[REVIEW] Open Setup Reviews

[TemporalLich]

Pocket Splash

11 players

2 Mafia Goons

2 Werewolves

1 Town 1-Shot Alignment Cop

6 Vanilla Townies

This game has a Dusk (or 1st half of Night) Start. The Mafia alters the playerlist order during the Dusk phase. Failing to do so will generate a random playerlist order. If all Mafiosi are dead, Dusk phases are skipped and the Werewolves alter the playerlist order.

After that comes Midnight (or 2nd half of Night), where the Werewolves are notified in their PT of the Mafia's playerlist order and may swap one pair of players in the playerlist. If all Werewolves are dead, Midnight phases are skipped.

There are no factional nightkills in this game.

The Day phase comes afterward, where players vote to lynch a player. However, lynching a player in this game not only lynches that player, but also the the player before and after in the playerlist. (wrapping around if a player at either end of the playerlist is lynched)

Lynching is compulsive. That means plurality voting is in effect and voting No Lynch is not allowed.

The Town 1-Shot Alignment Cop submits their action during any time, and gets results in the form of

Town

,

Mafia

, or

Werewolf

.

Mafia and Werewolves may communicate privately at any time.

Either scumteam wins when the other scumteam is dead and they control 50% of the votes.

2 Mafiosi, 2 Werewolves, and 1 Townie is a draw for both scumteams (townies still lose).

Mini variant of Splash Damage (this is 2:2:7, while Splash Damage is 3:3:11). Should last a maximum of 3 cycles instead of 5.

I intend to potentially run this as a marathon (if I qualify).

[TemporalLich]

idk if that means town need more power, less power, or just a more direct influence.

if it's that the town needs less power I could just use an Activated Innocent Child

[TemporalLich]

If the goal of the setup is to reduce the original Splash damage, I'd suggest reducing it out of multiball (a guess would be that 8v3 is more appropriate with just mafia choose list order). If the goal is to marathon-ize splash damage, it's already a fairly decent marathon setup if you can get the people for it. It's relatively short, there's no huge problem to meme-lynches and it's mechanically simple enough to pull off, assuming you think you can keep track of a 17p votecount in real time.

Ignore the math, I calculated awfully and don't have the time to fix it atm.

I'm gonna have to agree. Splash Damage is actually doable as a marathon, though I'd put this as a Mini version of Splash Damage.

One-fold Splash Damage

11 players

3 Mafia Goons

8 Vanilla Townies

This game has a Night Start. The Mafia alters the playerlist order during the Night phase. Failing to do so will generate a random playerlist order.

There are no factional nightkills in this game.

The Day phase comes afterward, where players vote to lynch a player. However, lynching a player in this game not only lynches that player, but also the the player before and after in the playerlist. (wrapping around if a player at either end of the playerlist is lynched)

Lynching is compulsive. That means plurality voting is in effect and voting No Lynch is not allowed.

Mafia may communicate privately at any time.

Mafia win when they control 50% of the votes.

Alternate names include Collateral Damage and Splash Damage Basic

Alternate names do not include Splash Mountainous

[TemporalLich]

A simple setup featuring the Moonlight Dancer role:

Moonlight Dancer

13 players

1 Werewolf Moonlight Dancer

2 Werewolves

2 Town Moonlight Dancers

8 Vanilla Townies

Moonlight Dancers may PM the moderator at any time saying "Dance in the Moonlight" once per phase.

The moderator will then post "{playername} dances and howls in the moonlight." immediately when a Moonlight Dancer dances in the moonlight.

Days and Nights happen as normal, Werewolves have a factional kill and daytalk.

not sure how original this idea is though...

[TemporalLich]

Yeah moonlight dancer is pretty much a named role that can mod-confirm their named role at any time. (unlike what I'd call a "Superstar", a moonlight dancer can repeatedly confirm themselves)

Since it pretty much just leads to a 2:1 "associative group", it mostly is useful for finding the scum dancer, though scum dancer has no incentive to dance early.

