The New Newbie Game Setup

[mhsmith0]

Setup 4 id horrible for town

Agreed

I tend to disagree. You're basically dealing with a situation where, if scum die on either d1 or d2, the town roleblocker becomes ridiculously powerful since it can cancel out the scum kill, even if the remaining scum is the roleblocker.

I'd agree that it nerfs the jailkeeper pretty decently, but you're talking about two town blocking roles in a micro, and it's probably the #1 most "this game is just OVER if scum PR is lynched day 1" setup.

If you compare this to, say, jailkeeper/bp/scum roleblocker, this has materially more kill stopping power on town's end, and both of town's PRs can potentially be useful. Of course, the two town PRs could hit each other on a given night, but if they don't target each other, you're basically talking about blanketing the board with town-aligned blocking power, which is a really big deal. It's also probably one of the bigger "day 1 mass claim doesn't kill you" outcomes, as if the two PRs are declared and known, they won't target each other, and you're gonna get two shots at blocking a kill n1 even given a VT lynch.

[mhsmith0]

My setup notes, fwiw:

So we have 12 potential setups...

Roleblocker vs

Tracker and Cop - make no mistake, this town is STRONG power-wise. Tracker is basically a PR cop AND can see the night kill, so if it sees scum doing anything the same night cop dies, easy guilty. If scum don't at least roleblock one of cop/tracker by n1, town can potentially just win it outright via night actions, or at the least have a pretty condensed POE.

Roleblocker and Cop - this is again a strong amount of town power, but here it's contradictory and doesn't work great together. Cop now has THREE different potential sources of nerfage: town roleblocker, scum roleblocker, and scum kill. OTOH, a day 1 scum lynch very nearly locks the game (even if it's a goon), as d2 the town roleblocker can claim. Basically it should be reasonably balanced but highly swingy on when the first scum death is. You can also just about lock the game up with a scum roleblocker d1 lynch.

Tracker and Jailkeeper - probably the friendliest combination for scum out of the four; rolecop only really targets roleblocker, and jailkeeper can be blocked as long as roleblocker is alive. Jailkeeper CAN potentially save a kill, but roleblocker > jailkeeper makes this a not terrible challenge for scum barring an early roleblocker lynch.

Roleblocker and Jailkeeper - this one is almost my favorite potential combination of the whole thing. A massive pileup of role interactions that makes it really difficult to figure out what happened the previous night, but at the same time can have pretty reasonable likelihood of stopping a kill. Also a d1 scum lynch just annihilates the scum team unless they shoot the roleblocker exactly on n1.

Rolecop vs

Doctor and Cop - more townsided than the old cop/doc/rb combo, but scum get daytalk as a compromise position. IMO pretty decent odds that this will be the #1 townsided setup out of the 12 over the long haul

Doctor and Jailkeeper - no real investigative power for town, but extremely decent odds of saving multiple kills. Also just an absolute crusher on scum after the first scum lynch if the jailkeeper is alive.

Rolecop and Cop – Rolecop basically just a PR hunter, which seems fine as the secondary investigative when scum has power too.

Rolecop and Jailkeeper - probably the most scum-friendly of the four setups. Jailkeeper can block town rolecop as easily as scum rolecop, though at the same time the jailkeeper can just kind of run the field after the first scum lynch.

Goons vs

Doctor and Tracker – experience has shown this to be on the scumsided of semi-open setups, but not horrifyingly so

Doctor and Roleblocker - pretty interesting as a setup. Decent odds of multiple killstopping, and doc can protect the town roleblocker if claimed. Like basically every setup with a town roleblocker, it potentially becomes a town stomp after the first scum lynch.

Rolecop and Tracker - reasonably ok with town getting a role that isn't terrible as an investigative (tracker), and a role that can find the tracker and potentially pick up a fake claim.

Rolecop and Roleblocker - probably weaker for town than doc/rb here, but roleblocker is still strong when scum have no counters, and tracker can still get guilties. Gut says that this is the setup of the 12 that scum do the best on over the long term.

