Changes to Normal Games (update September 2022)

[Alisae]

Atleast mandatory reviewing didn’t get cut

[Nexus]

Apologies for ignoring your application, Mathdino. Unfortunately you sent me a PM as we were in the midst of discussing the Normal changes, and then with the mod team upheaval it slipped from my mind to respond.

I hope you can accept this sincere apology - it was not a slight against you, it genuinely got lost in the sea of changes.

[chamber]

and it's kind of a different game from mafia.

Isn't this reason enough to exclude them from the mini normal queue?

[Mathdino]

Thanks Nexus.

The rest of the post stands, but I won't treat this one mistake as evidence of a larger pattern then.

[Ircher]

What personal touches could you introduce in role pms? Is it possible that those can still be introduced? (I don't know how the new formatting will be, but if you just quoted the standardized version for instance, you could presumably still include more text?)

Primarily formatting was what I was thinking.

[AnonymousGhost]

Quick question, has the MS wiki being updated to accommodate these new changes?

Edit: I'm not talking about the standardized role PMs, but rather what new roles/role modifiers have been white listed for example.

[Mathdino]

It has not. The Normal Game page is protected and the wiki group doesn't have the permissions to change it.

I think the only people who do have those permissions are the admins and the normal listmods.

[Ircher]

Yeah, even the addition of the Loyal modifier during Nexus's tenure has not been added yet.

[implosion]

Four more roles/modifiers are being added to the whitelist:

Roles:

Hider:

target a player. You will be protected from kills, but if that player dies, you will also die. This version is essentially the inverse of babysitter, and is what will be considered the normal version of hider. if you want the most common variant of hider, use a weak hider. The variant which causes the hider to be targeted by all abilities that target the person they hide behind, and other variants, are not normal.

Modifiers:

Any-nights-specific:

you may only use your non-factional abilities on the specified nights. For instance, the following are all now whitelisted:

• Night 1 and 3 cop
  
• Night 2+ vigilante
  
• Night 1-4 jailkeeper
  
• Night 1 and even-night neapolitan

etc. This subsumes some already-whitelisted modifiers, particularly even/odd-night and night-specific. It also subsumes novice. You're free to call these versions of the roles by their common names (e.g., novice vigilante instead of night 2+ vigilante), but the more general versions are also whitelisted.

Informed

: You know (some information about the setup). This information may be related to the setup, or to other players. It must be objective and accurate. For instance, an informed townie (or informed mafia) could be given any of the following:

• You know that this setup has 10 town members and 3 mafia members.
  
• You know that there is a rolecop in this game.
  
• You know that there is a mafia rolecop in this game.
  
• You know that (player) is a tracker.
  
• You know that (player) is a town doctor.
  
• You know that (player) is town. NOTE: if something like this is used, it must be non-random what player-slot is referred to. For example, if an informed townie is told that someone is town, it should be part of the setup specification that the player they are told is town is a randomly chosen vanilla townie, rather than a completely randomly chosen town player. Or it should be part of the setup specification that they are told that a specific power role is town.

Activated:

You may choose each night whether your passive ability will be in play or not. E.g., activated bulletproof, activated ascetic.

The opening post will be updated with a note for this.

[Ircher]

Ah, this makes one of the issues with standardized role pms less relevant.

[implosion]

You and I seem to have very different philosophies.

I think all games should be unique or put something interesting forward in some way. Having a "standard" setup doesn't mean that it can't be unique, or that it has to be uninteresting or anything. Most graylist roles are some sort of combination of existing whitelisted roles anyways - I can think of very few examples of a game deviating in any serious fashion from entirely basically normal.

Like, in the strict sense of the word it is a loss.

It's worth noting that these changes are not actually a strict loss in terms of setup design space: you can now have multiple of the roles that are now whitelisted in a game, whereas previously you'd be restricted to just one as they were all greylisted. But beyond this, I believe the expanded whitelist will lead to a greater variation of setups that we see in the normal queue while still having those setups confidently be within the bounds of what people come to expect from a queue that is called the normal queue.

Additionally, as you point out, most greylist roles are very close to whitelisted roles - so by continuing to expand the whitelist, less and less freedom will be lost.

Did non-standard role PMs and rulesets really add a significant amount of time to the review process? If so, I guess I'll stop talking on that point, but it doesn't seem likely to me.

Yes, they do; they often add multiple additional iterations to reviews, and each additional iteration can often lead to several additional days of latency.

