Mafia 56: Scout Camp

[worcej]

closed setups are more fun to begin with anyway.

Give scum that freedom to get creative and make up their own fake-roles to claim

Worcej's game proved closed setups are bad.

I think my balancing issues were the problem, not the closed setup.

[xorxes]

I don't like it too. I got screwed as 3rd party last game because I didn't know what to claim.

A quick google search of roles for mafia would’ve handled that for you...

Not that easy, but I agree I could have handled it better.

I don't think you could have done anything. I knew you had access to a QT, so the only way you could have saved yourself is if you cooked up another role besides Chaqa's with access to a QT, which was extremely unlikely you would think of doing given you didn't know what my scan was about.

[summit_fever]

closed setups are more fun to begin with anyway.

Give scum that freedom to get creative and make up their own fake-roles to claim

Worcej's game proved closed setups are bad.

Hey, that was one of my favourite games :p

Ahh it's over. Shame it ended the way it did. I won't comment on the setup but I find myself agreeing with Vecna that massclaims aren't very exciting.

I had a ton of fun in M55. "Donny Dude was [REDACTED] of the [REDACTED] faction!" was a wonderful introduction to the game.

[Vecna]

closed setups are more fun to begin with anyway.

Give scum that freedom to get creative and make up their own fake-roles to claim

Worcej's game proved closed setups are bad.

how come? the balance was a bit off, but the rest was quite awesome?

[Foxcastle]

closed setups are more fun to begin with anyway.

Give scum that freedom to get creative and make up their own fake-roles to claim

Worcej's game proved closed setups are bad.

how come? the balance was a bit off, but the rest was quite awesome?

I dislike closed setups personally. I am sad that webDip mafia seems to be drifting away from a good mix of mostly-vanilla games with occasional complex setups (M54 was the last vanilla setup, and the next two M games look like they'll be complex/non-standard setups).

In the recent past, webDip mafia straight up banned closed setups. From the Mafia Council's GM Guide, "Finally, Closed Setups ​(setups where the roles are not known to the players) are not permitted on webDiplomacy and will never be approved." That's from 2017 or so when Captain Meme, Hellenic Riot, and Flum were the Council. I'm not suggesting that we hold to that (especially if people want to play closed setups), but I am just curious if anyone knows why that prohibition was put in?

[Hellenic Riot]

I can't say I recall the conversation about that topic, but I am of the opinion that closed setups will never be balanced.

[Fluminator]

The only time I'd endorse a closed setup is if it's advertised as bastard and people signing up know it's going to be a gongshow.

[Chaqa]

This is just my opinion, but any of the supposed benefits of a closed setup can also be achieved by a semi-open setup. A closed setup exists only for one of the following reasons:

1. GM laziness in creating a reasonably balanced open or semi-open setup (since it being closed means no one can abuse the setup since no one actually knows what's going on).

2. You want to play a bastard game.

3. You're more interested in "omg such random" than in solving a puzzle.

[Chaqa]

We've gotten away from semi-open setups for some reason, but they can be really great and there's a number of examples of that in the history of WebDip.

Additionally, we could run more by-the-numbers setups (see many of the earlier mafia games).

[Durga]

Worcej's game proved closed setups are bad.

how come? the balance was a bit off, but the rest was quite awesome?

I dislike closed setups personally. I am sad that webDip mafia seems to be drifting away from a good mix of mostly-vanilla games with occasional complex setups (M54 was the last vanilla setup, and the next two M games look like they'll be complex/non-standard setups).

In the recent past, webDip mafia straight up banned closed setups. From the Mafia Council's GM Guide, "Finally, Closed Setups ​(setups where the roles are not known to the players) are not permitted on webDiplomacy and will never be approved." That's from 2017 or so when Captain Meme, Hellenic Riot, and Flum were the Council. I'm not suggesting that we hold to that (especially if people want to play closed setups), but I am just curious if anyone knows why that prohibition was put in?

Sounds like you should GM a small vanilla game while we wait for Chaqa to get his started :)

[captainmeme]

The only time I'd endorse a closed setup is if it's advertised as bastard and people signing up know it's going to be a gongshow.

^this

[Foxcastle]

how come? the balance was a bit off, but the rest was quite awesome?

I dislike closed setups personally. I am sad that webDip mafia seems to be drifting away from a good mix of mostly-vanilla games with occasional complex setups (M54 was the last vanilla setup, and the next two M games look like they'll be complex/non-standard setups).

