[Challenge] Team Mafia 2020

[Volpe14]

C9++

No...

Oh my god we should unironically do half mast nightless.

Yes

[Volpe14]

The setup of:

Odd-Night Cop
Jailkeeper
Macho Named VT
9 VT

seems pretty good for me if we're talking about a standard setup. For a special one I'm not sure yet.

Maybe I would consider adding a 1-shot Mafia Roleblocker to be honest. That or maybe making the cop Macho too. The cop being unlynchable/unkillable after outed sounds kind of really lame, even if he probably loses his abilities (He can even end up getting another/clear guilty if JK tries to WIFOM, and it's pretty risky for mafia to lose a NK because it gives town one more lynch?).

Making the cop macho/giving mafia a x-shot roleblocker in my opinion makes it pretty close to 50/50 while currently it's a bit town sided. I like it 50/50 rather than giving town an advantage.

[OkaPoka]

Nk15 reminded me

What about gameshow mafia r2

[RadiantCowbells]

I don't want to undergo that trauma again

[OkaPoka]

This time scum have all the agency and town have to survive the waves of powers scum have

[OkaPoka]

Or 4v11 with no repickers and scum can sabotage powers

[RadiantCowbells]

I have no idea how 'spoilered townies get to all tell the town to vote scum in LyLo' ever passed review and I'm still traumatized by that.

I was really impressed by Maria until the game ended and I realized what the situation was tbh.

Wait what did I imagine my scumbuddy outing me I just reread dead thread and can't find it

NVM yeah fusco outed me.

[RadiantCowbells]

On top of the fact that we groomed Nancy Drew Hydra for the call a friend and then couldn't do it.

So we had to surprise call a friend someone that we hadn't prepared a paper trail for and there weren't a lot of legitimate options...

[callforjudgement]

Ebb and Flow

• 4 Mafia Goons
  
• 11 Vanilla Townies
  
• Normal day/night, lynch, etc. mechanics, except that scum nightkills are compulsive (town may no-lynch if they wish)
  
• If town lynches scum on an
  odd-numbered
  day, scum must sacrifice one of their own the following night (although they still get a nightkill, in addition to the sacrifice)
  
• Lynching scum on an even-numbered day does not have anything special about it

Inspired by White Flag, Red Flag and Desperation Day: days 1, 3, and 5 are all important (but lynching scum is still beneficial on days 2, 4, and 6).

Assuming I haven't messed my calculations up, EV is 38.98% to town, which seems about right for this mechanic.

[popsofctown]

Assuming I haven't messed my calculations up, EV is 38.98% to town, which seems about right for

this mechanic.

Site consensus on EV %ages would say a 39% EV setup should only have townsided mechanics external to the EV.
This setup is heavily scumsided in the elements of the setup external to the EV, because the EV is based on random lynching and the sacrificed player being a random just-as-good-as-anyone-else risk for getting randomly lynched. In reality the sacrificed player is going to be someone who was definitely getting lynched this game or close to it and should barely move the needle.

Not that escape mechanics are bad, I think we should do them from time to time, I'm just saying the numbers don't make sense to me unless you're trying to push a setup way more scumsided than standard.

Team Mafia might not be the best time to give escape mechanics their day in the sun since if the winning team is town paragon+town paragon+that guy who tried a meme but it didn't work but it didn't really hurt his team that much since he was selected as the escape then it's kind of awkward story to tell? OTOH MS ought to have more sacrificial play than it does, I mostly take that back.

[popsofctown]

The Giver mafia

12:3
Starting night one, each night the mafia distribute the "potential" roles to each town aligned player. The recipient doesn't learn their potential role. When there are not enough players for the roles, the bottommost roles are omitted:

• Parity Cop
  Loyal Neighborizer
  Sane Cop
  Jailkeeper
  Watcher
  Roleblocker
  Friendly Neighbor
  Tracker
  Neighborizer
  Rolecop
  Mailman
  Fruit Vendor

Each day, after the lynch is decided, the town makes a plurality vote on a player to crown. If that player is town, the player is bulletproof for one night and can use their potential role for one night, and they can never be crowned again for the rest of the game. If that player is mafia, that player selects any one role from the full list to use for that one night and gains a 1-shot lynchproof.

[Something_Smart]

What happens if scum use friendly neighbor?

[popsofctown]

What happens if scum use friendly neighbor?

I assumed cfj's handling for it in his theme was an "industrywide standard" but on second though I don't have a basis for that.
The effect is that the friendly neighbor action is converted to a Visitor action.

