[SETUP] Undertale Semi-Open

[Something_Smart]

Originally made for the May Challenge. However, I like the concept of the setup and would rather have it be good than be valid for the challenge, so I'm willing to change it so that it doesn't conform to the requirements.

Undertale Semi-Open

2 Mafia Goons

8 Vanilla Townies

1 Town Character

(One randomly chosen out of six options that will be explained later)

Each day, town must vote to

Kill

one player (HURT: or VOTE: ) or

Spare

one player (HEAL: ). Votes are made to either Kill a specific player or Spare a specific player, and a player can only have one vote total across both options. Players may vote to spare themselves. (They may also vote to kill themselves, if you're into that sort of thing.) This is mandatory so if no majority is reached on either option by deadline, plurality wins out. The mafia can kill a player each night, prior to Night 4. (Obviously, this does not count as a capital-K Kill for any other mechanics.)

If a player is

Killed

, their role is revealed and they take no further part in the game.

If a player is

Spared

, their role is not revealed, and they are temporarily removed from the game and added to a separate Spared PT. However, they may possibly rejoin the game, if the

Core

is reached. If a mafia member is spared, they may continue to talk in the mafia chat in addition to the Spared PT.

If both mafia members are Killed, town immediately wins. If both mafia members are Spared, mafia immediately wins. Otherwise, the

Core

is reached immediately after the end of Day 4. At this point, one of three things will happen:

Pacifist Route:

If no players were Killed, the game enters the Pacifist Ending. There is no Night 4 kill. If all four Spared players were town, town immediately wins. Otherwise, all players still in the game are immediately removed from the game without flipping, and the Spared players are returned to the game. The game then continues with only the Spared players alive.

Neutral Route:

If at least one player was Spared and at least one player was Killed, the game enters the Neutral Ending. All Spared players rejoin the game, and the number of Spared mafia members (but not their identities) is revealed. The mafia get one kill on Night 4, plus one more if a mafia member was Spared. If this causes mafia to gain parity they win immediately, otherwise, the game continues with the previous living players and the Spared players both alive.

Genocide Route:

If no players were Spared, the game enters the Genocide Ending. There is no Night 4 kill. The game continues with no further change.

After the

Core

is reached, regardless of the ending, the game will continue as a normal game of mafia, with lynches and nightkills, and no-lynching allowed. Mafia win at parity, town win eliminating all mafia. (In the Pacifist Route lynching can be reflavored as

Saving

because, you know, Pacifist.)

The possible Town Characters are:

• Toriel: As long as no player has been Killed, Toriel can protect another player from a kill each night before the Core is reached.
  
• Alphys: If the
  Core
  is reached in a Pacifist Route and Alphys is still in the game, she can immediately choose another player still in the game to be Spared, causing the Pacifist Ending to be played out with five players instead of four. If the second mafia member is spared this way, it does not cause an immediate mafia win.
  
• Papyrus: On each even night, if at least one player has been Spared and at least one player has been Killed, Papyrus will learn the alignment of all Spared players.
  
• Asgore: If the
  Core
  is reached in a Neutral Route and Asgore is still in the game, he may jailkeep one player each night (starting Night 5).
  
• Undyne: On Night 2, if no player has been Spared, Undyne may choose any player, including herself, to be permanently bulletproof. They are not informed of this. This goes away if a player is ever Spared, or when the Core is reached.
  
• sans: If the
  Core
  is reached in a Genocide Route and Sans is still in the game, he can immediately kill one player.

Updates/Clarifications:
Alphys's spare cannot trigger double mafia spare win condition
Toriel and Undyne's powers do not work post-Core
Players may self-vote for either option at any time
Spared players have a PT to discuss in
Spared mafia members retain access to the mafia chat and can submit kills

[Something_Smart]

A few setup notes:

Obviously, what I want from this setup is for all three routes to be potentially attractive options. They all have different benefits and drawbacks but I want the overall strength to be about the same.

I did EV calculations for Pacifist and Genocide without the PR. Pacifist was 46%, Genocide 35%. This is assuming that town no-lynches in post-Core MYLO, making the EV there 1/3.

