What's the most balanced 7-player setup?

[humaneatingmonkey]

What's the most balanced 7-player setup?

I'm going to produce a mafia game show, but I prefer taking care of 7 players instead of 9. Preferably something that's fun to play with the highest chance of drama because that's how you reel in the audience ($$$$$). However, if it isn't possible with 7 players, I guess I can accept 9-player suggestions.

[Aronis]

Carbon 14 is the best 7p setup imo

[GreyICE]

What's the format? Can people talk in secret? Is it setup like the Genius?

[humaneatingmonkey]

The format is a reality competition show like Survivor. The main focus of the drama is the discussion, obviously. There will be cutaway interviews where people talk about the game (as in reality show). People can talk in secret! I don't know what the Genius is, sadly. What's that?

[callforjudgement]

Nomination Mafia (the 7p version) is basically a reality show format as it is, but with large amounts of added WIFOM. As a bonus, you have discussion in every phase. I'm not sure that the balance is fully established yet, so it might not be ideal if the most important thing about the setup is being perfectly balanced (although do note that it's one of the few 7p setups that has survived the Open rotation), but it'd fit in with the general style of play that you want very well IMO.

[humaneatingmonkey]

But I think it will lack the "killing" factor, which is a large part of the treatment.

[callforjudgement]

Right.

One of the big problems with a 7p with a normal day/night cycle is that you only get one night before lylo. This is hard to balance without giving the town so much power that they solve the game on power roles sometimes (and also rather raises the chance of the game being a blowout, which isn't much fun to watch). It also means you get a lot of theory/strategy discussion, although you might be OK with that; and it means that there are likely to be players who are confirmed by claim (although you might be OK with that too).

Out of the setups that have been heavily tested (i.e. are or once were in Open or Newbie rotation) and have the properties you want (in particular, a normal scum nightkill cycle), the choice is basically Carbon-14, Bird 7P, or Original Newbie.

For theory/breaking reasons Original Newbie only functions correctly if either a) nobody involved is experienced with the setup or b) the scum are very familiar with how the setup works; this is a combination that's absolutely terrible for Newbie games (and as such it was banned from the Newbie Queue). It is, however, believed to be balanced when using an appropriate playerlist. I wouldn't recommend this, anyway, especially if there's any chance that the people involved can be experienced with Mafia but inexperienced with the setup in question.

Bird 7P has two really big advantages over Carbon-14: a) it's been in the Open rotation a really long time, with a very balanced win rate, and we can thus be fairly confident it's win/loss balanced; b) it's easy to understand and pretty easy to flavour (whereas Carbon-14's "one of the investigative roles is naive but you only discover it when you get a scumflip" is pretty much a pain to explain to people who don't know Mafia already). The balance does, however, rely quite heavily on swing (e.g. whether people being pushed by the scum end up drawing power roles, whether the cop actually manages to hit with an investigation, etc.). Incidentally, the Doctor's contribution to balance here is primarily as a named townie whose motivations for night action targets can be analysed when they roleclaim; actually protecting people doesn't help town much, and will probably just lead to a D2 nolynch if it hits (or hurt town if you ban no-lynching to keep the show a consistent length). Nonetheless, out of the tested options, this is probably your best bet if you want to run the show repeatedly, as being swingy will help to keep things fresh for viewers.

Carbon-14 is a neater design from a game design point of view, even though it's a pain to explain and flavour. It's been tested fairly heavily in Open and Micro rotation, but I have some suspicion it's mildly scumsided; not enough to not run, but it wouldn't really fit in with your aim to find the most balanced setup. Another problem is that any attempt to simplify the setup tends to make it more scumsided.

There's also the possibility of creating a new setup. I have the feeling that 7p setups with a normal day/night cycle would work better if the game could be made to consistently last three days, meaning that you at least get two kills (and if you need to sacrifice scum, which is often the case in small-player-count setups, a game show can give them the chance to run off with a portion of the prize money, which is something that you can't really do in a Mafia game on a forum). The big downside of this, of course, is that the setup won't be nearly as tested as the existing/known setups, so balance or even theoretical problems might not be apparent. That said, this thread has given me the inspiration to want to design a 7p Open. What exact properties would you want it to have (in terms of balance, swing, game length, game events, special mechanics, symmetry)? There's no guarantee or warranty that the resulting setup will function correctly, but I'd enjoy the setup design challenge and would probably be able to run at least a test game here on mafiascum.net.

