Does anyone read the setup strength at the end?

[GloryWarrior]

My setup I get a lot of complaints about... but usually it ends with setup strength 20-20 for town/mafia. Some guy named Azire always trolls/quits whenever I start it up, but when I actually get a group of people to play it (and if the town isn't bloodthirsty) then it's AWESOME and always a close game!
The Setup is basically 9 town, 4 mafia, 2 neutral.

9 town- Mayor, 3 adv random, 2 basic random, 1 total random, investigator, detective
4 mafia- Godfather, 3 adv random
2 neutral - 2 total random

and the vet can't kill night immune people (too overpowered since Vet can be randomed), the arson isn't night immune (too unbalanced if the careful town MUST lynch to kill him), the Cult/Mason are as powerful as possible to make them more fun to play, and anything can be randomed pretty much. Especially when the setup strength at the end is always so similar, I don't understand why some people like Azire hate it so much. It's always a blast trying to figure out what everyone is, instead of getting found out just because it's "unlikely" that with 1 doctor preset that the 3 random slots would have given 2 doctors.

Everyone says "Need fewer mafia!" and "Need SK instead of Mafia" but I don't enjoy having a SK guaranteed. He CAN kill mafia and make it easy on the town, and he can also make the mafia win that much faster because he DOUBLES the potential civilian kills each night! He can be randomed, but a smart town will very frequently win with this setup.

[DramaLlama]

Um generally you shouldn't have everything equal.

Town has 9.

They should be more likely to win the game than the mafia, that's what makes this game hard to win as mafia. The odds are against them.

If town and mafia had a 50/50 of winning/losing then mafia would win a much higher percent of the time because town holds all of the cards.
If town makes a couple mistakes the mafia win.

That's why town should generally have a higher set up strength, because they are the ones who lose when they lynch a town (which always happens, let's be honest)


Your set up is indeed stacked in the favor of mafia.

The two random neutrals only bring bad things to the table. You say they can be anything.

Arson/sk increase the average KPN (assuming arson actually kills someone eventually).
Witch is like a hidden mafia member.
Survivor can side with whoever he wants (usually mafia in the end)
Amnesiac will most likely go town, but he could just wait and take a mafia role or not take any role.
Jester throws the day chat into shambles and wastes a lynch when town needs to eliminate the mafia fast.
Cult in this set up just ruins town as they can't win anymore. Especially since you say they are as powerful as they can be making me assume you have it set to converting each night.
Executioner also throws day chat into the garbage and wastes a lynch (most likely town) and usually gets a sheriff to counter claim and then die to mafia.

Every neutral pretty much has the potential to hurt the town. Combine that with the fact that there are 4 mafia members (3 of which are adv which could mean blackmailers, framers, janitors) making the towns PR info less reliable and harder to find said mafia, and you have a shitty set up for town.

[GloryWarrior]

Alrighty then. I get a bunch of what you say, but smart townies have an overwhelmingly strong chance to win most games. Even with this setup, they still are the ones with the detecting roles (no Consigliere) and Veterans (even though they can't kill a SK/GF) can be randomed. A good communicating town will still win most games, and only 2 neuts means that the chance that they really end up doing something is pretty small. I guess I need to look again at the Cult and see what they do- to be fair I have never really seen them in games. But otherwise I don't see the neutrals as killing off so many townies. When people practice careful lynching they almost almost win with this setup.

[Muso]

I'd like to add that if you have an invulnerable SK and GF in the game and a Veteran that can't hurt them, then the Veteran is anti-town. He's far more likely to be killing fellow townies than he is to be killing mafia or neutrals. I also feel sorry for your Arsonist

This is a extremely non-favorable setup for Town.

I mean. I can imagine at the start of day 2:
- 1 town shot by mafia
- 1 killed by SK
- 1 converted by cult
- 1 shot by the veteran

Now you're left with 5 town, 4 mafia, 3 neutrals.
What chance does the town have now?

I think it's all well and good to use 4 mafia, but you have to find a way of keeping a semblance of fairness for everybody else too.

[GloryWarrior]

I guess that's fair with the Vet- and to be honest the vet can kill more than one person, but he has to come out and say it. Once he's unlynchable he's invulnerable. But there would only be 2 neuts, and the SK only has a 33% maximum chance of being in the game. Also, as the turns go on the SK can kill the mafia as well. 5 towns can still beat 4 mafia, although at that point without the arson/sk targeting mafia it'd be hard. A lot of it is about luck, but like I said- civilian wins each time I played with this setup.

I'd need to test it more to be certain, and obviously the Vet needs to be tweaked (removed since he's so op anyway) and the cult nerfed, but I don't even get that opportunity because people see 4 mafia and run screaming. If I get lucky only ONE person will troll me. One game we even had a donor make his name 30+ letters long so you had to look at the chat log to see anything he said.

[Ash]

there should be an option to exclude cult tbh.

[creedkingsx]

there should be an option to exclude cult tbh.

