Mafiascum.net

Mini Love: https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mini_Love

So I really wanted to host this game, because it sounded fun. Unfortunately it seems to have some problems. So I decided to "fix" it, and this is what happened. Warning for bastard roles and wincons.

2
1
2
1
1
8

That's 15 players which no longer makes it a mini but. Details.

have no alignment of their own, but share their lover's wincon. As such, they are never paired with each other. One is guaranteed to be paired with a , and one is guaranteed to be paired with a . do not know their lover's alignment. An paired with a counts as towards the parity wincon. Lovers' only method of communication is the main game thread.

This does change the game from "is my lover mafia? " to "whatever my partner's alignment, we'll get through this together," which does kind of make this an entirely different game, but that's okay.

Technically town lover shouldn't want to publicly reveal their alignment (to keep uninformed mafia unaware) but with current proclaiming meta i am afraid that they will do it anyway. Once town lover says that they are town, mafia lover has to no reason to CC this and game becomes normal. Reveal will happen on day 1, maybe day 2, if people keep quiet up until day 3 then i will be highly impressed. You would need to somehow increase town penalty for open claiming, if you want this mechanic to be properly utilized.

At risk of ruining balance, would decreasing the number of townies sufficiently discourage the town lover from claiming?
Replace Mafia Goon with 1-Shot Mafia Dayvig?

Trying very hard not to make this too unelegant ><

Also thank you very much for the input, I wouldn't have found that issue on my own.

Call it conditional town bashful lover.

The lovers must always be silent. If the lover claims then it instantly dies. Scum have a 1 shot factional day vig not attached to the player that only works on town bashful lover and if it hits the lover connection is severed as the town lover dies.

I guess "if the bashful town lover claims it instantly dies" is sweet and simple. That's the bashful part right? And is conditional, in this case, mean that the exception to being a lover is the scum dayvig being able to sever the lover connection?

For the "silent" part, I've heard and expect that being silenced is not to play, much less to be silent as an inherent part of the role, so I'm curious what that part's about? And is the conditional bashful town lover *and* their partner silent? Leaving the Mafia lover+partner able to speak? Or are all lovers silent?

There’s already a built in incentive to town not claiming early. They’re basically a lover-best friends and are stronger the longer they survive. I’m very much against mechanically trying to force optimal play unless it’s absolutely necessary.

From a balance perspective this is roughly 3 goons and a traitor v doctor 8vt 2 lover best friends. Historically that’d be significantly scum sided, but it might fly by today’s standards. Unfortunately it’s very vanilla for a large and is likely to be on evens most of the game, both of which might cause thread apathy.

I think cutting your game size will likely make the setup more palatable. I’d suggest 1 goon 5vt as a reasonable approximation to turn this back into a mini.

FWIW I don’t think the gimmick mechanic will meaningfully impact balance, as both unaligned lovers will probably pretend they’re survivors strategy wise.

Maybe I'd have to just see how a game plays out then, as far as player decisions go?

I did want to have a smaller size game but wasn't sure I could get away with it.
Okay, so. 1 goon, 1 mafia lover, 2 unassigned lovers, 1 town lover, 5 vt.
Essentially 3:7, or 2.33:6.33 with lovers counted as 2/3 a player.

In that case, would making it nightless help with balance or just make it boring? Guaranteed mafia daytalk implied.
I did find some guide that talked about nightless setups a while ago and I can't find it for the life of me.

I was thinking you’d keep the doc and have an 8:3 setup.

Balance wise you have 7.5 town vs 2.5 scum with a decent amount of town power. If you’re still worried about lover claims, I’d make the town lover macho.

Based on how the first game plays out you might reevaluate the doctor slot up or down in power.

FWIW, I don’t think this is bastard by the spirit of the rules and isn’t bastard by the letter of the rules if you just give the uninformed lovers a “You win if your lover wins the game.” wincon. Wincons aren’t actually changing and there’s no moderator lies or influence involved.

Woops didn't mean to exclude the doctor.
Macho modifier makes a lot of sense there, that's brilliant. I think I'll try it as a deterrent.

I thought maybe it would qualify for bastard with there being technically hidden alignments, so I erred on the side of caution. Good to know.

As long as voting isn't by plurality, the unassigned-mafia pair can't screw up parity-including-the-unassigned-lover without going against their wincon, which means that unassigned lover for all intents and purposes does count towards parity, is what I'm thinking- is that right?

Thank you so much for helping me with this

Yeah, technically speaking the mafia would win because of the “or nothing can prevent that from occurring” clause assumed to be in most wincons, but making it explicit that the extra lover counts towards mafia parity is completely reasonable.

And no problem. Working through setups happens to be one of my favorite parts of mafia.