5 Man Conplan

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Quick, WIFOM-heavy games using some unconventional roles. Be creative when playing!

### Creator

Lavender

*Aim carefully. For it doesn't matter when you shoot, but who. And among this sea of faces, one of them is already dead.*

## Description

Named after both its player count and its unconventional mafia antagonist, 5 Man Conplan is a complicated game of save/hunt the President. At its heart, it‘s an extremely convoluted process of elimination with an ever-shifting meta.

For Town, the name of the game is strategically concealing information and tricking the Contingency Planner into thinking the wrong person is President.

For the Contingency Planner, the name of the game is finding the President and shooting them!

Fakeclaims are extremely viable for every role in the setup, and as such rarely hold any weight in determining the Contingency Planner’s identity. Fakeclaims are used liberally and flippantly. In fact, *real* claims are often an inadvisable strategy.

## Play

The following explanations are very basic. The sky’s the limit among strong players!

### Grandma

The Grandma is Town’s most important role besides the President. Under no circumstances (this is one of the few certainties of this setup) does the Grandma want to be condemned. If Grandma is condemned, the game is often lost.

Fakeclaiming is Grandma’s best friend. Claiming President is the most obvious strategy, as it can deceive the Contingency Planner into shooting or night killing. Claiming Medic can be useful to make oneself appear as a safe night kill target. Claiming Tracker can allow you to push your reads more easily. All of these strategies work for other roles, but they work best for the Grandma because it is both invincible and kills any night visitors.

### Medic

The Medic is Town’s least important role, but certain decisions could still spell life or death for Town. Being miscondemned is usually not a problem due to the Medic’s unimportance, and as such, the Medic can try risky plays without any real consequence, even if they are condemned for it.

The Medic should always protect the President night 1, to avoid the chances of losing immediately to an adventurous Contingency Planner. Losing the ability to save the President night 2 is effectively meaningless, as 5 Man Conplan is generally a 1-day setup and the Contingency Planner isn’t aware of who the Medic saved regardless.

There are two main things a good Medic should *never* do: 1) choose No One at night (even if choosing a target puts them at risk of dying to the Grandma) or 2) *put the President’s name in their Medic notes*, unless they do.

The first forbidden fruit can be explained easily: choosing No One at night makes the Tracker role effectively useless to Town, as a report of “X visited no one” on night 1 is meant to signify the Contingency Planner preparing their gun to the Tracker. The second point is a matter of WIFOM. Generally, it would be an obvious misplay to put the President’s name in one’s notes. If the Medic claims with the President’s name in their notes, the Contingency Planner would be instantly aware of the President’s identity. However, a slightly more experienced Medic could be lying, giving the mafia player a miniature guessing game.

### President

The President is Town’s most essential role. If they die, the game instantly ends in a mafia victory.

Although there are a plethora of viable strategies available to the President, there are two main ones. The first is hardclaiming President and leading Town openly. This immediately presents the mafia with a dilemma: is it a non-President fakeclaiming as bait or a real President claiming as WIFOM? Secondly, the President can fakeclaim Tracker and use their notes to gauge reactions. If someone counterclaims, it might be the mafia trying to secure a miscondemn or cause confusion, as a good Tracker will usually play along with this.

### Tracker

The Tracker is a strong Town asset only limited by the possibility of dying to Grandma and being counterclaimed very commonly. Being condemned or killed does not spell doom for Town.

On night 1, the Tracker should always choose a non-President target. The reward of finding the Medic or Contingency Planner outweighs the risk of dying to Grandma.

If the Tracker finds a player who did not visit on night 1, they should out the information to Town, as that player is in all likelihood the Contingency Planner. Tracker should always be prepared for a CC-war at this point.

If the Tracker finds the Medic, they should not out the information to Town, as it will only narrow down the list of possible Presidents for the Contingency Planner drastically (remember that this is dependent on both the meta and WIFOM). With this information, the Tracker can bait responses from the remaining two players (Grandma and Contingency Planner) to find the Contingency Planner.

### Contingency Planner

The Contingency Planner needs to find the President and assassinate them. To do this, they will employ a wide variety of sneaky tricks. Process of elimination is the key to success.

First off, the Planner should always No-Kill night 1 to get a gun. The President will almost always be protected, and the benefit of killing anyone else is far outweighed by the risk of dying to the Grandma. Let's say you do try to kill night 1; right off the bat there's a 1/4 chance of being killed by grandma and losing the game on the spot. Even if you manage to avoid Grandma there's another 1/16 chance of instantly being outed if the Tracker catches you visiting the Medic (1/4 chance of you visiting the Medic and 1/4 chance of Tracker visiting you so 1/16 chance of both happening). Combining those two possibilities there's a 5/16 (1/4 + 1/16) or 31% chance of instantly losing the game by trying to kill night 1. Now let's say you not only avoid losing the game but you're also able to kill the Tracker or Medic (President should be protected so you can't kill them) without getting caught (7/16 chance of this happening). Now there is one less player in the miscondemn pool which massively increases the chances of town finding you through scumhunting and voting you. Except now you won't even have an opportunity to shoot before you get condemned. So would it not just be better to take the gun and boost those chances of victory with it later?

To find the President, the Contingency Planner must be smart. Town does not want to give away information, so fakeclaiming to bait reactions works brilliantly in some cases. Fakeclaiming Tracker is the most common strategy. Putting a Medic read (X visited Y) in one’s report can result in an inexperienced player incredulously denying being Medic if they aren’t. Putting a Contingency Planner read (X visited No One) in one’s report will instantly generate discussion, votes, and perhaps a CC from the real Tracker. Both of these options give the Planner more information to piece together the puzzle.

## Trivia

The setup is most commonly associated with the outspoken player Ninja, but it was originally created by Lavender.