M55: The Last Party - Game Thread

by **worcej** » Sat May 16, 2020 12:33 am

Chaqa wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 11:21 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 10:27 pm

Chaqa wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 9:15 pm

I can't recall another time when we had flavor that meant anything at all, unless it's a game with only one possible death method (i.e. a vanilla w/ no Vigilante).

Maybe it's a WebDip thing. A small article on it:
https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Flavor
I've been in at least one or two other games in here where you had to read the flavour to understand which death was likely to have been caused by which means...
Must have been while I was gone.

I believe it was.

My goal will be to not have flavor reveal too much, but in the instance of multiple kills I will probably continue to distinguish between the kills via flavor. I don’t think that ruins the gaming experience in any way.

by **Chaqa** » Fri May 15, 2020 11:21 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 10:27 pm

Chaqa wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 9:15 pm

worcej wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 8:55 pm
Noted. I think my style is in line with other mafia games I've played where you learn how someone died - mafia were strangulation, SK was by knives, and Veterans are from automatic rifles.

It's also really hard for me to just make plane jane flavor... I have too much fun writing up random scenarios/scenes.
I can't recall another time when we had flavor that meant anything at all, unless it's a game with only one possible death method (i.e. a vanilla w/ no Vigilante).

Maybe it's a WebDip thing. A small article on it:
https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Flavor
I've been in at least one or two other games in here where you had to read the flavour to understand which death was likely to have been caused by which means...

Must have been while I was gone.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Fri May 15, 2020 10:27 pm

Chaqa wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 9:15 pm

worcej wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 8:55 pm

xorxes wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 2:38 pm
One other thing to mention is flavor. I understand some people enjoy it, and I understand how it keeps GMs more invested in the game, but from a neutral point of view I actually agree with Chaqa that flavor should not contain any information. Since I was town and I have a hard time maintaining a neutral POV when playing, I didn't say this during the game, but if I had been scum this game I would not have been happy with the flavor, which practically validated foodcoats' and Vecna's claims. I would have pushed for Vecna's lynch if it wasn't for the flavor that made his claim extremely believable.
Noted. I think my style is in line with other mafia games I've played where you learn how someone died - mafia were strangulation, SK was by knives, and Veterans are from automatic rifles.

It's also really hard for me to just make plane jane flavor... I have too much fun writing up random scenarios/scenes.
I can't recall another time when we had flavor that meant anything at all, unless it's a game with only one possible death method (i.e. a vanilla w/ no Vigilante).

Maybe it's a WebDip thing. A small article on it:
https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Flavor

I've been in at least one or two other games in here where you had to read the flavour to understand which death was likely to have been caused by which means...

by **Vecna** » Fri May 15, 2020 10:26 pm

imagine what a trainwreck this game mightve become if we had lynched the lawyer D1

by **Chaqa** » Fri May 15, 2020 9:15 pm

worcej wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 8:55 pm

xorxes wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 2:38 pm
One other thing to mention is flavor. I understand some people enjoy it, and I understand how it keeps GMs more invested in the game, but from a neutral point of view I actually agree with Chaqa that flavor should not contain any information. Since I was town and I have a hard time maintaining a neutral POV when playing, I didn't say this during the game, but if I had been scum this game I would not have been happy with the flavor, which practically validated foodcoats' and Vecna's claims. I would have pushed for Vecna's lynch if it wasn't for the flavor that made his claim extremely believable.
Noted. I think my style is in line with other mafia games I've played where you learn how someone died - mafia were strangulation, SK was by knives, and Veterans are from automatic rifles.

It's also really hard for me to just make plane jane flavor... I have too much fun writing up random scenarios/scenes.

I can't recall another time when we had flavor that meant anything at all, unless it's a game with only one possible death method (i.e. a vanilla w/ no Vigilante).

Maybe it's a WebDip thing. A small article on it:
https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Flavor

by **worcej** » Fri May 15, 2020 8:55 pm

xorxes wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 2:38 pm
One other thing to mention is flavor. I understand some people enjoy it, and I understand how it keeps GMs more invested in the game, but from a neutral point of view I actually agree with Chaqa that flavor should not contain any information. Since I was town and I have a hard time maintaining a neutral POV when playing, I didn't say this during the game, but if I had been scum this game I would not have been happy with the flavor, which practically validated foodcoats' and Vecna's claims. I would have pushed for Vecna's lynch if it wasn't for the flavor that made his claim extremely believable.

