Setup Boot Camp for an idea.

[LicketyQuickety]

I was thinking: I am terrible at setup spec and generally making a balanced game because I don't know the ins and outs of cause and effect in games regarding many things including how power roles interact with each other, Scum/Town ratios in respects to the former, accepted doctrine of what a balanced setup looks like and a myriad of other things that I may not even know about.

What I am looking for is a crash course in how to make a balanced setup. This can go a long way and increase the quality of games that would otherwise be just good enough to pass. That said, i am not trying to take away bastard games because I think they have their place, but that is not what this is about. This is about giving potential hosts the know how and dare I say education to know how to make not only an acceptable setup, but a very balanced one as well.

Does anyone else have an interest in either wanting to teach this stuff or learning this stuff?

[LicketyQuickety]

I was reminded of this thread. I link it like that because I think people should either know what thread it is or should visit it to get started. That said, I feel the list is a bit incomplete. I feel it doesn't cover a lot a potential host can think about such as mechanics (which are usually rooted in creativity) and interacting roles which was barely covered accept follow the cop to a shallow degree. Don't get me wrong, its a great start, but doesn't show a lot when considering HOW TO actually make a setup.

So I think a setup should be broken up into sections to make this easier. I don't know much about setups but I will give it a shot anyways:

1. Scum to Town Ratio
   
2. Swing vs Vanilla vs Balanced
   
3. Power Roles: Dos and Don'ts
   
4. Mechanics
   
5. Role Names/Flavor

there may be more categories but again I am no expert.

[mastina]

We've thrown around ideas for this in the NRG, though I don't recall what was made of that line of thought.
Basically, showing: "this is good balance", versus "this is bad balance" is something we vaguely worked on, not sure if it has gone anywhere though.

[Andrius]

Vi's Comprehensive Guide to Modding is still a good resource.
I imagine most experienced mods will be happy to chat with you about their opinions and/or what works and what doesn't.

1.Scum to Town Ratio
2.Swing vs Vanilla vs Balanced
3.Power Roles: Dos and Don'ts
4.Mechanics
5.Role Names/Flavor

1. Generally speaking, the generally accepted ratios are 3 townies to 1 mafia. So Mini Themes generally are 10:3 if there are two factions. You'll see 4 Mafia in a game in 16-player games and larger, 5 in 20, etc.
2. I'm not really sure what you want to be discussed here. Vanilla Townies are great and can be under-rated. "Swing" is not necessarily bad. Balanced games are good games. Bastard games can be great depending on how much you trust the mod.
3. Whatever type of game you run, do some simulations, or at least consider how roles interact with each other. I ran about a dozen simulations of how Lord of the Rings Mafia would work out and it helped us when Mordor won 50% of the games. If you're using conventional roles, know how they work. If you're creating something unique, know how it interacts with other roles.
4. Same as above.
5. Consider massclaims. Consider fakeclaims.

IIRC there was a time years ago when someone asked questions like you and I offered to let them 'watch' me design a game in a PT with my co-designer. Can't recall who or what game but it was supposed to help them learn what types of things to consider in design, etc.

[mastin2]

On that note, someone came to me looking for some advice, primarily geared towards Normals, but applicable elsewhere too.
I've altered some of the details in the PM, but I think I can safely share this much:

My advice is to seriously not try all at once--have a few neat roles you want to see in a game? Fine, having a few interact nicely with each other is alright so long as they're all normal. Have a lot of neat roles you want to see in a game? Either save it for a theme (even then probably not the smartest idea to get too many creative ideas in one game), or break those roles up as to feature them in different games.

If you

do

decide to go with this anyway have all the roles be normal because you're not going to get it passed otherwise. For instance, if you submit a setup with only one VT, it's not going to be accepted. Have at least three or four, at absolute minimum. (Which, in a standard 10:3 setup, gives you six power roles. That's plenty, and is double the average in a game! Which your reviewers will note.)

