Mafiascum.net

Playing with a 10:2 mountainous variant

Mafia Goon role is normal mafia goon

Vanilla Town is normal vanilla town

Rule addition:

After a lynch occurs, a 24 hour twilight period will occur before the flip. During this twilight period, any player (apart from the lynched player) may post . If a player chooses to sacrifice themselves, they will die in the place of who would regularly be lynched. The lynched player will be spared, have their role revealed, and gain a bulletproof ability for the following night. If there is no sacrifice the lynch continues as normal.

That strikes me as pretty unbalanced, with effectively confirmed town that can't be immediately killed, unless you have a bunch of selfish townies who demand to be allowed to stay alive. Maybe it's OK if the self sacrifice only works the first time all game someone tries it?

In post 1, mhsmith0 wrote:That strikes me as pretty unbalanced, with effectively confirmed town that can't be immediately killed, unless you have a bunch of selfish townies who demand to be allowed to stay alive. Maybe it's OK if the self sacrifice only works the first time all game someone tries it?

Mafia comes into play though.

Lets say scum was lynched D1. Mafia is revealed, town dies N1. Same mafia lynched D2, town dies N2. To kill that one scum, you just lost three town. If town ever sacrifices themselves for scum, it costs the lives of two extra town immediately.

Same time as mafia would not sacrifice ever. It only helps town in the even that town would be lynched and town is willing to sacrifice themselves on a read to save them. So if town was lynched D1 and a player was "forced" to sacrifice themselves for them, scum just doesn't and then is lynched D2. Even if another town eats the lynch you have: Town Sac D1, Town killed N1, scum lynched D2, original lynchee dies N2. Move immediately to a 7:1 game that is essentially nightless. You can start to argue a town advantage there, but are you going to be able to force town to sacrifice ever?

Its also why I kept it 10:2... Assuming standard play you would get to a 4:2 type endgame as opposed to 5:2 where the right move would be to sacrifice regardless of your read on a player because it brings game to 2:1 or 3:2 with confirmed town. Best case for town is that you are creating a scenario where one player alive is always confirmed town (unless scum was lynched the previous day and that drops to zero). Essentially if you can force town to actually make optimal play (doesn't always happen - see Hard Boiled) you would with the top two suspects being town end up in an 8:2 with one confirmed town. As 10:2 in in practice scum sided, I think its worth a thought.

So I'd think you'd get, presuming that town always sacrifices for a lynch (while consistently mislynching, and presuming scum shoot out the BP):

Day 1: 10 VT, 2 goons
Night 1: 8 VT, 1 IC BP, 2 goons
Day 2: 8 VT, 1 IC, 2 goons
Night 2: 6 VT, 1 IC BP, 1 IC, 2 goons
Day 3: 6 VT, 2 IC, 2 goons
Night 3: 4 VT, 2 IC, 1 IC BP, 2 goons
Day 4: 4 VT, 3 IC, 2 goons

so even given a bunch of mislynches, it gets ridiculously grim for scum team by day 4 (and if they kill ICs instead of dropping BP, it's not really much better)

What MIGHT make sense is if the IC BP is just for that night. Then you get:

Day 1: 10 VT, 2 goons
Night 1: 8 VT, 1 IC BP, 2 goons
Day 2: 7 VT, 1 IC, 2 goons
Night 2: 5 VT, 1 IC BP, 1 IC, 2 goons
Day 3: 5 VT, 1 IC, 2 goons
Night 3: 3 VT, 1 IC BP, 1 IC, 2 goons
Day 4: 3 VT, 1 IC, 2 goons -> mislynch = game over

That's at least a bit more reasonable, although you're probably going to see a weird game state where some people want to be "mislynched" for the clear status, others don't want to save and die because they're ego players, and the scum is going to have to play around with driving mislynches while having excuses for not self-sacrificing.

Yeah I mistyped that one in the opening with the BP only applying to the next night... making the post while also watching TV and working on a SBNation article might not be a good plan... editing...

What happens when the game meta devolves to 'Okay we're lynching X because we want them conftown and Y is going to self sacrifice and if they don't we power lynch them tomorrow.'
Because that's what's going to happen every single time.

In post 5, RadiantCowbells wrote:What happens when the game meta devolves to 'Okay we're lynching X because we want them conftown and Y is going to self sacrifice and if they don't we power lynch them tomorrow.'
Because that's what's going to happen every single time.

Im not sure it will happen (again hard boiled theory) but even in the case it does, you force scum into a scenario where if scum gets lined up for a lynch, they pull three down with them.

It essentially is a 10:2 nightless variant game if that is the case (example town A saved, B dies instead, A dies following night) where if scum when either lynched or supposed to be saved takes three town down as well. Absolute worst case for scum is being targeted D1 where it would leave the second scum in a 7:1 scenario where scum probably is aiming for a 3:1 endgame with one clears via:

7 Town 1 Scum
Town A lynch, Town B saves, B dies (6:1)
Town C NK (5:1)
Town D lynched, Town E saves, E dies (4:1)
Town A NK (3:1)

Even in that case, scum isn't dead in the water. They would need to be out of top four targets, but enter a 3:1 with one clear (Town D). Its tough, but in a 2P scum one dying D1 should be extremely hard to overcome.

If first two who die are town and then scum dies next cycle we have:

5 Town 1 scum
Town A lynch, Town B saves, B dies (4:1)
Town C NK (3:1)

That time scum only has to be out of top two to force a 4P endgame where there is one clear town.

The only way it goes 100% south for scum is if they are set up as part of a pair (e.g. day one lynch/save)

This also assumes town will always follow the correct plan of attack. What if player X who is supposed to sacrifice is convinced that the lynch is scum? I think that even when this plan is laid out, there are enough players who will just ignore the odds and move on.

In post 5, RadiantCowbells wrote:What happens when the game meta devolves to 'Okay we're lynching X because we want them conftown and Y is going to self sacrifice and if they don't we power lynch them tomorrow.'
Because that's what's going to happen every single time.

Is that even possible, for town, to sucesfully coordinate a lynch line?

The last it was proposed at a game that I played, it was a disaster since there is a split vote. The bottom half for half of the player list is the top half for the another half for the player list.

I don't think you should be worried for that.

It is the correct straregy, though. It will probably be very annoying if some players try to follow it while others go like naaaah let's just play regularly.

When I run a setup that's likely to have a breaking strategy, I put a warning in signups that people shouldn't play if they don't like games with breaking strategies in.

That said, I'm not sure the breaking strategy is so interesting in this game (and not trying to break the game is ridiculous, as you'll have half the players trying to lynch scum and the other half trying to lynch town).