[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[Yosarian2]

"
There are some problems with the setup -- there is the danger that the QT topics just wouldn't be used, and there is a danger of a scum player not quite understanding the setup until too late, and outing their team.

(nods) I probably wouldn't feel the need to talk to a scumbuddy at all in that kind of open setup. Too high risk, too low reward.

Of course, if you have access to a quicktopic where there is no posting, you at least know the guy you targeted is scum. So perhaps the ideal play would be to write a "fake" quicktopic where you and your partner pretend to be masons, if you can pull that off.

Other then that, though, there's really no reason to discuss anything; perhaps a quick "You make the kill every night you're alive; if you're dead, I'll make the kill" post, but nothing else; anything else, any discussion about the thread at all of any type, is just way too high of a risk for little payoff, unless you're trying to run a "let's try and look like masons" gambit.

[Yosarian2]

Daytalk, Daykill Mafia (Nightless)
- 1 Mafia Godfather
- 2 Mafia Goon (with 1 daykill apiece)
- 3 Vigilante (with 1 daykill apiece)
- 6 Townie

Mafia are allowed to PM each other outside the thread. Kills are posted publicly in the thread. Mafia Goons need "permission" (Godfather PMs the mod) to kill if the Godfather is alive and active.

If the set-up is overpowered for the scum, maybe an auto-loss if the Godfather is lynched (not killed). Thoughts?

If I were town in that game, I'd propose the vigs DO NOT shoot ever, except to shoot those that break the rule. This forces scum to play along with a nightless 3:9 which seems tough for scum to win, with only two kills.

That might not break it completely, but I'm sure there are probably ways for this to be quite town biased.

Well...it's nightless 3:9, but whenver a mafia goon is about to get lynched, he'll take a townie down with him.

So, if the town never use their daykills...town has to lynch...let me think...if the godfather gets lynched last, then town loses if they mislynch 6 times, they have to lynch right 3 times out of 9; town has to lynch right 1/3 of the time.

Yeah, it's in favor of the town, considering that that's about what would happen if town lynches randomally.

In practice, though, attempts on the part of the town to restrict people from using daykills has been...abysmal at best.

[Yosarian2]

Open and Closed

2 Mafia Goons
3 Census Takers
1 Tracker
2 Townies

Daystart & Closed Reveal
(the role and alignment of dead players is not posted until the game is over)

Census Taker: Once during the game, you may receive a list of how many players on each team are alive.

hat tip to Xyl for posting his list of roles -- the Census mechanic is incredibly cool, and new to me.

I'm not sure how much chance the scum have here. The trackers are powerful with only 2 scum; 1 scum gets lynched, and both trackers become cops. Plus, day 1 massclaim, scum pretty much have to claim census taker (if they claim either tracker, I think town automatically catches them that night, and of course claiming townie is almost as bad), which then means that the scum can't kill all the town census takers (or they'll look really bad) and that they have to tell the truth, and that makes them very vulnerable to the trackers.

[Yosarian2]

Huh. Somehow I read that as 2 trackers, 1 townie.

Ok, that's more balanced. I still think town has the edge, especially the first few times it'd be played.

[Yosarian2]

I don't think the extra night talk will make much difference. It might have some limited use, but not nearly enough to balance the game. It's work better as a 2/10 game then a 3/9 game, most likely.

[Yosarian2]

The Mafia is screwed from the get-go, in that they have ONE chance to win under their control and a raft of ways to screw up.

No, not at all. The mafia has two different ways to win; the way scum can win any game, by getting to endgame with 1 scum vs. 1 town. (Or "get to a 2 scum/3 town" in the large version.) Basically, fi the scum dosn't get lynched, he wins. Or, the scum can figure out who the king is (which has absolutly nothing to do with luck, by the way). Or, usually, some combination of the two; the longer the scum avoids being lynched, the higher his odds are of shooting the king.

It can be balanced pretty well (depending on the numbers), and any town that tries to play by lynching randomly is probably going to lose most of the time. The town really needs to find and lynch the scum early in order to have a good chance of winning, and even then the scum has a chance.

I think people like the setup because 90% of the time, you're not the Assassin!

Having played as both town and assassin, I think assassin is usually easier.

the lone gunman version of AITP doesn't even have an Informed Minority Faction, which has always been one of mith's core requirements for ANY Mafia game. And, of course, he's Uninformed! Even Kelly Chen, who created the setup, says so. So why you keep claiming it's Mafia is beyond me...

(shrug) Sure, it's mafia, just like the 1 scum/9 town setup is mafia. (And I think Jeep and mith both played in that game, if I remember correctly). It's a variant, certainly. And, again, I think the large version with a 2-man scumgroup is probably the better version.

[Yosarian2]

3. Played in a

Closed

setup which happened to have only one scum in it. And that scum's role was "Serial Killer", not "Mafia", IIRC.

(nods)

If you think AITP isn't normal enough to be considered an "open game" under current rules or whatever, that's fine, although it'd be kind of a shame because I think the open queau is a good place to run "games that have a simple concept, are open, that don't require new mod creativity in setup design, and that a lot of people want to play".

I just disagree with the idea that a game with only one scum isn't "mafia" at all; I really do think that, for all intents and purposes, a game with just a SK works pretty much the same way any other mafia game does.