In a role-heavy game, for it to be challenging to the town, the town's PRs need to not hold any individual overwhelming power, and also can't have perfect synergy. (A classic example of perfect synergy: cop-doc leading to follow-the-cop.) In a Normal, this would mean making the roles be roles that aren't super-strong, and to gate as few of them as possible. In other words, staying away from even gated (X-shot, for instance) cops, watchers, and jailkeepers, or their variants: no gunsmiths, probably no doctors, the like. You may or may not be able to get away with a Neapolitan, but best stay away from it to be on the safe side. They're fine as individual roles, yes, but TOGETHER in a game it's a big fat

no

. (Nothing wrong with having a cop in the game. Having a cop in addition to five other town roles, on the other hand......)

Regardless of whether the game is role-heavy or not, and regardless of normal or theme, in general the aim is for a town which has some amount of power, but is not overwhelming, with each role being weak and each role not being super-gated. (Exception to the super-gated being role madness games which RELY on being gated to have any semblance of balance.)

Also, avoid scum PRs as much as possible. Even in a PR-heavy setup, the answer isn't to beef scum up and give them an answer to every town role. One, that's scumsided, and two, that introduces an unwanted element of swing. There's nothing wrong with a mostly-goon or even all-goon scumteam. Usually you only want one (or in a large, two) power role(s) for them. Said power role might introduce an element of swing (if it's a strong role, e.g. strongman, roleblocker, it getting lynched early hurts their team badly; it not getting lynched hurts the TOWN badly), but may be considered necessary to counter a PR-heavy town.

Furthermore, when you do decide to get it reviewed by the NRG, tell them what you really want for the game--not necessarily what you want in the game (though that can be true, too). What you want FOR the game. "I want this dynamic to be present", for instance. Given that core guideline, they'll try to tweak the balance of your setup such that what you end up with still fulfills those guidelines.

Tweaking may, or may not, involve a fundamental redesign of the setup which may end up with none of the original roles. But the important thing you're looking for isn't to keep the original setup as much as possible. It's to keep the original idea you're aiming for.

Another tip?
The more complicated your setup, the more revisions it will require. The more revisions a setup requires, the longer the review will be. Setups that are simple and close to the mark on balance can be passed in as little as 48 hours. Setups that are complex can take upwards of three months to iron out.

These guidelines won't get you through a review. But they'll make your reviewing process far easier.

Further reading: this article I wrote still holds true today. Included in that article are links to two other (more extensive) articles, both of which in my experience are fairly timeless. Though geared more towards themes, for an ambitious normal, they hold true, so I'd still recommend looking at: the Comprehensive Modding Guide and How to Mod Enjoyable Games, which cover subjects I touch upon in more detail.

[RadiantCowbells]

Just like to add that scum roleblockers are way, way stronger than they are given credit for.

[mastina]

Just like to add that scum roleblockers are way, way stronger than they are given credit for.

I don't know about other reviewers, but I consider an ungated Mafia Roleblocker to be THE strongest scum role in a Normal, post-Godfather blacklist. (And even pre-Godfather-blacklist, you could make the argument that a mafia roleblocker > mafia godfather.)

Even as a gated role, it's insanely strong, which is one reason why they tend to see less use than they used to. Reviewers might not hold my same belief in it being THE strongest scum role (even stronger than strongman in my opinion), but they generally tend to at least be aware that it's a strong scum role, a REALLY strong scum role, and thus they tend to advise against ungated scum roleblockers.

[KuroiXHF]

Why do I keep reading this title as "Bootcamp for Kids"?

[hitogoroshi]

I would frame it as making a good closed setup specifically, since one of the cool benefits of opens is that people can talk about them openly.

But yes, a guide on some of the advanced parts of closed setups like definitive vs non-definitive innos and guilties, informed PRs, confirmability, mod-provided fakeclaims, vote-maniuplators influencing lylo, etc. could be pretty neat. I'd be on board to help with something like that.

[mykonian]

sorry quickety, Answers to this aren't neatly in one place, they get build up over time. Stats threads like hoopla's, mrsmiths, toomai (and I'm forgetting people probably, sorry) are basically the only feedback we get for how balanced the games are.