Here's a great example - I literally clicked on a random mini review in the completed reviews subforum, and you can see there was very significant burden on both sides due to both rule clarifications and role PM clarifications, with many several-day gaps caused by each iteration despite the proposed setup needing almost no work to be within the realm that the reviewers accepted as balanced.

If the issue is not enough reviewers, then the solution is getting more reviewers.

This is a misunderstanding. The number of available reviewers is an issue, but not the main issue that reducing the number of reviewers solves. The main issue that this solves is the issue of having reviews be four people (a mod and 3 reviewers) each trying to pull a setup in a different direction; *incredibly* often, one person would make a suggestion and the other three would simply disappear for days, even as long as a week, occasionally even longer than that at a time. This is because none of those people knew whose turn to talk it was. By reducing the number of reviewers, we reduce the number of competing voices all of whose demands must be met at once. By clarifying expectations and making one reviewer the primary reviewer, we make it clear that if the review is lagging, someone has responsibility behind that.

and when you design multiball games, you design/balance it within the confines of multiball.

by nature it's gonna have swing. and it's kind of a different game from mafia. you can argue that it's not reallllly mafia, sure. but there are still good multiball games and bad multiball games. it's possible to do it well. within the confines of "we're playing a multiball game".

As chamber pointed out, you list here a number of great reasons to leave these games out of what is called the normal queue.

By nature they have swing; by nature, we'd like normal games to have as little swing as possible. It's kind of a different game from mafia; we'd like normal games to be very clearly games of mafia in the most normal sense possible. It's absolutely possible to do multiball well, but it breaks the expectations of the normal queue, especially given how site meta has shifted over the years.

[northsidegal]

It's worth noting that these changes are not actually a strict loss in terms of setup design space: you can now have multiple of the roles that are now whitelisted in a game, whereas previously you'd be restricted to just one as they were all greylisted. But beyond this, I believe the expanded whitelist will lead to a greater variation of setups that we see in the normal queue while still having those setups confidently be within the bounds of what people come to expect from a queue that is called the normal queue.

The expansion of the whitelist didn't necessitate the removal of the graylist. Yes, we have gained more whitelisted roles, but that doesn't mean that the graylisted roles

needed

to go.

You're saying that it's not all bad because design space has both expanded even while it's been limited, but it didn't need to be limited in the first place.

---

Yes, they do; they often add multiple additional iterations to reviews, and each additional iteration can often lead to several additional days of latency.

Here's a great example - I literally clicked on a random mini review in the completed reviews subforum, and you can see there was very significant burden on both sides due to both rule clarifications and role PM clarifications, with many several-day gaps caused by each iteration despite the proposed setup needing almost no work to be within the realm that the reviewers accepted as balanced.

I didn't want to be overly confrontational so I hadn't brought this up before, but it seems to me that the main problem there wasn't just the ruleset, but the fourteen day gap between posts.

It seems like the actual

reviewing

of the ruleset took no time at all – reviewers noticed the mistakes and pointed them out on what looks like the very first day of looking at the setup.

[northsidegal]

Iambic Tetramafia, a very unique setup and one that I think most would still consider standard within the context of a normal game, would not be possible under these guidelines.

[jjh927]

It's worth considering that limiting setups also limits setup spec and fakeclaiming within games. More rigidity makes setup spec easier. It will also make for a less diverse meta, which is a bad thing imo.

And yeah, on that more personal note, Iambic Tetramafia would no longer be possible for two reasons-
1. PT cop is not a whitelist role.
2. Mandatory standardisation of role PMs would mean that the enabler would probably not be possible in the way it was done.

As an expansion of 1, I feel this is a really good example of an uncommon variant role the like of which will definitely suffer due to there no longer being a greylist. It's difficult to go through them all. That said, in light of me bringing this up I would hope PT cop will be considered for whitelist.

And to expand on 2, I think there are certain roles which can definitely benefit from a little fudge-factor on the standardisation. Modifiers like enabler and informed can probably benefit from customisation.

[northsidegal]

While I agree that within the context of the new rules PT Cop should be whitelisted, I don't think the solution to people bringing up successful and/or popular graylist roles is to keep adding them to the whitelist. The graylist had a purpose to it. It allowed mods to experiment and test out new roles, and the 1-graylist role limit always made sure that it was an experiment done in relation to pre-existing roles. Without allowing experimentation, how will new roles be introduced, tested to make sure they're good, and added to the whitelist in the first place?

[chamber]

There are other queues still?