[Gamma Emerald]

The Giver mafia

12:3
Starting night one, each night the mafia distribute the "potential" roles to each town aligned player. The recipient doesn't learn their potential role. When there are not enough players for the roles, the bottommost roles are omitted:

• Parity Cop
  Loyal Neighborizer
  Sane Cop
  Jailkeeper
  Watcher
  Roleblocker
  Friendly Neighbor
  Tracker
  Neighborizer
  Rolecop
  Mailman
  Fruit Vendor

Each day, after the lynch is decided, the town makes a plurality vote on a player to crown. If that player is town, the player is bulletproof for one night and can use their potential role for one night, and they can never be crowned again for the rest of the game. If that player is mafia, that player selects any one role from the full list to use for that one night and gains a 1-shot lynchproof.

Looks kinda cool but feels scum sided mechanically

[popsofctown]

The Giver mafia

12:3
Starting night one, each night the mafia distribute the "potential" roles to each town aligned player. The recipient doesn't learn their potential role. When there are not enough players for the roles, the bottommost roles are omitted:

• Parity Cop
  Loyal Neighborizer
  Sane Cop
  Jailkeeper
  Watcher
  Roleblocker
  Friendly Neighbor
  Tracker
  Neighborizer
  Rolecop
  Mailman
  Fruit Vendor

Each day, after the lynch is decided, the town makes a plurality vote on a player to crown. If that player is town, the player is bulletproof for one night and can use their potential role for one night, and they can never be crowned again for the rest of the game. If that player is mafia, that player selects any one role from the full list to use for that one night and gains a 1-shot lynchproof.

Looks kinda cool but feels scum sided mechanically

Like the numbers/powers are wrong, or the mechanic has an inherent scumsidedness? The 1-shot lynchproof could be overbearing but I think there has to be some risk or the setup devolves to crowning the scummiest person to try to get the best power, which flips it upside down. 1-shot might be enough punishment, maybe? Maybe 2 shots?

[Gamma Emerald]

Inherently scumsided
I don’t think rewarding a mafioso with a OS lynchproof for fooling town on the sub-vote is conducive to good balance, as it makes it take longer to eliminate them
Though when the lynch fails that is a straight up guilty

[callforjudgement]

What happens if scum use friendly neighbor?

I assumed cfj's handling for it in his theme was an "industrywide standard" but on second though I don't have a basis for that.
The effect is that the friendly neighbor action is converted to a Visitor action.

That was totally Theme mechanics that I made up because it worked well with my own mechanics, it's not something that's standard at all. That said, maybe it

should

be standard; a Visitor action looks identical to a Friendly Neighbour action to everyone but the recipient, so it gives scum who are known to have a Friendly Neighbour role some small chance of surviving it (because at least you have someone to counterclaim).

[Gamma Emerald]

In addition unless you force scum to target town, they can just target a buddy and either tie themselves together by faking a successful action or distance by saying it was a visitor action

[Gammagooey]

Personally I'd want to keep the setup relatively simple and understandable, and not include a cop that can largely eliminate how much one player/team's effort into the game matters by giving the town a 100% unquestionable alignment check. 1-shot cop could maybe be fine but even then I'd prefer alternative roles than that to include.

My two suggestions:

Modified Tit for Tat

1 Town 2-shot Vigilante
1 Town Jailkeeper
1 Town Backup Rolecop (Becomes Rolecop once the Mafia Rolecop dies, returns vanilla on VTs and the Mafia Goon, full role on everyone else)
9 Vanilla Townies

1 Mafia Rolecop
1 Mafia Backup Jailkeeper (Becomes Jailkeeper once the Town Jailkeeper dies)
1 Mafia Goon

It's probably a little swingier than I'd like but it's fairly simple and gives the Mafia a big incentive to keep the Rolecop alive and find and eliminate town power roles in a fairly simple Mafia game.

Modified Pick your Poison

(mostly stolen from Patrick's version here with a few changes: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14723)

Special Rules

The setup in this game is semi-open. There are only two factions: a three person mafia v a twelve person town. Initially you will receive one of the following PMs:

You are a part of the mafia, along with Y and Z. Your organisation would like to take over the town, but a direct assault is out of the question; look how many of them there are! Instead you operate in secrecy, attempting to turn the town against itself before they can weed out and kill your entire family. You can talk to your partners at any point in the game, and at night you may choose to send one of your number to kill someone in the town. You've also sabotaged some of the town's resources; but you'll have to decide what poweroles they have left before the game starts. You have 96 hours to talk pregame to decide on three town poweroles; see the third post for more details. Please use this quicktopic for all mafia communication: XXXXX.

You win when the town no longer has the majority, regardless of what roles are still alive.

You are a townsperson. You've taken a vow to protect your town and destroy the mafia terrorising it, even if your own life is lost in the process. Of course, that would be alot easier if you knew where to look. You may well have some useful ability, but you'll have to wait until day 0 starts to find out.

