TL Mafia LXX: Guardians of the Galaxy - Page 460

On April 07 2015 02:05 Blazinghand wrote:
So to go over what we talked about for this setup....

+ Show Spoiler +

Seriously though, we faced 2 major challenges with this setup. first, we had 20 players, which is an awkward number of players to have-- a little too much for 4 mafia, a little too small for 5 mafia. With 4 mafia and 3 kp and delivery restrictions on kp count, and no PR problems, with all mislynches you get:

D1 16-4
D2 12-4
D3 8-4 LYLO (All lynches from here go 5-3, 3-2, 2-1 LYLO)

so you could plausibly use that setup, giving town 3 mislynches to mafia's 4 members, which is not how you want to do it. If you reduced scum's KP to like, 3-2-2-2 or "3 on day 1, 2 on the rest" or something, it would be balanceable. The downside is it becomes kinda a swingy shitfest and there's big opportunities for PRs to make big changes, since if you knock off one or two mafia early on it becomes super impossible for mafia. I think high KP, huge town, small mafia is not the way to go in terms of "fun", even if it's balanced. We could try a different KP scaling, like 3 - 2 - 2 - 2 instead of 3 - 3 - 2 - 1 and try to give mafia some tweaks to balance it but no matter what, if you don't include 3p and you have 16-4 as your setup,

So we decided to go for 15 town, 5 mafia and give mafia much fewer kp. Instead of giving mafia 3 kp or a way to keep 2 kp for a long time, we had mafia have 2 kp during N1 and N2, then 1 kp the rest of the game. N1 or N2 mafia is almost certainly gonna get at least ONE kill this way, and by the time mafia's down to 1 kp they could lean on their RB to avoid medic saves. Since mafia starts off as a big proportion of the town we're also making sure they don't get lots of kills to keep things balanced.

Assuming the town vigi misses, we get:

D1 16-4 (mislynch, scum shoots 2x town, town shoots town)
D2 12-4 (mislynch, scum shoots 2x town)
D3 9-4 (mislynch, scum shoots 1x town)
D4 7-4 (mislynch, scum shoots 1x town)
D5: 5-4 LYLO

So, there are advantages and disadvantages to this setup. First off, it gives town tons of bites at the apple, which is great. However, there aren't big rewards for town lynching scum-- scum's KP declines basically regardless. On the other hand, it's less swingy-- if town fucks up and mislynches 2 times in a row, it's still plausible town can win, scum's KP drops to 1 anyways. The game will always advance in a somewhat predictable way in this game, since KP is a function of turn rather than position

I like it because it basically requires the game be a particular length, and isn't unusually swingy or punishing.

In terms of blue roles, you'll note that town had few powerful blue roles. Town's blue setup:

Vigi (Vivax)
Jailer (Rso)
Aware Sane Cop (ExO_)
Veteran (Trfel)
The Orb

I consider 1-shot Vigi, Jailer (especially if mafia deliver KP), and Aware Sane Cop to all be premium-tier blue roles, the kind that on their own can single-handedly turn the tide of games and win for town. Veteran is a medium-tier blue role, the kind that can make a difference but relies on the individual player's ability to catch scum in-thread rather than the actual night actions to make a difference.

The Orb is basically a JOAT with a slight nerf-- it can fall into scum hands. There's a mild buff in that you can claim Orb after you've had it, whereas JOATs can't really do this without getting RBed / shot, so maybe it balances out, but I figured I'd treat the Orb basically as a JOAT, which is a premium-tier blue role when it includes a cop check or vigi shot.

So town has basically 4 premium-tier blue roles and a veteran vs 5 scum, which comes out about right.

Scum We gave a GF, a RB, and a Miller, which I think is pretty normal for a game of this size. We also gave scum a Rolecop, to give them a better chance of hunting town blue roles, since with only 1 kp they could be (and were, in fact) vulnerable to the Jailer and Veteran blocking their shots and causing deathless nights. Rolecop is a good solution because it doesn't direclty harm town, it only gives scum beter blue hunting.


Some changes I'd consider for a future 20 person game: If you have to keep the orb, that's fine, but swap out the Veteran for a 1-shot blue role like 1-shot cop, 1-shot tracker, etc. In terms of B-rank power roles, Veteran is fine, but Veteran AND Jailer seemed to be a bit too much for scum. something non-protecting might be better. Maybe split one of the premium tier roles into two smaller roles, like break the jailer into a town roleblocker and a town 1-shot doctor, or something. Either way, include more "small" roles in the OP, so that mafia has more claim options. claiming Doctor is hard, claiming 1-shot doctor is easier though, and won't disrupt people's perceptions of game balance as much.


Overall: I think this was a typical, well-balanced BH setup. some unexpected things happened, namely, scum Palmar getting shot by his teammate SL. At the start of D3 I thought town was in a really good spot, especially with rayn/ritoky as a fairly easy lynch. Toad really pulled through, though, and the sheer audacity of SL shooting Palmar kept him in the clear.

I think the Breshke and FecalFeast lynches weren't amazing, but these things happen, especially against a strong scumteam. Trfel did a good job of not getting lynched but should have tried to step into a leadership role after N4 when he took a bullet. As conftown he had a chance to make a difference.

On April 07 2015 06:49 Half the Sky wrote:


Live and learn. I said my piece in the obs qt on playing jailer, better luck next go.

On March 19 2015 08:03 Trfel wrote:



There are people in this town who seek to destroy your hopes and dreams. By day, they manipulate and coerce you into doing their bidding. By night, they silently approach your homes and then kill you without mercy. Only a cruel, stone-cold, heartless person could live in this manner.

We are the mafia. You cannot win. If you have a power role, please state it here, and you might be killed less painfully.

On March 19 2015 08:04 Trfel wrote:
Wow, you guys are fast.....

I never miss the first post when I actually try for it. I guess I've got to step up my game.

On March 19 2015 08:14 Trfel wrote:
Palmar, I was at band practice for three hours before the start of the game. I had five minutes to type that up. Give me a break.

On March 19 2015 08:51 Trfel wrote:
Rsoultin is probably town.

On March 19 2015 08:58 Trfel wrote:
Well, I already claimed mafia, so I'm probably going to lurk for a while. I'll come back when you guys get on the right track to make sure I can get townies lynched.

Have fun.

On August 29 2016 05:59 Trfel wrote:
Beentheredonethat is the worst cohost on TL.

I didn't think he would be cruel enough to make me mafia two games in a row

On August 29 2016 06:08 Trfel wrote:
Disformation, I find it very odd that you felt the need to justify your earlier post after Vivax made an obviously joking statement. Please explain?