[SETUP] Miss List

[Bicephalous Bob]

One thing that worries me is that scum don't have a huge incentive to not lynch each other early in the game; going for the miss intentionally N1 would be very ballsy (and possibly backfire), whereas just playing the townie and not trying to influence the outcome of the lynch (beyond normal fake-scumhunting) gives them a notable advantage (good townies and bad scum gone if scum gets lynched, or a potential miss with little information if a townie gets lynched). This means that they may well be rather harder to read than they would be in a more normal game.

An incomplete solution:

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

or vengekilled

, 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.

This makes vengekilling bad townies more tempting for scum, and it makes getting lynched a bigger loss. The problem is that you lose the perpetual n+1 vs. n property, but there may be a way to make that work.

[Bicephalous Bob]

An alternative is to allow scum to add two players to the miss list on Day 1, giving scum more reason to push town right away. It's also scum-sided and swingy, so it's perhaps better suited for the 4v3 variant.

[Bicephalous Bob]

I still think the original setup with this addition works:

3 Mafia Goons
4 Vanilla Townies

On Day 1, the mafia choose two townies to add to the "Miss List". On later Days, the mafia choose only one townie.

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 or townies the Mafia chose to add that Day. They then must vengekill one player on that list.

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

Pushing a D1 lynch on a townie gives scum a 40% chance of winning, hardly a long shot. Increasing the difficulty of the first vengekill also makes the what-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger effect less troubling -- the vengekilling townie earns it for the rest of his team. (Vengekills in 3v2 and below are quite difficult already.)

And the EV = 3/7 * EV3v2 + 4/7 * .6 * EV3v2 = 41%.

[Bicephalous Bob]

I don't think that would make it a more enjoyable setup, as it changes pretty much nothing assuming the game lasts past D1.

Your other points are fair, but this doesn't seem true to me. See:

One thing that worries me is that scum don't have a huge incentive to not lynch each other early in the game; going for the miss intentionally N1 would be very ballsy (and possibly backfire), whereas just playing the townie and not trying to influence the outcome of the lynch (beyond normal fake-scumhunting) gives them a notable advantage (good townies and bad scum gone if scum gets lynched, or a potential miss with little information if a townie gets lynched).

Since scum now have a large incentive to push a D1 town lynch, there will be strong associative tells from the get-go. There may be better ways to establish this.

[Bicephalous Bob]

For example, deny town their last vengekill if a townie is lynched on Day 1:

3 Mafia Goons
4 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,

or if a townie is lynched on both Day 1 and Day 3

. Town wins if all Mafia are dead.

[Bicephalous Bob]

If town gets lynched on d2, there's a 33% chance of town-on-town violence. I think cfj was talking about early days in larger games, where the odds are neglectable.