I could turn a VT into a third town dancer, but that makes you less likely to find scum in the dancer group than the non-dancer group.

[TemporalLich]

Nobility and The Dark Angel

12 players

1 Dark Angel

2 Mafia Goons

9 Vanilla Townies

In addition to voting for lynches, the Town may also vote to elect a noble for the next day. Noble election is by plurality vote and is decided when the lynch is decided.

An elected noble is announced to have an extra lynch vote, and counts as two people for lynch majority. If the Dark Angel is ever an elected noble, the game instantly ends in a Town win, with the Mafia and Dark Angel losing.

A Noble election vote can either use bold e.g.

ELECT: TemporalLich

or or heal tags e.g. HEAL: TemporalLich

You can't vote to lynch and elect the same player. Voting No Noble is allowed.

There is no Noble vote during LYLO. (2 townies and 1 mafioso are alive, or 3 townies and 2 mafiosi are alive. This is regardless of whether the Dark Angel is alive or not.)

In addition to the factional nightkill, the Mafia may attempt to appoint a hidden noble. The mafia may multitask.

A hidden noble has an extra lynch vote. They count as one person for lynch majority. A hidden noble knows they are a hidden noble, but hidden nobility is not public.

The Mafia may not kill the noble that has been elected the previous day.

If the Mafia appoints the Dark Angel as a hidden noble, the Dark Angel exits the game in a loss and the Mafia gets a 1-shot daykill to be used in the Mafia PT.

The Dark Angel instantly loses if they become a noble. The Dark Angel wins if the game ends before this happens or the Dark Angel dies.

Mafia win when they outnumber Town or equal Town.

Town win when the Mafia are dead or the Dark Angel becomes an elected noble.

Mafia may privately communicate at any time.

I forgot to push this to review x_x

[TemporalLich]

3:2:1 is considered to be LYLO by the game, so the Dark Angel should have already secured the win at that point

[TemporalLich]

as of now here's what I'd do with the Nobility and the Dark Angel setup:

To avoid weird endgames, make the Dark Angel autowin if it gets to a LYLO scenario with them in it.

Disable both kinds of nobility altogether (both elections and votes) if a LYLO scenario ever happens. Basically with this and the above change, LYLOs are played out like normal Mafia.

Make it clearer hidden nobility is for non-Mafia (unless allowing Mafia to hidden noble themselves is more fun).

[TemporalLich]

Nobility and The Dark Angel v1.4

12 players

1 Dark Angel

2 Mafia Goons

9 Vanilla Townies

In addition to voting for lynches, the Town may also vote to elect a noble for the next day. Noble election is by plurality vote and is decided when the lynch is decided.

An elected noble is announced to have an extra lynch vote, and counts as two people for lynch majority. If the Dark Angel is ever an elected noble, the game instantly ends in a Town win, with the Mafia and Dark Angel losing.

A Noble election vote can either use bold e.g.

ELECT: TemporalLich

or or heal tags e.g. HEAL: TemporalLich

You can't vote to lynch and elect the same player. Voting No Noble is allowed.

There are no Nobles, Hidden Nobles, Noble elections, or Hidden Noble appointments during LYLO.

In addition to the factional nightkill, the Mafia may attempt to appoint a hidden noble. The mafia may multitask.

A hidden noble has an extra lynch vote. They count as one person for lynch majority. A hidden noble knows they are a hidden noble, but hidden nobility is not public.

The Mafia may not kill the noble that has been elected the previous day.

If the Mafia appoints the Dark Angel as a hidden noble, the Dark Angel exits the game in a loss and the Mafia gets a 1-shot daykill to be used in the Mafia PT.

The Dark Angel instantly loses if they become a noble. The Dark Angel wins if the game ends before this happens or the Dark Angel dies.