I think the Pacifist numbers are good. The named townie aspect barely raises town EV (the only time it matters is if the PR is spared without claiming and they aren't killed no-lynching in the Core), and the Pacifist PR's are intentionally weak. Alphys got a buff since Jingle commented on her, but I do agree that she's still probably too weak to use, since you risk ruining a town win outright. I'm considering some mechanic where she's made more likely to spare a town (i.e. pick two people and one of them is spared, randomly if they're the same alignment but always town if they are different).

Genocide's a bit worrying. The named townie aspect definitely matters here, but probably only for 5-10% or so. The Genocide PR's, particularly Undyne (and the fact that Sans can WIFOM being Undyne to try to avoid dying), are meant to make up most of the rest of the gap. I'm fine with Genocide being lower EV than Pacifist, because Genocide is the highest info route and Pacifist is the lowest.

Neutral's a pain. There are a lot of moving parts, and this is the route that needs the most analysis. Quick breakdown of the different options:
1 kill (LV 1): Core will be 6 alive with 2 confirmed town (no scum spared) or 5 alive with one scum confirmed in a group of 3 (scum spared).

2 kills (LV 2): Sparing one scum and not killing the other is game over. Beyond that, one scum spared and one killed is 4 alive with a 1v1 (autowin if Asgore is outside of the 1v1), and otherwise game goes to 5 alive.

3 kills (LV 3): No killed scum is autoloss. Interestingly, if the one spared player is scum town autowins, making it a benefit to spare scum here. Otherwise, the one spared player will be confirmed town and will presumably die, leaving 4 alive and making this route functionally equivalent to Genocide. If town spares a single player and later decides they were probably scum, this route is beneficial.

[Something_Smart]

The idea with the PR's is that they kind of have to do exactly what you were saying you wanted scum to do-- push the town toward a particular route without being too obvious, since most of the PR's lose all their power if scum find out who they are.

With the setup as it is currently, what kind of minmaxing would you attempt to do as town? Are there any PR's that stand out as especially bad, and what makes you feel that way? (And by bad I don't really mean weak, I know Alphys is weak as shit. I want to know what you think kills the elegance.)

[Something_Smart]

That's pretty much only an issue with Toriel, I guess. None of the other PR's can make their presence known like that without claiming, except for Undyne, who gets 100% of her utility out of stopping a single kill so what happens after doesn't matter anyway.

Personally, I definitely don't think the decision to remain on Pacifist in spite of an obvious lynch is that clear, and I think that the outside chance of stopping another kill (which is lower since scum now probably have a lot of info on who Toriel is) wouldn't necessarily be better than getting to know Bob's alignment now rather than in a few days.

If you still think it's too flat and mathematical, I could nerf Toriel to be disabled if she gets a save. That would probably make her as bad as Alphys, which I don't really mind because in Pacifist town hardly needs the PR help.

It would also, I think, alleviate your issue, because town has no way to know for sure what their PR is until the PR's used up all their power.

[Something_Smart]

I changed Undyne's BP to go away after the Core, yes. That was always the intention but I didn't document it well.

The only thing about Papyrus is that he has to dodge a whole lot of kills to be useful, and maybe that's bad and should be changed. Aside from possibly learning a single spared player's alignment on N2, his power only activated N4 and it only matters if mafia are spared, meaning they get two kills that night in addition to the three they had throughout the game.

Maybe I should just make him a regular even-night cop, with the same Neutral condition. That assures that if he claims D3 scum can still eliminate him and his check before Core, but if he isn't forced to claim until D4 and scum didn't hit him or his check N3, they may be forced to let his check into the Core. This also interacts with the extra scum kill from getting spared and with the number of players surviving to the Core.

I agree that the AoE cop is kinda nasty. Do you think this would be better? It does have the capacity to break the game, but only if town plays very well in which case they deserve it.

[Something_Smart]

I could possibly do that. But if you want me to buff the Neutral and Genocide PR's more, when they're already way stronger than the Pacifist ones, maybe I need to just make Pacifist weaker.

Ideally, I want the routes to be close enough in strength that, without knowing what the PR is, all three routes might be attractive. I do think that if you proposed always going Pacifist there would be people who would push against it because you go the whole game with very little info and there's almost no recourse against a deepwolf.

But regardless, what makes you think Pacifist is better than the other two? Just the EV? I could disallow no-lynching after the Core, but that wouldn't help if the PR claims and is spared... can you think of any other ways I could reduce Pacifist EV?

