[OLD] Open Setup Discussion and Nominations

[JDodge]

Spy/Traitor/Whatever it's called Mafia

2 mafia
1 traitor/spy/whatever, knows who the mafia is but the mafia does not know whom the traitor is
9 townies

Does it need powerroles?

[yellowbounder]

Does the Traitor help the mafia's win condition? ie, if the mafia are dead, does the spy lose?

[Simenon]

Spy/Traitor/Whatever it's called Mafia

2 mafia
1 traitor/spy/whatever, knows who the mafia is but the mafia does not know whom the traitor is
9 townies

Does it need powerroles?

2 mafia 10 townies is generally regarded as the balanced vanilla setup. Adding a traitor can only help the mafia.

[Kelly Chen]

I think it's more or less balanced, and certainly more interesting (which I feel aids town). The mafia will probably often end up getting the traitor lynched...

If you add any town power I'd leave it at a doctor or something.

[Kelly Chen]

1x 1-shot day-vig that dies upon using his ability
2x masons
3x goons
6x vanilla townies

Good thing that vig is only one shot or he might be able to die more than once!

It would be cool if Kelly ran the statistics with Excel yeah

I use MSQBasic usually but I'm intrigued at the thought of trying to do the same thing in Excel.

I'm not sure running stats on this setup would be informative. If you start with the 3 goons and

nine

townies, you get a setup that looks pretty unbalanced with over 80% scum wins given random moves. The masons can be implemented as two roles that, if they would be lynched, instead they claim (and become unlynchable) and become targets for the scum.

The vig is hard to implement. The easiest thing to do is just say the vig fires randomly on D1 to ensure he gets a kill in. But there are a couple of concerns I have with that.
1. It might on average be better strategy for the vig to wait until a mason or two have been outed, so that the vig doesn't kill a mason.
2. It's not obvious to me that a D1 kill strategy is even helpful... The vig's death is the loss of a guaranteed pro-town role, and his kill is only slightly more likely to hit scum than a lynch.

And of course in real life, this stuff isn't random.

[Albert B. Rampage]

In short, yay or nay ?

[inHimshallibe]

Throwing this idea onto the table:

3 or 4 Mafia
0 or 1 SK who cannot be roleblocked (subject to change, pending on your thoughts)
1 or 2 Roleblockers (maybe 0-2?)
6 or 7 Townies (maybe 6-8?)

4 evil, 8 good

I like seeing how roleblockers use their information, but maybe it needs more.

Gut feeling that it could be slightly unbalanced in favor of anti-town...

I suppose. What about:

3 Mafia
1 SK who cannot be roleblocked
2 Roleblockers
6 Townies

If the roleblockers target each other, there are no kills at all that Night, limited to one time only.

[Shanba]

Love is in the Air mafia

2 lovers (masons who die together)
2lovers
4 townies
2 linked scum (die together)
2 linked scum

All the scum are in the same scumgroup

This basically came from me thinking how to balance a 6p setup. Linking two of the townies seemed the way to go about it, but even then it simply becomes a one lynch game, which seemed off. So I doubled everything. There's room for mafia fake claiming lovers or claim townies. There's disincentives for lovers to claim just to confirm innocence. I'd like some thoughts though.

[Kelly Chen]

@Albert: I think it's balanced enough to be run, probably. Though I don't like masons

in open setups

without a reason why they would be interesting in that setup. I also don't see why the one-shot vig should die.

How about giving the mafia a one sacraficial kill?

Ugh. Asking mafia to kill one of their own in exchange for being able to overcome a weakness in the setup.

Aimee, OMGWOW is bad for open setup games.

Yeah OMGWOW is bad in most senses here but I see what she's saying, that with a lot of these setups I just don't get why we should try out

that

one.

@Shanba: I don't think I see how it's a viable strategy for scum to claim lovers. (Unless of course they're about to be lynched and they're trying some last-minute fishing.)

[Shanba]

Because in order to counterclaim scum claiming lovers, both sets of lovers would have to come out, and they couldn't be sure that the other group wasn't the second pair or not. Also, even if one pair of the scum were counterclaimed by bothpairs of lovers, that's still a 2 in 3 chance that the scum will win (wrong set of lovers lynched, other set of lovers nked).