The Dark Angel exits the game in a win if the game hits what would be LYLO without the Dark Angel (2 townies and 1 mafioso, or 3 townies and 2 mafiosi).

Mafia win when they outnumber Town or equal Town.

Town win when the Mafia are dead or the Dark Angel becomes an elected noble.

Mafia may privately communicate at any time.

Dark Angel wins and exits the game in 2:1:1 and 3:2:1, nobility is disabled altogether in LYLO.

This version still allows Mafiosi to be hidden nobles, because otherwise hidden nobility would allow for ICs (which is kinda unfun tbh).

[TemporalLich]

hmm, Angel winrate is pretty low but still in the acceptable range...

how bad would it be if I made Nobility and The Dark Angel a 13p (10:2:1) setup with compulsive lynching and electing? (since 43% town is in acceptable range but the doublevoter power makes this a bit more scumsided than EV can tell you...)

[TemporalLich]

Nobility and The Dark Angel v1.6

13 players

1 Dark Angel

2 Mafia Goons

10 Vanilla Townies

In addition to voting for lynches, the Town may also vote to elect a noble for the next day. Noble election is by plurality vote and is decided when the lynch is decided.

An elected noble is announced to have an extra lynch vote, and counts as two people for lynch majority. If the Dark Angel is ever an elected noble, the game instantly ends in a Town win, with the Mafia and Dark Angel losing.

A Noble election vote can either use bold e.g.

ELECT: TemporalLich

or or heal tags e.g. HEAL: TemporalLich

You can't vote to lynch and elect the same player. Voting No Noble is allowed.

There are no Nobles, Hidden Nobles, Noble elections, or Hidden Noble appointments during LYLO. LYLO happens if the game reaches 2:1 or 3:2 and lasts for the rest of the game.

In addition to the factional nightkill, the Mafia may attempt to appoint a hidden noble. This cannot be the same target as the nightkill. The mafia may multitask.

A hidden noble has an extra lynch vote. They count as one person for lynch majority. A hidden noble knows they are a hidden noble, but hidden nobility is not public.

The Mafia may not kill the noble that has been elected the previous day.

If the Mafia appoints the Dark Angel as a hidden noble, the Dark Angel exits the game in a loss and the Mafia gets a 1-shot daykill to be used in the Mafia PT.

The Dark Angel instantly loses if they become a noble. The Dark Angel wins if the game ends before this happens or the Dark Angel dies.

The Dark Angel exits the game in a win if the game hits what would be LYLO without the Dark Angel (2 townies and 1 mafioso, or 3 townies and 2 mafiosi).

Mafia win when they outnumber Town or equal Town. The Mafia are endgamed if the Dark Angel becomes an elected noble.

Town win when the Mafia are dead or the Dark Angel becomes an elected noble.

Mafia may privately communicate at any time.

Added a tenth VT (making this setup start at odds, thus removing the need for compulsive lynching and nobling). This is probably the best balanced this setup can get, and the strictly better EVs make adding a tenth VT a no-brainer.

[TemporalLich]

A really bad setup idea:

Progressive Mafia

2 Mafia Goons

11 Vanilla Townies

Town may lynch up to N times each day, where N is the cycle number.

Mafia may make N factional nightkills each night.

I'm pretty sure anyone actually trying to calculate the EV for this vanilla variant will burst into a phoenix.

[TemporalLich]

A shitpost-quality semi-open setup that can either be multiball or not be multiball.

Multiball or Not?

13 players

Randomly decide between the Multiball or Non-Multiball setup.

Multiball Setup

2 Mafia Goons

2 Werewolves

Town Masonizer

(adds someone to the Mason Lodge if they are not Mafia-aligned)

Day 3 Informed Townie

(learns what setup is picked at the start of Day 3)

Town 1-shot Seer

6 Vanilla Townies

Non-Multiball Setup

3 Mafia Goons

Town Masonizer

(adds someone to the Mason Lodge if they are not Mafia-aligned)

Day 3 Informed Townie

(learns what setup is picked at the start of Day 3)

Town 1-shot Seer

7 Vanilla Townies

[TemporalLich]

Wouldn't informed townie just spoil this at d1?