[Something_Smart]

I don't really want there to be a "right path." Obviously which PR is chosen will make one path better, but other game factors can and should influence which path will work out the best in any given situation.

Therefore, to nerf the Pacifist route, I don't want to change the PR's to make them even less Pacifist-siding, since the PR that's in the game is information that's not available to most players and they can't use it to come to any definite conclusions about how the route will turn out.

The thing is, the setup is so elegant right now that almost any change would make it less so Maybe I could say that, after the Core is reached in Pacifist, the four living players must Spare a fifth player, then the reversal happens and the spared players survive but scum can kill one of them. That still leads to MYLO but it makes it a whole lot less likely that town wins outright by sparing only townies... though the problem is, if both scum are still alive by the Core, it's 2:2 (barring a Toriel save) and scum can block sparing anyone but scum.

Possibly I could have the fourth spared player choose a fifth, though THAT is really punishing if the fourth is scum, immediately adds their scumbuddy and kills a townie to win.

Maybe the best option here is to have the four spared players vote on a fifth living player to spare, and then if there's exactly one scum in the spared group, the scum kill into MYLO. That actually retains most of the elegance while nerfing the route significantly, and also making the "PR claims and is spared" strategy less effective (though it's still effective if the PR is spared without claiming). Alphys would have to be reworked, but that's less of an issue than making the actual route balanced so I can worry about it afterward.

Thoughts?

[Something_Smart]

Yeah, I like that idea as a compromise.

Regarding the out of path PR's, aren't they just a named townie either way? Like, if you model the gamestate in terms of an aggregated list of players from towny to scummy, the out of path PR jumps to the top of the list and nothing else.

I'm not sure if a confirmed town is better in a townhunting game than it is in a scumhunting game. Yeah it's someone you can auto-spare but it's also someone who will be auto-killed come Core. Whereas, the out of path PR's in Genocide take away a potential mislynch for scum.

I'm of the opinion that, with this Pacifist nerf, the Pacifist route is not significantly stronger than the others. I'd like to see how other people feel, I guess.

Also, with the new Pacifist rules there are only 3 living players at the end so Alphys would have at best a 50/50. Maybe I can say that Alphys can use her power if spared, and it happens concurrently with the Pacifist Core NK, and it fails if Alphys is killed.

[Something_Smart]

Yeah, you're right, I think.

Do you think I should make Genocide better?

[Something_Smart]

Hmm.

The player on the most lynch wagons?

That's interesting, actually. Although rather than BP which doesn't really mean much if it's public, what if, when the Core is reached, the alignment of the player with the most LOVE (i.e. on the most lynch wagons) is revealed?

That would be cool, because it would encourage the Genocide PR's to push Genocide but not actually be on the lynch wagons, because obviously the PR doesn't want to end up being Judged (as it would be flavored).

[Something_Smart]

Let's try that for now. Here's where we're at currently.

Undertale Semi-Open

2 Mafia Goons

8 Vanilla Townies

1 Town Character

(One randomly chosen out of six options that will be explained later)

Each day, town must vote to

Kill

one player (HURT: or VOTE: ) or

Spare

one player (HEAL: ). Votes are made to either Kill a specific player or Spare a specific player, and a player can only have one vote total across both options. Players may vote to spare themselves. (They may also vote to kill themselves, if you're into that sort of thing.) This is mandatory so if no majority is reached on either option by deadline, plurality wins out. The mafia can kill a player each night, prior to Night 4. (Obviously, this does not count as a capital-K Kill for any other mechanics.)

If a player is

Killed

, their role is revealed and they take no further part in the game.

If a player is

Spared

, their role is not revealed, and they are temporarily removed from the game and added to a separate Spared PT. However, they may possibly rejoin the game, if the

Core

is reached. If a mafia member is spared, they may continue to talk in the mafia chat in addition to the Spared PT.

If both mafia members are Killed, town immediately wins. If both mafia members are Spared before the

Core

, mafia immediately wins. Otherwise, the

Core

is reached immediately after the end of Day 4. At this point, one of three things will happen:

Pacifist Route:

If no players were Killed, the game enters the Pacifist Ending. There is no Night 4 kill. If all four Spared players were town, town immediately wins. Otherwise, all players still in the game must vote to Spare a fifth player, after which all the non-Spared players are immediately removed from the game without flipping, and the Spared players are returned to the game. The mafia kill one (Spared) player, and then the game then continues with only the remaining Spared players alive.