[Aimee]

Love is in the Air mafia

2 lovers (masons who die together)
2lovers
4 townies
2 linked scum (die together)
2 linked scum

All the scum are in the same scumgroup

This basically came from me thinking how to balance a 6p setup. Linking two of the townies seemed the way to go about it, but even then it simply becomes a one lynch game, which seemed off. So I doubled everything. There's room for mafia fake claiming lovers or claim townies. There's disincentives for lovers to claim just to confirm innocence. I'd like some thoughts though.

How many scum are there? I am getting confused.

I also don't think that claiming lovers would benefit the scum.

[Thesp]

I need a mini to put up there. Give me one.

I'm intrigued by the Traitor game also, let me know if it should run as is (2 Mafia, 1 Traitor, 9 Townies).

Do you think Dethy Mafia is too complex to run as an Open Game?

Is Rampage good to go as is? I think I need to satiate some of the public's need for a vig role.

Also, I'd like to run Hider Mafia, but am concerned about two things: (1) The 2 Trackers are really, really, good. Maybe

too

good. Show me I'm wrong or tweak it. (2) I'm concerned about breaking strategies where the hiders

plan

who they hide with in an attempt to hide with mafia to gt themselves killed, outing mafia in the process. Show me that this isn't conceivable, or find a way around it (allow mafia to disable killing those who visit at night?).

[Mr. Flay]

Dethy is perfectly fine in complexity, but it's pretty much a numbers game if you can get someone to break it. Not sure all players will like that (either the numbers ones or the regular players)...

[Yosarian2]

I think it's more or less balanced, and certainly more interesting (which I feel aids town). The mafia will probably often end up getting the traitor lynched...

Eh, sometimes, but even if the traitor decides to wait until day 2-3 and then act like a jester and get himself lynched, it's significantly worse for the town then a 9 town 2 mafia game would be. The fact that he knows who the mafia is makes it even worse, as it skewes the ratio of pro-town votes/pro scum votes further in the scum's favor, making it harder to lynch bad guys and easier to lynch good guys.

Vanillia games are hard for the town; this one is harder. The town needs something extra; either a good power role (like 1 cop), two weaker power roles (say, 1 doc and 1 vig), or several extra townies.

[yellowbounder]

Hide and Seek Mafia

3 Mafia
6 Hiders (die if hide behind mafia, die if target is NKed)
2 Trackers

Also, I'd like to run Hider Mafia, but am concerned about two things: (1) The 2 Trackers are really, really, good. Maybe

too

good. Show me I'm wrong or tweak it. (2) I'm concerned about breaking strategies where the hiders

plan

who they hide with in an attempt to hide with mafia to gt themselves killed, outing mafia in the process. Show me that this isn't conceivable, or find a way around it (allow mafia to disable killing those who visit at night?).

v2

4 Mafia [after all, most of the town has a semi sort of NK immunity]
6 Hiders
1 Tracker (finds out who X targeted)
1 Watcher (finds out who targeted Y)

v3

3 Mafia
6 Hiders
1 Paranoid Gun Owner Vig (PGO works only for Hiders)
1 Tracker
1 Watcher

v4

3 Mafia
6 Hiders
1 Tracker
1 Forensics Expert (finds out cause of death)
[in v4, the difference between a hider->mafia death, and a mafia NK is unknown (role and alignment still revealed), preventing {2}, while being a good substitute for the Tracker, but not as good, fulfilling {1}]

I like

v4

since then the town can't fully plan, and scum could claim Forensics Expert.

Nominate Hide and Seek Mafia v4

[Adel]

Pick a flavor:

Orange Mafia

3 Goons
1 Miller
1 Cop
1 Doctor
6 Townies

Night Start

Grape Mafia

4 Goons
2 Cops
1 Miller
1 Doctor
4 Townies

Night Start

Coconut Mafia

4 Goons
3 Doctors
5 Townies

Night Start

Sour-Apple Mafia

3 Goons
3 Vigs
6 Townies

Night Start!

Wild Berry Mafia

3 Goons
2 Masons
2 Lovers (can talk at night, die together)
5 Townies

Day Start

Kiwi Mafia

3 Goons
1 SK
2 Vigs
1 Cop
5 Townies

Day Start

Champagne Mango Mafia

2 Krasnaya Mafiya (Scum group A)
2 Matsuba-kai (Scum group B)
1 Vig
1 Doctor
1 Cop
5 Townies

Day Start

[Aimee]

Orange Mafia

3 Goons
1 Miller
1 Cop
1 Doctor
6 Townies

Night Start

I like the setup, although I think a day start would be better here.

