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[UmbrageOfSnow]

Setup #4

Current Rules	Scott	Ash
Mafia Goon (Bob)
Mafia 2-Shot Recharger (Anya)	Mafia 2-Shot Jailkeeper	Mafia 2-shot Jailkeeper
Mafia 4-Shot Redirecter (Boromir)	Mafia 4-Shot Redirecter	Mafia Goon
6 VTs	6 VTs	5 VTs
		4-Shot Rolecop (Alice)
1-Shot Redirecter (Chip)	1-Shot Recharger	1-Shot Redirecter
1-Shot Jailkeeper (Chuck)	1-Shot Recharger	1-Shot Jailkeeper
4-Shot Watcher (Bill)
1-Shot Recharger (Amy)
1-Shot Recharger (Astrid)
1-Shot Recharger (Chaz)

[UmbrageOfSnow]

Setup #5 (Last one I did, although I could do more later with different rules if we think we need them.)

Current Rules	Scott	Ash
Mafia 2-Shot Redirecter (Amy)	Mafia 2-Shot Redirecter	Mafia 1-Shot Redirecter
Mafia 1-Shot Jailkeeper (Bruce)	Mafia 1-Shot Jailkeeper	Mafia Goon
Mafia 3-Shot Recharger (Anya)	Mafia 3-Shot Rolecop	Mafia 2-Shot Recharger
5 VTs	5 VTs	2 VTs
		1-Shot Jailkeeper (Annabel Lee)
		1-Shot Redirecter (Boromir)
		1-Shot Tracker (Bob)
2-Shot Recharger (Alice)	2-Shot Tracker	2-Shot Recharger
2-Shot Redirecter (Biff)	2-Shot Redirecter	2-Shot Recharger
1-Shot Rolecop (Charles)	1-Shot Recharger	1-Shot Rolecop
1-Shot Tracker (Astrid)	1-Shot Recharger	1-Shot Tracker
1-Shot Watcher (Bill)
1-Shot 1-Night Neighborizer (Charlie)
1-Shot 1-Night Neighborizer (Chip)

[UmbrageOfSnow]

Anyway, I'd love it if anyone wants to comment on the balance of these 5 (or 15 depending on how you look at it) setups.

Of course it's hard to judge without playing, scum doesn't have a lot of power to disrupt town most of the time, but I think I like the Ash version best.

I was also considering some other way to add power to the game, maybe "When all Town's shots are used up, everyone recharges to their original levels" or something like that?

I don't know, and at this point my brain is burned out on this.  I'll look at these setups again myself tomorrow.

[QuickSync]

I really do admire this forum for putting this kind of effort into their setups. My understanding and a valuable lesson I leaned from a very good player before they advocated for my lynch day 1 is that a lot of the time the best way to get things going is to do something. You people here are doing an awful lot with how seriously you take setups. The fact that here people are so open about talking about setups and renditions of setups is something I really do like about this place.

[UmbrageOfSnow]

Also maybe just something simple like Tracker and Watcher starting with double charges, or receiving twice as many when recharged or something like that.

[gkrieg13]

It looks like it's worse for town if all of the Cs are on the town team.  Like that the mafia team gets even more help the better it is.  Maybe that is just these random ones.

[UmbrageOfSnow]

Setup #1

Current Rules	Scott	Ash
Mafia 1-Shot Jailkeeper (Chuck)	Mafia 1-Shot Recharger	Mafia 1-Shot Recharger
Mafia 1-Shot Rolecop (Charlie)
Mafia 3-Shot Recharger (Anya)	Mafia 3-Shot Redirector	Mafia 1-Shot Redirector
5 VTs	5 VTs	4 VTs
		2-Shot Recharger (Bruce)
2-Shot Recharger (Charles)	2-Shot Jailkeeper	2-Shot Recharger
1-Shot Redirecter (Chaz)	1-Shot Recharger	1-Shot Redirector
1-Shot Jailkeeper (Amy)
2-Shot Tracker (Boromir)
1-Shot 1-Night Neighborizer (Alice)
1-Shot Watcher (Annabel Lee)
2-Shot Midnight Mystic (Biff)

For this setup, I think the current rules produce the best result.  The setup looks balanced to me.  Not a lot of power on either side, but it's still much more interesting than Mountainous I think.  I think swapping makes scum a little weaker than is ideal here, but is also fine.  Actually I think this one looks okay with all 3 rulesets.