They wouldn't know until the start of Day 3

[TemporalLich]

I think you want the investigative to check mafia, not wolves, so that it doesn't incidentally determine which setup you're in, right?

That was intended as a counterbalance as the multiball setup looked a little scumsided. And Masonizer is already a mafia-investigative in spirit.

[TemporalLich]

probably save the seer shot for a mason recruit, that seems like a pretty good way to boost town winrate?

As in a "not-mafia" 1-shot Masonizer or a "confirmed town" 1-shot True Masonizer?

[TemporalLich]

Multiball or Not? v1.1

13 players

Randomly decide between the Multiball or Non-Multiball setup.

Multiball Setup

2 Mafia Goons

2 Werewolves

Town Masonizer

(adds someone to the Mason Lodge if they are not Mafia-aligned)

Day 3 Informed Townie

(learns what setup is picked at the start of Day 3)

Town 1-shot True Masonizer

(adds someone to the True Mason Lodge once in the game during night. This only works on a Town-aligned target.)

6 Vanilla Townies

Non-Multiball Setup

3 Mafia Goons

Town Masonizer

(adds someone to the Mason Lodge if they are not Mafia-aligned)

Day 3 Informed Townie

(learns what setup is picked at the start of Day 3)

Town 1-shot True Masonizer

(adds someone to the True Mason Lodge once in the game during night. This only works on a Town-aligned target.)

7 Vanilla Townies

v1.1 with Gamma Emerald's change

[TemporalLich]

An interesting setup to EV but probably still too boring for actual play:

Two Deputies

9 players

2

Mafia Goons

2

Town Deputies

5

Vanilla Townies

All roles work exactly like their Normal counterparts.
Deputy is a special name for Backup Cop.

[TemporalLich]

think you break this by forcing one deputy to out themselves and eliminate them, thus just having a town cop in a slightly disadvantageous ratio.

yeah that kinda breaks it into 7p Cop

oh well I'm not good at making EV setups

[TemporalLich]

still an interesting thought, splitting a PR between two people

...it'll be worth something.

I have a feeling the NRG might deem Two Deputies an Inadvertent Mountainous setup though...

I like the idea of dual backups for a negative feedback element though.

[TemporalLich]

The intent in Two Deputies is to have actual "dual backups" where if one Deputy dies the other becomes a Cop. If backups could not backup backups, you'd effectively have a Two Named Townie setup which counts as Inadvertent Mountainous.

If the strategy in Two Deputies isn't always to have one of the deputies claim then eliminate the claimed deputy, it would be quite an interesting setup I feel.

[TemporalLich]

(I'm also not even sure that 2 goons/4 VT/1 cop is even good for town. I honestly think 2 goons/5 VT/2 named townies is probably better EV.)

Technically it’s neither of those. It’s slightly more power than either case. In one you have an 8 person with a Nightstart (slightly more likely to get an investigate) and in the other it’s got the odds of a cop becoming apparent.

Regardless to get EV you’d run the calculations on both models and pick the higher one, but I’m not convinced it’s a setup where EV is the right approach to balance.

good point

EV would definitely miss something actually, it might require playtesting maybe

[TemporalLich]

Mostly posting this to see if anyone would want to create a Dark Creature setup... here is 2d3 but with Dark Creatures:

Dark 2d3

One row and one column are selected randomly to provide 2 town and 1 dark creature role, and the remaining slots are filled with 5 vanilla townies and 1 dark creature to create a 9 player setup.

