S-FM: LBP Small-Town Mafia (13P)

[Auckmid]

Overview

The setup follows the small-town rules, which are as follows:

-Each player will be randomly assigned both ONE character role and ONE faction role from the list below. Every one of the thirteen given character roles will appear EXACTLY once upon game startup

-Factions roles determine the players win condition, in addition to any other abilities they might get, such as mafia night kills. Faction roles are private.

-Character roles give each player additional abilities to assist them, such as being able to heal players as the doctor. Character roles have no effect on alignment. Character roles are public, which means at the beginning of day 1, the character role assigned to each player will be revealed to everyone. As such, everyone will know which player was given the doctor ability, but will not know whether the doctor is pro-town or pro-mafia.

Character Roles

Mayor
Doctor
Lookout
Veteran
Survivalist
Vigilante
Grave Digger
Jailor
Escort
Networker
Bus Driver
Bodyguard
Sheriff

Faction Roles

Mafioso
Mafioso
Mafioso
Mafioso

Town
Town
Town
Town
Town
Town
Town
Town
Town



Character Role Descriptions

Mayor


Your vote counts as 2 votes for the purposes of lynching
You are NOT confirmed town


Doctor


Protect 1 person each night from death
Protects target against mafia and vigilante kills. Does not protect against jailor executions or veteran/bodyguard kills.
No feedback is given or received for a successful heal


Lookout


Watch over someone each night, seeing which people target that person
Sees all people who visit your target, regardless of where they appear on the OoO


Compulsive Veteran


Go on alert each night, killing anyone who targets you
You MUST go on alert and have unlimited charges
Kills through this ability bypass any protection/healing
You are immune to mafia and vigilante kills. You are not immune to bodyguard kills or jailor executions.
You do not kill anyone who targets you with a day action, and being jailed prevents you from going on alert.


Survivalist


Automatically protect yourself each night, giving yourself immunity.
If you are targeted by a mafia or vigilante kill, you do not die. Instead, your receive feedback that you were targeted by a kill, and have your role converted to citizen (losing all character abilities, but not faction abilities)
You are not immune to jailor executions or veteran/bodyguard kills.


Vigilante


May kill 1 target on any given night
If a town aligned member is successfully killed using this action, your role is converted to citizen (losing all character abilities, but not faction abilities).
Aside from this restriction, you have unlimited shots


Grave Digger


Once per day, you may target any character in the graveyard, gaining all of their CHARACTER abilities for the rest of that day and the following night.
Survivalists or vigilantes who died as citizens are treated as having no character ability.
Saving yourself as a survivalist or killing a town aligned character as a vigilante will permanently convert you to a citizen (losing all character abilities, but not faction abilities).
You may NOT target a dead mayor, all other roles are fair game.


Jailor


Once per day, you may target any character to be jailed
If, and only if, no lynch occurs on that day, target character will jailed by you during the following night.
You may communicate with jailed characters during the night, and jailed characters are role blocked and unable to join any other night chats.
You may execute a jailed character at the end of the night, bypassing all healings and immunities.
You have unlimited executions


Escort


Each night, you may target 1 person to be role-blocked, preventing any night actions.
Can not prevent jailor executions, which are performed earlier in the OoO.
No feedback is given to the target from this ability.


Networker


Each day, you may target up to 4 people (including yourself) to network.
The following night, all people targeted will form a night chat.
You may target less then 4 people.
If you do not target yourself, you will not be included in the chat.
Jailed people will not be able to join the chat.
You may not setup a night chat if you are jailed.


Bus Driver


Each night, target 2 people to be swapped.
All other actions targeting one of the swapped persons will instead target the other person.
Does not affect jailor executions or escort roleblocks, which occur earlier in the OoO.
No feedback is given to either of the swapped individuals.


Bodyguard


Target 1 person each night, protecting them.
If the protected individual is targeted by a mafia or vigilante attack, they do not die. Instead both you and the attacker die.
Both of these deaths cannot be prevented by any means.
Protection does not trigger on jailor executions or veteran kills.
No feedback will be given for a successful protection.


Sheriff


Target 1 person each night to investigate
If the target has a mafioso faction role, you will be informed they appear to be mafia aligned.
If the target has a town faction role, you will be informed they appear town aligned.



Factions Roles


Mafioso


You are aligned with the mafia. You win when all town aligned members are dead and at least one mafia aligned member is still alive.
You know the identities of all other mafia-aligned players, and may chat with them each night.
Each night, one member of the mafia may kill a target player as a free action, in addition to any character actions.


Town


You are aligned with the town. You win when all mafia aligned members are dead and at least one town aligned member is still alive.
You have no additional abilities (aside from your character ability)







Setup specific rules:


Blackout: To give the mafia more freedom with who they target with their character abilities, no feedback will be given for the following roles which usually do give feedback: Escort, Bus Driver, Doctor and Bodyguard.
Free faction kills: For the same reason as blackout, the mafia member who carries out the faction kill may still use any character night actions.
Longer Days: Days for this S-FM will be longer then usual, with 72 hours for the first day and 48 hours for the following days. Nights will be a constant 24 hours.


