Balance

[Frank]

Let’s balance this thing:

First, the legendary JSexton formula, reproduced in its entirety below:

Town Roles[/u]
Cop: 4
Doc: 3
Vig: 2.5
Compulsory Vig: 1.5
Roleblocker: 2
Back-Up Cop: 2.5
Back-Up Doc: 2
Watcher: 2
Tracker: 2
1 Shot Vig: 2
self-confirming townie: 2
2 man masonry: 2 points each
3 man masonry: 2.5 points each
4 man masonry: 3 points each
Vanilla Townie: 1

Scum Roles
Basic Mafia: 4.5
Godfather: 7
Investigator: 6
Toughguy (bonus nightkill): 7
Daykiller (bonus daykill): 7.5
Roleblocker: 6.5
Redirector: 7

Serial Killer:
I actually consider the SK a vanilla Mafioso for purposes of game balance, with added points for abilities like being untargetable, investigating as innocents, etc.

Obviously, the roles in this game are going to have to be scored differently from the straightforward roles listed here; the below represents my effort to do this. Please comment.

[Frank]

Town

10 Vanilla Townies (1 pt each x 10) = 10 pts
3 Sorority Members (3-man masonry at 2.5 pts each x 3) = 7.5 pts

COMMENTS: These are straightforward.

1 Virginal Beauty - 3 pts

COMMENTS: A Doc is worth 3 pts, and a role-blocker is worth 2 points. I think this role is obviously worth a bit more than a role-blocker but a bit less than a standard Doc, both because of the role-blocking element of her role and because of the possibility that she could lose her Doc ability and become a simple role-blocker. Small bonus for the fact that she gets a one-shot Night kill resistance, and I land at 3 pts, although I could be convinced that it should be 2.5.

1 Complete A-Hole - 3 pts.

COMMENTS: A Martyr obviously has to be worth less than a regular Doc. If his extra power is never triggered, he’s no better than a 2 for balance purposes; if his power is triggered, I’d call him a 4 (a Night without kills is very powerful). On balance, I’m giving him a 3, although again, I could be talked into changing it.

1 Vincent, the Dog Who Knows Things - 4 pts.

COMMENTS: Although he’s a lie detector and not a true Detective, I’m pointing him as roughly equal to a standard cop.

1 Religious Figure Having a Crisis of Faith - 3 pts.

COMMENTS: A more standard detective, but with significant weaknesses. He can only ever catch one scum, and he has to sacrifice his own life to do so. Maybe worth even less than this. What think?

1 Ash - 6 pts.

COMMENTS: As he currently stands, Ash begins as vanilla with temporary Night kill resistance (1.5). He has the potential to gain lots of additional abilities, but requires certain circumstances to gain them. Balancing this is tough, but as a rough guide I’m going to assign 50%-75% of the point value for a role to Ash for each potential role he can assume. So - he can become a one-shot Vig (2 pts; I’ll give him 1.5, so we’re up to 3. He can also become a regular Vig (2.5 pts) with caveats (2 pts) - let’s add another 1.5 for this. We’re up to 4.5. He can gain a one-shot protection (backup doc? 2 pts? Let’s add 1, to a total of 5.5. He’s a self-confirming townie (2pts) but only under certain circumstances (0.5 pts, to a total of 6).

And there I let it sit. Further discussion on this subject is definitely welcome.

1 Inquisitive Fool - 4 points

COMMENTS: I haven’t quite finished up the Necronomicon’s powers yet, but the IQ can gain significant power, but takes substantial risks to do so and has to survive for quite some time to gain any real juice. Pointed at 4, but further discussion may be needed.

Predator - 1 points

COMMENTS: Not Pro-Town, and considering catinasuit’s comments I’ve reduced him to a very slightly Pro-Town agent. I think, in the end, he is likely to kill about an equal number of Town and Scum, but if he does that, he will play as pro-Town in the end.

TOWN TOTAL: 41.5 points

[Frank]

Scum

1 Evil Ash - 4.5 points

COMMENTS: He’s basically vanilla scum in every respect except for his mutual no-Nightkills things with Ash. I figure I’ll just leave that out of the calculation on both sides and call it a wash.

