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[dakarian]

Well, I was assuming 2 scum.  probably a 10 player setup.  In the end, 4 days on 10 players mimics a normal mafia game with a 1 shot vig (vig kills 1, mafia kills 1 a night, 1 lynch a day = 4 day lylo if 1 mafia dies).  The 3 kills done by the mafia normally are instead 3 people the town doctor didn't choose.

As far as scumsided, note that those win conditions aren't combined.  If the doc picks 3 townies, town wins.  If the town lynches the scum, town wins.  They don't need to do both.  Finding 3 townies out of 9 people is technically much easier than finding 2 scum from the same group.  The scum also lose their ability to wipe out strong townies to weaken the day game.  I'd say it's slightly townsided in the end.  To even get a chance for scum to win lylo they have to not only act town but convince the Doc that they are MORE townie than anyone else.  Simply making others look worse isn't enough.  If both scum are simply 'meh perhaps' to the Doc, it's game over, town wins.

Probably the hardest part of the game is keeping the Doc safe.  Docs, by their nature, act scummy.  Given HOW Scummish the Doc role is (Lynch is more of a problem than a benefit, more powerful in night than day, MUST live to win) it'll be VERY hard for them to play town.  If they fail, though, the scum will 1-shot or the town will lynch the doc and it's game over.

Assuming the doc plays well, it's actually pretty townsided.  If scum cant' find the doc, they have to not only be picked but also either shoot another Treated (a 2 out of 5 chance) or win lylo. 

I have two ideas linked by one flavor concept:  The cure to the disease can only be given on the third night.  The doctor only has time to treat 3 people in that night.  Meanwhile, the Mafia stole ONE cure.

This does two things:

1. The doctor doesn't pre-cure. Instead they Choose who to Treat.  That means that they make the choice and act Night 3.  This is why Doc dying = town loss: everyone but 1 mafia dies.  This also means the doc is free to choose afte the third night, so no worries of picking someone Night 1 then the person being lynched day 2.

2. It eliminates the 'doc picks 3 townies and WIN'. I realize nwo that with this item in place the town's best bet is to just pick randomly and stay silent.  Chances are, they'll lynch 3 non-doc townies, the doc will pick 3 townies and the mafia's one-shot won't matter.  Going random will, chances are, result in 3 townies and a mafia with a 1-shot: basically a lylo (since mafia will NOT shoot before a lynch unless they are foolish ) and a nasty one for the town.  The town is best off scumhunting to try to kill the mafia early or, at least, giving the Treated few ammo to use in lylo. 

It also makes a very interesting mafiawin possiblity: Doc picks 2 townies and a mafia, the mafia self-cures the OTHER person.  2 townies, 2 mafia, mafia win.  For mafia to win this way:
1. They BOTH have to avoid being lynched for three days
2. They need the Doc to Treat one of them
3. They need to know who the Doc picked and, thus, self-treat the other

If they can pull that off then, imo, they win.  same for if they can get the Doc to Treat both mafia.

Which makes daytime scumhunting to kill at least ONE of the mafia, Very Important.

[Nerjin]

Couldn't the townies just say "Hey, no lynching alright? First person to put up any sort of vote on someone MUST be scum right? So now we have a TON of townies who aren't getting killed [2 a night]. Plus since the vigilante is town aligned why doesn't he, whomever he is, also not kill? No we're losing 1 townie a night. So doc... do your thing."

I don't know if that's a viable strategy but it seem to be pretty helpful to me.

[birdy51]

My own ideal setup for Geriatric would actually involve three teams, The Townies, The Scum Team, and Third-Party Doctors, each with their own win conditions.

The Town obviously needs to kill off the Scum. Scum will target the Town in return. The trick comes from the fact that the Doctors want neither party to die. Their goal is to try to keep as many players alive until a certain day, where their win condition is fulfilled. Sort of a reverse survivor role.