	A	B	C
	Dark Creature Roleblocker	Dark Creature Role Cop	Dark Creature
Row 1	Town Darkseeker and Town Neapolitan	Town Darkseeker and Town Tracker	Town Darkseeker and Vanilla Townie
Row 2	Town Ordinator and Town Lightbearer	Town Ordinator and Town Tracker	Town Ordinator and Vanilla Townie
Row 3	Town Darkseeker and Town Lightbearer	Town Neapolitan and Town Lightbearer	Town Tracker and Town Lightbearer

Dark Creatures have a factional Plunge in Darkness ability, roleblocking their target and causing them to die at the end of the next Night. Dark Creatures have inherent multitasking and daytalk.

Darkseeker checks for Dark Creature or Not Dark Creature.

Lightbearer protects from plunging into darkness, and also prevents a death from plunging into darkness.

Ordinator roleblocks as well as acting as a Lightbearer. Dark Creatures and Roleblockers act before Ordinators.

Normal roles act as their Normal counterparts.

I doubt this would be balanced, and maybe the Lightbearer ability should be weakened to simply preventing plunging into darkness.

[TemporalLich]

does the first part of the ability refer to the roleblock?

if a Lightbearer protects you from being plunged into darkness, you don't get roleblocked or poisoned.

[TemporalLich]

To clarify, if lightbringer and plunge both target X on N1, X is neither roleblocked nor set to die N2. If Lightbringer targets x N2 after plunge targets X N1, X is roleblocked N1 but will not die N2. Correct?

This was my initial understanding, but I think it is a more clear way to make it explicit if other people were confused.

That is indeed how the lightbearer works

[TemporalLich]

I never did weigh in on that setup, but my thoughts are that it's a bit townsided as is. My suggestion would be to split ordinator and lightbringer so that one blocked a kill attempt made the same day and one blocked a kill attempt made the next day. Particularly because the case where exist seems to be the worst offender and also because my issue with the setup is that it seems too likely that a kill would be stopped.

I don't think it's unplayably townsided as is though.

Ordinator (which is a placeholder name) is intended to be the Jailkeeper equivalent for Dark Creatures.

for a nerf, I'd probably make the lightbearer and ordinator only protect from plunging into darkness, instead of also clearing the "poisoned" lingering effect. (i.e. a lightbearer won't prevent a N2 death if they target a player on N2)

[TemporalLich]

I think there is an interesting split in design in having one role be able to save on same night targeting and one only on night after targeting, is my point. I understood the original intent. I agree that your change would also have the desired effect, though.

I'll also outline your suggestion as an option in case anyone wants to run the setup that way:

alternate nerf idea - lightbearer protects from plunging into darkness, while ordinator roleblocks and prevents a death from plunging into darkness. Note that this adds some complexity to A2, which has both a lightbearer and an ordinator

[TemporalLich]

Dynamic 8p

8 players

1 Mafia Roleblocker

1 Mafia Goon

1 Town Cop

1 Town Bodyguard

1 Town 1-shot Vigilante

3 Vanilla Townies

Normal elimination and nightkills.
Daytalk is enabled.
Inherent multitasking is enabled.

trying to create a newbie-friendly 8 player setup with Normal mechanics

[TemporalLich]

The problem there is that evens are just worse mechanically.

With that setup you have more conftown than scum on D1 from a pr/No pr claim. That gives a 40% chance of hitting scum D1 which probably makes the game unwinnable for scum most of the time. A single successful cop result is backbreaking. Honestly even just no lim with no info treat vig as named town is probably just near unwinnable for that scum team.

yeah not sure how I could balance it, wanted to try to create an 8 player open setup that was fun to play

I could change the town power roles to vigilante and bodyguard

[TemporalLich]

I think just dropping the BG makes it balanced ish?

Both cop 9er and vig 9er are playable, and having the RB should be a significant boost for scum in a micro.

I don't know that it's compelling play wise, but it's probably workable.