I hate Cult. I always get converted near the end of the game by a cult that was found but it was better to lynch the Godfather so I wind up fucked by town when I was winning.

[wolfcheese]

I'm not sure how reliable the strength stuff is, the only thing I really note is that if the town strength is above 20, then it's usually too easy for them to win. I don't think I've seen mafia strength that high but it shouldn't be anyway.

[creedkingsx]

Town should always be the strongest, I would say the score should be just under the sum of the other role strengths.

[TheSage]

there should be an option to exclude cult tbh.

The...There is... On Cultist sheet, there's an "Exclude from Randoms" option...

I don't even...?

[Lazers]

The problem with the mafia and town being equal in strength is that I don't think the strength accounts for things such as the Mafia knowing who eachother is, and the town not knowing and killing itself.

[GloryWarrior]

Well now I want to know how the score is figured. I would like an equal chance at winning with any role (as long as I play it well) so the game is more about playing it then getting lucky with a specific role, but without knowing how the strength is figured I just have trial and error- and a lot of disgruntled people that start trolling instead of actually playing the game.

Like I said, I've had two really amazing games with good groups that would actually not random lynch. Other than that troll-troll-troll-troll-trolllllll! I guess it's another issue entirely, but if people don't like the setup they could at least play through and THEN bash it...

[BruceCampbell]

I would like an equal chance at winning with any role (as long as I play it well)

There will never be an equal chance of winning as any role. Survivors, Jesters and Executioners tend to be easy, while Serial Killer, Arsonist and Witch are hard (for good reason considering their capabilities). Either way you look at the neutral classes, the majority are harder than being town or mafia.

It often comes down to votes. The more mafia members that survive, the more voting power they have. If anything befalls the town (bad lynch, SK, jester suicide, ragequits), that gives the mafia a higher chance of reaching the tipping point where they can simply vote everyone dead. Sure, mayor circumvents this, but my experience is that mayors often die horribly, randomly targeted at night.

Also worrying is the chance that your setup will end up with Double SK, SK + Arsonist, or Double Arsonist. Double SK would mean 3(!) kills N1, and even if one of those is Mafia, the town would be in dire straights unless they immediately lynched scum or the SK.

When trying to balance town and mafia, you need to remember that Neutral roles tend to add more directly to the strength of the mafia than to the town. Jesters and Executioners are almost always detrimental to the town, most survivors have no qualms about voting with the mafia if they survive long enough, a good witch can enable a mafia to steam-roll a town, and SKs/Arsonists usually hasten the rate at which the Mafia gains a vote advantage.

We don't have to play the setup to recognize that it has some flaws (experience and logic, yo). If you're dead-set about having four mafia members in a game, I'd seriously suggest changing one random neutral into a random town, and changing mayor into an adv. town. This setup would mean that Mafia + Neutrals comprise a third of the players, and if a SK comes up, it's about four or five days before the mafia can force the town to lynch whoever they please.

Alternatively, you could change one of the random neutrals into an Amnesiac who cannot become mafia, possibly making it so they cannot become a killing role either.

I'd also disable cults for your setup.

[creedkingsx]

We don't have to play the setup to recognize that it has some flaws (experience and logic, yo). If you're dead-set about having four mafia members in a game, I'd seriously suggest changing one random neutral into a random town, and changing mayor into an adv. town. This setup would mean that Mafia + Neutrals comprise a third of the players, and if a SK comes up, it's about four or five days before the mafia can force the town to lynch whoever they please.

Alternatively, you could change one of the random neutrals into an Amnesiac who cannot become mafia, possibly making it so they cannot become a killing role either.

I'd also disable cults for your setup.

I agree with everything else you said, but the switching a neutral for a random town. While random towns make setups much more interesting because it allows for more variety of roles, it makes deception for the mafia extremely great. Replacing a neutral for a random town in order to potentially weaken the mafia has mafia related benefits within itself. If you are going to have 4 mafia members, I would suggest a lot of rigid town roles. Ones that can't be argued, maybe 3 random-type town roles at most. Otherwise, I would suggest 2 random neutrals and exclude evil. And make Executioner so that the target isn't necessarily town. Just a couple random factors that make it so the game is central balanced around 4 mafia, 9 towns.

[BruceCampbell]

While random towns make setups much more interesting because it allows for more variety of roles, it makes deception for the mafia extremely great.

Throwing in a Doc/Sheriff can help that pretty quickly. Having roles be too rigid means the setup will become stale over time, and also makes mass roleclaims stronger for the town. Random also means roles like Bodyguard, BD, Lookout, Spy, and other roles often not automatically defined will appear more often (which can be to the detriment of the mafia should multiple bodyguards end up in the setup).

I feel the ease of deception gained is tempered by the possibility of the town getting strong combinations of roles.

[GloryWarrior]

There will never be an equal chance of winning as any role. Survivors, Jesters and Executioners tend to be easy, while Serial Killer, Arsonist and Witch are hard (for good reason considering their capabilities). Either way you look at the neutral classes, the majority are harder than being town or mafia.

