have much power with 1 mafia left, especially Jailkeeper.


What's also very uncomfortable is that there is no good way to claim for Mafia, but there is a good way to claim for Neapolitan, and maybe tracker.
Mafia fakeclaims are almost impossible to execute correctly.

[Not Known 15]

The possible setups are:
6x Vanilla Town, 1x Town Cop vs 2x Goon
6x Vanilla Town, 1x Town Jailkeeper vs 2x Goon
5x Vanilla Town, 1x Town Doctor, 1x Town Friendly Neighbor vs 2x Goon
5x Vanilla Town, 1x Town Cop, 1x Town Doctor vs 2x Goon (with factional Roleblock)
5x Vanilla Town, 1x Town Cop, 1x Town Friendly Neighbor vs 2x Goon (with factional Roleblock)
5x Vanilla Town, 1x Town Jailkeeper, 1x Town Doctor vs 2x Goon (with factional Roleblock)
5x Vanilla Town, 1x Town Jailkeeper, 1x Town Friendly Neighbor vs 2x Goon (with factional Roleblock)

All abilities, including the factional Roleblock are 2-shot.

Let's assess this.
General observations:
Cop and JK can be alone. FN and Doctor are never alone.
A FN CC means death Day 2, unless that one was RB'd or hit the CC'd scum.
Except the FN, you have to hide in the shadows.
If the goons have no FR they could fakeclaim Doctor, which will however be unreliable.

If no power role claims, the Doctor should not use their shot Day 1, unless they are under suspicion

Setup 1: Nothing to say about
Setup 2: Well known, might be more powerful than setup 1 due to data. JK claim will always be reliable(unless CC'd with Cop/JK) and a JK with these features will be probably a bit too powerful, according to the statistics.
Setup 3:Hmmmmmmmmmm. A de facto IC, claims get CC'ed, and the doc can heal FN twice. I don't know how this will turn out, but it might cause some problems.
Setup 4:Cop Doc: I am not sure exactly how this will play out, but copdoc is a dangerous mixture. Still probably alright based on past setups.
Setup 5: Uh Oh. You have the potential of 3 conftown Day 2 after 2 VT deaths. Two roles that are de facto investigative. Possibly townsided.
Setup 6:Probably OK, based on past info.
Setup 7:If the above is OK, then this should be, too.

[Not Known 15]

1) This would require the mafia to neither roleblock or kill either of the PRs which should come with a punishment

Roleblocking the FT does not help much; without a CC they are still confirmable. And if you think that reading Power roles Day 1 is even remotely easy... think again. In the last 20 completed Newbie games, the amount of killed/lynched Town PR's Day 1/Night 1 was...
7. And that includes a modkill. In 13 completed games, the PR's survived the lynch and the kill - not an easy task!
If we assume random lynching we get an about 47% chance to kill a PR if there are two, and about 28% if there is one. About 43% chance in total.
Just 35% of games had a PR death Day/Night 1.

Not surprising if you think about it. Hunting PR's Night 1 is not only difficult, but also frequently very dangerous.

[Not Known 15]

I will note that something nice about the Friendly Neighbor here is that it can never be more than a single clear, no matter how well it uses its role. And if the cop ever investigates the friendly neighbor, it's a waste of the cop's night action. I think the combo is much less broken than the "Neapolitan clears itself by claim, a vt by night action AND cop clears itself by claim, a vt by night action" possibility we have going now

Yes, that setup is definitely better than the current setup. But is it good enough? Possibly, yes...

[Not Known 15]

		A	B
	Roles	Mafia Roleblocker and Town Doctor	Mafia Goon and Vanilla Townie
1	Town Cop	Town Cop, Town Doctor, 5x Vanilla Townie vs Mafia Roleblocker, Mafia Goon	Town Cop, 6x Vanilla Townie vs 2x Mafia Goon
2	Town Jailkeeper	Town Jailkeeper, Town Doctor, 5x Vanilla Townie vs Mafia Roleblocker, Mafia Goon	Town Jailkeeper, 6x Vanilla Townie vs 2x Mafia Goon
3	2x Town Mason	2x Town Mason, 5x Vanilla Townie vs Mafia Roleblocker, Mafia Goon	2x Town Mason, 5x Vanilla Townie vs 2x Mafia Goon

In the event of setup A3, remove the doctor as there are already two town power roles.
I only spent 5 minutes making this grid and that was still too much time to be spending on it lol

A1:Ok. But Cop... again.
A2:Ehhhhh ok.
A3:Nice, Masons. But the EV isn't the best...
B1:Another cop.
B2:Uh oh this again. Didn't it have a huge winrate for town? And no chance that JK gets not believed... - win rate is unlikely to change much!
B3:Yeah. See A3.