Noted. I think my style is in line with other mafia games I've played where you learn how someone died - mafia were strangulation, SK was by knives, and Veterans are from automatic rifles.

It's also really hard for me to just make plane jane flavor... I have too much fun writing up random scenarios/scenes.

by **xorxes** » Fri May 15, 2020 2:38 pm

One other thing to mention is flavor. I understand some people enjoy it, and I understand how it keeps GMs more invested in the game, but from a neutral point of view I actually agree with Chaqa that flavor should not contain any information. Since I was town and I have a hard time maintaining a neutral POV when playing, I didn't say this during the game, but if I had been scum this game I would not have been happy with the flavor, which practically validated foodcoats' and Vecna's claims. I would have pushed for Vecna's lynch if it wasn't for the flavor that made his claim extremely believable.

by **xorxes** » Fri May 15, 2020 2:09 pm

Squigs44 wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 6:43 am
That was longer than I anticipated. Tldr is that town had too many options, too many ways of getting clears. Mafia was down a person, and all of their roles were limited to possibly stopping a single role each. The Inquisitor balances it out a little bit, but not enough to stop town from winning most of the time in Squigs unprofessional opinion.

I think the only one who was close to a clear was summit, because the rules indicated that an alignment cop was in play, and nobody else countered that role. Everyone else was suspect, and I could not clear anyone mechanically because of the possibility of a Traitor with no QT access.

I think if bozo's role had been applied correctly, that would have made it more balanced as well, since my scan of him would have been useless.

by **xorxes** » Fri May 15, 2020 1:40 pm

Chaqa wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 3:43 am
This happens sometimes. M19 (the first role madness here) had a role called Equalizer Vash came up with off the top of his head and we threw it in and it turned out to be way too OP.

It was: pick two players. If they are different alignments, they die. If they are the same, they live.

You can see how this spiraled.

I tend to make my roles seem more OP than they actually are...

by **xorxes** » Fri May 15, 2020 1:37 pm

worcej wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 3:41 am

Xorxes' role was supposed to be the weakest, but as I already stated, I never expected the neighborhood watch to do what it did. I almost cut that role because I thought it would be too weak lol...

My role was pretty weak because I was sure from the start there would be some kind of town QT. If Chaqa had not broadcasted his role and who he was recruiting it would have been much harder for me to get any results. I thought Chaqa's and Neph's roles would have been negative utility to town if they had not outed so early.

by **worcej** » Fri May 15, 2020 9:20 am

Squigs44 wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 6:43 am
That was longer than I anticipated. Tldr is that town had too many options, too many ways of getting clears. Mafia was down a person, and all of their roles were limited to possibly stopping a single role each. The Inquisitor balances it out a little bit, but not enough to stop town from winning most of the time in Squigs unprofessional opinion.

I agree entirely with your TL;DR - I spent a lot of time factoring in what the effect of the 3P on either side, which would then ruin both town/scum, so I stacked town up with as much as possible.

I was somewhat hesitant to add a 5th scum because if one was lynched on D1, with the 3P UB becoming that slot, I would immediately say that scum was too stacked in that case. I think a 5th scum and no UB would've been the correct balance setup.

If I could do this again, I would stack more protective roles into the setup at the cost of the lie detector and neighborizor. I'd keep the TA because the inquisitor faction needs to be able to be caught later in the game.

by **Squigs44** » Fri May 15, 2020 6:43 am

That was longer than I anticipated. Tldr is that town had too many options, too many ways of getting clears. Mafia was down a person, and all of their roles were limited to possibly stopping a single role each. The Inquisitor balances it out a little bit, but not enough to stop town from winning most of the time in Squigs unprofessional opinion.

by **Squigs44** » Fri May 15, 2020 6:40 am

Okay, detailed post about the setup for this game incoming. I am going to be looking at this game in a number of ways, so it will prove to be lengthy. While I have not read all of these articles, note that several articles on creating balanced mafia setups exist on mafia university. This one and this one are two such articles, and are better articulated than anything I could write.

I have bolded any sentences where I draw conclusions in case you want the tldr.