It often comes down to votes. The more mafia members that survive, the more voting power they have. If anything befalls the town (bad lynch, SK, jester suicide, ragequits), that gives the mafia a higher chance of reaching the tipping point where they can simply vote everyone dead. Sure, mayor circumvents this, but my experience is that mayors often die horribly, randomly targeted at night.

Also worrying is the chance that your setup will end up with Double SK, SK + Arsonist, or Double Arsonist. Double SK would mean 3(!) kills N1, and even if one of those is Mafia, the town would be in dire straights unless they immediately lynched scum or the SK.

When trying to balance town and mafia, you need to remember that Neutral roles tend to add more directly to the strength of the mafia than to the town. Jesters and Executioners are almost always detrimental to the town, most survivors have no qualms about voting with the mafia if they survive long enough, a good witch can enable a mafia to steam-roll a town, and SKs/Arsonists usually hasten the rate at which the Mafia gains a vote advantage.

We don't have to play the setup to recognize that it has some flaws (experience and logic, yo). If you're dead-set about having four mafia members in a game, I'd seriously suggest changing one random neutral into a random town, and changing mayor into an adv. town. This setup would mean that Mafia + Neutrals comprise a third of the players, and if a SK comes up, it's about four or five days before the mafia can force the town to lynch whoever they please.

Alternatively, you could change one of the random neutrals into an Amnesiac who cannot become mafia, possibly making it so they cannot become a killing role either.

I'd also disable cults for your setup.

I will definitely disable the cult. Can't I also make one of the Rand Neuts a non-killer and fix the problem of having 2 SK/Arsons? I know that 2 Neuts will almost invariably strengthen the Mafia, but I allowed Executioners to target non-towns as well, and to your last point Bruce, I totally agree. My hope was that by having random roles the town would get some of those more powerful, and like you said, often undefined roles in order to fight more effectively against the mafia. One game I played we had two spys and the whispers flew and the mafia fell like a sack of rocks.

Also, we've had two Veterans show up, which was pretty insane for the Mafia to try and deal with, and kept the Town in the game in a really solid way even though they numbered only 9. My biggest concern is that by allowing all roles to be picked randomly that occasionally the town will get totally unbeatable combinations. What if they got three vets/bodyguards? I think the chance of that is low enough to leave most of this as-is.

Things I plan to do:
1. Remove Cult Completely
2. Replace 1 Random Any Neut with a Random Any Non-killing Neut
3. Disable civilians as Random Towns (whoops...)

Do you think that's enough to balance it out? I can also remove the Detective (Town has Mayor, Investigator, Detective, then the 3 Adv, 2 Basic, 1 All Randoms) and put in a Doc/Sheriff? What about removing Invest AND Detective and making Mayor/Doc/Sheriff the basic roles? I really want there to be few deaths each night, and only occasionally (about 33% chance) get a kill-capable neut to speed things along. The point of Mafia, for me, is intrigue and the discussion. I feel like the 4 mafia and randomized roles gives the players a lot to work with in terms of figuring out what roles are even in the game and how they need to be reacting to all the information. It stimulates my brain a lot more than trying to use math to figure out the possibility of there being one role or another still left in the game. All that being said, I'd still like things to be pretty balanced, and I worry that with 10 towns it would just be too hard for 4 mafia to win with only 1 random occasionally throwing the balance.

FYI: I run days that last 1.5 minutes and at least 0.5 minute discussion time, Nights that are 1 minute (being jailor kinda sucks with only 30 seconds or less to talk), and Secret Ballot + Trial days.

Thanks for the input guys, I feel like I'm getting pretty close to an awesome setup!
(Also, Vets currently can NOT kill GF/SK (they have immunity) and Arson does not have immunity and people know when doused. You think those are good choices? Maybe Arson does NOT notify on dousing and stays vulnerable, or make him invuln @ night if the notification stays? Then, also, If vets kill through Immunity then I'm afraid that they will kill off the GF/SK and make it too easy for the town (with 6 randomed roles) to win.)

Again, thanks for the input. I appreciate your posts!

[BruceCampbell]

Changing one of the random neutrals to be non-killing does solve the possibility of double SK. Remember, There's 4 Mafia, 11 other people. That's about a 36% chance an executioner will target mafia.

One way of limiting the chance of getting multiple extremely strong town roles (Vets, Bodyguards, Bus Drivers) is to use Basic Town. Basic and ADV Town choose from a very narrow selection of town roles, while Random Town involves ALL town roles.

Now, mafia is GF and 3 ADV roles. That means the GF is the only one doing the killing, meaning that the Mafia kill won't result in a veteran death, unless the GF gets lynched. That's somewhat important. Of course, if all of those ADV mafia dogpile an alerted Vet, Mafia is screwed.

4 Mafia is much harder to balance than 3 mafia + guaranteed SK. I wouldn't say it's impossible, but you're going to have to tweak it a great deal to find something entirely suitable. Just avoid the major pitfalls, and you will probably be okay.