[Challenge] Team Mafia 2020

[popsofctown]

Open Cyclic Mafia

12 Townies

3 Scum

Smalltown distribution of powers. Multiacting is inherent to the setup. All powers are cyclic, which means they can be used up to one time, and either way they are passed to another player after all other night actions resolve. A player holding multiple powers chooses a unique living target to pass his power to for each power, if able. Roles don't disrupt passing, but a dead player can't pass on their role, and when a player dies just before they receive a role it is discarded.
1 Cyclic Loyal Vigilante
1 Cyclic Tracker
1 Cyclic Psychologist
1 Cyclic Rolecop
1 Cyclic Compulsive Loud Visitor
1 Cyclic Compulsive Fruit Vendor
1 Cyclic Bodyguard
1 Cyclic Simple Doctor
1 Cyclic Neighborizer :the player who starts with this starts as a neighbor
1 Cyclic Scavenger : if the targeted player dies that night or the following day, his or her wishes regarding passing on cyclic powers are honored anyway.
1 Cyclic Complex Roleblocker
1 Cyclic Asceticizer
1 Cyclic Complex Bodyguard
1 Cyclic Motion Detector
1 Cyclic Hated


This is maybe an ambitious shitpost but I always wished the Eruci setup got used more.

[popsofctown]

The pregame role flavorer in TL's setup seems like a variant of Innocent Child with some kind of complex crumb/hassle process for confirming role.
It's not completely identical to activated IC but I think it's not different enough to be exciting.

[popsofctown]

It's ambiguous to me whether you could just submit a fully open Star Wars mafia for this if you wanted to. "No flavor" is a rule of the Open queue, not a natural part of the definition of what constitutes an open or closed setup. And this game won't touch any queue, players will be assigned to it.
Having a Named Townie write the flavor incentivizes the Named townie to identify some sort of flavor that cannot be uniquely associated with that user, because that would aid mafia PR hunting. This disincentivizes him/her from writing flavor that would make the game enjoyable or aesthetically pleasing. Having the moderator write flavor invites no such harms. I'd expect a better average experience if the mod flavored the game and the flavorizer slot was replaced with activated IC/friendly neighbor than as written.

[popsofctown]

Nightless setups are invalid

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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".

[popsofctown]

Make the mafia always have a noncompulsive nightkill, but the Mafiosi performing it has to be mafia goon A, and the goon can only shoot someone from the same district.

Hack nightlessness into the setup against the factional NK requirement >_<

[popsofctown]

You could remove two townies from FG dance game and remove the IC and it would still be townsided. People just repeatedly throw the setup by using the leave option even though it is 50% as effective as lynching from every townie's point of view.

[popsofctown]

Scum gendering seems ideal.
Gay or straight might be a bigger question.
Whether we can actually do a nightless when the Team Mafia administration specifically said a factional NK game is probably bigger bigger question.

[popsofctown]

I mean, scum does have one factional nightkill.

Seems like one too many doesn't it?

[popsofctown]

What’s the current winrate for scum in dance games? Hasn’t the setup been determined to be townsided?

The winrate is balanced but towns play the setup mechanically wrong repeatedly.
It'd be like saying C9 is scumsided because towns are massclaiming day one repeatedly and losing.

[popsofctown]

I feel personally attacked

[popsofctown]

15p dance

12

Vanilla Townies

3

Mafia Goons

Day Zero, there is a single lynch. Night Zero, the mafia equally divides all the players in the game into ladies and gentleman.

Starting with Day One, a lady may post a bolded proposal to a gentleman for him to dance with her. If the gentleman bolds an acceptance, the two players become lovers and receive a PT. During Day One, players can't vote or be voted unless they are lovers.
There are three lynches each day. At night, the mafia kill one lover, and may additionally kill any number of players who are not lovers. The first four players to become lovers are immune to the nightkill.

[popsofctown]

Let's not run a team mafia setup where tons of teams win or lose as a consequence of a scumslip from 1 player that was on 1 team

[popsofctown]

Look like fewer submissions are coming in and it's getting to be about which setup is best.

