Mafia Discussion: Game Balance

[DPR]

 

It seems to be a hot topic lately, but what does it mean? In short, a "balanced" game is one in which every player and/or team has a chance to win.

 

The classic setup is a 12 player game with 3 mafia. There are 9 townies, 1 of which is a Cop(Finder), and 1 of which is a Doc (Healer).

 

I'll be back...

[Alys Kinch]

Every team must be judged based on potential, not on how it will most likely be used.

 

For every additional power role, you must alter said ratio.

 

For example, add lovers. You shouldn't restrict this set up to being one mafia, one townie. It is too predictable.

-If it turns out to be two mafia from the random draw, add a pro town role. Adding an additional mafia member would compensate some, but might over balance since the mafia is even closer to having their voting block and there is no guarantee the lovers will be found or killed.

-If it is both townies, this is really a lesser unbalance. Just add a touch more beef to another townie role, like an additional option night one or two.

-If it is an even split, no adjustments need to be made.

 

Every major role creates more of an unbalanced potential. Arsonists are a good example. They have a role directly tied to finding and killing/turning them. But firefighters have the potential to unbalance the game far more than their counterparts because they are an info finding role.

-Mods should be aware of how much info they give to the firefighters. There should traditionally be a finder already. It might be too unbalanced if you give them the player's roles and alignments upon a viewing. You could chose to say that the player was/was not the arsonist.

-Alternately, the mod could chose to use the role and/or alignment reveal upon viewing to balance out another imbalance.

[DPR]

 

Excellent points all, and apologies for my sudden departure. The baby boy was in desperate need of, well, pretty much everything. heh

 

Anyway, say you are new to mafia. You've seen the setup I described above, and you have a basic grasp of the rules. You figure you are ready to mod a game - and nobody wants to run a plain vanilla game - so you set up something special...

 

But what keeps it balanced? Alys has described a few vital factors above, and it boils down to a simple rule: for every action, there is a reaction.

 

You have to match power roles with power roles, so to speak.

 

Now, there are a hundred creative ways to do this. You can add roles to the townies, and just add numbers to the mafia. Or you could overload one side so badly, that they are destined to pay attention to and kill kill themselves - the combinations are endless. But a few rules always exist:

 

1. The mod is god - and that door swings both ways. You are in charge of the setup nd the "fun factor". It is up to you to keep the game moving and most importantly, do not make the game wait on you.

Seriously, you need to check in every couple of hours, and even more often when the action is hot. Vote counts are vital, and you need to post them a lot. You also need to be in contact with newer players and ready to guide them - it's fine to PM them and help them to avoid silly mistakes that misunderstandings can cause.

 

Baby boy is hopping on my keyboard...hold on...

[LilyElizabeth]

I just want to say thanks for having this discussion. I think it should be stickied.

 

[Talya]

I agree how important it is to have a balanced game, there have been a few times when I have thought that the game was a little one sided and the other team really didn't stand a chance. I think the best Idea would be to run it by someone who has a good understanding of the dynamics of the game and ask for advice on the set up.

 

 

[DPR]

 

Talya, that is a great idea, and some folks do that a lot. Some of the newer folks might not know that they are welcome to do that...but now they do! Hehe

 

 

[Alys Kinch]

I agree with Talya. There were many games I was in where the balance didn't appear to be there. Quite a few, not all, I found out it was there, but we couldn't see it until the mod told about the roles and how they could or should have been used.

[DPR]

 

Yep. That's a big reason why I'll post the roles that are in the game before it begins. I look at it like chalking the boundaries of any playing field - you now the rules and you see the space you have to work in. The rest depends on your skill. I love that...

[DPR]

 

Lets also talk about the big secret ingrediant - mod intervention.

 

When you see a game going flat, how do you save it?

 

 

[WWWwombat]

When I mod my first non-standard game I'm going to have one of the pros check my setup.

[Alys Kinch]

Spice it up. Add some unexpected story line that makes people ponder what could be coming up or going on. Drop in hints of secrets... Somethings that keep a game from doing this without mod intervention- off thread talking; day actions; thief plays; Wes' courses of action from the Suras set; [insert alternate player initiated ideas].