[GreyICE]

You're REALLY not allowing for the advantages of a Genius-like setup here Call. That blows town power levels up.

Ex: I have a town read on you. I manage to find time to tug you aside. "Hey Call, I'm the Cop. X is Mafia. Tell the group so I don't get shot". Secret claiming, safe town fakeclaiming, you can't say for certain any setup is balanced in that environment. Investigative roles can claim their results to town reads before they die, town players can fakeclaim a PR to scum on the theory that if they get shot then they have a better read on who the scum might be, etc. We don't run forum mafia that way, and it's a totally different game. The ability to generate information asymmetry is really, really, fundamentally powerful.

Now this assumes it's in the hands of Genius players. Genius players would break Original Newbie in 12 seconds flat, and they'd probably do something horrible to C-14 or Bird 7P too (that game where three people were trying to lose was really something else). If you take a standard reality-TV show group they'd probably no-lynch day 1 because "killing people is wrong". But god, the horrible shit you can do with good players in either setup is through the moon.

So I'd pick C-14 over B-7P. For one thing you'll discover that someone the doctor trusts fakeclaiming doctor for the doctor then getting protected at night is VERY ANNOYING.

[Mulch]

2 goons 2 masons 3 town

[callforjudgement]

You're REALLY not allowing for the advantages of a Genius-like setup here Call. That blows town power levels up.

Oh, I missed that private communication between townies (and townie/scum) was allowed. You're right, that completely blows setup balance out of the water unless the setup is almost entirely vanilla. I'm not sure we have the data or experience to know where the setup should end up as a result (although I suspect that it shouldn't have many power roles, and definitely shouldn't have many

different

power roles).

I guess I'd suggest starting with a Carbon-14 variant: 2 Goons, 3 VT, 2 Cops, but the scum are informed of who the cops are before the game and get to choose one to make Naive. This is noticeably more scumsided than regular Carbon-14, but the secret communication should make up for it, and the fact that scum can reasonably claim Cop means that players can't just all claim to the Cops and have them organize everything.

[GreyICE]

You're REALLY not allowing for the advantages of a Genius-like setup here Call. That blows town power levels up.

Oh, I missed that private communication between townies (and townie/scum) was allowed. You're right, that completely blows setup balance out of the water unless the setup is almost entirely vanilla. I'm not sure we have the data or experience to know where the setup should end up as a result (although I suspect that it shouldn't have many power roles, and definitely shouldn't have many

different

power roles).

I guess I'd suggest starting with a Carbon-14 variant: 2 Goons, 3 VT, 2 Cops, but the scum are informed of who the cops are before the game and get to choose one to make Naive. This is noticeably more scumsided than regular Carbon-14, but the secret communication should make up for it, and the fact that scum can reasonably claim Cop means that players can't just all claim to the Cops and have them organize everything.

Eh, they'd just shoot the non-naive cop N1.

I say just run C-14, unfamiliarity usually biases things a bit towards scum. If you end up with a Genius crowd... I mean you're screwed. Dong-min doesn't need Power Roles, he'd soulread both scum in a heartbeat.

[humaneatingmonkey]

Is fakeclaiming as a cop on D1 together with the cop a good counter to the game breaking strategy? (Original Setup)

[humaneatingmonkey]

What's a Genuis?

[GreyICE]

It's a Korean show you should look up.

[callforjudgement]

Is fakeclaiming as a cop on D1 together with the cop a good counter to the game breaking strategy? (Original Setup)

Yes, Original Newbie play requires really aggressive fakeclaiming from the scum, and a Cop fakeclaim D1 is the usual strategy.