Excluding mine for intuitive reasons:
The "visible normal queue" setups I like the best are RC, Alisae, and Klick's.
The "paradigm shift" setups I like the best are Volpe, NK15's, and OkaPoka's.
Those setups seem balanced, minimally monopolized by any one slot, interesting, sufficiently low swing, in my amateur estimation.
Among the normals, RC's is particularly appealing to me because it uses the fewest power roles which means massclaim should occur later.
Among the paradigm shifts, NK15 is most appealing to me because Volpe's setup has a tolerable amount of all-star dynamic and OkaPoka's might come out surprisingly scumsided with the potential power of redistricting.

[popsofctown]

I'm assuming Micc was skimming for area tags and just missed it.

At worst he was waiting for S_S to resubmit it with the named townie machofied which I agree is strictly better and Micc wanted to ensure S_S stole thunder that way.

[popsofctown]

S_S wow that's a really well designed setup you came up with!

I love it.

[popsofctown]

I think You Shall Not Act looks like it has a claiming strategy but is only slightly townsided or maybe even o.k. after executing it.

With wide disparity in power ranging from Vanilla Cop to Fruit Vendor you probably massclaim "vanilla" or "not vanilla" day 2, I think

[popsofctown]

I'll take your word for it I don't really design 15ps :X

[popsofctown]

The deadline for open setup submissions has passed. By my not-infallible count these were the five added since the last time Micc collected submissions into the OP:

Spoiler: Volpe

The Four Kingdoms

11 Town Monarchists

4 Mafia Monarchists

The game phases always consist of Day, Twilight and Night.

On days there's always a standard lynch by majority.

On Odd-number Twilight, a

Commander

is chosen by majority votes. The Commander during the night following their twilight election will select one player to nightkill. Only during Night 1, the Commander is bulletproof and an invalid target for mafia factional kill.

On Even-number Twilight, a

Monarch

is chosen by majority votes. The elected Monarch, if town, turns into an

Deathproof Innocent Child

. If mafia, leaves the game. Regardless of alignment, an elected Monarch isn't a valid option in lynches or nightkills.

On Nights, mafia must compulsively choose a valid factional nightkill target, and if there's a elected commander, he also must compulsively choose a valid kill. Failure to do so will randomize the targets.

Once an mafioso is

lynched

, they must in their private topics compulsively elect a

Mafia Duke

, that if

lynched

causes town to immediately win the game. While also electing one

Mafia Duke Backup

, that will succeed the Duke title if the original Duke is elected as a monarch. One elected

Mafia Duke

is also revealed to have been the Duke before election, but the

Mafia Duke Backup

isn't revealed as a Duke Backup if lynched or elected.

Once an Town Monarch is elected, during the night following their election they must compulsively select two players as

Knights

. The two chosen Knights will be added into a Neighborhood with the chooser Town Monarch in it by the start of the next day phase. The Knighted players will not suffer a change in their original roles.

Town wins the game if they either: elect 3 Townies as Monarchs, kill 3 Mafiosos by any means or lynch the Mafia Duke. (Mafioso leaving isn't considered as killed for this win con purpose).

Mafia wins the game if they either: elect 2 Mafiosos as Monarchs or reach parity with town.

One mafioso can't target another mafioso with their

factional nightkill

. However, this doesn't apply to a mafioso elected Commander, that is able to nightkill partners with the Commander's ability .

Anything failing to reach majority decision will be decided by plurality or randomized, depending on the case.

Regardless, no one can self-target their abilities.

Spoiler: popsofctown

15p dance

12

Vanilla Townies

3

Mafia Goons

Day Zero, there is a single lynch. Night Zero, the mafia equally divides all the players in the game into ladies and gentleman.

Starting with Day One, a lady may post a bolded proposal to a gentleman for him to dance with her. If the gentleman bolds an acceptance, the two players become lovers and receive a PT. During Day One, players can't vote or be voted unless they are lovers.
There are three lynches each day. At night, the mafia kill one lover, and may additionally kill any number of players who are not lovers. The first four players to become lovers are immune to the nightkill.

Spoiler: Ircher

Mafia Exam

15 Players: 11 Town, 4 Mafia

Daytalk is allowed and standard lynch and night kill mechanics apply

with the exception that "No Lynch" is not a valid vote.

