[SETUP] Miss List

[Something_Smart]

Current setup, as of post 16:

Miss List

N Mafia Goons

N + 1 Vanilla Townies

During the day, the mafia choose one townie to add to the "Miss List".

If a mafia member is lynched, the game goes into night. Each town member must choose whether to sacrifice, while the Mafia choose a person to kill in the event nobody sacrifices. If at least one town member sacrifices, one player who sacrificed will die randomly. Otherwise, the Mafia's kill will go through.
Additionally, once during the game, the Mafia may select a player at night to prevent them from sacrificing; if that player attempts to sacrifice, the night will be resolved as though they did not. (Meaning that if they are the only one to sacrifice, the Mafia kill goes through.) If they do not sacrifice that night, the shot is lost.

If a townie is lynched, they flip and are given a (randomized) list of all Mafia members plus the one townie the Mafia chose to add. They then must vengekill one player on that list. This occurs after a thread lock, so the lynched player cannot share the Miss List with the town.

Mafia win if a townie vengekills another townie. Town wins if all Mafia are dead.

Spoiler: Original Setup

Miss List

N Mafia Goons

N + 1 Vanilla Townies

During the day, the mafia choose one townie to add to the "Miss List".

If a mafia member is lynched, they get a vengekill.

If a townie is lynched, they flip and are given a (randomized) list of all Mafia members plus the one townie the Mafia chose to add. They then must vengekill one player on that list.

Mafia win if a townie vengekills another townie. Town wins if all Mafia are dead.

EV calculation

Interestingly, the town's EV is equivalent to the SK's EV in this:

1 Serial Killer

2N Vanilla Townies

Which makes the EV's for N = 1, 2, 3, and 4:

N	EV
1	67%
2	53%
3	46%
4	41%

So I think this might be good at 5:4.

[Something_Smart]

Yeah the vengekill is the one part of the setup I'm not very happy with. The only other idea I had was to just not have any kill if scum is lynched, so that lynching 2 scum allows 1 mis-venge and thus makes it very hard for scum to win. (Vengekills would still be mandatory even when town is in evens.)

[Something_Smart]

Although even in a 9-player game, that's 40% of the town screwing up My intent was that town should try to vengekill the safest choice rather than the most predictable one, which could be manipulated. If two townies are tunnelling each other Day 1 and one of them is lynched (assuming the other shows up on the list), it's probably smarter to NOT kill the other just because that'd be the most obvious miss.

The volunteering idea is interesting and pretty strong, and it would solve the two townies tunneling issue by allowing them to prove themselves. The only thing I dislike is that it seems a bit arbitrary and awkward (a mechanic added just to balance the game). Perhaps a bodyguard-ish mechanic where the scum get a kill after a scum lynch but any townie can "jump in front of the bullet"? So if nobody volunteers the mafia get to choose the kill, rather than it being random. (Clarification: the mafia's target is not revealed if somebody volunteers, it's just flavor.)

[Something_Smart]

EV, not win chances. It assumes random play, but town should perform better than random in a setup like this (or at least I'd think).

[Something_Smart]

The first run of this setup has ended with a

scum

victory in a close LYLO. The game seemed pretty townsided for most of the game, although that's because scum were lynched the first three Days and scummy townies were able to sacrifice all three nights.

I had a PM conversation with Regfan during the game about a possible breaking strategy, but I'll double-check that he's okay with it before I post it. The strategy involves voting on a single townie to sacrifice overnight, and if they don't die they are confirmed scum.

[Something_Smart]

And Regfan said it was fine, so:

What's stopping town from saying X leave the island if you're town, no one else do it and if X doesn't die in the night X becomes confirmed mafia? It does give mafia the potential to shoot anyone if they're mafia but that's a worthwhile trade IMO.

Nothing, and that's a solid strategy. It basically produces a better result if town's second scumread is town and a worse result if it's scum (compared to letting scummy townies use their own judgement and lynching the scumread D2). I don't think it's breaking however because it depends on town having two correct reads.

It provides information in who/why people are voting people to be the person to 'leave the game' as well. It's much better than a "if you're scummy leave" type plan.

It's not "breaking" but it seems massively +EV and I'm a little baffled by the lack of it being brought up thus far. Removing the most widely scum read townie (if town) or confirming that someone is 100% mafia (if mafia) are both pretty solid gains. And the "confirming someone you'd probably lynch anyway is mafia isn't that good" is wrong in that mafia flip that around a lot and scum read players early on endgame relatively often.

Alternatively you could have someone that's a null read or a question mark for the entire room be the person to 'leave the game', that way if they're scum you're catching them and lynching them when otherwise you may not. And if they're town they're leaving the game and you can just lynch your scum read knowing they're now an increased chance of being scum.

Almost anything where you have a fairly "locked in" plan going into the night that provides information is better then what they're doing.

[Something_Smart]

To counter CFJ's strategy, we could give the mafia the option of just sacrificing a member of their choice on a town lynch rather than going through with the miss list. Or we could even allow the mafia to force the lynch of a mafia member.

[Something_Smart]

Bump because I'm considering running this again in the near future.

Reading through all the breaking strategies, I feel like scum are going to need something extra to counter them. What I'm currently considering is giving scum the ability to prevent a townie from sacrificing once during the game. This would resolve just as if the townie had not sacrificed; if they were the only one, the scum kill goes through.

This does not negate the strategies, but it causes significantly more uncertainty. If town chooses one member to sacrifice and they do not die, the town learns nothing about them (and the scum get a free kill). If town chooses TWO members to sacrifice, and neither dies, then it confirms that one of them is scum (and if they both are town then one will die for sure)... but scum can also allow one of them to die when the other is scum, introducing WIFOM and mostly preventing town from building up a scumpool the way CFJ said.

Thoughts?

[Something_Smart]

I don't really want to fix the balance by just making it more likely for the game to end on D1 though... I don't think that would make it a more enjoyable setup, as it changes pretty much nothing assuming the game lasts past D1. (Not to mention that the D1 miss list would be everybody except for one person, so if there's one universal townread then it gives next to no information.)

[Something_Smart]

That feels really kludgy... like I'd prefer to not mess with the core concept of the game as much as I can.

Also, after what cfj said I don't think we should be giving scum motivation to get lynched (in that, it seems like scum very much have motivation to get lynched D2).