Anyone disagree?

[UmbrageOfSnow]

Setup #2: Probability Strikes Back (This is the weirdest one I rolled I think.)

Current Rules	Scott	Ash
Mafia 1-Shot Recharger (Charlie)	Mafia 1-Shot Recharger	Goon
Mafia 1-Shot Redirecter (Bruce)
Mafia 7-Shot Recharger (Bob)	Mafia 7-Shot Rolecop	Mafia 4-Shot Recharger
7 VTs	7 VTs	5 VTs
		1-Shot Midnight Mystic (Alice)
		3-Shot Tracker (Anya)
1-Shot Rolecop (Annabel Lee)	1-Shot Recharger	1-Shot Rolecop
1-Shot Recharger (Chuck)
1-Shot Recharger (Chaz)
1-Shot Watcher (Bill)
2-Shot 1-Night Neighborizer (Amy)

This kind of setup is the strongest argument for exchanging rather than outright stealing votes by far.  Scum being able to redirect every night is pretty good.  It also really sways be against "Most votes wins the PR" since then scum could basically Rolecop AND Redirect every night.

Town's 1-Shot Rolecop, 1-Shot Watcher, and 2-Shot Neighborizer really don't amount to a lot of power, but they aren't disrupted much by being redirected.  With the default powers, I think it more-or-less boils down to 3 Scum vs. 12 Town with no power roles, which is scumsided as long as scum don't bus too much I think.  If scum bus as much as some people like, it probably winds up being balanced, but that's a terrible assumption to balance on.

Scum having 4 fewer shots and town getting a 3-shot tracker and a 1-Shot of Midnight Mystic definitely makes it more interesting and fair.  (Also, I miscalculated the Vote-Swap ruleset, but I've fixed it in bold in the quote above and in the original post now.)

Makes me want to adopt the vote swap, but let's look at the others.

[UmbrageOfSnow]

Setup #3

Current Rules	Scott	Ash
Mafia 1-Shot Redirecter (Chip)
Mafia 2-Shot Recharger (Charles)	Mafia 2-Shot Rolecop	Mafia 2-shot Recharger
Mafia 1-Shot Recharger (Boromir)	Mafia 1-Shot Recharger	Mafia Goon
3 VTs	3 VTs	2 VTs
		1-Shot Watcher (Astrid)
2-Shot Recharger (Amy)	2-Shot Rolecop	2-Shot Recharger
2-Shot Watcher (Bob)	2-Shot Watcher	2-Shot Recharger
1-Shot Rolecop (Alice)	1-Shot Recharger	1-Shot Rolecop
1-Shot Rolecop (Chuck)	1-Shot Recharger	1-Shot Rolecop
1-Shot Redirecter (Charlie)
1-Shot Midnight Mystic (Bruce)
2-Shot Midnight Mystic (Anya)
1-Shot Recharger (Chaz)
1-Shot Recharger (Annabel Lee)

Last one for today, more tomorrow.

Town gets an extra 1-Shot Watcher and Scum loses a shot of Redirecter, that's the only difference with vote-swapping here.

Scum could be a bit underpowered in this setup, but maybe not as much as it first appears, 4 of town's shots are recharges which can easily miss or help scum, and 3 shots of Watcher and 2 shots of Rolecop isn't exactly game breaking.

Something I'm noticing with a lot of these is that there's a good amount going on without much actual power at either side's disposal.  That's why I like non-Role Madness games, so that is appealing to me, but this is quite a bit less power than some people like I think.

The way the power is spread out does make town less susceptible to lucky NKs or mislynches, and I'm thinking it might be viable for town (and scum!) to claim they are out of shots to better direct the rechargers.

Anyway, I think I like the balance overall with the vote-swap rules, but I'm curious for opinions.  I'll look at the other 2 setups I rolled tomorrow.

[ashersky]

Can you make a new post with proposed setup rules to compare?

[UmbrageOfSnow]

Sorry I got distracted from this!  I really do want to make this setup work.