^{Added in version 2.0.}

Each night, every town player must submit a list to the mod of who they believe is scum. Players may include as many names as they like (including all of them), but they must include at least as many names as there are scum remaining. At the start of the following day, each player will receive back a percentage from the moderator indicating how accurate their guess was. The person who scores highest is rendered bulletproof the following night; however, if there is a tie for highest, no one becomes bulletproof.

For instance, suppose the remaining players are Alex, Bob, Charles, Diana, Esther, Fiona, and Giles. Of those seven players, Alex and Fiona are scum. Suppose Bob guesses that Alex, Diana, and Esther are scum. Then Bob will receive "33% correct" back at daybreak since 1/3 of his guesses is correct.

^{Deleted in version 2.0.}

At the end of each day until only one scum remains, every town player will receive a pm from the moderator noting the percentage of their votes that were on scum during the day. The town player(s) with the lowest percentage die at the end of the night while the town player(s) with the highest percentage are rendered bulletproof that night. (Note that voting the same person twice in a row does not count. If Alex, Bob, Charles, Diana, and Esther are playing and Alex and Bob are scum and Charles votes Alex --> Diana --> Alex --> Alex --> Diana, then Charles should get back 50% since the fourth vote shouldn't be counted.) ^{Added in version 2.0}
---
Maybe this setup is too swingy, but I think it leads to an interesting game. I don't think there is a breaking strategy as scum can fakeclaim even if someone receives 100% back. I could also drop the bulletproof reward for being the most accurate.

Edit: Changed it to be based on votes since flips broke the previous version of the setup. The elimination of the player(s) with the lowest percentage disincentives people from voting only a few times. This also reduces the odds of someone receiving 100%.

Spoiler: gobbledygook

Next Stop

11:4

24 hour Pre-game phase where the mafia team select two teammates to be

Consigliere

and

Godfather

.
-

Consigliere

Day 1 Neighborhood will be revealed to contain Consigliere
-

Godfather

last mafia allowed to leave, mafia immediately lose if Godfather is lynched

Day 1 will be 14 days, broken up into two 7-day sections
- 1st 7-day section game will broken up into 5 3-person neighborhoods. Neighborhoods are completely random except that Consigliere must be with two townies
- At the end of this 7-day section, the Consigliere's neighborhood will be revealed. This neighborhood will also be revealed as containing the Consigliere
- 2nd 7-day section is a regular day ending with a lynch

If mafia lynched Day 1, mafia get 2 nightkills on N1. Start to leave on N2
If town lynched Day 1, mafia get 1 nightkill on N1 and 1 leave on N1.

No lynches are not allowed, if a majority has not been reached at any point in the day phase, the day will end with plurality lynch.
Mafia can leave every other night. Therefore, if Mafia are lynched Day 1, they will be able to leave N2, N4, N6. If town are lynched Day 1, they can leave N1, N3, N5.

Wincondition for mafia is Godfather must leave, or nothing can prevent the same.
Wincondition for town is lynch two mafia, or lynch the Godfather.

I like the fact that mafia have a lot of choice in how to play this game starting in pre-game. I also like how this messes with the race to the bottom that we commonly see in games like the Flags and other mostly vanilla games.

I have no idea if this is balanced, but I think we should probably aim for something that is 30-40% winnable for town seeing as the Team Mafia mechanic is inherently townsided.

Spoiler: Farkran

Hello, decided to try this because it sounded fun while i was thinking about it

YOU SHALL NOT ACT

2 Mafia Multitasking Roleblocker
1 Mafia JOAT (Roleblocker, Rolestopper, Rolecop, Tracker) all 1-shot

1 Town Roleblocker
1 Town Doctor
1 Town Vanilla Cop
1 Town Fruit Vendor
1 Universal Backup
7 Vanilla Townies

Mafia has Daytalk
Mafia roleblock take precedence over Town roleblock
Mafia rolestop does not block kills

Heavily PR loaded setup to encourage PR hunting by scum and nk/rb dodging by town. Massclaim is very dangerous.

The OP makes it unclear to me whether there's any formal process for community input about which setups are best or whether these will be taking to the TM mod team straightaway for deliberations, but I figured the combthrough might be helpful in either case.