The issue is that evens just lends itself better to gimmick setups (Nightless/Nightstart/Lovers) and/or setups with guaranteed extra kills, and guaranteed extra kills is a rough thing to deal with in micro setup design.

sounds good for a basic 8 player setup

though yeah idk if it will be fun, but I want an 8 player setup that is newbie-friendly

[TemporalLich]

I want to balance this setup as it has a cool concept, and also create a mini variant maybe?:

Glimmer Of Hope

3 Mafia Goons

1 Town Exile

1 Town 1-shot Poison Doctor

12 Vanilla Townies

The Mafia knows the identity of the Exile.

The Mafia's factional actions depend on M, which is the amount of Mafia Goons and Exiles alive.

The Mafia have both a factional nightkill and a factional announcing poison (target will die the next night and will know they are poisoned) if M = 4.

The Mafia have a normal factional nightkill if M = 3.

The Mafia have only a factional announcing poison (target will die the next night and will know they are poisoned) if M = 2.

The game is nightless if M = 1.

The Mafia has daytalk.

The 1-shot Poison Doctor can cure poison (either on the night they are poisoned or the night they will die) once in the game.

[TemporalLich]

How do additional exiles get made?

there is only one exile in that setup

the idea of the exile is to make the mafia not want to nightkill a player

since the exile can just claim and self-vote, I'm tempted to have the exile revealed at game start, as the alternative would make the setup mechanically bastard

[TemporalLich]

so something like this?:

glimmer of hope is meant to have overpowered scum balanced by very strong positive feedback in town's favor (this is why the setup is named Glimmer of Hope fwiw)

Glimmer Of Hope v2

2 Mafia Goons

1 Town Exile

9 Vanilla Townies

The Mafia knows the identity of the Exile.

The Mafia's factional actions depend on M, which is the amount of Mafia Goons and Exiles alive.

The Mafia have both a factional nightkill and a factional announcing poison (target will die the next night and will know they are poisoned) if M = 3.

The Mafia have a normal factional nightkill if M = 2.

The game is nightless if M = 1.

The Mafia has daytalk.

still unsure what fix to Exile would be better: make the Exile receive a VT role PM (and thus make the setup technically mechanically bastard) or have the exile be revealed at game start, making this a IC setup?

[TemporalLich]

alright I'll post glimmer of hope v2.1 in a new thread

would a "reverse glimmer of hope" setup probably called fading hope be a good idea, where a lower M means stronger scum (except maybe not start the game nightless)? basically the opposite concept of glimmer of hope - weak scum balanced by negative feedback in scum's favor

[TemporalLich]

The inverse of Glimmer of Hope - a setup that starts with weak scum but there is negative feedback that favors scum.

I created this setup within several minutes so idk if it is a good concept

Fading Hope

2 Mafia Goons

1 Mafia Traitor

10 Vanilla Townies

The Mafia's factional actions depend on M, which is the amount of Mafiosi alive.

The Mafia's factional ability is a silence when M = 3, making that player unable to post or vote for a day.

The Mafia have a normal factional nightkill if M = 2.

The Mafia have a double factional nightkill if M = 1.

The Mafia has daytalk and inherent multitasking.

[TemporalLich]

Marathon Night v2

7 players

2 Mafia

5 Townies

After Town/Mafia Role PMs are distributed but before Day 1, the thread is unlocked and a compulsive plurality vote decides what power roles to generate during a "role phase". The power roles will be given to random townies. After power roles are distributed (those who get power roles will get new role PMs), Day 1 begins as normal.

Role Phase Options are:

1

Publishing Cop

(checks alignment, mod will confirm that player's alignment inthread), 1

Mafia Rolestopper

(given to Mafia instead of a townie, renders target immune to all abilities)
1

Day Vigilante

(Publically shoots a player during the day), 1

Backup 1-shot Vigilante

(can act only if the day vigilante is dead, shoots a player during night but only works once)
2

Masons

(They gain a PT with daytalk to talk to each other)

Eliminations and nightkills are compulsive.

The Mafia PT has daytalk.

another setup I want to balance