Ash, the "Scott Variation" setup rules were the same ones in the 2nd/3rd posts with the change that if two players picked the same rule, the player with more votes gets the PR rather than the player with fewer votes as it is now.  It's the more intuitive rule, but in the example setups I ran, it makes things too scumsided IMO.

The "Ash Variation" was the change that scum choose a player to trade vote numbers with, rather than to steal votes from.  This seems to make things more townsided, which I like.

Something I also want to keep in mind, I was reading all the threads I could find on mafiascum about setup balance, and it seems that people tend to instinctively balance setups to be scumsided.

[UmbrageOfSnow]

If people popcorn claim their votes after announcing how many charges they got, and after voting (claiming before voting allows absurd amounts of scum manipulation either way, so I'm pretty sure that's bad), does that allow town to catch scum in a forced lie?

That looks like a likely breakpoint of this.  Come to think of it, that could be a problem with vote-stealing or vote-swapping if town has any shots of rolecop at all.

Any thoughts on how to fix this?

[liopoil]

Something I also want to keep in mind, I was reading all the threads I could find on mafiascum about setup balance, and it seems that people tend to instinctively balance setups to be scumsided.

100% agree with this. It happens here too.

[ashersky]

I've been thinking here...

I think you have to do the voting during N0, when the thread is locked.

But the bigger issue is...I don't think this game is about charges and such...it's actually about wifoming who can get PRs and shots.

It strikes me as best play for middling and new players to definitely choose crap roles and charge up good players.  That's not fun.

And depending on what you decide for scum, they just target the good players to block.

This is a lot like the draft game from way back, or the one where we submitted numbers and lowest got to pick first, but makes it political/personal.

Even if this was all done before alignment was rolled...maybe people try to get roles for themselves instead of powering up each other, maybe.

A different way to do this would be to choose PRs, randomly assign as normal, and develop a charging mechanism only.  So, someone is a 0-shot RB and needs charges.  You could have a list of roles, players have a finite number of votes, etc.  mafia might have negative charges to counter town's positive ones.

That's my two cents.

[UmbrageOfSnow]

I think you have to do the voting during N0, when the thread is locked.

Why?  That was the original setup, but consensus seemed to be that it was more fun if you could bring your reads into it.  Any popcorn claiming strategy is equally viable either way.  Doing it N0 seemed to make it more personal/political than doing it during D1 I thougt.

It strikes me as best play for middling and new players to definitely choose crap roles and charge up good players.  That's not fun.

100% agree that this isn't fun.  I don't consider a game where everyone has to vote you or Faust to be fun, so if that's optimal strategy I'm not happy.  But do you think this is the case with the rule that the player with fewer votes gets the power and the more votes is a recharger?  Because that's how I've been thinking about this.  Tried the other way in the middle column of the sample setups and didn't like the results.

And depending on what you decide for scum, they just target the good players to block.

I think scum need some way to disrupt votes, so the claimed votes don't solve the setup or catch scum in a lie.  But again, doesn't that make targetting Faust for all the votes sub-optimal?

Even if this was all done before alignment was rolled...maybe people try to get roles for themselves instead of powering up each other, maybe.

I saw some setups like this, they looked kind of gross to me honestly.  Like voting before alignment is rolled seems like it'd really make things personal/political.

A different way to do this would be to choose PRs, randomly assign as normal, and develop a charging mechanism only.  So, someone is a 0-shot RB and needs charges.  You could have a list of roles, players have a finite number of votes, etc.  mafia might have negative charges to counter town's positive ones.

This is also something that could work, maybe each player picks a PR, and everyone has some number of charges they can't use on themselves.  If they have 2-3 charges each or something it puts more charges in the control of town, so should make the game less scum-sided baring really bad town play, which is a time it's okay for the game to get scum-sided IMO.

I like the concept of Mafia trying to get charges from town though.  Like trying to convince people to charge them up.

I sort of liked Recharger as a PR, but this could work too.  I guess just having no limit on how many people could be a given PR would be best with that set of rules.  In that case would need to put more time into making most of the roles close to equivalent in power level.  Or have the weakest ones be goofy and fun anyway....