[Guest dragonsworn1991]

I think a games balance depends on players more so then roles. If a player knows how to utilize any role including vanilla then they are a seperate entity to acount for. In a few of my games I randomize roles but if one aide is getting stacked up with power players and inventive players then I will probably do some role switching. Also I like to throw in some extra twists, like in my dr who game where I threw in the "strange thing". I will also invent tweaks or new roles to suit a games balance. Like in my currently running games. What use is a finder/watcher if they don't know what they are watching? Say they see player x doing some crazy random action, their role was wasted that night. Another balancing factor I like is putting a normal townie role and making that person mafia, or vise versa. Also running games with two of a role there is only supposed to be one of, for instance two healers in one game, that way if one reveals then there will be a counter claim and all kinds of crazy stuff.

[Alys Kinch]

That doesn't sound like balance. It sounds like fun with adding roles. What are the balancing actions to those you mention?

 

A player's gifts can only go so far to make up for a game's inherent balance or lack thereof, so there must be an actual balance with the roles and not just the players.

[Guest dragonsworn1991]

Well let's say for instance the town is just killing the scum well I may make the godfather ability transferable.

 

As far as roles go however I create a game with counters. If there is a lie detector, I use a creation of mine called a silver tongue that can fool the lie detector. If there is a healer One mafia kill can be an armor peircing round, however the mafia have to inform me when they want to use the ability. If there are multiple roles with percentages then I use the diamond cutter, a role that perfects an ability to 100% but it is a one time use.

[DPR]

 

Pete, that's like being the Mary Sue of mods, heh.

 

The ideal situation is a combination of rules and roles, but also enhancing a player's ability to actually play.

 

What you are talking about is outweighs the balnce toward the role end. It also borders on bastard modding. Some poeple get a kick out of that, but most just get fed up and stop playing.

 

Any balanced game will have taken into account "playability", which means that no previous jnowledge of the theme is necessary, and othing will be going on that makes players throw their hands up and walk away because they realized that there was no way they could have ever won.

 

I've said before that I use the "spindle-top" method to balance games. What that means is that for every factor, there is a balancing factor. So, if the post is the setup, then these are the balances:

 

Role Powers have to balance with Skill Level

Role Numbers have to balance with Mafia/Townie ratio

The number of players has to balance with Mafia/Townie ratio

Time Limits balance with number of Roles and Role Powers

 

There are more, but baby boy is hungry...

 

[Kivam]

Yep - I'll be honest, Pete, that type of mod messing with the game setup midstream would make me quit.  Its one thing to fix errors, or things you overlooked.  Its another thing entirely to artificially manufacture equality by penalizing one side or the other for doing too well.

 

More, its rare for a game's momentum to stay the same throughout; in most games I mod, there will be times I feel like the scum will dominate, then it will shift to the town, then back again . . . If I had jumped in when one side was up, I would have screwed my players out of their chances for brilliance.

 

More, game balance doesn't necessarily mean that all games need to come down to a 2 on 1 endgame showdown.  You have to allow players to play, even if that means they end up with an easy win because of their own brilliance or others' mistakes.  I've run the Double Blind 3 times, each time with a different outcome - but in one case, the mafia won by dominating (lost 1 man), and in another, the town picked off the mafia 1-2-3.  Same game, same roles, two (different) lopsided wins.  And the third time? It did come down to 2 on 1.  That's balance.

[Alys Kinch]

It's the reason it was the second best game ever. Have to give the win to Suras though.

[ed2funy]

*poststo read later*

Yea...my first game is weirdfor balance, but I think it is good.

 

I can always add or change thhings slightly. :/

[Guest dragonsworn1991]

Yep - I'll be honest, Pete, that type of mod messing with the game setup midstream would make me quit.  Its one thing to fix errors, or things you overlooked.  Its another thing entirely to artificially manufacture equality by penalizing one side or the other for doing too well.