Neutral Route:

If at least one player was Spared and at least one player was Killed, the game enters the Neutral Ending. All Spared players rejoin the game, and the number of Spared mafia members (but not their identities) is revealed. The mafia get one kill on Night 4, plus one more if a mafia member was Spared. If this causes mafia to gain parity they win immediately, otherwise, the game continues with the previous living players and the Spared players both alive.

Genocide Route:

If no players were Spared, the game enters the Genocide Ending. The player with the most LOVE-- that is, the player who was on the most wagons that led to a Kill-- is determined, and the alignment of this player is publicly revealed. (For tiebreaks, see the footnote*) There is no Night 4 kill. The game continues with no further change.

After the

Core

is reached, regardless of the ending, the game will continue as a normal game of mafia, with lynches and nightkills, and no-lynching allowed. Mafia win at parity, town win by eliminating all mafia. (In the Pacifist Route lynching can be reflavored as

Saving

because, you know, Pacifist.)

The possible Town Characters are:

• Toriel: As long as no player has been Killed, Toriel can protect another player from a kill each night before the
  Core
  is reached. If Toriel protects a player from a kill in this way, she can no longer use her ability.
  
• Alphys: If the
  Core
  is reached in a Pacifist Route and Alphys is still in the game or has been spared, she can choose another player still in the game to be Spared during the same phase as the mafia are choosing their kill, causing the Pacifist Ending to be played out with five players instead of four. If Alphys was Spared but is killed during this phase, her action fails. If the second mafia member is spared this way, or if a mafia member is spared upon reaching the
  Core
  but Alphys is in the game and not dead, it does not cause an immediate mafia win.
  
• Papyrus: On each even night, if at least one player has been Spared and at least one player has been Killed, Papyrus can target a player and learn their alignment.
  
• Asgore: If the
  Core
  is reached in a Neutral Route and Asgore is still in the game, he may jailkeep one player each night (starting Night 5).
  
• Undyne: On Night 2, if no player has been Spared, Undyne may choose any player, including herself, to be permanently bulletproof. They are not informed of this. This goes away if a player is ever Spared, or when the
  Core
  is reached.
  
• sans: If the
  Core
  is reached in a Genocide Route and Sans is still in the game, he can immediately kill one player, after the player with the most LOVE is determined but before their alignment is revealed.

*LOVE tiebreaks between players on the same number of wagons are: Lowest sum of their positions on the wagons -> On the earliest lynch wagon -> On the earlier position on the earliest Kill wagon they are on. This should resolve all LOVE ties.

[Something_Smart]

Go for it! That's what the open setup discussion forum is for!

Asgore change makes sense, as does removing the more complicated characters for the pilot run of the setup.

Put me as a pre-in, too. I'm slightly overgamed, but I always try to find the time to play in open setups I've designed when someone else is running them

[Something_Smart]

Your call, I guess. Sans is definitely more swingy than Undyne. If Sans lives to Core without the most LOVE, town will probably win.

[Something_Smart]

I say ask T-Bone. If he says no, you can always just rewrite the rules to remove or change the flavor. I agree that rule seems kind of arbitrary.

[Something_Smart]

In the mod PT I have been posting lots of brainstormed ideas for a new neutral route, since it is the route in the setup I am most unhappy with. I have rejected like 4 ideas already after calculating EVs. (The EV on the current neutral route is fine, but the EV changes very little when the town spares scum, which I view as a flaw.)

I finally have one that seems to have acceptable EVs, and retains the property of being qualitatively different from both pacifist and genocide, and meets the goal of punishing towns for sparing scum. It is very iffy to spare exactly two players, but the original neutral route has that issue anyway.
My nickname for this one is Double Barrel. Some of the inspiration for the design was Nachomamma8's notion about sparing players for being strong rather than just being town aligned, and this setup rewards that moreso than the previous neutral.

I welcome any feedback on this potential design.

Neutral Route: In all other cases, the game enters neutral route. The members of the spared PT immediately kill two players from the main thread. If there are two spared players, each spared player picks a kill in the spared PT without nokilling or targeting the other spared player's target. If there's an odd number of spared players, a combination of players to be killed is selected by majority vote.
After these kills resolve, the spared players are returned to the game. There is no Night 4 nightkill.
The game then continues with the spare option removed and the town win condition of "kill all mafia".