[mhsmith0]

Which ones seem insanely townsided, and which seem scumsided to you?

[mhsmith0]

jk/doc/rolecop was actually one of the rands in 2 of 4
https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=2of4

does anyone know what the stats for that were?

[mhsmith0]

All the ones with mafia role cop are town sided and a lot of the ones with mafia roleblocker are scum sided.

Also, why are you letting town pick better roles with a mafia rolecop than a mafia roleblocker when in a 9 person game roleblocker is 10000x better than rolecop?

when scum get a rolecop, town gets (doctor or rolecop) and (cop or jaikeeper)

when scum get a roleblocker, town gets (tracker or roleblocker) and (cop or jailkeeper)

(tracker or roleblocker) seem >> (doctor or rolecop) IMO. Tracker vs doc potentially debatable, but roleblocker >> doctor or tracker > rolecop

[mhsmith0]

Town roleblocker in a micro is potentially super powerful. There is literally NOTHING that scum can do to kill the roleblocker if he picks correctly once game is down to one scum, which makes it the strongest weapon against a scum roleblocker.

Meanwhile, it can directly block the scum kill when it's a goon-goon team

Rolecop is substantially less useful than tracker, because it can ONLY cop PRs, whereas the tracker can see someone delivering the kill AND can still cop the scum PR actively doing something at night AND can get a hard guilty on a scum target visiting two different people (scum PR plus delivering kill).

[mhsmith0]

I do worry this setup will become too confusing for newbies

It's a potential consideration, which is why clear presentation and probably a standardized setup discussion are probably going to be part of every mod's opening posts in this setup.

[mhsmith0]

Spoiler= tags are your friend

[mhsmith0]

I think the power of a town roleblocker is underrated. Against goons it's nearly a jailkeeper and without the "did I save or stop" wifom. Its NU potential is why it's not in the most powerful group but it CAN carry a town. It's also the #1 strongest counter to a solo scum roleblocker.

That said the rb/rb/jk triangle does need to be resolved in a standardized manner.

[mhsmith0]

Imagine cop/rb/rb, day one goon lynch, n1 roleblocker hits cop and scum shoot. Town is STILL in super strong situation, as now roleblocker can hard clear someone every night he lives, since he blocks scum rb even if they mutually target.

This also has the nice advantage of making day 1 scum lynches SUPER dangerous to scum, which I think makes d1 more interesting and discourages bussing, both of which are I think improvements.

[mhsmith0]

It's essentially a three sided die roll and then a pair of two sided dice roll (so talking about rerolls in that context isn't super needed - honestly you could just rename the die sides "1 and 2" for town rolls and be fine. 3d3 is a bit of a misnomer, really it's just 3D, with only the first die truly being 3-sided.

So a system like A23 B33 C22 or whatever might be helpful (I'd tend to visually separate out the scum die roll from the town rolls but that's admittedly mire of a "me" thing)

Experience distributions of 6/2/1 and 5/3/1 MIGHT change? My understanding is that it's going to be up for discussion. But even if it does change, it'd likely be a delayed rollout anyway compared to the new setup (among other things, I think if we ever get an IC backlog, going like 5/2/2 or even 6/1/2 would probably be fine... and MAYBE in weird cases 4/3/2?)

[mhsmith0]

Wrt the triangle, we essentially need a determination of what happens given:

Scum Roleblocker -> town Roleblocker -> town jailkeeper -> scum Roleblocker
Scum Roleblocker -> town jailkeeper -> town Roleblocker -> scum Roleblocker

1) Do we just presume all three slots fail with their night actions?
2) Do we give scum Roleblocker immunity in this situation (I lean towards this being fair fwiw, so if one town blocker hits scum but is blocked by the other town blocker, then scum Roleblocker can still make the night kill)
3) Does the jailkeeper still protect (I lean towards no - obviously only relevant if jailkeeper targeting town Roleblocker, while scum shoot town Roleblocker)

However that's determined, it needs to be explicitly spelled out because it is NOT standard.