You win when the mafia has been eliminated.

During the pregame stage, the mafia have a maximum of 96 hours as a group to decide on three town poweroles, from the list given below. Doubling up on the same role is allowed, but not tripling.

You are a weak doctor. Every night you

must

send me the name of a player to protect; all nightkills against them that night will fail. If you protect a member of the mafia, they will kill you without a shadow of a doubt. Note that even doc protection would not save you in this scenario.

You are a jailkeeper. Each night you can choose to jail someone if you so wish; they will be made immune to all kills that night, and will also be roleblocked.

You are a tracker. Each night you can send me the name of a player you wish to follow; I'll tell you whether or not they took a night-action, and if they did, I'll also tell you who they targetted.

You are a hider. Each night you may choose to hide with someone if you so wish. Any nightkills targetted directly at you will fail, but if the person you're hiding with is killed, you will die with them. If you hide with a member of the mafia, they will kill you without a shadow of a doubt. Note that even doc protection would not save you in this scenario.

You are a 3-shot vigilante. Why stand by passively when you just happen to own a gun? Each night you may choose to kill another player if you wish. You have 3 shots, but can only use one per night.

When the mafia have chosen, the poweroles are immediately distributed randomly to three town players. Then day 0 begins. During the day 0, everyone has to vote for two perks to give the mafia, from the following list:

You are a day rolecop. Every day you can send me the name of a player and I'll tell you their role. Note that twilight is too late to send me a choice.

You are a roleblocker with 3 shots. On any night you may roleblock another player, preventing them from taking any action that night. If you roleblock a powerole, they will show up to a tracker as not having gone anywhere.

You are a one shot janitor. Once in the game, during the day, you can ask me to cover up the role of the player lynched that day; they will show up as ???? for the rest of the game. Twilight is too late to send me a choice. Note that you can cover up your own alignment in this way.

You are an assassin, and you have the power to perform two extra nightkills, on top of the normal mafia kill. Unfortunately, there are two restrictions:
(1) You can't use an extra kill if it could potentially end the game with an immediate mafia win.
(2) Your kills only work on town poweroles. If a kill goes through on a vanilla townie, it fizzles and you don't get it again. If a kill fails for some other reason, you do get to try it again.

During day 0, you can vote and unvote as normal, except that you have two votes, since you're giving the mafia two perks. You can't put both your votes on the same perk. Once both perks are chosen, the game starts straight away with day 1, and continues as a normal game. During the first 24 hours of day 1, the mafia have to choose which of their members gets which perk and which two stay as goons. No lynch can occur during the first 24 hours, not that that would ever happen anyway with so many seasoned players.

Clarifications

(list may grow if people ask me questions)

1. Two hiders hiding with each other makes them both unightkillable, assuming no roleblocking inteference.
   
2. Two jailkeepers jailing each other doesn't protect either, and if either were tracked they would show as going nowhere.
   
3. A mafia member can't kill and use their night action on the same Night.
   
4. An assassin can't use both extra kills on the same Night.
   
5. Tracker is the only role that gets told if it was blocked from performing its action.
   
6. An assassin always knows how many shots it has left to try.
   
7. A janitor does receive their shot back if No Lynch occurs on the Day they use it.
   
8. A janitor may retract their shot anytime before Lynch happens.

[Gammagooey]

Equivalent Retaliation

Mafia Odd-Night Rolecop
Mafia Even-Night Jailkeeper
Mafia Goon x2

Town Odd-Night Jailkeeper
Town Even-Night Rolecop
Town Vigilante
Vanilla Townie x8

Idea based on Tit for Tat, I’ve always wanted to renovate the setup because I just don’t like the backup idea. So instead each side has a Rolecop and Jailkeeper, arranges so one side’s Rolecop acts the night the other side’s Jailkeeper acts. Mafia has Rolecop on odds and Jailkeeper on evens which makes the setup still carry some of the old feel imo. Also no one has thought to suggest an 11:4 game yet so figured I would.

This also looks pretty good, though I think it becomes very scum-sided if the vig dies n1.

[popsofctown]

Personally I'd want to keep the setup relatively simple and understandable, and not include a cop that can largely eliminate how much one player/team's effort into the game matters by giving the town a 100% unquestionable alignment check.

Weak roles do that. Hider arguably dampens even more than sane cop does since hider can't be managed with the nightkill.

I agree with negative sentiments being extra important for Team Mafia though.