Grape Mafia

4 Goons
2 Cops
1 Miller
1 Doctor
4 Townies

Night Start

This one is unbalanced in favor of the scum (there should really only be 3 goons). Everything is just slighty too powerful.

Coconut Mafia

4 Goons
3 Doctors
5 Townies

Night Start

Unbalanced. The following is more balanced:

Coconut Mafia 2

3 Goons
3 Doctors
6 Townies

I'd maybe change that further still, making it 2 doctors and 7 townies.

Again, I would prefer a Day Start here as well.

Sour-Apple Mafia

3 Goons
3 Vigs
6 Townies

Night Start!

I am not 100% sure about this one. I think it is unbalanced, because the vigs are so powerful. If you maybe made it 4 One-shot vigs, and 5 Townies instead, that would be more balanced. And again, I think a Day Start would be better.

Wild Berry Mafia

3 Goons
2 Masons
2 Lovers (can talk at night, die together)
5 Townies

Day Start

I actually quite like this, but don't really understand lovers, so I don't know if it is balanced.

Kiwi Mafia

3 Goons
1 SK
2 Vigs
1 Cop
5 Townies

Day Start

I think this is unbalanced, because of all the killing roles...

Champagne Mango Mafia

2 Krasnaya Mafiya (Scum group A)
2 Matsuba-kai (Scum group B)
1 Vig
1 Doctor
1 Cop
5 Townies

Day Start

I haven't got a clue whatsoever! Gut feeling would be to take out the vig, and add another town power-role (maybe a roleblocker?)

[Aimee]

Medical Mafia

2 Goons
1 "Normal" Doctor
1 Weak Doctor (dies if protects Mafia)
1 CPR Doctor (kills the target if they aren't facing a kill)
1 Paranoid Doctor (protects and role-blocks their target)
1 Quack Doctor (kills target instead of protecting them)
1 Naive Doctor (doesn't actually protect)
1 Nurse
1 Faith Healer (50% chance of protection)

Nurse replaces the first doctor that dies (Faith Healer not included).

[Kelly Chen]

I don't believe open setups should have 1 miller, at least if that player is told they're miller. I'd suggest making it 0-1 miller... That keeps the claim from being such a reliable way to get out of being lynched, and gives investigated scum a chance of weaseling out of it.

I don't feel that 2:2:8 setups like Champagne Mango should have a stronger town than in a 3:9 setup.

@Thesp - wrt Albert's vig+masons setup. I want to ask whether the vig really should be suicidal. I think it's more "normal" and probably more balanced without that. Personally I think it would be more interesting to pair a vig with another power role (maybe tracker or doctor) than with masons... Not much potential for a vig and masons to work together in an interesting way. The masons are eventually outed and the vig has the sense not to target them, that's it.

[Adel]

Champagne Mango Mafia 2

2 Krasnaya Mafiya (Scum group A)
2 Matsuba-kai (Scum group B)

1 Vig

1 SK

1 Doctor
1 Cop
5 Townies

Day Start

[Adel]

Grape Mafia 2

4 Goons
2 Cops

1 Miller

1 Tracker

1 Doctor
4 Townies

Night Start

[Adel]

Orange Mafia 2

3 Goons

1 Miller

1 Tracker

1 Cop

of unknown sanity- equal odds of being sane, insane, paranoid, or naive

1 Doctor
6 Townies

Night Start

[Adel]

Trail Mix Mafia

3 Goons
1 SK
1 Cop
3 Trackers
4 Townies

Day Start

[Adel]

I noticed the majority of players signing up for Open Setup games are newbies. That is who I made these games for.

With the exception of Coconut and Wild Berry, these setups were designed to yield fast & violent games yielding end games where understanding competing role claims is vital for town's success.

The major balance issue of Coconut is the possibility of cross protection between Doctors.

Wild Berry is probably off in scum's favor, but it should appeal more to experienced players due to its simplicity.

The night starts do share the danger of a lucky night move destroying the balance of the game, but that is the trade off for a faster day 1 based upon real information. I think balance is less of an issue for these games than is commonly believed. At least one Village Idiot will be in each game, possibly in a vital role, and one strong player can destroy balance as well even in a vanilla role.

[Simenon]

Nominate: any simple and balanced large open setup