Let's first look at numbers. This was a 21 person game. 1 of those was the 3p universal backup, which more or less makes this a 20 person game with the universal backup just replacing the first death. Note that it is not quite that simple, since any lynch gives more info to town and town is more likely to be lynched day 1 than mafia by virtue of having less people. Thus, the existence of the universal backup gives town a slight advantage, albeit a very small one.

The general rule of thumb in any article you will read says 25% of the game should be mafia, 75% town. This rule does not take into account a 3p, which makes things tricky. This rule is also for vanilla games. In this setup, you could say that town constituted 15 of the 20 town exactly 25%. However, mafia is left at 4 out of 20, 1 less than they should have. The addition of the third party makes balance tricky, but essentially you are keeping town's win percent at the 50%, while splitting the remaining 50% between mafia and 3p. If I were balancing this game, I would have probably made it 5 mafia, 1 3p, and 15 town. You might think that having 6 scum vs 14 town makes the town too weak, but remember that the 5 mafia and 1 3p are also competing against each other. Thus, in my opinion, mafia was down 1 player from the start.

Next, let us look at mislynches. This is arguably the best way to look at balance in a game. In a vanilla game with 17 players, you will have 4 mafia. In order for mafia to win, they will need to cause 5 mislynches before the 4 mafia are lynched. Basically, the rule of thumb here is that mafia should be required to cause a little over 1 mislynch for every 1 mafia member. More importantly though is the viability of the townies in being lynched. In the above example, they were required to mislynch 5 players. Lets say that in that setup you have 3 PRs that can clear themselves and 3 masons that are all unlynchable. That means that out of 13 town, only 7 of them are lynchable. Lynching 5 out of the 7 lynchables is a tall order. This means if they accidentally NK expendable VTs the first 2 nights, they have to be flawless in their NKs from then on. Essentially, the more unlynchable roles town has, the more townsided it is. You can get a case of mechanically clearing too many townies.

If we look at the specifics of this setup, we can estimate the number of mislynches needed, as well as the number of unlynchable roles. For number of mislynches, the 3p Inquisitor leaves some room for speculation, but on average it is probably reasonable to assume that the Inquisitor will kill mafia in proportion to town such that removing him from the equation will not make a large difference. This is to say that sometimes he will kill mafia, requiring additional mislynches, sometimes he will kill town, requiring less mislynches, and this about balances out. So if we just look at this as 4 mafia and 15 town, this requires 6 mislynches, 1 additional mislynch than should be expected. Again, if it were 5 mafia and 14 town, they would need 5 mislynches, which is more in line with expectations.

Lets look at unlynchables though. With a closed setup, it is much harder for a role to be unlynchable, since many abilities could be construed as town or mafia. However, there are certain roles that could claim and verify their abilities in such a way that it is almost certain that they are town aligned. For example, Summit cop scanning RHK made him pretty much unlynchable. If the lie detector dug out a mafia, he would be considered unlynchable. While a mafia member could bus a teammate by getting a guilty "scan" on a teammate, this play from the mafia would be so detrimental to mafia that it is extremely unlikely. For this intents of this exercise, I am considering the following roles as unlynchable if they claim and use their abilities to help town: Cop, Lie Detector, Tracker, Jailkeeper, Watcher, Traffic Analyst, JOAT.

While some of these roles could possibly be lynched in rare circumstances (as we saw with the lie detector this game), there are also roles not on this list that could possibly make themselves unlynchable through other means. This is also assuming that town plays optimally, where they will allow roles to clear themselves properly. Even if you disagree with me, the cops / lie detectors/ other investigatives in this game are almost guaranteed to get at least 1 or 2 scans that clear an additional town or two from being lynched (like Bozo was cleared in the game). So I think it is reasonable to assume that around 7 players could be mechanically cleared from being lynched in this setup (possibly more, possibly less). That means in this setup, mafia would need to mislynch 6 townies, with only about 8 of them lynchable. This is a more difficult task for mafia, and we haven't even discussed the full implications of all of town's roles.