Also, GreyICE is right that you can't let scum know who the cops are in Carbon-14; I probably shouldn't setup design while tired. I find the setup somewhat unsatisfactory to explain, though. (Why is it that there are two cops but don't work? "The mafia are sometimes actually werewolves" would sound completely ridiculous to anyone who doesn't know the game.) Perhaps instead of giving the scum the cops' identities, you could give them some other piece of information (e.g. letting scum decide whether to lock out "the older cop" or "the younger cop").

[GreyICE]

I'd say instead give them a bit of a story. One's an undercover cop, one is an undercover FBI agent. They've both been assigned to the case because the department is aware that one of the two is compromised and clearing people who are cops.

Just switch up when the investigation goes through - they name their target at the start of day, not the end of it (this reduces power quite a bit). One will trigger a real investigation into the person's background, one will trigger a phony investigation that will clear them regardless of guilt. Obviously they won't know which is which.

The other option is to go a sillier/more reality TV option, and let them give out a cross or silver each night. Then any vampire with a cross has to drop it and hiss, and any werewolf with silver has to howl. This makes the investigation more public, but is also more fun.

[humaneatingmonkey]

I'm watching the Genius now. Thanks for sharing this.

[mhsmith0]

A 7p (5/2) version of desperation day might not be terribly unbalanced as well, fwiw, especially if you allow for the notion that people will do better at solving in a live format compared to an internet forum format.

[callforjudgement]

On the subject of Mafia game shows, it's been tried, apparently not to much success. The format appears to have been 7:2 vanilla, except with an RVS bypass (forcing the scum to lie about their personal life, as a method of identifying the first scum without using in-game information) and unclear rules for the scum's kill timing (which were, I suspect, probably tweaked by the production team in realtime to prevent the game becoming a blowout one way or the other; it's common for game shows to value being interesting to watch above being fair).

[hitogoroshi]

Since Grey was too modest, I'll shamelessly plug our 8p setup in case you can bump up by one (you said 9p was an option, so I assume 8p is). In terms of viability as a game show, it has the positive property that there's only one nk and the rest of kills are lynches. Having D1 be so disproportionately important might hurt the dramatic arc a bit, but at least it makes your first episode stronger.

[Korts]

Out of the setups that have been heavily tested (i.e. are or once were in Open or Newbie rotation) and have the properties you want (in particular, a normal scum nightkill cycle), the choice is basically Carbon-14, Bird 7P, or Original Newbie.

What about C9?

[Bicephalous Bob]

If you're looking for large sample sizes, SCIENCE! and C-14 have respectively been played 3200 and 1400 times on EM, with town win rates of 43% and 47%: https://epicmafia.com/setup/632090 and https://epicmafia.com/setup/678805

It's important to note that face-to-face Mafia is typically harder on scum. SCIENCE has been pretty balanced even with new players in my experience.

[chamber]

I don't think em mafia is quite mafiascum mafia. There are important distinctions, especially in smaller player setups, like the way votes work.

[callforjudgement]

What about C9?

C9 isn't balanced with respect to individual subsetups. Additionally, all four individual subsetups are scumsided, often very much so. (Original Newbie is one of the subsetups, but is about 30% town win when it's part of C9 because players don't know the setup and thus can't exploit that information in their scumhunting. Cop-only has a similar win rate. The setups without a Cop are much worse, 22% for doctor-only and 17% for vanilla.) These statistics aren't surprising when you take into account the fact that a Doctor is almost useless for town in a 5:2 unless another protective role exists (it'd need to successfully prevent a kill on the Cop in particular for the nightplay to have any effect on the game, so the main advantage of the role is the dayplay advantage of being able to counterclaim a scum Doctor claim).

[callforjudgement]

I don't think em mafia is quite mafiascum mafia. There are important distinctions, especially in smaller player setups, like the way votes work.

SCIENCE! has an 11% town win rate on Mafiascum with a sample size large enough for it to be statistically significant result that the setup at least is scumsided. (Statistics can never tell you the "true" win rate, just what range of confidence the win rates lie in, and there's less than a 5% chance based on observed results that the setup is townsided here.)

This is pretty good evidence that EpicMafia and Mafiascum have some notable difference in their meta or in their rules that affects the win rate of this setup.