[Not Known 15]

Sorry for the awful formattimg, I'm on mobile. This would be an example of a setup based on 2d3 where there's fake claims that are likely to work. In the first column, a doctor or tracker claim are both 2/3 to work. In column 2, a Doctor claim is 2/3 to work and in the third column a tracker claim is 2/3 to work. There's also riskier fake claims that can be tried like a 1/3 Jailkeeper in column 1.

In column 2 and 3 if all PR's claim then a doc/tracker claim is suddenly the most suspect...

[Not Known 15]

I want to present a revised setup of what I proposed earlier:

Cop+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
JK+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
JK+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
Cop+6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
Watcher+6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
Watcher+6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
JK+Watcher vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Ninja
JK+Watcher vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Ninja


(Night 1+2 Strongman is gated, I know - but gated roles exist in the other queues in abundance, and Night 1+2 isn't a modifier that is difficult to understand)
In this setup, power roles can still be lynched.

[Not Known 15]

Cop+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
JK+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
JK+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
Cop+6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
Watcher+6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
Watcher+6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
JK+Watcher vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Ninja
JK+Watcher vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Ninja

And this?

[Not Known 15]

@Not Known 15: I didn't comment on your setup because I have a massive vendetta against the Watcher role and wouldn't be able to give you feedback beyond agreeing to disagree with you on that.

Then tell us why you think that Watcher is bad in general/in closed setups/in this setup. It could help, too.

[Not Known 15]

Cop+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
JK+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
JK+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
Watcher+6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
Watcher+6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
JK+Watcher vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Ninja
JK+Watcher vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Ninja

And this?

I think having both investigative roles and a watcher makes this setup more difficult for mafia than currently. Ninja can't bypass a JK right so I don't see why the original setups have a ninja.

I see what you mean. Yes I have to fix that because it makes the setup more townsided there.
The Ninja is there for claims purposes,just like the Strongman(who is absolutely useless against a Watcher alone).
Cop+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
JK+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
JK+6VT vs Ninja + Goon
2 Masons+6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
Watcher+6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
Watcher+6VT vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Goon
JK+Watcher vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Ninja
JK+Watcher vs Night 1+2 Strongman + Ninja
Maybe this... The Masons have the advantage you talked about(more townsided than standalone), but with Masons being more scumsided this should fix the problem.

[Not Known 15]

the mafia team felt was their most powerful player. Because if the mafia is selecting the player who is performing the NK in such a manner as to dodge JK or Tracker (a semi-open setup with neither of these roles could make watcher far more defensible, but you do have JK), then that means the watcher is going to view the more townread player. Losing the more townread mafia player in a 2 scum game is tantamount to losing the game.

This is a semi-open.
In setup 5+6 the watcher danger is obvious for Mafia(because they know that they face either 2 masons or 1 watcher, with the second one having 2/3 probability)
In setups 7+8 the Mafia has a Ninja and a Strongman. The more townread player is either the Ninja, or the Strongman. If its the Ninja what you say doesn't apply. If it's the Strongman then the strongman can pick the target accordingly(so someone they think is not a Watcher target) - or the Ninja risks it. Their choice.

[Not Known 15]

It seems unnecessarily complicated for a newbie game to have 6 setups that could be Goon x2 but are instead other roles just to make it more likely that the last setup is in play

Each role should do something - a newbie sees Ninja and they're like 'cool what does this do' until they figure out that it's really just a named goon

But named roles occasionally appear in closed setups, and some open setups.
The last setup(7+8) is

incredibly important

for the general setup. Without it, Jailkeeper and Watcher claims would be handled drastically different. The win rates for the rest of the setups would be changed in a bad way.
Without the named roles, the setup would be known to be not the last setup every time as soon as one Mafia dies. Here, it only happens with the death of a goon...

[Not Known 15]

That's true, but I think in your setup for people to play they would have to understand that - and that's a lot of complexity for a new player or even somebody fresh out of Town of Salem or something

Well, it isn't that difficult to understand(after all, a ninja hides their visits, and a Watcher sees visits, a JK stops and protects people and a Strongman bypasses both), and if the new players do never think about what the roles(and in 7+8 they know precisely what their opponents are!) mean and how they influence the setup then they learn to take the setup into account next time. Even if they are overwhelmed at day, they still have the night to think about the kill.