Lets go next into Towns roles, one by one.
Investigatives:

Motion Detector - A weaker investigative role. This role is most useful in conjunction with other visiting roles (of which there were plenty) in confirming claims. This role is really only slightly better than a VT.
Tracker - A mid-tier investigative role. This role is more useful in a role madness game than a vanilla game, since you have lots of people moving. In fact, about three quarters of the game has roles that visit. This means that the real value in the tracker is in being able to confirm claims after a massclaim or semi-claim situation. Add to that the other possibility of tracking a mafia making a NK and this role gets better. Basically if the tracker ever tracks a mafia, they can use it to catch a mafia late game, either by catching them doing the kill or catching them in a lie. If they track a townie instead, they have a chance of clearing those townies.
Watcher - A mid-tier investigative role. Similar to the tracker, but perhaps a little weaker. The watcher is more concerned with watching possible NK targets than the tracker, which is harder to guess in the early stages of the game, but becomes more valuable late game after a mass-claim or semi-claim situation. Again, they have an opportunity to watch someone performing a NK or watch someone in order to verify claims and clear townies.
Cop - An upper-tier investigative role. A cop is always one of the best roles in any game. Scans are very valuable, and while this particular cop got nerfed by mafia specific abilities and Inquisitor partial immunity, they are still more useful than the watcher or tracker imo.
Traffic Analyst - An upper-tier investigative role. I will admit that Xorxes and Chaqa used their roles in the best way possible. However, I still think that this role is upper-tier, and here is why. There are three QTs, two of which have scum, and one of which is town controlled. However, the town controlled QT will surface at some point during the game. A neighborizer is best used for town openly, and so I think that almost every time this setup is run, the Traffic Analyst will at least know that the neighborhood exists by D2. If the Traffic Analyst does know that it exists, then all they have to do is avoid the members of the neighborhood and they are now a better role than the cop. Even if they dont immediately know about the neighborhood or who is in it, when they do get that information, all of their scans now become very very useful. Even if they never learn about the neighborhood, getting a scan of not being in a QT almost surely creates a clear, which as we have talked about, is very valuable to town.
Lie Detector - An absolutely OP investigative role. Even with the stipulation that the ability can only be used on a single statement, this role is too powerful. If used correctly, then once per turn, the lie detector can be used to unequivocally check a players alignment. The mafia cannot roleblock it. The mafia cannot redirect it. The mafia cannot frame it. The inquisitor has Whether you disagree with some of my choices or not, I think it is reasonable to assume that in this setup, 7 players could use mechanics to clear themselves from being lynched (not even counting investigatives clearing people).no defense against it. There is no way for scum to combat this. Creating clears in a game that already has several unlynchable roles gets very dangerous very quickly. If this role was used in conjunction with the town jailor, the game would be absolutely broken.

In short, having 6 town investigatives means that you have 6 chances to get a clear or guilty each night. While each may not be iron-clad, together that provides a lot of opportunity for town to become a mechanically cleared powerhouse.

Protectives:

Jailor - A good protective role, in certain situations. Because of the way things were adjudicated, the jailor acted before any mafia roles. This means mafia could not RB him, could not redirect him, nothing. This role in conjunction with the lie detector is broken. But even if not used with the lie detector, it is adaptable. It can be used as a RB against the mafia. It can be used as a protective on perhaps a clear that does not have a useful night action (like if Chaqa was scanned clear or something). The jailor can perpetually jail himself in order to prevent the mafia from ever being able to NK him. Imagine if you get down to 5 players left, 1 mafia, and the jailor has been scanned innocent by the lie detector. In this case, the mafia cannot win, since the jailor will not be lynched and cannot be NK'd. A suggestion here is for Jailor to be able to be RB'd by mafia.
Doctor - Pretty standard role, really nothing super. The fact that he can target the same person in back to back nights is nothing super OP, but does give town a little bit more of an edge.
Babysitter - A role that I can say with certainty is not townsided. The caveat to the babysitter makes any use of the babysitter risky. Certainly a better role than a VT, but not super valuable to town compared to other roles.

The protective roles town had were much more reasonable than the investigative roles, but the jailor was a little OP, and 3 protectives can make it dicey for mafia. I think nerfing the doc and the jailor just a bit would have made it a little better.