 

More, its rare for a game's momentum to stay the same throughout; in most games I mod, there will be times I feel like the scum will dominate, then it will shift to the town, then back again . . . If I had jumped in when one side was up, I would have screwed my players out of their chances for brilliance.

 

More, game balance doesn't necessarily mean that all games need to come down to a 2 on 1 endgame showdown.  You have to allow players to play, even if that means they end up with an easy win because of their own brilliance or others' mistakes.  I've run the Double Blind 3 times, each time with a different outcome - but in one case, the mafia won by dominating (lost 1 man), and in another, the town picked off the mafia 1-2-3.  Same game, same roles, two (different) lopsided wins.  And the third time? It did come down to 2 on 1.  That's balance.

 

Well I wouldn't use them free willed. I have certain actions and abilities, that may be given out upon location of the game. Like in my Dr. WHo game, the location always affects an action of a player, there is something underneath it all. The only thing I may do is if one side is doing amazingly well, I would with hold the action, I would never change or artificially manufacture balance. Sorry if it came across different, I was on my phone earlier and couldn't write out my thoughts coherently.

[Alys Kinch]

How is witholding an action based on game play not artificially creating balance? I don't want anyone to feel like i am attacking, just trying to figure it out.

 

When and where and how actions can be performed should be set in stone before a game starts. It is not a player based thing, imo. Any alteration after the onset changes the course of the game not because the game was so designed but because mod is god. Sometimes one team mops the floor with the others, and it doesn't even have to be that they are an awesome team.

 

For the other stuff, for every kill role you should have an alternate find/heal or similar counter. If you want to put two angels into your werewolf setup, throw in a paranoid, trigger happy hunter who kills each night or only on the nights one angel is active.

 

Similarly, if you have a role and alignment finder, it's probably because you have a solo or vig or sk or something that could be town dangerous but also misaligned on role if you let people guess

[Guest dragonsworn1991]

The actions I am talking about are additions to roles already given.

 

For example, if Player x is a finder, and player y is scum. If the game goes to lynchville then I have a preset action for that town that would either go to the scum or to the innocents. All actions are set as to what alignment receives them and what the action is. It is just a little something extra to spice up the game.

 

The instance of withholding would be if the game goes to a certain place and that place gives the mafia an extra kill or recruitment, and then that would be endgame for the town, then I would probably withhold that action.

 

If that is wrong then I appreciate you all telling me and it will be changed.  :)

[LilyElizabeth]

I can see that point. You don't want endgame to be because of your action, but because of an action taken by the team - whichever team.

 

I'm enjoying learning about balance from this. I feel that's my weak spot as mod. I feel I can keep players entertained and offer creativity and variety, but I have never been very sure of the balance in my games.

 

[Kivam]

Yeah, Pete, I'd consider that wrong, because its not like you're realizing you overpowered one side and are altering the game setup to take that into account (that would be ok, in my mind, if nobody in-game knew of the change), you're just altering the game because one team is doing "too well".

 

Its a fine line, but what it comes down to is did the innocents/scum get lucky/play well/get unlucky/play poorly so that one side is dominating?  Or, looking back, do you now see that, based on your setup, one side was destined to dominate.

 

For instance, take a game where 3 of 4 scum go down in the first 3 lynches.  Is it because you over-powered the town?  (Gave them 3 finders or something?) Or is it just luck/good/bad play? Day 1 randomness happened to hit scum, one of the scum defended his teammate a bit much and the finder targeted them night 1, another scum slipped up and got caught in a lie, etc.?)

 

Again, the former is a game balance issue that needs to be corrected by the mod.  The latter falls under "let the players play" and needs - needs - to be left alone

[DPR]

 

Kivam put it really well - game balance happens as the setup is created, and not after the play has begun.

 

Pete, if you alter the games while in play, you risk losing the trust of the players. Now, there is always room to correct a mistake, but if you find yourself doing this often, then there is a problem in the setup.

[DPR]

 

I will also say that the job of the mod is keep the game going, but that is done by keeping players active and maybe entertaining scenes, etc.