[mhsmith0]

I think that basically fixes it to more clearly separate out the scum town rands?

I guess a least confusing table would be this:

		Table A		Table B		Table C
First die	Mafia	Mafia Roleblocker		Mafia Rolecop		Mafia Goon
		Number 2	Number 3	Number 2	Number 3	Number 2	Number 3
Second die	Town	Town Tracker	Town Roleblocker	Town Doctor	Town Rolecop	Town Doctor	Town Rolecop
Third die	Town	Town Cop	Town Jailkeeper	Town Cop	Town Jailkeeper	Town Tracker	Town Roleblocker

* = Number 1s other than first die are rerolled

[mhsmith0]

Yeah basically. I think that basically gets there on a simple visual basis.

[mhsmith0]

Proposed role interaction resolution:

1. Should a
   Mafia Roleblocker
   and
   Town Roleblocker
   target each other, the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   will fail at making the night kill; should the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   not be assigned the night kill, there will be no other impact.
   
2. Should a
   Mafia Roleblocker
   target a
   Town Roleblocker
   who targets a
   Town Jailkeeper
   who targets the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   , the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   will not be blocked, but the two
   Town
   roles will be blocked. Similarly, should a
   Mafia Roleblocker
   target a
   Town Jailkeeper
   who targets a
   Town Roleblocker
   who targets the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   , the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   will not be blocked, but the two
   Town
   roles will be blocked.
   
3. In all other cases, Roleblocker actions will take precedence over
   Jailkeeper
   actions should that apply.

Basically this punishes town for having roles that block town, which I think is reasonable from a fairness perspective, since the alternative gives town a LOT of latitude to make bad decisions and get away with them.

[mhsmith0]

#3 is irrelevant if not mutually targeting. Roleblocker doesn't override the protect side of jailkeeper (if they target same slot), and if they don't touch each other it doesn't really matter.

#2 inevitably violates NAR no matter how you slice it, so you basically need to choose an acceptable outcome and just make it clear to all mods, otherwise it's a blatant Rock Paper Scissors circle that CANT get resolved.

[mhsmith0]

3 and #4 here are in conflict. Are you using NAR, or are you saying Roleblocker always goes before Jailkeeper?

Isn't it still NAR if you declare one role to have precedence?

[mhsmith0]

Proposed role interaction resolution:

1. Should a
   Mafia Roleblocker
   and
   Town Roleblocker
   target each other, the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   will fail at making the night kill; should the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   not be assigned the night kill, there will be no other impact.
   
2. Should a
   Mafia Roleblocker
   target a
   Town Roleblocker
   who targets a
   Town Jailkeeper
   who targets the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   , the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   will not be blocked, but the two
   Town
   roles will be blocked. Similarly, should a
   Mafia Roleblocker
   target a
   Town Jailkeeper
   who targets a
   Town Roleblocker
   who targets the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   , the
   Mafia Roleblocker
   will not be blocked, but the two
   Town
   roles will be blocked.
   
3. In all other cases, Roleblocker actions will take precedence over
   Jailkeeper
   actions should that apply.

Basically this punishes town for having roles that block town, which I think is reasonable from a fairness perspective, since the alternative gives town a LOT of latitude to make bad decisions and get away with them.

This is rather confusing to me and IMO will result in a lot of mod errors

There needs to be a rule for what happens in the theee blocker Rock Paper Scissors scenarios. Nit sure how to make it clearer tho.

[mhsmith0]

Triangle mode activated

[mhsmith0]

You could probably make the town roleblocker either strongwilled or ascetic, so that the relationships become much less complicated (since it can never be blocked, it becomes automatically primary in all relationships).

Whether strongwilled or ascetic depends on whether you think it in that case deserves a nerf since it can't be blocked (and ascetic removes ability of town investigatives to look at the slot), or whether it's fine to just remove the complications from the role and be done with it.