Yes I am not positive how I want the 2 spared players game to work. I thought about different things like them each choosing secretly or picking in order of spared PT seniority. I like having the shots be guaranteed to be different. Currently the 2 spared players route has the lowest EV of all neutral routes (a bug/feature of the original setup as well), so that made me more willing to put off figuring out what to do on that. It's possible a completely different outcome just for exactly two spares is the best thing to do.

Do you mean you don't think it benefits scum to get scum spared in the new neutral route, or in the old one? The benefit to sparing scum is admittedly somewhat subtle in Double Barrel. Scum just controls 2, 1, or <democratic influence on 2> nightkills. But also, mafia cannot be targeted by the nightkills, so even if there's a one out of three scum who doesn't successfully influence the NK decision that scum has the benefit of surviving at least to day 5, where they can push for a mislynch on another spared PT player, whereas if no scum are spared it's possible for scum to lose before a single spared PT post can be quoted and used to push a mislynch.

I think Double Barrel rewards sparing scum more than original Undertale Semi-Open but would quickly say that what I have put down in Undertale Smalltown more dramatically and excitingly rewards the scum for sparing scum compared to either setup. There might be something even better than Double Barrel that doesn't have the complexity cost of Undertale Smalltown, but I haven't thought of it yet.

Ok how about this:

Dating Game:
If exactly two players were spared, the game enters Dating Game. The players in the spared PT try to date. If either player is scum, the date is a failure. The spared players are returned to the game, then the mafia performs strong kills until there is one more town player than mafia. The mafia grants either the (previously) spared players or the (previously) unspared players one day phase of lynch proof.

If both players are town, the date is a success! The spared PT players become lovers and one shot bodyguards. A mafia goon becomes lovers with the player of his choice, choosing mafia if able. The remaining two players also become lovers. There is no night four. The town fights a lover pair, and then the lover relationships end.

In both cases, the town win condition becomes "kill all the mafia", and the mafia must prevent that.

[Something_Smart]

Dating Game seems really random and weird in a way that would detract from the simplicity of the setup.

As for Double Barrel, I may be misunderstanding, but it seems like a step in the wrong direction, because spared scum have even less of an influence on who gets killed.

[Something_Smart]

Is it public who submitted what kill in 2-2? Can they target each other?

[Something_Smart]

In short: are you assuming spared scum will use that kill as a NK or be LAMIST and use it as a lynch?

[Something_Smart]

It doesn't seem like scum benefit from being spared then, unless they want to 1v1 (which would be kinda like how it was before).

[Something_Smart]

In all neutral, I think. Scum don't really get any control over the kills if they have to be LAMIST with them, so being spared doesn't help them.

Also 2-2 shouldn't be worse than the others because then it makes the choice of whether to kill or spare on D4 obvious.

[Something_Smart]

What about making all spared players doublevoters and saying scum only win when they get a majority of VOTES?

[Something_Smart]

With everything else being normal, no N4 kill but standard lynches/kills after that.

That might work, actually.

[Something_Smart]

It would be funny to say that scum only get to NK after a spare, but as soon as someone is spared the scum get all the NK's they would have gotten before.

That way genocide route is just straight 9:3 nightless, which is balanced, and probably more fun than 9:3 white flag with N4 skipped (though that is also probably balanced).

If you said that in neutral route scum got N4 kills equal to the number of NK's they missed, then in theory the balance would be the same, but I think it doesn't benefit town at all to go neutral after a D1 kill.

In fact, I think that's always true. Neutral route seems objectively worse than genocide route; you get no information, scum get free kills while town is busy sparing people only to bring them back to life, and town loses a lynch due to the beloved princesses, not to mention that genocide has white flag.

Also, what happens in pacifist if town decide not to lynch after New Home? Because they almost certainly will, twice in a row, and I don't see anywhere that the scum NK is compulsive. (It probably should be.)

[Something_Smart]

Yeah I misread some stuff

Neutral still seems objectively worse than genocide.

[Something_Smart]

Why is it bad that scum control the game there? It's kinda interesting

[Something_Smart]

What happens if the mafia get a majority of the living unspared players?

[Something_Smart]

I guess town would never choose to spare on the fifth day in that case, since they lose no matter the result. But then the "if there are five spared players when the Stampede happens" clause is irrelevant.