Others:

Bus Driver - This role is interesting, since with so many investigatives, it will probably cause more of a mess than help anything. Smart play with the bus driver is to wait until you have more info. This role could become strong late game in a mass-claim situation, being used as a protective or as a way to switch the kill to your POE. Better than a VT, but not by a ton.
Lightning Rod - A fun role for sure. The biggest thing about the lightning rod here is that it stops the NK. Anything that stops a NK means mafia needs an additional mislynch, and in a game where mafia is already hard-pressed to get enough mislynches, this role makes a difference. After that, the role has almost no use, although using the lightning rod does give someone town-cred.
Hider - This is a modified version of the role I have seen. Usually the hider dies if they hide behind mafia. The hider doesn't really help town a whole lot, so this role is basically a VT type role.
JOAT - This role is also super good for town. With a watching and tracking action, you get a little bit more investigation to add to the 6 investigatives, making another potential clear. 2 protective actions means another potential save, meaning another potential mislynch needed for mafia. The gun will almost guaranteed be used on a guilty scan that is almost guaranteed to happen in this setup, basically giving town another lynch. The roleblock could be used near the end of game. The JOAT is just an overpowered vig.
Paranoid Gun Owner - This role could be used well, but also has a lot of risk. This person could do things to potentially get mafia to target him instead of town, but with more town visiting roles than mafia, this role is probably more detrimental to town than to mafia. We will equate this with a VT role.
Neighborizer - This role worked really well for Chaqa, but it could go several ways. I think smart play with this role is to play with it more openly, giving some potential early clears. Coordinating roles between PRs can be nice if you are careful about who is in the QT as well. Not a whole lot of downside with a whole lot of upside.

Of the remaining roles, the JOAT is very powerful, while the rest are probably not super useful

Overall, the biggest concern with this town setup is how many options town has. There are so many ways for town to clear themselves, RB scum, stop a NK, get a guilty on scum, or even kill scum. While several of these roles are likely to flounder and do nothing, if even half of them are used well, this creates too many clears and not enough NKs to kill all the clears.

Lets look at the scum-team next:

Roleblocker - Roleblocks are always nice for a mafia team to have. They are an obvious way to counteract any role that town has. Except in this case, the roleblocker cannot roleblock the lie detector. He cannot roleblock the jailor. He cannot roleblock any of the town roleblock actions. So that means the roleblocker can only roleblock some of towns actions. Even then, lets say you roleblock the traffic analyst, you are still leaving 5 investigatives and 3 protectives to get through. A roleblock is enough to combat a single role, and doesnt even always work. Yes, damo could have used the role differently to achieve different results, but it still would have been underwhelming.
Redirector - The redirector is interesting, because the person who is redirected knows that they are redirected. So instead of getting a guilty on Bunny for example, they got a result that let them know there was a coverup. This means that while it can nerf a town investigative, it does not absolve suspicion. The redirector also can't be used to circumvent protection (unlike a busdriver). Basically the redirector's use is limited to nerf any investigatives, but not completely absolve them.
Lawyer - The lawyer is good to use against the cop, but, uhh... thats about it. It stops a single role from being useful, if used on the same target as the cop each night. Also, as soon as one mafia dies, the town basically knows that a lawyer exists from the role flip. So the Lawyer's power is limited to possibly nerfing one specific role.
Mafia Doctor - Can save from the JOAT, Paranoid Gun Owner, or Iniquisitor. Thats it. Must guess who on the mafia team will be killed, which is difficult. Even if they save from the Iniquisitor, the person they save is actually stolen from their team and makes the inquisitor more powerful, which is worse for the mafia team than simply losing a member. So not a terribly great role for mafia, although better than a goon I suppose.

Each of the mafia roles counteract a single town role, if used correctly. If used incorrectly, then useless. All of the mafias roles are reactive. The mafia doesn't have additional firepower or offensive options, they have a couple of band-aids that can stop half of their bleeding if they guess right.