[dakarian]

Couldn't the townies just say "Hey, no lynching alright? First person to put up any sort of vote on someone MUST be scum right? So now we have a TON of townies who aren't getting killed [2 a night]. Plus since the vigilante is town aligned why doesn't he, whomever he is, also not kill? No we're losing 1 townie a night. So doc... do your thing."

I don't know if that's a viable strategy but it seem to be pretty helpful to me.

1: no lynch = random town lynch (that's not random.  It WILL pick a townie and CAN pick the doc) so choosing not to lynch doesn't save anyone and may end the game.  If the doc doesn't get random lynched you'll end up with this situation:

Also you didn't notice; the '1 shot kill' is held by the mafia.
3 days of no talk: 3 townies die
Doc, chances are, picks 3 townies.  Mafia gets their 1 to live.
Day 4, 3 townies, 1 mafia with a kill.  Lylo with NO past day talk to be useful. 

That's the town's best outcome from the situation.  Meanwhile, they risk the doc randomlynching and the doc treats one mafia/mafia treats other mafia townloss (2 mafia, 2 town remain). 

Town's best choice is to scumhunt to try to nab the mafia early or, failing that, try to lynch at least one while the doc uses the talk to find townies.  Then if lylo occurs you can use the past 3 days to determine who is who.

---

@birdy

hmm, Very Interestink.  Honestly, you could do that without the Geriatric and make it so that the Doctor's win condition forces the other's loss.  I can even see the flavor: Town/mafia conducting vigilante justice whiel the doctors try to bring the Real Police in to stop the whole mess.  Sort of like doomsayers.  Could give the doctors a way to try to protect against the lynch (i.e. Night 1 the choose a person.  If that person is lynche  day 2 then they survive).  For town/mafia to win they have to get around the doctors.

Could also work with Geriatric, though it'll be trickier to combine "town kills mafia" "mafia kills town" "doctor saves people" and everyone just up and dying after a certain point.  It can be done and if so it might be glorious.

[birdy51]

@birdy

hmm, Very Interestink.  Honestly, you could do that without the Geriatric and make it so that the Doctor's win condition forces the other's loss.  I can even see the flavor: Town/mafia conducting vigilante justice whiel the doctors try to bring the Real Police in to stop the whole mess.  Sort of like doomsayers.  Could give the doctors a way to try to protect against the lynch (i.e. Night 1 the choose a person.  If that person is lynche  day 2 then they survive).  For town/mafia to win they have to get around the doctors.

Could also work with Geriatric, though it'll be trickier to combine "town kills mafia" "mafia kills town" "doctor saves people" and everyone just up and dying after a certain point.  It can be done and if so it might be glorious.

I like the idea of a doctor that prevents the Lynch from happening at all. If they are smart about it, they can build their case on a player, only to pull the rug out on both the Town and the Mafia in one fell swoop when they fall for it, thus wasting a lynch. I imagine a duo of doctors, one to protect against lynchs, and the other to protect against Night Kills. Two purely innocent characters caught up in the middle of a warzone. It's gloriously thematic. I think you are on to something.

Also, we may have a slightly different interpretation on how the Geriatric Mafia works. What I am looking at is a modification of the "Suicidal" attribute, found here:

http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Suicidal

Both Townies and Scum players are given situations in which they will die. Only the doctors can save them from death.

[dakarian]

oh yah, 1 anti-lynch and one anti-kill doc.

I was picturing that example of the suicidal townie: unless something is done, the person dies in x days. The 'something' being a doctor acts on them.  However:

"Their goal is to try to keep as many players alive until a certain day, where their win condition is fulfilled. Sort of a reverse survivor role."


reminds me of "You can't die yet.  You're an important sacrifice."

Doctors don't keep the Geriatrics alive past the final day.  They try to keep them alive UNTIL the final day by stopping the lynch/kill.  For example, 13 people, Day 4 deadline.  Normally, day 4 would end up with 7 people.  However, if the docs stop 2 deaths, thus leaving 7 people alive, and one doc survives as well, the ritual is complete, everyone is sacrificed and the Doctors win.  If both doctors die or they fail to stop two kills, then the ritual ends, any surviving doctors die and 5 remain for a normal lylo. 

