Open Setup Autopsies (HELP)

[AnonymousGhost]

I'm going to base this on the argument that C9++ is, in practice, balanced. Its history seems to suggest so. However,

town has only won 1/8 JK9++ games before I won the last one

. The most recent iteration had an extremely imbalanced playerlist (D1 non-bus scum lynch) and only 2 mafia.

Someone needs to update the wiki. ;3

Fixing this:

- Any ideas for giving town more power here? Be sure to read the setup first.
- Vengeful needs to be removed, as no one will actually lynch them.
- Rolecop should be changed to Gunsmith.

Had look back into the Open Game Queue to see if anything really barred a role from not showing up in an Open. Didn't see anything besides announcing that a role has the possibility of showing up and providing a sample PM, so let's take a crack at it.

Alternatively instead of giving town more power, we could limit the amount of power that scum has. Maybe add a role modifier to the Mafia JOAT, if that's allowed in Open.

Adding town power

- Replace the Tracker and 1-Shot Tracker with a Deputy.

- Deputy is an alignment cop backup instead of a role cop. Figuring out the roles is equivalent to finding out someone's alignment because it's an Open setup with no repeating roles in both alignments i.e. Mafia Doctor and Town Doctor. For Goons, the role cop is useless because Goons show up as "Vanilla". In the game we played, Kop backed off of his vote on my slot. He was on the right track, but I think getting the result 'Vanilla' ruined the potential to catch me, the last mafia because I was a Goon. Ultimately, Role Cop is good for catching Mafia PRs and the SK, but not Mafia Goons which is dangerous for the town if they rely on the Cop too much.

- I was going to suggest a Weak Doctor, then realized it's basically another Hider. So... Forget that idea.

- Maybe swap out Town Jailkeeper with Town Role Stopper that blocks kills. According to the wiki, it's a stronger protective role if it can block NKs.

- Maybe swap out the Vengeful with Hated - after they've been lynched they can add on the Hated role modifier to someone who was on their bandwagon. Hated isn't as punishing as Vengeful, usually, and people could still push the lynch for the trade off that if the lynchee nailed the right person - scum or SK - then that could help the town push a lynch the next Day.

- Maybe swap out the Town Vigilante with a Town Bomb instead. I was going to suggest PGO but realized that that might kill a helpful town PR who wasn't a killing role.

[AnonymousGhost]

Adding onto this, @Math - can you crunch some numbers for me?

Is there a possibility that TTTT = Mafia Goon, Mafia Goon, Mafia JOAT (Roleblock, Ninja Kill, Strongman Kill) and TTT = Mafia Goon, Mafia Goon, Mafia JOAT, Serial Killer can exist alongside the presence of a Role Cop? If over half of the scum show up as "Vanilla", then the Cop's power is greatly reduced - unless town hunts via associations and can manage to push those lynches despite the Cop claiming to have gotten a "Vanilla" result.

It's like having a Mafia Godfather, or worse,

two Godfathers

in the form Mafia Goons thanks to the result a Role Cop receives when investigating a Goon.

[AnonymousGhost]

The Neapolitan could be restricted to an X-Shot.

[AnonymousGhost]

I suppose the next question would be; can the serial killer be swapped out for another 3rd party role? While still maintaining equal, or better, balance than the SK had in games?

Edit: I'm referring to JK9++.

[AnonymousGhost]

@Dino

Point. If the set up actually switched the SK with something else, it'd probably have to be overhauled to counter this new - probably anti-town - third party.

[AnonymousGhost]

SWITCH

Spoiler: Roles

1 Mafia Cop Switch
1 Mafia Doc Switch
1 Mafia Vig Switch
1 Serial Killer (with Mafia NK Immunity OR Vig/Cop Immunity)
1 Cop
1 Doctor
1 Vigilante
7 Townies

- Nightstart.
- Every night town PRs are "on" by default.
- Mafiosos that do not perform the NK can "switch" a town PR off.
- SK can kill and also choose to switch any or all of the 3, potentially switching PRs back on.

Fixing this:

Nightstart with a cop and 3 killers is straight up bad. But daystart messes with the switch mechanics.

Would it be better as just 14p Daystart?

Never played in this set up before. I don't know the tendency of how kill happy the killing role will be in the night start, but for the sake of running a worst case scenario, let's say that all 3 shots are fired during Nightstart and that they all hit they're intended target. Let's also say that the Mafi can't shot and perform their Switch ability in the same Night. So, one of the mafi would have to sacrifice the ability to Switch Off in order to fire a Kill Shot. Let's say that the Mafi allow the Doctor to stay On and shut off both the Cop and the Vigilante. Depending on Turn Order, the Vigilante's shot may or may not reach their intended target. Because this is the worst case scenario, for everyone, let's say that the Turn Order allows the Vigilante's shot to go through.

