Open Setups

[Kelly Chen]

If the town has 4 roles, there are 4 vanilla mafia vs. 8 town

Start at Day always.

I'd like to be able to guarantee the town three days. With four scum you can't do that, even if the power roles make it unlikely that it'll be 4:4 after two days and nights.

Incidentally, another thing I'd like to guarantee is that the town can't lose unless at least two pro-town players have been lynched. I think this can be hard to guarantee with multiple scum factions, though...

Now, back at home, we might play no-reveal. Thoughts on revealing? I'm thinking morning reveal might work fine.

I'm concerned that no reveal

at all

might deprive the town of concrete information as the basis for discussion.

No reveal until morning seems obviously to benefit mafia. Does it enable some particular kind of gambit?



I want to do something like this: 2 scum factions, immune to each other's NKs. A blocker, a backup blocker, and 2 docs (ineligible to receive doc protection themselves). I think the blocker would only have to target anyone in a faction to stop that faction's kill. Then if there's only one kill some night, the blocker has to wonder: Is it because I targeted scum? Should I reveal I'm a blocker?

[Kelly Chen]

The odds are pretty good, but I'd still want to avoid the possibility that the game only goes two Days.

Maybe if you start the game out with two Day phases in a row. Then town has to lynch three townies before a 4-man mafia can win.

[Kelly Chen]

Check this if you would:

Open setup

2 mafia
2 wolves
1 cop (detects mafia)
1 seer (detects wolves)
1 backup cop (initially told townie)
1 backup seer (initially told townie)
4 townies

Mafia kills on odds nights, wolves on even nights. They cannot NK each other.

Gambits II-style role stealing (useful if mafia NKs the backup cop, and the original cop seems likely to be dead).

I don't think mass claim is attractive under this setup. The backups don't know they're backups, and there's no doc protection.

[Kelly Chen]

I meant to post in here when I first saw this thread. It's good timing, Fiasco starting this. I've been considering for a while splitting the "Normal" forum into a smallish set of "standard" Open (or possibly Semi-Open) games (which would be great for first time mods; they'd have a chance to get a handle on managing a game without having to worry about getting the balance right their first time out) and then more complicated (but still normal) games (Open or Closed) as usual. Prior to that, we'd need that list of standard setups, so this is a good place to start that discussion.

If this is for the benefit of new mods, I would guess that these should be 12-player games or smaller. That would make its queue go faster, too.

I wonder if there would be enough demand to mod this kind of game, that it would warrant splitting New York? I can see people not wanting to pick a setup from a list, and deciding to try their luck on the mini regular queue instead.

I would like to see more open setups (esp. mini size or smaller) other than newbie games.

[Kelly Chen]

I think it's better... But mass claim is still a big problem. It can confirm more innocents than the cops ever will.

I'd make the scum unable to NK each other. That helps them, and makes it easier for them to fake a cop claim, since if a kill fails, they could guess it's because they targeted rival scum.

To counter mass claim, I would have a lot more townies. But it might help to somehow say that there are 1-2 doctors, or 2-3 cops, in such a way that the players can't tell what the setup is while they're picking roles. That way, if e.g. 3 people claim cop, the town can't be sure whether there is scum in that group.

[Kelly Chen]

Consider this if you would:

Two

lynches per day (No Lynch goes straight to night)
Day start with cop headstart

2 werewolves (just a scum faction)
3 mafia (scum faction)
1 lyncher (with 1 target townie) (innocent to investigations)
5 townies
1 sane cop

Only the werewolves can NK. When they're gone, the mafia can NK.

If the lyncher gets his target lynched, he exits the game (winning). If the target is NKed while lyncher still lives, the lyncher becomes a townie.

I think there will be no role reveal for nightkilled roles. Just alignment reveal (lyncher counting as pro-town).

I've gotten different opinions as to how balanced this is. I think it's worth a shot as is.

[Kelly Chen]

Honestly, I wouldn't have much interest in talking to my mason partner if I had so little reason to trust that he wasn't scum of some sort... Let alone in trying to get a gadget to enable me to do so.

[Kelly Chen]

This is pretty interesting... And where it's unbalanced, it seems like it can be fixed.

One thing I notice, is that I'm not sure two mod-confirmed townies is better than a mason pair. Claimed masons are usually believed, especially if one has already died. So mod confirmation probably just makes the masons more likely to be killed.

For a single "M" I'd say make somebody a mason with no partner. I had this in Choose Your Role. It's still a useful claim if made early enough.

[Kelly Chen]

I kind of think that the game could be over so fast that you'd wish you'd used the opportunity to mod something that would last a little longer.

I'd enjoy seeing it tried, though.

[Kelly Chen]

Leaving out the doc is fun, as it means the cop can't claim his investigation every day. I don't see why leaving the doc out is crucial, though.

I think a crucial thing is to ensure that any special pro-town roles have an ability that is more useful to the town than the role's ability to be confirmed innocent just by claiming. I made this mistake in my first open setup: I don't think there were any useful doc protections, but a doc claim itself was very useful.

I'm not optimistic about running a bunch of 2:10 vanilla games. They seem to be pretty long games, maybe not a great choice for a newbie mod. I'd definitely prefer 3:9 with a cop. Or maybe make it semi-open with a couple of power roles drawn from a hat.... maybe { cop, doc, vig, townie }.

In chat once I ran a closed 7p setup with 2 mafia (including an RB), 2 sane cops, and 3 townies. (Scum won when one cop voted the other at lylo. Both cops investigated scum N1, but one was blocked, and neither was sure of sanity.) I wonder if it would be balanced as an open setup. It's interesting because scum could usefully claim cop on D1...

[Kelly Chen]

Does the polar bear have any incentive at all to allow a cop investigation? The mafia would have to guess that the cop would investigate the SK and not mafia. But if the mafia know so clearly who the SK is, they should just kill him.

I've heard of a role which can prevent the vig from operating, but I didn't think it was a scum role.

If this is an open setup, you can't give the town a mason pair. The scum won't have anything to claim.

[Kelly Chen]

I agree the polar bear doesn't really have a meaningful choice, unless maybe the SK has some sort of NK immunity (probably a good idea anyway). Or unless the mafia wants the town to believe the SK used his blocking ability (or that the cop lied about not being blocked).

It's an interesting question, when the SK would want to use his ability. He'd have to think he's pretty clear.

I agree claims may be a problem, especially if there are masons... on the other hand, mass claims are unsafe as long as the penguin lives (or the doctor is dead).

Even if you don't mass claim in one shot, you have the same problem. As long as the five roles (cop doc vig masons) are accounted for prior to lylo, and assuming scum don't make/provoke counterclaims of the three power roles here, anyone claiming townie has a 4/7 chance of being scum. That should be enough for the town to win. They don't even need the night abilities with accuracy like that.