The numbers are just an example, of course.

[birdy51]

Malicious, although you have to wonder why doctors are sacrificing people. My own picture is of they suspend combat between two parties long enough that a larger outside force intervenes and ends the game. Essentially, a "neutral" ending, as the Mafia still gets off scot free.

However, the doctors being the ultimate saviors to keep the Town and the Mafia from slaughtering each other is a concept that really rings strongly to me. I may explore that a bit... Starting with the Team Third-Party Doctors

1st: Would it be worth giving them teamchat? Although they aren't scum, they are the kind of duo that would really benefit from communication. Then again, it also adds the idea that you have figure out who your ally is on your own. Players might be told they have an ally, but they won't say who he is or what his abilities are.

2nd: Do they need outside help? As it stands, they are fairly susceptible to being NKed, and it may be worth giving them a friend in their corner. What kind of friend, I'm not certain...

3rd: If there is the presence of a third team, what kind of roles would the Town and the Mafia need?

[dakarian]

Oh, the flavor is easy to make.  The doctors are the mad scientist sort conducting experiments that require a certain number of sacrifices. 

(in case it's ever asked.. yes I'm currently finally finishing my watch through of fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood). 

However, Birdy your flavor works out. basically it's a town that wants to perform vigilante justice and doctors that want to actually bring in the proper police forces.  However, it'll take a few days to coordinate and it requires the doctors around as a relay.  The deaths are sending the town into a riot however.  If the doctors fail to keep enough people alive then the town will go crazy, forcing the doctors to run away to save themselves.  The madness will also stop the police from being able to focus on the actual event before the town/mafia do their thing. 

And bah to neutrality.  The townspeople are committing murder with these lynches and the mafia are..well, the mafia.  If the police show up then EVERYONE gets arrested.  of course they DO live so it's the peaceful ending.

The doctors actually have the hardest job of the three.  They have to live AND they have to guess who will die that day/night, and more than once.  Ally chat will be a definite.  Always good to use KISS when it comes to features and avoid adding more madness than you need to get the job done. 

2nd and 3rd: Personally, I think it depends on two items: how many people are there and how crazy do you want it.

If there's lowish numbers, 9-11 then it can easily work with just townies, mafia, and docs.  If there's larger numbers then I'd say a doctor ally (doesn't know who the doctors are) who can double someone's vote during the day (to force a tie) and roleblock during the night. 

If you want crazy then...well, go crazy.  Just be careful of killing and protection roles as who dies/lives  is so critical to this game.

[notquitethere]

Role-heavy Open Set-Up
On this board there are a lot of role-heavy closed set-up games, where the nature of the roles involved are mostly unknown. This included all the games where the role possibilities are known but there are too many possibilities for this knowledge to be of much help. The only truly open games we have are the BMs where the setup possibiliities are severely limited and are known completely. However, in these games most players do not have interesting roles or abilities.

What I think would be interesting is a game where the exact roles and abilities are completely known, and everyone has a unique role and power. This would allow the fun of having lots of competing town, mafia and third-party objectives, with everyone having interesting night or day or passive powers to play with, but also allowing the more deductive players scope to scumhunt based on narrowing down possibilities.


Here's a possible open set up for a thirteen player game. Obviously it'd have to be checked for balance, but an open role-mad set-up would look something like this. I formulated this one bearing around the idea of some players using the changeling power as a one-shot to try to discern alignments at night, with the high possibility of being confounded by redirectors.

Scum x3: role-cop, night killer, godfather

Town x6: doctor, changeling, alignment-cop, tracker, redirector, vigilante (night killer)

Competing jesters x2: two players that compete to get lynched. One loses if the other is lynched first. This works well for an open set-up because both mafia and town would have an incentive to not waste the day kill on either of them. I think jesters would work best in a game where all players know that there is a jester and are on the look out for ridiculously scummy play. (Added possible fun of scum playing as if they were jesters pretending to be scum!). To confound the scum role-cops, the jesters should have two of the same powers as town, say redirector and changeling.