Other rules:
All the typical FM rules apply. This includes…


Do not have outside discussion about the game while still alive.
You are expected to make at least 5 posts each day cycle that at least have a little bit of relevance to the game.
Do not edit your posts.
Do not post screenshots, especially showing your faction role.
Do not attempt to cheat. This is fairly broad, but everyone should understand what will be considered acceptable conduct, and attempts to circumvent the rules in ways that are clearly against the spirit of the game will be punished.
Admins cannot use their mod powers to reveal information that would not otherwise be available.


Failure to follow these rules will result in some combination of forced replacement, getting modkilled and/or getting blacklisted from future FMs.


Order of operations (OoO)
Start of Night:


Jailing
Networker sets up a night chat
All night chats open


End of night



Jailor executes
Veteran goes on alert, Survivalist protects himself
Lookout goes into position
Escort roleblocks
Bus driver switches targets
Bodyguard protects
Doctor protects
Kills/Investigation Feedback

[Cryptonic]

Damn

[Slaol]

Thats a name ive not heard in a long time

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Review in progress

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Is literally everyone a "power role" (their character role)? If so, I guess it'll be balanced by host, right?

If everyone's a power role, that leads to this concern : People could use the roles to see what would be balanced or not, for each side, leading to a game where scum hunting isn't really the first concern for Town, but a "what's balanced" guessing game.


Other questions may follow. Signups aren't postable yet, please wait a bit.
Auckmid

[Slaol]

Full random games, with lots of nonesense, end up being nothing but scumhunting. Even a game like clown town was won or lost on a players feeling of the players in the game.

If all of, say, protective are on the mafia the town is lacking but these powers are worse for a mafia overall. The roles balance rhemselves. Promise

[Damus_Graves]

Lol what
A full witch mafia team vs town vigilantes doesn’t balance itself

[Slaol]

Lol what
A full witch mafia team vs town vigilantes doesn’t balance itself

Ya it does. Both teams have almost 0 control of the outcome.

[Damus_Graves]

Ya it does. Both teams have almost 0 control of the outcome.

The witch control vigilantes to kill themselves/ other town. Lol. That example is not balanced.

[Auckmid]

The answer to the first question is that the alignment for each role is randomized. As such, attempting to guess "what is balanced?" which is brought up in the second question is unneeded.

For the other part of the first question, which is the concern that this creates an unbalanced setup, may be a question you need to go more in depth on, but I'll try to answer the best I can...

-The ratio for mafia and town is fixed (9 to 4). I am reviewing this ratio, and might modify it if I feel that my current balance is off-point, but the ratio will always be pre-determined

-Each individual role is balanced so that it isn't too powerful if it gets randomed as a mafia role. Particularly, while kill roles like vigilante and jailor would usually be extremely powerful for the mafia to have, in this setup, the vigilante power can only be used to kill 1 town-aligned player, and the jailor only activates when the town makes the conscientious decision to not lynch.

-Some roles like bus driver are still going to be powerful for the mafia. However, this is something that the town needs to recognize. If the bus driver is appearing at all scummy, maybe he needs to take a higher lynch priority then the doctor who is also acting scummy. If he isn't getting lynched, maybe the escort should prioritize role blocking him so that he can't cause too much chaos. Unless the escort and bus driver are both mafia, which brings us to the third point...

-It is possible that the mafia could end up with all the roles of a certain class, such as all the protective roles, all of the investigative roles or all the disruption roles. However, it is the towns job to react appropriately to this situation. If the the investigation roles aren't bringing in anything useful, or are causing the town to mislynch, the town does need to consider that the mafia has a monopoly on them. If the protective roles aren't able to stop any of the kills, it needs to be considered that they could all be mafia aligned, or that disruption roles are creating issues and also need to be brought under question.


While the setup wasn't approved onsite by you, it was approved by Slaol as an admin who is active in the forums, who said that it was fine to post signups pre-approval

[Slaol]

Then game should be 1 vs 3. So you have 1 dead town and 2 random firing vigilantes.

Town could win or town could lose. Gg no one was in control and its a balanced setup

[Damus_Graves]

Being balanced doesn’t mean that no one controls the outcome. It means that one side does not have an inherit advantage over the other team that wasn’t originally intended.

[Slaol]

Being balanced doesn’t mean that no one controls the outcome. It means that one side does not have an inherit advantage over the other team that wasn’t originally intended.

"Inherit advantage"

Neither side has an advantage because of the pure RNG of the game you describe.

Edit: thank you for agreeing with me

[Damus_Graves]

Kay.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Lol what
A full witch mafia team vs town vigilantes doesn’t balance itself

It actually does. It's boring, but it does. Lol

[Marshmallow Marshall]

But I mean, if everyone knows who is what, it can lead to a big "guess the balance" game. It also can be really hard for scums to win if everyone is a power role.