[mhsmith0]

@NK15, re:

Spoiler:

I did find this forum only recently, but I have experience in some other mafia-like games although arguably more on the side of what you all would call role madness. I have read the concepts tho. So I might not be correct in what I say, but I might be correct... and I am not going to predict winrates, but differences
Ok, the 12 possible setups are:

1. Mafia Goon, Mafia Roleblocker vs. Town Tracker, Town Cop, 5x Town Vanilla
2. Mafia Goon, Mafia Roleblocker vs. Town Roleblocker, Town Cop, 5x Town Vanilla
3. Mafia Goon, Mafia Roleblocker vs. Town Tracker, Town Jailkeeper, 5x Town Vanilla
4. Mafia Goon, Mafia Roleblocker vs. Town Roleblocker, Town Jailkeeper, 5x Town Vanilla
5. Mafia Goon, Mafia Rolecop vs. Town Doctor, Town Cop, 5x Town Vanilla
6. Mafia Goon, Mafia Rolecop vs. Town Doctor, Town Jailkeeper, 5x Town Vanilla
7. Mafia Goon, Mafia Rolecop vs. Town Rolecop, Town Cop, 5x Town Vanilla
8. Mafia Goon, Mafia Rolecop vs. Town Rolecop, Town Jailkeeper, 5x Town Vanilla
9. Mafia Goon, Mafia Goon vs. Town Doctor, Town Tracker, 5x Town Vanilla
10. Mafia Goon, Mafia Goon vs. Town Doctor, Town Roleblocker, 5x Town Vanilla
11. Mafia Goon, Mafia Goon vs. Town Rolecop, Town Tracker, 5x Town Vanilla
12. Mafia Goon, Mafia Goon vs. Town Rolecop, Town Roleblocker, 5x Town Vanilla

And these 12 setups should be somehow balanced(Not exactly balanced, but no outliers like a 70% town winrate, especially on all setups combined)
Ok.
First the Mafia Roleblocker setups(1-4)
Power roles: Tracker, Cop. The mafia Roleblocker cannot be roleblocked. It is of high importance for the mafia that the power roles die early enough. A tracker is in 2 of the games, so roleblocking is dangerous- if a tracker spots it and the other Power Role reveals itself then the Roleblocker dies. If the Cop gets a guilty result N1 with Tracker alive(or the Tracker with the Cop alive on N1) or if a Mafia dies early by lynch its near Game Over... for the Evils.

Power roles:(T)Roleblocker Cop
Clearly weaker than the previous setup. A roleblocker can target the cop and stop them(terrible) target the night killer(good) target the roleblocker who roleblocks a vanilla(meh) or roleblocks the cop(good). As long as Roleblocker does not stop the kill twice it is not giving the town another possible mislynch and it is worse than a tracker because the tracker always incriminates while the Roleblocker does not.

Power roles:Tracker Jailkeeper
The Jailkeeper can protect good people at the expense of their abilities or stop bad people. It is more flexible than the cop but also arguably not that strong.

Power roles:(T)Roleblocker Jailkeeper
Apart from these cycles that cannot be resolved via NAR we have two people who can roleblock. There is a high chance that one action won't get through... and possibly more as both roles are stronger at the end of the game.
(1-4) internal conclusion: There is some swing when setups differ, but it might not be that decisive. Win rate has to be found out by trial and error

Mafia rolecop setups(5-8):
Power roles: Doctor, Cop
Again, these power roles are quite strong and arguably Mafia has got the rolecop to find them fast before they run havoc. Still the Rolecop results cannot be used for killing before night 2!
The presence of Doctor and Cop makes a claim strategy possible. Large amount of what you call positive feedback.