At this point, I have largely ignored the 3p, which is probably not fair. The 3p could have a large impact on the game, and should not be ignored, so lets visit that role:
The Inquisitor has a NK, is NK immune, and scans innocent. With the caveat that if a potential NK of his is saved, but not by RB, they are recruited. However, once recruited, the Inquisitor scans as guilty. This basically reads to me like a slightly better Serial Killer. The NK every night makes this much more difficult for town. An extra person dying every night is not good for town. However, this doesn't necessarily make it easier for mafia, as the Inquisitor can also NK mafia members. Since the Inquisitor is NK immune, that means that the mafia have to drive a mislynch on the Inquisitor, when they are already hard-pressed to get enough mislynches. Overall, the Inquisitor should be aiming for the faction that seems to be winning, which should theoretically balance the game.
However, lets look at how his abilities actually interact with towns:
The inquisitor can still be tracked, watched, traffic analyzed, lie detected, etc. He only has protection from 1 of the 6 investigatives, and that protection goes away after a recruitment. It is highly likely he is caught at some point in the game. His only real hope is to recruit the investigatives before he is scanned by them, which is difficult. The Inquisitor can only recruit through a non-RB ability stopping his kill. This leaves the two doctor, and perhaps the babysitter. The jailor is a RB'r, the Lightning Rod is a RB'r, so that screws him over. He doesn't even know that the mafia doctor exists, so the best the Investigator can hope for is that he tries to NK the same person as the town Doctor, and also hope that that person is investigative so that he isn't scanned one of the first 5 or 6 nights. Tall order for the inquisitor.

But how does the Inquisitor affect game balance? Overall, I think that the Inquisitor makes it slightly more difficult for mafia to win, and moderately more difficult for town to win. However, I think that town still has so many investigative, protective, and other options at their disposal, combined with a numbers advantage and a large number of potential mechanical clears that they are favored to win this set up a large majority of the time.

So what could have potentially changed about the set-up to make it more balanced in Squigs opinion? Here are some ideas:

Remove the Lie detector. It is too OP, no questions asked.
Replace the Inquisitor with a SK (NK immunity and scans inno), so that you can properly nerf town without worrying about an OP 3P.
Give mafia an additional member. The numbers are stacked against mafia even if it were a vanilla setup. Giving mafia 1 more member means that town does not have to be nearly as nerfed.
Give town more double-edged roles. Roles like the babysitter are great for role-madness because it means no one has to play a VT, while you are not giving town an extra advantage for each extra role.
Make the mafia roles more proactive rather than reactive. Make it so that mafia doesn't have to get lucky for their ability to be useful. Instead of trying to guess what roles town has and defending, give them a way to be proactive.
Consider giving fake claims to mafia and 3p. In a role madness game, you cant just claim VT, so having a viable fake claim is key. Damo just didn't claim, Rdrivera and I got burned by our claims, and Bunny claimed something that could be verified, so everyone realized he was lying. Perhaps we could have been more creative, but it is difficult to know what to fake claim in a closed setup.
Probably should nerf JOAT into a one shot vig. That role was potentially the second most powerful role for town behind lie detector.
Make it so that the mafia RB can actually RB town actions. Having town actions resolve before mafia actions proved more of a challenge to mafia than I originally thought it would.

by **Chaqa** » Fri May 15, 2020 3:43 am

This happens sometimes. M19 (the first role madness here) had a role called Equalizer Vash came up with off the top of his head and we threw it in and it turned out to be way too OP.

It was: pick two players. If they are different alignments, they die. If they are the same, they live.

You can see how this spiraled.

by **worcej** » Fri May 15, 2020 3:41 am

Nephthys wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 3:21 am

worcej wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 3:05 am

Squigs44 wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 1:46 am
While the mafia team did not play perfectly, they shouldn't have to play perfectly in order to win. If the town had played perfectly they would have definitely won over a perfect mafia. While the mafia definitely had several chances to improve their game, I think the town had more advantages than mafia did, which is normal for role madness. Its just really hard as a GM to predict how all the roles will act and interact, and the more crazy the setup, the more it can swing one way or the other, leading to it probably looking more unbalanced than it really was. If you want my detailed opinion on specifics as to why I think it was unbalanced and how it could be improved, in happy to give that, but the game is over and I had fun, so I'm fine just moving on as well.
I would love to have specific items as to how it was unbalanced - it helps me learn to balance better in the future. Hearing 'we didn't stand a chance' doesn't help me get any better for the future.
My only two concerns were the shear number of town investigative/protective PRs. Good to make some vanilla and some detrimental town roles like lovers?

Also I can't stress how much I think the neighbourizer negatively affected the game.