[Damus_Graves]

At work; got frustrated;
We can pick this back up later if you don’t mind. That way I can understand your point. Pretty sure I’m misunderstanding

[Auckmid]

But I mean, if everyone knows who is what, it can lead to a big "guess the balance" game. It also can be really hard for scums to win if everyone is a power role.

I'm not sure if this is in reply to my post, or to something that someone else posted, but as mentioned in my reply, alignment for roles is randomized. You might have a bit of concern for balance, but I gave my rationale, and there is no chance that a "guess the balance" issue can occur.

The presence of a significant number of power roles which are traditionally more pro-town does create a bit of a town advantage, but this is balanced by the fact that role-claiming cannot save any of the town members (its already public knowledge) and the ration leans pro-mafia (9 vs 4)

[Marshmallow Marshall]

The answer to the first question is that the alignment for each role is randomized. As such, attempting to guess "what is balanced?" which is brought up in the second question is unneeded.

For the other part of the first question, which is the concern that this creates an unbalanced setup, may be a question you need to go more in depth on, but I'll try to answer the best I can...

-The ratio for mafia and town is fixed (9 to 4). I am reviewing this ratio, and might modify it if I feel that my current balance is off-point, but the ratio will always be pre-determined

-Each individual role is balanced so that it isn't too powerful if it gets randomed as a mafia role. Particularly, while kill roles like vigilante and jailor would usually be extremely powerful for the mafia to have, in this setup, the vigilante power can only be used to kill 1 town-aligned player, and the jailor only activates when the town makes the conscientious decision to not lynch.

-Some roles like bus driver are still going to be powerful for the mafia. However, this is something that the town needs to recognize. If the bus driver is appearing at all scummy, maybe he needs to take a higher lynch priority then the doctor who is also acting scummy. If he isn't getting lynched, maybe the escort should prioritize role blocking him so that he can't cause too much chaos. Unless the escort and bus driver are both mafia, which brings us to the third point...

-It is possible that the mafia could end up with all the roles of a certain class, such as all the protective roles, all of the investigative roles or all the disruption roles. However, it is the towns job to react appropriately to this situation. If the the investigation roles aren't bringing in anything useful, or are causing the town to mislynch, the town does need to consider that the mafia has a monopoly on them. If the protective roles aren't able to stop any of the kills, it needs to be considered that they could all be mafia aligned, or that disruption roles are creating issues and also need to be brought under question.


While the setup wasn't approved onsite by you, it was approved by Slaol as an admin who is active in the forums, who said that it was fine to post signups pre-approval

Well that solves the question of the guessing game. And the balance is in fact inherent to the character roles.

Approving the setup officially now, but I do not recommend it to new or insecure hosts because of the host balance that is required to make this a playable and fun game.


Also, a minor question: when the Mafioso nightkills and uses a character role ability on two different players, does he visit both his night kill target AND his normal action target?

[Auckmid]

Well that solves the question of the guessing game. And the balance is in fact inherent to the character roles.

Approving the setup officially now, but I do not recommend it to new or insecure hosts because of the host balance that is required to make this a playable and fun game.


Also, a minor question: when the Mafioso nightkills and uses a character role ability on two different players, does he visit both his night kill target AND his normal action target?

Thanks for the approval. And for the mafioso question, the lookout will see all characters who target a character, regardless of what action they are taking. As such, the mafioso who carries out the action will indeed show up as having targeted both of the people.

[Ganelon]

I like this setup. I think you shouldn't randomize the role distribution though. Wouldn't want something fucky like three Mafia Veterans.

[Slaol]

Theyre unique

[creedkingsx]

I have 2 small questions one of which is less likely to be relevant than the other.

The first being: Does lookout "visit/target" the person they are watching. It doesn't explicitly use either of these words in the initial bit of the role card. This is only pertinent in the unlikely chance of 2 lookouts, I believe, and, more so, in the case of bussing.

Second question: Do mafia choose who to send for the kill? Again, not explicitly stated but I'd just as soon assume that to be the case.

[Auckmid]

I like this setup. I think you shouldn't randomize the role distribution though. Wouldn't want something fucky like three Mafia Veterans.

I can clarify this in the description, but as Slaol mentioned, they are unique. Each of the the thirteen character roles will appear exactly once.


I have 2 small questions one of which is less likely to be relevant than the other.

The first being: Does lookout "visit/target" the person they are watching. It doesn't explicitly use either of these words in the initial bit of the role card. This is only pertinent in the unlikely chance of 2 lookouts, I believe, and, more so, in the case of bussing.

Second question: Do mafia choose who to send for the kill? Again, not explicitly stated but I'd just as soon assume that to be the case.

First: Any action targeting another player counts as a visit, lookout included. However, as mentioned above, there will be one, and only one, lookout.

Second: Mafia does select which member to send for the kill.