Power roles: Doctor, Jailkeeper
If the jailkeeper has to claim then it can be protected by the Doctor. Although that only happens in a bit less than 50% of the setups its still a major concern for evils, especially with two protection roles running around. But this one has no cop so at least no evil will find itself in an untenable position even with good play.
Power roles: (T)Rolecop, Cop
The rolecop is a limited cop for the enemy rolecop... which means that the mafia power role is more endangered than the goon. The rolecop should probably claim if the other rolecop dies because they arent useful anymore. Which means that if the Mafia rolecop dies early you will have a claim cycle: "Rolecop claims plz". If no one claims Rolecop then there is a doctor and the cop can reveal... Or the... Jailkeeper, even(see above)

Power roles:(T)Rolecop, Jailkeeper
Arguably the weakest combo. Rolecop cannot see much, Jailkeeper gets more powerful the longer the game goes and (M)Rolecop can find out power roles

Internal Balance (5-8) Cop is better than Jailkeeper, especially when there is a Mafia rolecop running around and preventing the Jailkeeper from reaching later nights. Because Rolecop gets at least 1 result, and has definite knowledge of whats evil and whats not they are probably not weaker than the doctor here, except for the possible concerning combos.

No Mafia Power roles setups(9-12)

Power roles:Doctor, Tracker
These roles are not that strong like full cops and jailkeepers, but if the Tracker finds one evil then they might be protected by a hidden doctor... and then it looks grim for the Evils. On the other hand every nolynch could be met with a nokill, dragging out the game endlessly. And there is no (M)Rolecop or (M)Roleblocker to deal with these power roles.

Power roles:Doctor, (T) Roleblocker
A doctor can protect the roleblocker, if it comes down to 1 evil and the rber is alive. I am unsure how strong this combination is in this case, because they have at least 1 synergy: They both stop kills so 2 kill stops(aka 1 more mislynch allowed) are possible. In the unlikely event that the blocker targets the doctor who targets the victim the blocker is bad, but they are still useful more than detrimetal

Power roles:(T)Rolecop, Tracker
The Rolecop is basically a named townie here, except when they try to out the Tracker.
This setup is clearly worse than its doctor counterpart. No synergy possible.

Power roles:(T)Rolecop, (T)Roleblocker
No synergy. The unlikely bad combination is no more, but the power drop is still high. Same problem as above, except that Roleblocker is worse than Tracker except in a few MyLo cases(where you have one more chance as opposed to the tracker)

Internal balance(9-12)
Setup 9 is much better for town than setup 11 and 12. The same can be probably said for setup 10 as well(much better than...) The Rolecop/Doctor dice is clearly imbalanced when you have rolled Goon before. Obvious internal imbalance.

Overall balance(1-12)

Roleblocker and rolecop are mitigators, they decrease the average effect the enemies have. I am unsure how this will play out Like I said its mostly trial and error anyways probably... as the setup knowledge is also a factor.
BUT
This has pairs of roles. The pairs should ideally be close to strength. The Cop/Jailkeeper difference is ok, even if cop is a bit better. You can't balance perfectly.
The Roleblocker/Tracker pair is arguably not equal, but the difference could -

could

- be not that bad.
The Doctor/Rolecop pair is... not so good. If paired against an enemy rolecop the difference isn't high. Ok. But against goon the balance is upset.

In the setups 9-12 we have a glaring imbalance.
Setups 9 and 10 are way, WAY better than setups 11 and 12.
If this setup is to be tested then there will have to be some changes to fix an imbalance there, but I don't know which way.

Some thoughts...