In the recent past, webDip mafia straight up banned closed setups. From the Mafia Council's GM Guide, "Finally, Closed Setups ​(setups where the roles are not known to the players) are not permitted on webDiplomacy and will never be approved." That's from 2017 or so when Captain Meme, Hellenic Riot, and Flum were the Council. I'm not suggesting that we hold to that (especially if people want to play closed setups), but I am just curious if anyone knows why that prohibition was put in?

Sounds like you should GM a small vanilla game while we wait for Chaqa to get his started :)

I would consider running 7 town v. 2 mafia 32/16-phase vanilla game IF Chaqa doesn't mind and I can get 9 signups (don't signup here, PM me or start a new thread) in time to start by 6PM tomorrow (I don't want to wait on signups and then cause Chaqa to have to wait to start his game).

[Chaqa]

EMC and I were aiming to start our signups around Friday, if all goes welll

[Jamiet99uk]

We've gotten away from semi-open setups for some reason, but they can be really great and there's a number of examples of that in the history of WebDip.

Additionally, we could run more by-the-numbers setups (see many of the earlier mafia games).

Mafia 58 will have a semi-open setup. I have always liked them.

[Jamiet99uk]

The only time I'd endorse a closed setup is if it's advertised as bastard and people signing up know it's going to be a gongshow.

^this

Well, you should know, as one of the only people ever to actually *run* a bastard mod game on here

[Jamiet99uk]

The only time I'd endorse a closed setup is if it's advertised as bastard and people signing up know it's going to be a gongshow.

I strongly disagree with this. A closed setup should be advertised as a closed setup. A closed setup is not automatically bastard setup, certainly not if it is balanced.

[BunnyGo]

I dislike closed setups personally. I am sad that webDip mafia seems to be drifting away from a good mix of mostly-vanilla games with occasional complex setups (M54 was the last vanilla setup, and the next two M games look like they'll be complex/non-standard setups).

In the recent past, webDip mafia straight up banned closed setups. From the Mafia Council's GM Guide, "Finally, Closed Setups ​(setups where the roles are not known to the players) are not permitted on webDiplomacy and will never be approved." That's from 2017 or so when Captain Meme, Hellenic Riot, and Flum were the Council. I'm not suggesting that we hold to that (especially if people want to play closed setups), but I am just curious if anyone knows why that prohibition was put in?

Sounds like you should GM a small vanilla game while we wait for Chaqa to get his started :)

I would consider running 7 town v. 2 mafia 32/16-phase vanilla game IF Chaqa doesn't mind and I can get 9 signups (don't signup here, PM me or start a new thread) in time to start by 6PM tomorrow (I don't want to wait on signups and then cause Chaqa to have to wait to start his game).

What does “vanilla “ mean?

[worcej]

The only time I'd endorse a closed setup is if it's advertised as bastard and people signing up know it's going to be a gongshow.

I think that we've done a good job with that in completely closed setups. We haven't had many of those anyways, so I wouldn't worry.

[Vecna]

The only time I'd endorse a closed setup is if it's advertised as bastard and people signing up know it's going to be a gongshow.

Im not trying to start a shitshow here (weeeeellll maybe a little), but if the mafia council feel they wanna hold sway over such decisions in such a way here, maybe they should actually put in more effort into properly reviewing the setups first. (do setups even still go through that though?)

2 out of the last 3 setups have had MAJOR imbalances in them that never shouldve made it through a review process. This setup in itself went into signups with even more confirm-able roles and the signup thread had to correct it.

Also, its not that difficult to design closed setups that have no bastard elements in them whatsoever. Stating that every closed setup should advertise as having bastard elements attached is just short sighted. There are plenty of websites out there that have a very good track record with playing high quality closed setups.

All it takes is advertising it with a few pointed questions such as: Are there mechanisms that can change investigative results? Are there more than 2 teams (TvS)

[Foxcastle]

Sounds like you should GM a small vanilla game while we wait for Chaqa to get his started :)

I would consider running 7 town v. 2 mafia 32/16-phase vanilla game IF Chaqa doesn't mind and I can get 9 signups (don't signup here, PM me or start a new thread) in time to start by 6PM tomorrow (I don't want to wait on signups and then cause Chaqa to have to wait to start his game).

What does “vanilla “ mean?

I'm sure there's a standardized answer somewhere, but it generally means a simple setup that's light on mechanics—i.e., no third party, few PRs (usually town doctor, town cop, mafia godfather, and mafia roleblocker or factional roleblock).