I just looked at Streaker's F11 game, and it made me think that we probably shouldn't be using these open but variable setups here on CC. It is obvious by inspection of the F11 set up that certain setups are strictly better for town than others. Depending on how the RNG turns out, town could either have a cop and a doc -- or have only VTs. My guess is that these games are supposed to be balanced by the RNG. That is, it could work if the odds of town winning are, say, 60%, 55%, 45%, and 40% in each case, so that on average town has a 50% chance of winning if each setup is chosen equally. Now, this is already a big if -- as I have watched the evolution of mafia over the years, mafiascum keeps on tossing these setups for new variants, suggesting that the balance wasn't what the creator hoped for.
But the core of my objection is that even if the balance was there, it would only be there over many games, as the odds averaged out. If you're playing 50 of these F11 games, then it's probably a wash. But we don't do that on CC -- we play no more than one or two of these at a time, and usually with a rotating crew of newbies. In any given game, the odds are likely to be broken for either town or mafia, hurting the experience of the players. An experienced veteran knows to look at the long game and not get upset over one loss because of poor balance, but it's very different to a younger player. For them I think it makes much more sense to try to balance one setup as well as possible and just run with it. This is hard for 7-player setups, and maybe even for 9-player setups, but I am pretty sure that if we tried hard to do it, the result would still be better than the variable ones. It might take some study of mafiascum to see if any of the individual C9, F11, or 2of4 variations are themselves balanced.
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