1) I think you are pretty substantially underestimating the power of the town roleblocker here. Yes, the town roleblocker COULD screw with town power, but it’s numerically much likelier to screw with scum, and again this role becomes super OP given a day 1 scum lynch.
For instance, look at the pair with a cop…
Cop/TB/SB (cop / town roleblocker / scum roleblocker)
Or
Cop/T/SC (cop/tracker/scum roleblocker)

Barring crap like no lynch, there are just a handful out outcomes…
Scum roleblocker lynch
Here the tracker probably gets you a bit more value, because both PRs can fire risk free and scum can at best kill one of them (the roleblocker can HARD clear a slot, but if he dies you could always get something shitty like town roleblocker hitting the cop before dying n1)

Scum goon lynch
Here I’d say it’s the other way around. Scum roleblocker can shoot tracker and block cop, or vice-versa, and there’s nothing at all town can do about it (if scum can find the PRs anyway… but a goon should basically always be claiming PR day 1, so yeah that’s kinda likely). OTOH, the town roleblocker can actively block the scum kill, which is an extremely potent ability (and again, here it’s reasonably likely that town power has been outed to at least some extent before the scum lynch anyway).

Vanilla Townie lynch
Debatable. As with the goon lynch, scum can hit both town PRs potentially, and that gets into a nasty situation. OTOH, town roleblocker COULD block the cop and that gets messy too.

Town roleblocker/track lynch
Obvioulsy it doesn’t matter which of them it is here

Town cop lynch
Roleblocker here is WAY stronger. Roleblocker gets a substantially likely guilty most of the time if there’s no death, AND (in the event he gets a guilty and drives a d2 scum lynch) he gets a second shot to fire. Tracker can potentially get a guilty (and the upside here is he can see the roleblocker AND the goon making a kill), but scum have two chances to hit him (roleblock and kill), which isn’t really great odds.

2) Interestingly, in a micro 7/2 setup vs goons jailkeeper has proven substantially stronger than cop (newbie results are pretty clear on this point). partially because it basically becomes a super cop once the first scum dies (if scum have a roleblocker this is BADLY nerfed, but rolecop is funtionally like a goon in terms of usefulness, and as a side benefit, the jailkeeper can potentially block the rolecop's investigation)

3) I tend to agree that the town rolecop is generally worse than the doctor. HOWEVER, one inherent nature of this setup is that scum are pretty likely to be fakeclaiming power roles. As such, the rolecop can potentially hard clear or hard condemn any PR claims, which has a pretty non-trivial value. But in a world where it's two goons and the goons never claim town power, then yeah it's basically just a named townie.

[mhsmith0]

Another concept is just gating the scum power role draws and going from there, like probably just one shot rolecop or Roleblocker, which lads to different levels of town power (for starters, you can reasonably toss a town one shot Roleblocker or rolecop onto the left die since it's JUUUUUST a little bit more than a vt).

[mhsmith0]

Eyeballing the spreadsheet tab (all through 1651 vs the 40 game trial, 1652-1691)...

1) The OVERALL newbie replaceout rate was basically flat (very slightly higher but lolsamplesize), with town newbie replacements going up and scum rate going down

2) The SE replacement rate went up. A lot. Like, all games through 1651 it was 25% of SE slots getting replaced, the 40 games through 1651 it was just 16%. But in the test? A robust 32%, and for whatever reason it went up for
BOTH town and scum SE slots. IC replacement rate was also up but that's such a crazy low sample size I wouldn't read into it at all.

[mhsmith0]

no worries proposed newbie setup v2 is coming soon anyway

[mhsmith0]

Where we're currently at:

	A	B	C
Mafia	Mafia Roleblocker	Mafia Rolecop	Mafia Goon
Row 1	Town Cop and Town Neopolitan	Town Cop and Town Tracker	Town Cop and Vanilla Townie
Row 2	Town Jailkeeper and Town Doctor	Town Jailkeeper and Town Tracker	Town Jailkeeper and Vanilla Townie
Row 3	Town Cop and Town Doctor	Town Neopolitan and Town Doctor	Town Tracker and Town Doctor

Pick a column for mafia role, pick a row for associated town roles, add 1 goon and 5 VTs.