Survivor x1: jailor(?)

Serial killer x1: night killer


The trouble with role-heavy games is that the end can come out of nowhere, with a party with a wincon or ability set that is completely unforeseeable (Magic Mafia comes to mind). This renders much of the play futile when there are no rational assumptions that can be made about the set-up. The trouble with normal open games is that the level of player-investment in the set-up will vary considerably because most players will be able to do nothing at night and are privvy to no secret information. A role-heavy but completely open set-up would go a long way to solving these issues.

[webadict]

Your game is fairly unbalanced. With 6 Town, 3 Mafia, and 5 Third Parties... It's going to be fairly unbalanced. One side will take a definitive lead over the others, most likely the Mafia, and then win the game through brute force.

I'm also not sure what a Night-killer is... Do they take care of the mafiakill action? Because if so... Then it might not be so bad.

But, honestly, the bad part is the double Jesters. One Jester is bad enough, but a second one is just plain annoying. Don't do Jesters, man. The only well-played Jester there ever was was Mr.Person.

[Leafsnail]

It would be horrifically difficult to lynch mafia.  Out of 13 players only 7 want to hit scum.

There's a deeper problem with what you're suggesting though.  If all townies have unique roles in an open game then it is usually breakable by massclaim - because the scum is forced into 1v1 counterclaims.  You need to take special measures to avoid this

[Leafsnail]

You need role duplication or a semi-open setup usually. See setups like Duck Duck Goose (all townies are 1-shot PGOs) or Docs and Blocks (all townies are docs or RBs, but there's variation on how many of each there are.

In short, open setups are very vulnerable to breaking strategies, and must be designed very carefully.

[notquitethere]

Wuba

Your game is fairly unbalanced. With 6 Town, 3 Mafia, and 5 Third Parties... It's going to be fairly unbalanced. One side will take a definitive lead over the others, most likely the Mafia, and then win the game through brute force.

I'm also not sure what a Night-killer is... Do they take care of the mafiakill action? Because if so... Then it might not be so bad.

Yeah, pretty much that. If the mafia's nightkiller died or their power was swapped with changeling, then goodbye mafia nightkill.

But, honestly, the bad part is the double Jesters. One Jester is bad enough, but a second one is just plain annoying. Don't do Jesters, man. The only well-played Jester there ever was was Mr.Person.

Aw, but I've never played with a Jester and it's the role I think I was born to play  I think competing Jesters would be an interesting dynamic, especially as only one of them could ever cause the lynch to be wasted (one dies if the other is lynched). Not sure double martyrs would work quite as well.

Leafsnail

It would be horrifically difficult to lynch mafia.  Out of 13 players only 7 want to hit scum.

There's a deeper problem with what you're suggesting though.  If all townies have unique roles in an open game then it is usually breakable by massclaim - because the scum is forced into 1v1 counterclaims.  You need to take special measures to avoid this

Yeah, maybe one or two less 3rd parties, with more town. This was somewhat the issue in Toon Mafia at the end. Good point about the counterclaims thing. I'd have to think a bit more, while a grid-of-possibilities (ala the latest BMs) would be possible, I'd be interested in seeing if there were another solution. Maybe each side having a player with a power which can day kill someone if their ability is known (but backfires on a wrong guess), similar to in Mafia and Masons.

[webadict]

Or, you know, you could make claiming against the rules...

[notquitethere]

That's appealing, though there might be fringe cases or questions that would have to be settled beforehand. Is claiming town against the rules? Is a role claim against the rules or just abilities? Is it okay if you claim something that doesn't actually exist? Does dropping flavour clues count? What about lacing your sentences with key words from the wincon text? Or breadcrumbing but never explicitly pointing out the breadcrumb? But I think such a rule would be well worth trying— has any mod here enforced this rule?