[Not Known 15]

Here is my current version in a table:

	A (6 Vanilla Townies , daytalk )	B (5 Vanilla Townies , daytalk )	C (5 Vanilla Townies , daytalk )
Mafia	Mafia Ninja and Mafia Goon	Mafia Goon and Mafia Night 1+2 Strongman	Mafia Ninja and Mafia Night 1+2 Strongman
Row 1	Town Cop	2 Town Mason	Town Watcher and Town Jailkeeper
Row 2	Town Jailkeeper	Town Watcher and Vanilla Townie	Town Watcher and Town Jailkeeper
Row 3	Town Jailkeeper	Town Watcher and Vanilla Townie	Re-Roll(if rolled 10 times in a row, use 1 C)

[Not Known 15]

Here is my current version in a table:

	A (6 Vanilla Townies , daytalk )	B (5 Vanilla Townies , daytalk )	C (5 Vanilla Townies , daytalk )
Mafia	Mafia Ninja and Mafia Goon	Mafia Goon and Mafia Night 1+2 Strongman	Mafia Ninja and Mafia Night 1+2 Strongman
Row 1	Town Cop	2 Town Mason	Town Watcher and Town Jailkeeper
Row 2	Town Jailkeeper	Town Watcher and Vanilla Townie	Town Watcher and Town Jailkeeper
Row 3	Town Jailkeeper	Town Watcher and Vanilla Townie	Re-Roll(if rolled 10 times in a row, use 1 C)

Does C3 mean you reroll everything (including mafia roles)
or just reroll for town and keep the Ninja and Strongman?

Everything.

[Not Known 15]

I've been thinking about this. I think setups with large numbers of subsetups are basically impossible to balance, because in order to avoid there being so much information leaked by flips that the game becomes mostly about nightplay, you need to use a small number of roles in a large number of combinations, and then some of the individual subsetups will come out either very townsided or very scumsided. (I tried this sort of setup and failed.)

Perhaps the best approach is to keep the number of subsetups low; the main issue here is giving scope for fakeclaiming, but I think it's possible. Here's a suggestion:

Three subsetups, equal probability:

• Doctor, Miller, 5 VT vs. 1-Shot Roleblocker, Goon
  
• Doctor, Cop, 5 VT vs. 1-Shot Strongman, 1-Shot Roleblocker
  
• Doctor, Cop, Miller, 4 VT vs. 1-Shot Strongman, Goon

This is considerably more scumsided than the existing setups; that's desirable, but I may have gone too far or not far enough. Nonetheless, I think these subsetups work from a claiming strategy point of view (and are also somewhat tolerant of theoretical misplays; for example, it's probably correct for the Strongman to claim Miller in subsetup 2 but the setup works even if they don't). In particular, it's intentional that the Doctor is effectively a Named Townie (Doctor is one of the few roles that doesn't

want

to claim, even to confirm themself); adding a subsetup with no Doctor in would make the first subsetup scumsided.

The optimal claim strategy is probably as follows:
Situation 1: No Mafia dead.
Miller does

not

claim.
When decided as the lynch(except when CC'd):
-Doctor claims and is not lynched, Doctor should CC.
-Cop claims and is not lynched(unless LYLO), Cop should not CC Day 1; otherwise CC
-Miller is lynched.
Situation 2:Mafia Goon dead.
-->Miller claims immediately.
-->Cop keeps silent until LYLO/red peek/a green peek is threatened with a lynch
-->Doctor keeps silent until the day before LYLO.
When decided as the lynch,
- Doctor claims and is not lynched.
- Cop claims and is lynched.
- green peek is claimed and NOT lynched(they can't be bad)

Situation 3:Roleblocker dead.
--->Miller claims immediately; if Cop is alive they CC Day 3+.
--->No Miller -> Cop keeps silent unless run up to lynch, or their green peek is decided to be the lynch, or it is LYLO/Day before LYLO.
---->Doctor keeps silent until the day before LYLO.
When decided as the lynch,
-Doctor claims and... yeah... isn't lynched.
-Cop claims and is not lynched if it isn't a CC/CC'd, otherwise one of the CC's is lynched.(CC=LYLO ONLY)
-the green peek is claimed and not lynched.