We've also discussed the possible modification of adding a 4th row:

	A	B	C
Mafia	Mafia Roleblocker	Mafia Rolecop	Mafia Goon
Row 1 cop	Town Cop and Town Neopolitan	Town Cop and Town Tracker	Town Cop and Vanilla Townie
Row 2 jk	Town Jailkeeper and Town Doctor	Town Jailkeeper and Town Tracker	Town Jailkeeper and Vanilla Townie
Row 3 doc	Town Cop and Town Doctor	Town Neopolitan and Town Doctor	Town Tracker and Town Doctor
Row 4 neo	Town Jailkeeper and Town Neopolitan	Town Neopolitan and Town Tracker	Town Neopolitan and Vanilla Townie

So that neopolitan doesn't as blatantly point to what the setup almost has to be if/when it flips. In the latter, C4 is probably underpowered for town, but probably not to the <40% town win rate point, and I tend to think the other 11 should be ok balance-wise.

[mhsmith0]

I know it's probably not what you're looking for, but C4 being Town Neapolitan and Town Neapolitan would probably not be that townsided and would potentially be really interesting.

I think it's pretty scumsided as it is though, given that scum getting neapolitan guiltied can easily claim cop without having to even give results.

The basic issue with a double-neapolitan is that they can potentially get independent green checks on n1, and then it's basically a locked game if scum shoot an unpeeked vt.

Like, it's pretty unlikely, but it's kind of a nasty risk for scum (though I guess you can counterargue they had 2 PRs to maybe knock off at night, and if they missed both AND their targets then maybe they just deserve the loss even with a day 1 vt lynch)

[mhsmith0]

bp is extremely unpopular currently, and 1-shot commuter is a worse version of bp

(I also had this same discussion in the design group )

[mhsmith0]

As far as backup goes, I'm not remotely opposed to incorporating that into a table, but last I'd checked, backup was considered an unpopular addition (so was town roleblocker fwiw, though some of that was back when town jk / town rb / scum rb was a potential structure).

[mhsmith0]

I'd also say that cop/goon/goon, jk/goon/goon, and tracker/doc/goon/goon are all fairly proven in terms of balanced setups, so I think it generically makes sense for double goon setups to be against those three town PR sets. It's probably not a terrible idea to sub in something like odd-night roleblocker as the scum B power instead of rolecop.

[mhsmith0]

Also, as a followup to CES comments...

1) Pretty much all of the column A setups are very much "if the roleblocker gets lynched early, then scum will just lose" type setups, which are... fine? Newbie towns are pretty consistently poor at lynching scum early in general, much less the roleblocker specifically. If scum can't protect their roleblocker for even one day phase, then they deserve to lose.
Moreover, 3a (cop/doc/rb) in particular has been proven over time to be roughly balanced (town win rate >50% but not by a whole lot), and if add in daytalk AND take away the easy "a cop is auto-confirmed just by claiming" aspect, I think there's no reason to think that it should be substantially town-favored given overall newbie meta.
2) 3C is a block that LOOKS like it could be townsided given the potential of "follow the tracker", but in practice scum are winning that >50% of the time in the current meta, and that's with an essentially confirmed tracker AND no daytalk. Take away the auto-confirm of the tracker and add daytalk, and there's simply no way it's townsided in current newbie site meta.
3) 2B is actually one where you can argue against it just because of how messy it ends up being (tracker can guilty the rolecop), but I don't particularly think it's a balance issue unless you argue that the rolecop itself is a bad PR, in which case yeah I'd be fine with like odd night roleblocker instead.

I'd say that in terms of game design and balance, the following are explicitly good for newbie games:
3A cop/doc/rb
1C cop/goons
2C jk/goons
3C tracker/doc/goons

I'd also say that jk/doc (2A) is a potentially very powerful town combo, but a full roleblocker against it (should) keep it balanced

Which leaves:
1A - one strong investigator, one weaker investigator, up against a full roleblocker, which I think is generically ok for balance? Scum ought to be able to shoot or roleblock 1 of 2 town PRs on night 1 by random luck alone (ignoring potential for them outing PRs during day play anyway), and if they can't do that, they're being objectively worse than most scum teams are in terms of night actions, and it's probably ok for them to lose accordingly?