Thanks for talking with me about this by the way, I really appreciate it.

[ashersky]

I think you have to do the voting during N0, when the thread is locked.

Why?  That was the original setup, but consensus seemed to be that it was more fun if you could bring your reads into it.  Any popcorn claiming strategy is equally viable either way.  Doing it N0 seemed to make it more personal/political than doing it during D1 I thougt.

I think if you do it while everyone is talking, it's much easier to force mafia into something less than ideal for themselves, or even catch them in a lie.  If you do it during N0 and mafia gets some sort of information, they will be better equipped to lie correctly.

It strikes me as best play for middling and new players to definitely choose crap roles and charge up good players.  That's not fun.

100% agree that this isn't fun.  I don't consider a game where everyone has to vote you or Faust to be fun, so if that's optimal strategy I'm not happy.  But do you think this is the case with the rule that the player with fewer votes gets the power and the more votes is a recharger?  Because that's how I've been thinking about this.  Tried the other way in the middle column of the sample setups and didn't like the results.

In the end, the powers are still going to a few players that the rest of us think will play them the best.  It's not like anyone's going to vote for Newbie1 because hey, maybe we'll psych out scum...because no other town is doing that and it's a waste.

And depending on what you decide for scum, they just target the good players to block.

I think scum need some way to disrupt votes, so the claimed votes don't solve the setup or catch scum in a lie.  But again, doesn't that make targetting Faust for all the votes sub-optimal?

They need something for sure, but I think it's got to be more information.  Like, tell them which powers got chosen, or something.  Stealing votes is cool, too.

Even if this was all done before alignment was rolled...maybe people try to get roles for themselves instead of powering up each other, maybe.

I saw some setups like this, they looked kind of gross to me honestly.  Like voting before alignment is rolled seems like it'd really make things personal/political.

Some of them work.  Like the draft one.  But any setup that works like this works because it has nothing to do with choosing other players, just trying to get roles for yourself.

A different way to do this would be to choose PRs, randomly assign as normal, and develop a charging mechanism only.  So, someone is a 0-shot RB and needs charges.  You could have a list of roles, players have a finite number of votes, etc.  mafia might have negative charges to counter town's positive ones.

This is also something that could work, maybe each player picks a PR, and everyone has some number of charges they can't use on themselves.  If they have 2-3 charges each or something it puts more charges in the control of town, so should make the game less scum-sided baring really bad town play, which is a time it's okay for the game to get scum-sided IMO.

I like the concept of Mafia trying to get charges from town though.  Like trying to convince people to charge them up.

I sort of liked Recharger as a PR, but this could work too.  I guess just having no limit on how many people could be a given PR would be best with that set of rules.  In that case would need to put more time into making most of the roles close to equivalent in power level.  Or have the weakest ones be goofy and fun anyway....

Thanks for talking with me about this by the way, I really appreciate it.

I think you have like 5 PRs, 3 goons, 5 VTs.  You roll them normally.  Then you take 10 or 12 or some optimal number of shots and randomly give them to everyone, including scum.  Scum can't choose partners, must charge town.  Each night, people choose to charge someone, or not.  If scum gets 2+ charges (or something), they gain a power, maybe.  It would be cumulative.  Something like this could work.

[UmbrageOfSnow]

I think if you do it while everyone is talking, it's much easier to force mafia into something less than ideal for themselves, or even catch them in a lie.  If you do it during N0 and mafia gets some sort of information, they will be better equipped to lie correctly.

I'll address other stuff later, but this seems like a really big difference in ways the setup could play out and needs a separate discussion I think.  I agree with you that doing the voting while talking makes it more possible for people to force scum into voting a certain way or something.  I think that if that doesn't hurt scum too much and leads to a balanced game, I'm actually okay with that, but if it breaks the game definitely not.

I can think of 2 changes that I think help the information problem, and make it easier for scum to lie.

1. The Midnight Mystic role also learns what PRs are still alive in the game, on top of how many shots are left and how many shots were used that night.  This would give scum more reason to take it, but it's also even better for town that way, maybe closing the usefulness gap somewhat.

2. Scum are informed of how many votes they'd have received from town after voting, instead of just how many they end up with after the vote stealing/swapping mechanism.