Situation 4:Strongman dead.
--->Cop claims immediately. Unless Doctor died, they

don't

out their checks before LYLO.
--->Miller claims next. If there is no miller claim+red check ---> Town wins.
--->Doctor keeps silent until day before LYLO and heals the Cop.
When decided as the lynch,
-Doctor claims, is not lynched, and the Cop claims their results immediately. The Doctor heals the Cop(if the Cop dies then the Miller is fake) and someone else is lynched.
-green check is claimed and not lynched.

Pretty complicated claim strategies here...

[Not Known 15]

Here is my current version in a table:

	A (6 Vanilla Townies , daytalk )	B (5 Vanilla Townies , daytalk )	C (5 Vanilla Townies , daytalk )
Mafia	Mafia Ninja and Mafia Goon	Mafia Goon and Mafia Night 1+2 Strongman	Mafia Ninja and Mafia Night 1+2 Strongman
Row 1	Town Cop	2 Town Mason	Town Watcher and Town Jailkeeper
Row 2	Town Jailkeeper	Town Watcher and Vanilla Townie	Town Watcher and Town Jailkeeper
Row 3	Town Jailkeeper	Town Watcher and Vanilla Townie	Re-Roll(if rolled 10 times in a row, use 1 C)

Does C3 mean you reroll everything (including mafia roles)
or just reroll for town and keep the Ninja and Strongman?

Everything.

Do you also oppose this, RC(and if yes, why)?

[Not Known 15]

sigh

u didn't get my thanos joke

No, and even if I would understand it it would not tell me precisely what's wrong.

[Not Known 15]

thought the issue w matrix6 was ppl getting bored when they rolled bulletproof IC when the claiming strat was found

Yes,

back then

it was the only issue. However, the dramatically rising town win chances after the day phases were shortened strongly suggest that Matrix 6 would be roughly as townsided as the current setup nowadays; yet we don't want to increase the day phases because of player retention and because faster games are becoming normal. So Matrix 6 or a variant is not a valid solution.

[Not Known 15]

	A	B	C
Mafia	Mafia Roleblocker and Mafia Goon	Mafia Ninja and Mafia Goon	Mafia Goon and Mafia Goon
Row 1	Town Rolecop and Town Roleblocker	Town Rolecop and Town Tracker	Town Rolecop and Town Doctor
Row 2	Town Doctor and Town Jailkeeper	Town Doctor and Town Tracker	Town Roleblocker
Row 3	Town Jailkeeper and Town Tracker	Town Jailkeeper	Town Tracker and Town Tracker

And here I am to... look at your setup and...
1A:Hmmm not sure. Really not sure. Needs testing. Rolecop can get an unlikely false guilty resulting in a very uncomfortable situation for Town that forces both to claim. On the other hand, a guilty can be devastasting with NO recourse plus an additional Innocent result. Hugely annoying. AND Rolecop isn't confirmable? hmmmm.
1B:Again selective guilties. And again a role(tracker) that benefits from a lynch. I got a bad feeling.
1C: Is that really enough power? I'd say no. Doctor needs to heal twice to have any noticable effect(after all,

saves

can be /noaction's instead) except if Rolecop claims(which means that this is REWARDED instead of punished); and Rolecop is totally useless apart from being confirmable!
2A:Probably roughly ok.(pre tested, no major interaction changes)
2B:As long as the Ninja lives the Tracker is useless - is that really a great idea? I'd say no. Especially because all you have left is the Doctor and... yeah.
2C:Roleblocker. Alone? Ok, can get some weak guilties while stopping kills. Unsure. Maybe ok.
3B:Jailkeeper. Alone. Functionally the same as with B but with a chance of doctor-play instead. Has higher setup confirmability duue to Ninja, restricting fakeclaims. A bit too townsided in 2d3, and the changes(Ninja) aren't scumsided! Probably bad!
3A: Maybe ok- moved up a power role here.
3C:No idea.



Needs a rework, sorry.

[Not Known 15]

Well full ninja is still too strong imo.

I think it's important to remember that we aren't going for a completely balanced setup, and things that may swing it +/- 10% are ok.