All that said, I do think you can argue against rolecop as the appropriate scum PR on column B. An odd night roleblocker, or maybe some kind of JOAT (roleblocker/strongman/vanilla cop), something along those lines is probably acceptable?

I also have a personal preference to have 12 cells instead of 9, since that reduces the setup gaming that comes from a smaller number of possibilities, but that's ultimately up to PP I think.


PS I'm somewhat inclined against the kind of major structural overhaul implied by subbing in multiple town PRs with unknown balance effects (roleblocker, friendly neighbor, backup) AND multiple scum PRs that have never been seen in newbie games (watcher, 1-shot rolecop). Town roleblocker in particular seems to be... unpopular? with people who basically think that town roleblockers destroy towns and don't want them in the hands of YOLO newbies (this was part of the discussion on the previous round of setup proposal). I'm personally agnostic wrt backup (I think it's a fine enough role) but I know that there are people who really dislike it, partially because it's pretty unusual as a site role (friendly neighbor, gated or not, has the same problem).

PPS FWIW, looking at 10/3 mini normal stats (workbook not checked fwiw but it ought to be about right), the most common town power roles are:
jailkeeper
doctor
tracker
cop
JOAT
1-shot bp
bodyguard
gated vig
gunsmith
roleblocker

friendly neighbor very rarely pops up (in fairness neapolitan is pretty uncommon too), and universal backup isn't unheard of but isn't super popular either

and most common scum power roles are:
encryptor
rolecop
roleblocker
godfather (these were super popular before being blacklisted)
joat
neighbor

mafia watcher in particular almost never pops up


PPPS I think I'd also be fine with making column C a mafia encryptor and making daytalk on that column only (which then gives town more info on setup depending on scum flip) but I'm not really married to that idea

[mhsmith0]

Actually, last I checked Normals with a Mafia Encryptor tended to be close to balanced, meaning that that role is being judged correctly. (Roleblocker isn't, though; scum nearly always win a Normal if they have one of those.)

10/3 games with mafia roleblocker (full)

Town Wins
1449
1481
1514
1527
1662
1666
1715
1772
1794
1850
1860 (this wasn't even in my sheet, idr why)
1874
1920

Scum Wins
1407
1457
1596
1653
1666
1709
1719

If anything, the evidence suggests pretty strongly that the NRG is OVERVALUING the power of the mafia roleblocker instead of undervaluing it.

[mhsmith0]

Looking at the past eight 10/3 mini normals with standard issue roleblocker (only 1719 was a scum win):

Spoiler:

1709
1-shot gunsmith, JOAT, rolecop, doc
vs rb/watcher/goon

1715
cop, doc, rolecop, jailkeeper
vs rb/godfather/rolecop

1719
1-shot BP, 2x masons, doc
vs rb/goon/goon

1772
roleblocker, doctor, macho tracker
vs rb/goon/goon

1794
gunslinger, cop, doc (idr what gunslinger was)
vs rb/encryptor/goon

1850
cop, doc, vig
vs rb/encryptor/goon

1874
JOAT (doc/vig/rolecop), tracker, doctor, backup tracker
vs rb/goon/goon

1920
loyal cop, weak doc, ascetic, macho neapolitan
vs rb/goon/goon

It seems like the tendency is for designers to basically load town to the gills and then throw in a roleblocker. rb/goon/goon in particular seems to be not enough power for some of the things that we're seeing towns get.

Like, you look at 1850 and you basically have a 3-man masonry of town roles that aren't going to be lynchable, which means that unless the vig is awful (admittedly possible), you have 3 useful town roles that will additionally generate either night peeks (cop) or night kills inside the POE (vig), and with a doctor to potentially save people the scum team needs dead. Like, even if you had a day 1 massclaim of all town roles (obviously not the ideal outcome), you would STILL see scum unable to stop both the cop from peeking and vig from shooting since to actually make a reliable kill they need to block the doc.