All in all, three people still die and town gets depowered. D1 lynch results in a mislynch and it's 1 v 3 v 7. Vigilante can't fire and there's an increased risk that the Vigilante could hit one of their team mates, so the Mafi don't turn the Vigilante back on. Mafi and SK both successfully fire a shot in N1, but don't cross fire. D2 rolls around and its 1 v 3 v 5. Town's in LyLo and the rest is pretty much history.

To make the game last longer than 2 Day phases, I'd suggest tacking on some role modifiers. Even randomize which role modifiers get attached onto the Killing Roles.

- Even/Odd Night
- Novice - Use this role modifier twice.
- Night Specific - This one... maybe not so much.

Then again, Novice might not work against the Mafi - unless it's a group wide modifier for N0 - because Novice Mafi #1 could just ask Mafi #2 to perform the NK instead because they have the role modifier. Attaching Novice onto the SK or the Town Vigilante would be better because they can't use that loop hole.

Attaching Even/Odd Night onto the Mafis is way more interesting.

Let's say:

Mafi #1 = Odd Night
Mafi #2 = Even Night
Mafi #3 = Novice

Adding the factors of who's got which Switch and whether or not the Mafi can use their Switch Ability and perform the Night Kill and suddenly the decision making process isn't as easy as it was before.

Mafi #1 has to make a decision whether or not they'll Switch Off the Cop or take a chance with the NK. The risk increases because even though Mafi #2 or #3 are the Vigilante Switch and Switch Off the Vigilante, there's the risk of SK cross shooting at the Mafia and killing Mafi #1 before they've had the chance to Switch Off Town Cop, if they choose to fire during N0.

At least, I think this would make the set up less swingy. Someone double check this potential idea just in case.

Edit: In order for this possibly new set up to remain in Open, I'd suggest announcing the possibility of the existence of the role modifiers and the possibility that the killing roles could have duplicate role modifiers.

[AnonymousGhost]

<~>;

That sounds like a nightmare....

[AnonymousGhost]

SWITCH

Spoiler: Roles

1 Mafia Cop Switch
1 Mafia Doc Switch
1 Mafia Vig Switch
1 Serial Killer (with Mafia NK Immunity OR Vig/Cop Immunity)
1 Cop
1 Doctor
1 Vigilante
7 Townies

- Nightstart.
- Every night town PRs are "on" by default.
- Mafiosos that do not perform the NK can "switch" a town PR off.
- SK can kill and also choose to switch any or all of the 3, potentially switching PRs back on.

Taking a more "critical" look at this and what you said, it almost sounds like the Mafi and the SK have the potential to utterly screw with one another's plans.

To clarify, the Switches can't say "I want to Switch the Doctor Off,", they can only say "Switch Doctor" and hope for the best. Is that correct?

If that's the case, I'd say to stick with the role modifiers and allow the Switch Mayhem to continue. Unless we want to drive scum nuts and cheekily add on some Town Switch Role Modifier. /wink wink

PEdit:

@mhsmith

How would Day Start impact the balance/swing of the game compared to Night Start?

[AnonymousGhost]

Light bulb moment. Could a Psychiatrist replace one of the town PR in JK9++ or Switch and still maintain balance or is that too swingy/crazy for Open games?

[AnonymousGhost]

High Noon

Setup

7 Town

2 Scum

Duel Mechanic

At any time during the day if a duel has not already started or taken place, a player may choose to initiate a duel with another player in the game by declaring Duel: playername. When a duel is started between two players, their voting ability is removed, and the remaining players can only vote between the duelists. When a majority of the non-duelists have voted for a player, that player is killed and the day continues as normal, with all players voting for a lynch.

History

Micro 78 - Mafia Victory
Bounty on Endor (off site) - Town Victory

I'm quite fond of this set up, but it could use some tweaks.

Problems

- Too many kills per cycle (Day + Night Phase i.e. D1 + N1 = 1 cycle): Worst case scenario is that town looses 3 players (duel, lynch, NK), which creates a 2 M v 4 T game. In combination with the duel mechanic and the lynch mechanic, this effectively creates D2 into a LyLo situation. Duel/Lynch the right person or lose the game on D2. Which is basically how Micro 78 ended w/ a scum win.

Possible Solutions

I'm trying to keep the game true to its roots and leave it Mountainous, which leaves me to shuffle around with the ways players can kill one another. There are a number of ways to reduce the # of kills per cycle, but the question becomes: how can we reduce the number of kills without losing balance?

- Make the Duel mechanic end the Day Phase after a majority has been reached. It'd effectively turn the Duel into an alternative lynch mechanic. A reason why people might be so duel happy is because a finished duel doesn't end the Day Phase. Getting that immediately flip can produce discussion, but that want for discussion might lead to rash duels and dead townies.

- Replace the Lynch Mechanic with the Duel mechanic. This combos with the first suggestion of the Duel mechanic ending the day phase.

- If a day phase could host a duel and a lynch - this is ignoring the suggestion that a finished duel ends the day phase -, I'd suggest replacing scum factional NK with a scum vengeance kill.

- Or increase the # of players in the game from a micro to a mini to prevent a D2 LyLo.

Thoughts?