So, what do you think will happen with B3?
We have: Vanilla+JK sitting at 77% town WR.
Tracker+JK+scum RC sitting at 70% town WR.
and we get:JK+scum Ninja+scum Tracker at ?? town WR.
Negative for WR: One less tracker. Scum tracker is -here - identical from Rolecop....
Positive for WR:General setup - incentivizes the Ninja to act, which is not good for scum in this setup. Claim problem for scum because JK only appears with two fully different mafia roles on row 1.
Losing a confirmable tracker looks bad at face value. However, that tracker is not so good for town - it has an equal chance of hitting a killer and hitting a teammate on the T+JK+scum RC setup. Balances roughly as an IC that occasionally outs itself and the other IC. So, you lose less than you'd think.
Contrast this with the more favourable pairing and the uniqueness of the Mafia roles in comparison with all JK+other role setups, inhibiting fake mafia claims, and you'll see that this subsetup is probably heading towards a win rate between 60% and 75%. And that's a bit much!

[Not Known 15]

B3 can be masons.
I'm ok with the baggage cost of masons.
Masons are awesome.

Well, we need to remove all those JK setups(without single JK setups the JK+TPR setups get stronger and they are already at least borderline townsided) and Masons look like a good addition in paper. I have realized, however, that Masons are probably not as good as in reality - the win rate might be rather low and there are actually quite complicated claim strategies with masons being present.
About JK you probably need to realize - I needed to do that myself, and it is a reason why I have struggled to find another possible setup - that it is more powerful than a Cop, especially when paired with no other role.

[Not Known 15]

NewD3	Column A	Column B	Column C
Mafia	Goon / Roleblocker	Goon / Role Cop	Goon/Goon
Row 1	Cop / Doctor	Tracker / Friendly Neighbour	Cop
Row 2	Jailkeeper / Tracker	Jailkeeper / Friendly Neighbour	Jailkeeper
Row 3	Mason / Mason	Tracker / Doctor	Mason / Mason

A1:A3 of the current setups. About 77% win rate. However, Doctor in this setup is suspicious(until a the RB dies), so it might perform differently here.
A2:Roleblocker instead of Rolecop might indeed make this slightly townsided, but still ok. But there is a tracker claim strategy...
A3:Well, Masons can be tried, but don't wonder if they don't achieve much and the setup is scumsided. It's something that simply needs to be tried.
B1:IC/Tracker vs Rolecop - I am sceptic. We have a false guilty with the FN(although it can be definitely proven as town unless CC) and Tracker itself is less powerful than a Cop. On the other hand, the data we have shows that we might have underestimated the power of a tracker in 9p as all Tracker setups are highly townsided. Worth trying it out.
B2:Jailkeeper is very powerful if it can't be roleblocked. And the FN will probably make use of it. There is a bit negative synergy due to roleblocking... but Jailkeeper without Roleblocker is significantly more powerful so it wouldn't surprise me if this would be a bit more townsided than it should.
B3:T/D was a bit too poweful against two goons and this helps mafia to find the doctor for Night 2 faster. Might be ok. But there is a tracker claim strategy...
C1: Cop alone has been a bit on the low side, but barely. Cop creates an easy fakeclaim - Doctor, with a roleblocker present.... Might be borderline ok since there are less fakeclaimable roles and the prevalence of this setup is higher.
C2:Tracker can't be fakeclaimed in time, often, because there is a claim strategy. FN fakeclaim is... dangerous, very dangerous. This will be very townsided(especially considering the prior high town win rate).
C3: Not many differences to A3

Claim strategy:
Tracker claims D2; unless a Doctor/Jailkeeper/Mafia Roleblocker died or claimed.
Why?
In B3 there is a doctor. Tracker is protected. If they have been caught by the rolecop then ... thats better than them not claiming anyways.
In A2 they can confirm themselves by claiming early; it would be very risky for mafia to claim tracker in C2 before they know who their enemy is so they can be trusted if there is a Jailkeeper. In contrast, if they don't claim in time(before JK claims) there is little reason to trust this claim. Unless, of course, they have an actual guilty.

[Not Known 15]

I don't think that claim strategy is optimal. You're making the rolecop's job easier, which is especially meaningful when the Rolecop is hunting for the Friendly Neighbor. I think it's close but not quite optimal.

I think if these tracker setups are too strong anything but mountainous is going to be too strong. Tracker gives the mafia a lot of agency that allows them to counterplay the role if they've been effective in the dayplay by having the deepwolf perform the kill or tossing the obvscum away if there's been effective distancing. If mafia aligned players' play can't improve to the point where they can deal with trackers they're just not going to be able to deal with anything.

