A Something_Smart 13p pre-design

[mastina]

First thought is insanely scumsided. Ungated strongman is a counter to the town's only real power role. Knowing the roles of the scum roles doesn't make up for the fact that their investigative role is incredibly situational, their protective role can't protect, and that they're effectively as a result entirely VT against a scumteam that has free reign to kill whoever they want and claim whatever they want.

[mastina]

one, that the motion detector can only see scum visits, so if you get a no visit then it's probably a clear.

Sure, you know this by holding all the info.

...How is the town meant to know that?

They have no way of knowing that no motion = essentially hard-clear. They gain that information by the end of N3...IF the informed is left alive, and IF the motion detector lives, and even then, motion detector can't with this info change their target choice to accommodate for that.
(That, aside from how low the chances are for a no motion result. Literally 6 slots per night will detect motion: the fruit vendors, the fruit vendors' targets, the strongman, and the nightkill. Literally half the game shows as getting motion, so a no motion result is statistically speaking quite unlikely.)

Also, even IF the scum roles are confirmed, that does not confirm the motion detectors as town. What stops the motion detector from being a fakeclaim? What stops the ninja doctor from being a fakeclaim? What stops the backup motion detector from being a fakeclaim? The town doesn't have any way to confirm their roles as actually being town.

While the town shouldn't need for their roles to be conftown in a game (town roles not being conftown is a feature not a flaw, sure!), assuming that they would be conftown when they very much aren't, as part of the balance, is a mistake. Which is to say that you seem to be assuming that the town roles would be conftown post-N3 with the informed living that long. IF the Informed lives that long (not a guarantee), I don't think they actually ARE.

So imo the setup has a double-whammy of perfect info you as the designer know, which the town will not have nor can reasonably and intuitively deduce from their limited info perspective. (Basically. Assuming the town will make the perfect deductions is required for the town to have a chance; nothing in the setup makes it easy for the town to make those perfect deductions. Quite the contrary in fact.) And while with perfect info it might be less scumsided, lacking that perfect info I would call this

tremendously

scumsided. As-is I'd call it upwards of 90% scum-town.

[mastina]

I would consider that much better but still notably scumsided because of the aforementioned,
-Town doctor is worthless while the strongman lives
-The motion detector having literally 6 worthless results per night with only 6 possible innocents.

However, it IS much better, as the town DOES have a way to know their innocents are actually innocent and have that info available from the getgo.

I'd call it ~60% scumsided, which is technically in the passable range as the highest extreme possible allowed. In that it's technically passable, but still scumsided by a margin that's not insignificant to the point of being inadvisable, but if it's a scumsided-but-passable setup you want, you have it.

[mastina]

Not necessarily; the town knows the mafia roles but doesn't know the town roles--a motion result could be due to an unknown town PR targeting the mafiate in question.

Yes, come massclaim, a lack of a PR claim from the mafiate and a lack of PR visiting them makes it a guilty, but it does require those very specific things to become a guilty:
A lack of the mafiate claiming PR, and a massclaim where nobody claims to have visited the mafiate.

We as the reviewers with all the info know that the motion on the mafia is a guilty when they don't claim to have received fruit. The players will not.

[mastina]

Neighborizer as a setup-specific IC but with the tradeoff of potentially interfering with the motion detector seems like a decent push in the right direction, yes.

[mastina]

I think it's definitely in the balanced range, yes. It's definitely closer to 50% than 60% in either direction. (I'm not lucid enough to give an exact percentage, but it's 55%-or-closer-to-50%, could be 52.5%, could be 55%, could be 50%, it's in the reasonably balanced range and not badly scumsided or terribly townsided.)

I don't think it's unfun of a setup, scum have some agency, so all it needs is final role PMs and you've got the /pass!

[mastina]

/pass!