So... guidelines. Opens tend to be a good starting point. Those tend to be the setups we know most about because at least they get repeated and you can find them as such. You just have to correct for claims nearly always being confirmed for true opens (less so for the semi opens) and then you can add/remove what you like to get to a game of your liking. Don't try to do many new things in one go, focus on one cool part and get it right, leave the rest as basic as you can so that you actually stay near the balance of the open.

More generally, used to be believed that you wanted between 1/3 and 1/4th of the players to be scum, this was deemed a good ratio, with the higher ratios used for multiball games. For small games this is doable, but it breaks down at higher player counts and you want to err on the lower side for scum. Another metric used was the amount of the amount of mislynches vs the amount of scum in the game. For 2:7 and 3:10 these happen to be the same, and as such it "feels" natural to extend this rule. However, 3:10 is already harder to balance than 2:7, so this rule as well breaks down for higher numbers. You want to give town one mislynch more at least for larges, or really overcompensate with town powerroles. I personally try to get a similar idea to work for multiball, but that is tricky, I might make a post about that when I come back.

Last time Hoopla did the stats she came up with a guideline for the amount of town PR's you would want in a 3:10. 3 full town powerroles (so if you want to use uneven night or limited shot you'll have to use more) tends to end you up with a fair game according to her, and adding one scum PR one town PR should be added (which gets crazy pretty quickly, so be careful with scum PR's). As you can see, 3:10, which feels normal, is kind of a bitch on town. It's not a fair starting point, you have to work for it as a mod to make it fair for town.

A couple of years ago Hoopla did a similar count, which resulted in then the most common scum role (the RB, because it was in the newbie setup) to get some hate. Most scumteams got one, and it tended to be ruinous for town winrates compared to games balanced without one. So that's one to be careful about maybe moreso than the other roles, as has been mentioned in this thread.

There are some other ways that a setup can predictably go wrong, and there are some ways to have roles/mechanics fix that, but as for guidelines that give you a good starting point for a normalish setup, I think that's about as much as we know now for the general outline of a setup. Keep in mind that some of these did get named rather recently, which means that some years down the line we might have different thoughts or better ideas how some of the roles are stronger/weaker than others.

[LicketyQuickety]

I would frame it as making a good closed setup specifically, since one of the cool benefits of opens is that people can talk about them openly.

But yes, a guide on some of the advanced parts of closed setups like definitive vs non-definitive innos and guilties, informed PRs, confirmability, mod-provided fakeclaims, vote-maniuplators influencing lylo, etc. could be pretty neat. I'd be on board to help with something like that.

Yeah, something like this is exactly what I was trying to suggest.

[Lycanfire]

this thread is really helpful for observers by the way. if you think there's anything that hasn't been touched on ITT, keep the posts coming please.

[callforjudgement]

My experience with scum/town ratios is that the higher the proportion of scum you can fit into a game while keeping it balanced, the more fun the game normally ends up to play (and it's what's lead me to experiment a lot with Nightlesses and unusual win conditions). That said, making a game more than ⅓ scum and yet still balanced is nearly always very difficult, and if you're using anything like normal mechanics, you're unlikely to be able to go much over ¼. The basic reasoning is that townies (who make up the majority of the setup by definition) tend to get demoralized if they're

expected

to mislynch over and over again.

[mhsmith0]

In general, if you have a relatively normalish single ball game mechanics-wise (day start, no double-day/nightless/etc stuff), you're gonna want to have:

Town ~= 3 * Scum + 1
Town PRs ~= Scum + Scum PRs (so four town PRs against 3 scum, one of which is a PR, and then tweak depending on how strong the town or scum PRs are)

I would also, IN GENERAL, advise to be hesitant about giving scum much power that is there to directly counter town's power. As a simple example, scum doctor against both town vig and town gunsmith (especially if either is gated) is a relatively poor design; similarly, scum ninja against both tracker and watcher is a poor design; etc. Generally try and avoid situations where you will have a scum power role where, in that particular setup, due to what town roles it counters it becomes STRONGER than a roleblocker.