1 Bit Part Demon - 4.5 pts

COMMENTS: His Martyr ability is moderately useful, because it ensures that other, more highly-powered, Scum don’t die on Night One. On the other hand, his ability to kill is somewhat limited. Overall, I’ll balance him at 4.5, same as vanilla scum, figuring the upside and downside roughly balance out.

1 Skanky Vampire Demon - 6 pts

COMMENTS: Roleblocker, ordinarily worth 6.5 points. However, she has some very modest limits to her killing ability, and her roleblocking is delayed, which prevents the Scum from stacking powers quite as effectively. I’m calling her a 6, but if others disagree, I’m interested in argument.

1 Prince of Blades - 8 pts

COMMENTS: A standard toughguy scum with one extra kill is worth 7 points. I think I’m going to give him the opportunity to earn up to two extra kills, so he needs to be pointed a bit higher than that. 8 seemed like a good compromise.

1 Candarian Demon Moose - 5 pts

COMMENTS: A scum investigator is worth 6. A Scum Watcher is worth less, I think, because luck plays such a huge part in obtaining any worthwhile information. It’s still worth more than a vanilla scum (which again would be 4.5), but not much more.

1 Pit Lord - ? pts.

COMMENTS: Since I have no powers for him yet, I can’t point him.

Freddy - 4 pts.

Balanced at slightly less than vanilla scum to account for the fact that he might, in fact, play more pro-Town than I think.

SCUM TOTAL= 32 + the Pit Lord (say 6) = 38 points

[Frank]

All in all, this game balances as somewhat pro-Town. Supposing we did the following:

Add two more Townies - one a weak backup Doc (2) and one an extra vanilla (1). New town total = 44.5.

Then add Godfather scum (7). New Scum total = 45. Nudge him slightly in some way to reduce his value by half a point, and we have a perfectly balanced game.

[Frank]

And then there's this: if we added three total players to the current number (27), that'd be 30 players overall, which would be the largest game since M2.

Let's see. If there are 27 total players (6 scum, 21 nonscum), by my figuring it is not outside the realm of possibility that there could be five deaths on night One. If five Town deaths follow a Day One mislynch - an unlikely development, but not an impossible one - the new count would 15-6 in favor of the town. A second mislynch followed by four more Town deaths would take it down to 10-6, Town (actually, 8 Town, 6 Scum, 2 PFK). A third mislynch, followed by three Town deaths in the night, would win the game for the scum.

So that means in the absolute worst case scenario, where everything that could go wrong does go wrong, the Town would still get a total of three mislynches. Which is... not so bad, actually.

let's see if we can't adjust the balance to keep the total game population at 27.

[catinasuit]

Hmm, an interesting conundrum. We still need enough vanilla to hide the PFK and scum in with a couple of mislynches .

The town scores seem reasonable, however, the scum need some work.

Evil Ash needs another power, given that he is #3 in the hierarchy.

The Pit Lord should probably a Godfather Doc to boost the score to something appraoching parity.

Don't forget the scum also have a minor problem in that each of them must kill at least once before it can be passed round again. I can see this causing some real fun on Day 4/5 of the game.

This will leave 6 scum, 2 PFK and 19 town in the game out of 27.

[catinasuit]

If you get short on players, I would suggest the following amendments.

Remove two Beta Redshirts, The Complete A-Hole, The Religious Figure Having a Crisis of Faith from the town

Remove Prince of Blades from the Scum.

Leaving 15 Town (8 Vanilla, 3 mason, 4 power role), 2 PFK and 5 scum for a total of 22 players. 20 partygoers and 2 people sneaking in for fun. Should leave the PFK fight fairly equal as well.

[catinasuit]

Quick Question,

Given the speed that this game is going to be played at and people vanishing for the holidays, have you considered starting the game in the New Year?

I would hate to see the game decided because people cannot get to a PC because of the Hols.

It will also allow some of them to join in because they are not around over Xmas.

[Frank]

Dec 16, 2008 11:45:28 GMT -5 catinasuit said:

Quick Question,

Given the speed that this game is going to be played at and people vanishing for the holidays, have you considered starting the game in the New Year?

I would hate to see the game decided because people cannot get to a PC because of the Hols.

It will also allow some of them to join in because they are not around over Xmas.

It's not a bad idea, particularly if we can't get a full slate of sign-ups until later this week. I might start a very extended Night Zero if we get a full roster, just to get them chatting, but your point is a good one.