Scum need day chat with something like this as well

All in all I think you did an exceptional job at balancing the scumteam though, a good arsenal to counteract a strong town

I definitely focused on as many roles that could visit, thus the investigative influx. I figured that the watcher and tracker would see so much action that they couldn't be sure of what was going to happen along with the cop only able to get a guilty on 1 to 2 out of all players in a night scan.

Xorxes' role was supposed to be the weakest, but as I already stated, I never expected the neighborhood watch to do what it did. I almost cut that role because I thought it would be too weak lol...

by **worcej** » Fri May 15, 2020 3:39 am

Chaqa wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 3:11 am
I think the Jail/Lightning Rod interaction was the biggest one.

Lots of town investigative roles.

Maybe Rivera's stuff should have been able to recruit Foodcoats (Jail is kinda protective, I think)

Mafia Hooker too weak. Should have had some other utility role + factional RB.

Maybe an Encryptor or a Mafia JOAT or a Role Thief/Role Cop.

Yeah, definitely should've done a factional RB and made it known in the information presented.

To be honest, the original goal was to have food be recruited to rdr, but I read closely on how I worded the roles after I sent them out and realized I structured it incorrectly to make that automatically happen.

by **Nephthys** » Fri May 15, 2020 3:21 am

worcej wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 3:05 am

Squigs44 wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 1:46 am
While the mafia team did not play perfectly, they shouldn't have to play perfectly in order to win. If the town had played perfectly they would have definitely won over a perfect mafia. While the mafia definitely had several chances to improve their game, I think the town had more advantages than mafia did, which is normal for role madness. Its just really hard as a GM to predict how all the roles will act and interact, and the more crazy the setup, the more it can swing one way or the other, leading to it probably looking more unbalanced than it really was. If you want my detailed opinion on specifics as to why I think it was unbalanced and how it could be improved, in happy to give that, but the game is over and I had fun, so I'm fine just moving on as well.
I would love to have specific items as to how it was unbalanced - it helps me learn to balance better in the future. Hearing 'we didn't stand a chance' doesn't help me get any better for the future.

My only two concerns were the shear number of town investigative/protective PRs. Good to make some vanilla and some detrimental town roles like lovers?

Also I can't stress how much I think the neighbourizer negatively affected the game.

Scum need day chat with something like this as well

All in all I think you did an exceptional job at balancing the scumteam though, a good arsenal to counteract a strong town

by **Chaqa** » Fri May 15, 2020 3:11 am

I think the Jail/Lightning Rod interaction was the biggest one.

Lots of town investigative roles.

Maybe Rivera's stuff should have been able to recruit Foodcoats (Jail is kinda protective, I think)

Mafia Hooker too weak. Should have had some other utility role + factional RB.

Maybe an Encryptor or a Mafia JOAT or a Role Thief/Role Cop.

by **worcej** » Fri May 15, 2020 3:07 am

kgray wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 3:00 am

worcej wrote: ↑
Wed May 13, 2020 11:58 pm
MVP for town goes to Chaqa, hands down. He used the Neighborhood Watch INCREDIBLY effectively and managed to never recruit a scum. Xorxes was able to use the knowledge of who was in the QT to avoid scanning them, thus getting rdr early.
Chaqa and xorxes definitely did great mechanically, and I’m not taking anything away from them, but I think foodcoats also deserves credit for having the best reads of the game.

GG team! Thanks worcej!

Very true. Food had it snuffed out before the mechanics came into play and stuck with his reads well.

by **worcej** » Fri May 15, 2020 3:05 am

Squigs44 wrote: ↑
Fri May 15, 2020 1:46 am
While the mafia team did not play perfectly, they shouldn't have to play perfectly in order to win. If the town had played perfectly they would have definitely won over a perfect mafia. While the mafia definitely had several chances to improve their game, I think the town had more advantages than mafia did, which is normal for role madness. Its just really hard as a GM to predict how all the roles will act and interact, and the more crazy the setup, the more it can swing one way or the other, leading to it probably looking more unbalanced than it really was. If you want my detailed opinion on specifics as to why I think it was unbalanced and how it could be improved, in happy to give that, but the game is over and I had fun, so I'm fine just moving on as well.

I would love to have specific items as to how it was unbalanced - it helps me learn to balance better in the future. Hearing 'we didn't stand a chance' doesn't help me get any better for the future.

M55: The Last Party - Game Thread

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