I'd caveat that caveat by noting that if that scum power is countering what is not town's main weapon, that's less of an issue (for instance, scum ninja against cop/jailkeeper/tracker counters only the town role that is there basically as an extra; 1-shot strongman against mason/mason/doc/fruit vendor again counters secondary power; etc).

It's hard to say what advice would be good in terms of design without really knowing what kind of games you're looking for, but for single ball games in the 13-21 player range I've tended to try and break things down into a paradigm of a balanced 10v3 mini normal and then see what tweaks to the setup would be made from that balanced mini normal and try and think about whether it's still balanced or not.

PS If you're going outside normal, scum vig is probably the strongest scum role. Vanillaizer is another super strong role depending on setup, since it's basically a roleblocker on steroids.

PPS When it comes to really weird setups, I'd have little advice for balancing. Cults, for instance, I couldn't really comment on with any confidence.

[Gamma Emerald]

How do you balance split PRs (Odd/Even pairing, wide distribution of Day-specifics)?

[mhsmith0]

It depends on the setup. That's a bit of a non-answer, but it really is context dependent.

For instance, say you have an odd night town vig, and for some reason are looking for scum power to directly counteract it. You could do a full scum role blocker, a full scum doc, or merely odd night for either.

It's also reasonable for an odd/even modifier to simply be used as a nerf to a role's ability, for instance an odd night cop instead of full cop, odd night roleblocker instead of full roleblocker, etc. Or you could have it used as a way to split up a specific role to reduce swing a bit:as an example of this, in mini normal 1782, it was
town odd night JK (me)
town even night roleblocker (roshar)
town voyeur (FAQ2)
town follower (nost)
and 6 VTs
vs
odd night ninja (huntress)
even night jailkeeper (H_A)
encryptor (titus)

in that setup, the major town power (jailkeeper) was broken up into odd and even night pieces (and even swapped to a roleblocker), which reduces the swing inherent in "how long does the key PR survive"

[callforjudgement]

In smaller setups, the even-night modifier is a very large limiter on a role's power (odd-night somewhat less so). In larger setups, the two are more balanced.

A common use I find for the limitations, other than tweaking the setup's balance, is helping to avoid blowout scenarios. Often, in a smaller setup, those can only reasonably happen on a specific night, so you can use an odd-night/even-night limiter on one of the key roles in order to prevent it acting that night. Of course, you need to adapt to the resulting balance change (unless the setup was imbalanced before the change and the change brings it closer to balanced, in which case you solved two problems at once).

[PeregrineV]

Another tool for measuring possible issues is minimum and maximum win times for both the sum and town teams.

I know some games are designed that way, but after you design it, look at the minimum days it takes town to win, in optimal conditions, and the same for mafia. Then look at the longest time it would take either to win.

If it seems unfair either way, you might want to look it over again.

[Gamma Emerald]

tbh max win time is hard to calculate
what happens if NL is introduced? what about no-kill gambits?

[PeregrineV]

tbh max win time is hard to calculate
what happens if NL is introduced? what about no-kill gambits?

You really just assume optimal play on both sides. No kills are rarely optimal for scum, they are very situational.
Same for no lynches. They happen, but are not optimal for town, except situationally.

[callforjudgement]

Another tool for measuring possible issues is minimum and maximum win times for both the sum and town teams.

I know some games are designed that way, but after you design it, look at the minimum days it takes town to win, in optimal conditions, and the same for mafia. Then look at the longest time it would take either to win.

If it seems unfair either way, you might want to look it over again.

It's entirely reasonable to have asymmetric minimum win times. In a very large game, you'd expect town to be able to win much earlier (just because it takes a long time for scum to eliminate all those townies). Even in a Micro, it's standard for scum to need 3 days to win but town to be able to do it in 2.

As for the

maximum

win times, if those aren't equal, either you have a game with screwy third parties (which will need careful consideration to see if anything is broken), or else something is badly wrong with your win conditions.

[drealmerz7]

but it's good to have an idea of what might be average for any given setup and if your average is too low or high, adjust accordingly