You are right, the Friendly Neighbour should claim first Day 2(Unless the other PR died, of course), and if there is no FN, THEN a tracker claims.
There is little reason for the FN not to claim Day 2; they might have been rolecopped or FN'ed scum. And that means that the other PR might survive longer.
I don't know why you think I said that tracker setups are OP by itself, I have not.

[Not Known 15]

I'm also curious why you think it's optimal for friendly neighbors to claim D2. They're the least lynchable role and narrowing it down to a 50/50 whether the tracker claim is a good idea isn't really worth outing them?

It's optimal for friendly neighbors to claim D2 with both power roles present because either
-scum kills them and not the other PR, who is more powerful
-scum kills the other PR and then they would have to claim in LYLO, possibly
or scum kills a VT regardless...
The FN has no power but to confirm themselves anyways.
And them claiming Day 2 has also the positive effect that there is a townie you can trust in if the others cannot agree to a lynch.
And them claiming Day 2 has also the positive effect of the other power role not wasting their night action on them.

[Not Known 15]

And even the best case scenario where you're trying to play follow the cop with the tracker scum find the Doc by N2 the vast vast majority of the time.

That's a bit of an overstatement(especially because follow the cop with the tracker was not what I recommended), but you got one point - the FN revealing is worse than I initially thought, and that means that these strategies collapse.
Although I still have one problem with the setup...
B1 is Tracker + FN vs RCop + goon
B2 is Jailkeeper + FN vs RCop + goon
Tracker is a bit more powerful in 9p
but Jailkeeper is more powerful in 9p, too, and it is already a powerful role. In 9p it is even more powerful than a cop if a Roleblocker is absent.
Obviously, one of these setups will not be balanced well.

[Not Known 15]

Re: rolecop, I don't think N0 rolecop would scumside any of that column's setups but I'm not sure the complexity cost is appropriate for a newbie :S.
As far as I can tell RC's matrix is the most scumsided one that has been submitted and it's being criticized for town advantages, I am not sure if I am terrible at evaluating setups or people are just being obstinate (if something more scumsided than everything that has ever been submitted needs to be submitted including this one then well they should submit one)

Well, we need a matrix/general setup that is more scumsided than the current one.
I am still not happy about the potentially large difference in scumsidedness - there are large WR differences between JK + FN and 2 Masons.

[Not Known 15]

NewD3	Column A	Column B	Column C
Mafia	Goon / Roleblocker	Goon / Role Cop	Goon/Goon
Row 1	Cop / Doctor	Tracker / Friendly Neighbour	Cop
Row 2	Jailkeeper / Tracker	Jailkeeper / Friendly Neighbour	Jailkeeper
Row 3	Mason / Mason	Tracker / Doctor	Mason / Mason

Modified RC Setup	Column A	Column B	Column C
Mafia	Goon / Roleblocker	Goon / Role Cop	Goon/Goon
Row 1	Cop / Doctor	Tracker/Friendly Neighbor	Cop
Row 2	Jailkeeper / Tracker	Jailkeeper	Friendly Neighbor/Friendly Neighbor
Row 3	Mason / Mason	Tracker / Doctor	Mason / Mason

How is this?

[Not Known 15]

I don't know whether to expect that out of newbies though.

Well, masons have a chat. They can talk together in secret about that. That's part of their strength.
Once a mason is found out the other mason will often follow quickly - that's not necessarily the case with FN's; yet those might scumread each other...

[Not Known 15]

Any news?

[Not Known 15]

These poor newbies playing JK/FN...

[Not Known 15]

what about introducing some basic modifiers into the semiclosed setups to bring EV's closer to balanced? i mean the only one i can think of off hand that could be suitable for newbie games is x-shot

a ton of normal games have roles with some sort of gating mechanism so i feel like introducing x-shot into newbies could be useful from like a pedagogical standpoint as well

X-shot just doesn't work well with 9p. Because 9p doesn't last long.

[Not Known 15]

Yeah it should be, I was 2 shot doc in an 18p and that seemed about right, 1 shot anything in a 9p should be about right.

In a semi-open, no. In a closed setup,yes.
In a semi-open, no because that usually means "Hey I am 1-shot X and I did Y Night 1" Day 2

[Not Known 15]

If we are talking about CLOSED newbie setups, I'd greenlist the following roles:
-Tracker
-Cop
-Doctor
-Nurse(Backup Doctor)
-Mason
-Rolecop
-Roleblocker
-Bodyguard
-Jailkeeper
and the modifiers
-X-shot
-X-shot Bulletproof

and, for Mafia
-Strongman