[Gamma Emerald]

Equivalent Retaliation

Mafia Odd-Night Rolecop
Mafia Even-Night Jailkeeper
Mafia Goon x2

Town Odd-Night Jailkeeper
Town Even-Night Rolecop
Town Vigilante
Vanilla Townie x8

Idea based on Tit for Tat, I’ve always wanted to renovate the setup because I just don’t like the backup idea. So instead each side has a Rolecop and Jailkeeper, arranges so one side’s Rolecop acts the night the other side’s Jailkeeper acts. Mafia has Rolecop on odds and Jailkeeper on evens which makes the setup still carry some of the old feel imo. Also no one has thought to suggest an 11:4 game yet so figured I would.

This also looks pretty good, though I think it becomes very scum-sided if the vig dies n1.

I’d be willing to split the vig into odd and even nights, or add a backup vig. I feeling like option A is more on brand for what is already there but option B has less chance to cause swing, because the role interaction for option A could get kinda crazy.

[Gamma Emerald]

Also I like the attempt at making the revised Pick Your Poison, because that setup has needed some help, but idk if those role options, especially for scum, are the best balance wise. Also I realize numbers may counterbalance this but the scum powers kinda look rather OP on a quick skim

[Not Known 15]

Messed Up Setup 2.0

11 Vanilla Townies
4 Mafia Goons
The Mafia does have a nightkill, but it is compulsive(they have to submit a list of targets to kill if they are not avaliable at the start of the game, and can change it at any time in the night chat if it is open)
Instead of power roles, this game has events(to make it most fun for all....)
The Mafia does have daytalk, and night talk, sometimes...

Event table	Event 1	Event 2	Event 3
Day 1
Night 1	Judgement I	Popcorn I	Escape I
Day 2	Popcorn II	Disrupted Communications
Night 2	Jail I	Disrupted Communications
Day 3	Jail II
Night 3	Escape II	Popcorn I
Day 4	Disrupted Communications	Popcorn II
Night 4	Disrupted Communications
Day 5	LYLO:Locked Votes
Night 5	Judgement II
Day 6	LYLO:Locked Votes	FINAL VOTE

Event	Description
Judgement	In the first phase, everyone submits a person. In the second phase, if the person selected by the Nightkill of Judgement I was or is a member of the Mafia, the Mafia must gladiate someone.
Popcorn	At night the Mafia selects the first person to vote next day. The next day, that person selects both a vote to lock in and a person to do the same next. If anyone takes more than 48 hours to select someone, everyone may VOTE: END DAY. If a majority is reached before they select the next person, they get lynched. The last person can only vote people who have the most number of votes. Plurality lynch.
Jail	In Jail I, everyone selects two people. The nightkill's targets will be gladiated the following day.
Escape	The Mafia can remove a mafia member who isn't the nightkill target from the game(by majority vote) during Escape I. During Escape II they can remove up to two mafia members who aren't the nightkill(by majority vote). If only one mafia member escaped during both phases, after Escape II the four townies not being the nightkill target who are at the bottom of the list of targets gain public IC status. If no member of the Mafia escapes during these phases, they lose the game.
Disrupted Communications	The Mafia chat is locked. The list is used for the nightkills.
LYLO:Locked Votes	If it is LYLO, or the last day, votes are final(can't be changed) for that day.(2 mafia Day 5 or 1 Mafia Day 6 is always LYLO)

The Town wins if they eliminate all mafia or nothing can stop that from happening.
The Mafia wins if they gain the majority of votes, if nothing can stop that from happening or if a member of the Mafia survives until Night 6(because of No Lynch)

[popsofctown]

I actually like that setup a lot. Most of the time NK15's setups are good, I just have trouble discerning what they actually do based on the text. It's just more challenging to communicate something the farther it is from a newbie setup.

I'm concerned about whether Team Mafia is the best time to explore quasidemocratic mechanics like gladiation, but the same thing can possibly be said of submissions with a vig or submissions maybe even submissions with a particularly powerful investigative PR. On the scum side though, I think it's appealing how it should work out for team mafia, 4 scum instead of 3 means we get to see 33% more of the community's scumgames in the large open, and escape means it's less likely that one mafia obvscums and also generates bad associatives and writes too much of the story.

I feel like "LYLO Locked votes" should be something considered not part of the setup and just a part of the mod's policy or not. That'd be the easiest place to maybe trim some complexity which could get this appealing to people more.

A couple wording nitpicks: you said the list can be changed anytime the "nightchat" is open, but I think you mean any time the mafia chat is open.
The players who get conftowned for insufficient escaping from the mafia are at the "bottom" of the list, but the way I understand list-based setups is the NK target is at the top, and your NK targets are usually the people you think you can't mislynch, so they're generally at the top. The mafia could redo the list just for IC-ification event, then redo it again, but it seems like you could skip some hassle for everyone by making that say "at the top".