[Mathdino]

If the issue is not enough reviewers, then the solution is getting more reviewers.

This is a misunderstanding. The number of available reviewers is an issue, but not the main issue that reducing the number of reviewers solves. The main issue that this solves is the issue of having reviews be four people (a mod and 3 reviewers) each trying to pull a setup in a different direction; *incredibly* often, one person would make a suggestion and the other three would simply disappear for days, even as long as a week, occasionally even longer than that at a time. This is because none of those people knew whose turn to talk it was. By reducing the number of reviewers, we reduce the number of competing voices all of whose demands must be met at once. By clarifying expectations and making one reviewer the primary reviewer, we make it clear that if the review is lagging, someone has responsibility behind that.

Reviewers disappearing for a week shouldn't be something happening in the first place.

It sounds then that the problem has shifted from "number of available reviewers" to "number of available active and engaged reviewers".

Did anything come of the call-to-arms almost a year ago for adding NRG members? The last new NRG member was added in June 2016 (PenguinPower), almost

2 years ago

.

Is there some form of real-time communication for NRG members? I've seen plenty of setup discussion/review happening over Discord.

Is there any oversight prodding reviewers to respond to threads within 48 hours?

I guess what I don't understand is this apparent attempt to decimate the amount of work that needs to be done (which will harm the queue in balance, creativity, etc) rather than find people who want to do the work to pass that off to.

Edit: Correcting this post to note that implosion joined the NRG last year, and doesn't show up in the group because he's listmod now.

[jjh927]

There are other queues still?

Sure, but that's not a defense of thinning the ground that the normal queue covers. Like, let's say for example that Boon will start running his style of previously normal games in the theme queues. That's going to A. increase the load on the theme queue and B. decrease the load on the normal queue. Is this a good or a bad thing?

[Mathdino]

The greylist role has existed for well over a decade, and it's tragic to me that it's now being removed to make work easier on the shrinking active sect of the NRG. That we're just throwing out what was a major source of the appeal behind the more interesting setups.

While I agree that within the context of the new rules PT Cop should be whitelisted, I don't think the solution to people bringing up successful and/or popular graylist roles is to keep adding them to the whitelist. The graylist had a purpose to it. It allowed mods to experiment and test out new roles, and the 1-graylist role limit always made sure that it was an experiment done in relation to pre-existing roles. Without allowing experimentation, how will new roles be introduced, tested to make sure they're good, and added to the whitelist in the first place?

Exactly this.

The Vanilla Cop (and Neapolitan by extension) wasn't Normal until 2015.

The Vanilla Cop was first used in a Normal in or before 2008.

The greylist rule is

how new roles become popular in the first place

.

As another example, the Hider has been in Normal games since 2003. The greylist rule was the only way of including a Hider for the past 15 years.

So yes, it's great that these are now added to the whitelist. And whenever there's a good role left out people will want that added to the whitelist. But the whitelist isn't the point. It's that without the greylist, over half of the current normal roles would never have been tested in normal games prior to being added.

[Cheery Dog]

Do we even have standard rulesets for newbie games?
I haven't paid attention to that, so the fact normal games now have it I assume that means Newbies must actually have adopted it at some point.

[Nexus]

I don’t play or mod Normal games but let me tell you why you are shit.

[jjh927]

Oh yeah also remember I did the rules for iambic tetramafia in iambic tetrameter for some reason and that can't be done any more either but that's not exactly the biggest issue here

[Mathdino]

I don't play Normals under Mathdino, no.

Edit: To be clear, the only reasons I don't play Normals is
1. I prefer the playerbases in other queues, and I find most Normals toxic or too hyperactive to keep up with.

2. I like having a tiny bit of flavour. Sometimes rolling "Compsognathus (Vanilla Townie)" is more fun than rolling "Vanilla Townie". Crucify me.

My favourite theme games have essentially been Normals with flavour wrapped on.

And I did play normals prior to hiatus.

[mastina]

Like, I don't understand why these changes are being made.

Can I talk about this now and saw that even as a member of the NRG neither do I?

[mastina]

I think all games should be unique or put something interesting forward in some way. Having a "standard" setup doesn't mean that it can't be unique, or that it has to be uninteresting or anything. Most graylist roles are some sort of combination of existing whitelisted roles anyways - I can think of very few examples of a game deviating in any serious fashion from

entirely

basically normal.

Like, in the strict sense of the word it is a loss.

For the record, this is also my viewpoint and I did argue this backstage that mods should have increased freedom, but *shrug*. Is what it is.