Limbo Setup Design [Large Theme]

[Jingle]

I would give this setup the stamp of approval, provided that the following is true. Green Goo does not affect Goons (which as far as your Role PM's go is a perfectly reasonable interpretation because the factional kill and communication are not listed as possible powers, meaning that they are likely considered a factional feature and thus available to anyone of that faction, something the goo doesn't change.) and Motivator works as expected in that a player with a power is notified that they may use that power twice at the beginning of the following night, but a player with no power is not told anything. I'll check for cosmetics, additional mod information you might need, and anything else tomorrow or the day after, but it looks awesome to me. I always suggest a second reviewer if you can find one to weigh in. I'm not infallible, after all.

I would also have been fine with simply the addition of either the Goo or the Ascetic to the previous iteration, FWIW.

(Also, as a note, Goos tend to have a bad reputation, and you might have a better reception naming them Reflexive Poisoner and Reflexive Vanilla-izer. I honestly wouldn't here, because I think making reflexive, poisoner, and vanilla-izer into possible roles muddles the waters a bit more than you'd want with your list of roles, but it's food for thought.)

[Jingle]

Oh, and one last thing before I stop for the night. I've been toying with the idea of writing a modding guide for a while now, so if there's anything you think would be good to address/you feel isn't well defined I'd love to try my hand at helping/answering. Even if it's something you know now but you don't think was addressed anywhere easy to find or something that has nothing to do with this setup, I'd like to hear about anything you think would be helpful.

[AnonymousGhost]

Thanks for your help! I'll dissect more tomorrow!

I'll rechceck for the Goon PM to see if the default powers come across as faction abilities. Like you said, they don't seem to.

I'll update the Motivator PM to reflect that tidbit.

If you're going to write a review guide, I would definitely include your post just now about swing and balance. It's easy to understand but very informative. If you'd like, I'll take two looks at it - one as a mod and one as a writer. The latter I can provide feedback on whether or not it needs any polishing with clarity, which IIRC I don't think it needs, but probably wouldn't hurt to check.

So, the current role out is:

Scum:
Vanilla Cop
Goon
Conditional Ninja

Town:
Indecisive Elite Bodyguard
Ascetic Townie
Ninja Lawyer
Neapolitan
Conditional Loved Tracker
Indecisive 2-Shot Motivator
Activated 1-Shot 50% Green Goo
Activated 1-Shot Hated Toxic Goo
3 Vanilla Townies
Where would you say the swing and balance are at in this setup?

[AnonymousGhost]

I really have to come up with a better title for this thing.

[Aristophanes]

Ego
Lots to read, but I'm excited!

Hi Jingle!!!

[Jingle]

Hi Ari!

Balance wise you're a little scumsided at this point, because honestly the chances that Neapolitan hits anything vanilla just aren't very good. Interestingly, VC is pretty much negative utility at this point because it's more likely for scum to aim for Goos and unlikely to get valuable information. Swing wise, double goo with 7 targeting roles is pretty high. I think its unlikely the Goos activate early (In fact, they should probably holster outside of weird circumstances) but you definitely have a chance of a night with 7 deaths. Which... not good for town. If you're fine with the swing being that high, you could probably combine the goos into one role to make them a little less impactful on the vanilla cop/ Neapolitan, at which point I don't think you need the hated modifier.

As far as a flavor name for the game, something along the lines of Vitium et Virtus (Vice and Virtue) would be my leaning, but you could also go with something a play on the balance or the seven and seven nature of the game as well.

[AnonymousGhost]

Neeeh.... /thinks/

To reduce the swing, I'd have to either remove a Goo or combine both Goos, right? I can work with that!

Would replacing a Good with a VT righten that balance to be a little more even? It'd increase the number of Innocents to 4 (5 when you consider the Neapolitan), thus raising its utility.

[Jingle]

Exactly.

[AnonymousGhost]

Done some more thinking: what would you replace the Vanilla Cop with?

[AnonymousGhost]

Okay. I got rid of the Green Goo, kept the Activated 1-Shot Toxic Goo in the mix, but added the 50% modifier into that role card. Would a poisoned player be able to vote the next day or not? I'm assuming that they wouldn't be able to vote, or be in the possible lynch pool, because they're dying, but I'm not sure.

[Jingle]

I think the vanilla cop is fine as is. If you want to up it’s power, rolecop is probably the way to go. Poisoned players should absolutely be allowed to vote/be lynched. Scum choosing to fake being poisoned to live a day or fake not being poisoned after killing the goo is a viable strategy in some cases.

[AnonymousGhost]

If I powered up the role cop, how would that affect balance? Should I announce whether or not a player is poisoned to the majority/public? Or should I leave it up to the poisoned player's discretion whether or not they want to announce that they've been poisoned?

[Jingle]

Full role cop ups scum utility drastically. I'd also argue against it because I think it kills a lot of the beauty in this setup. The coolest thing you've got going, design wise, at least imo is that both scum and town have roles that give them an idea of what someone is, but not perfect information. Neapolitan has hard innocents but not hard guilties. Vanilla cop can tell scum if someone has a role but not if they're a good kill.

Role cop instead would let scum know whether that role was good or bad for them to shoot at. Imagine for a minute the scum role cop hits the Lawyer. They out the result, and town lynches the obvious scum claim (Ninja Lawyer, come on! How could that be anything but scum?). Not only did scum just get a free mislynch, they got a confirmed role that may well be town in this setup that played their role in an incredibly town manner. That's the kind of interaction that can decide a game by itself, if scum is halfway decent.

[AnonymousGhost]

Got it! Thanks!

I'll keep the Vanilla Cop as is.

What about poisoned players? Should I announce that someone's been poisoned or leave it up to their discretion?

[Jingle]

I wouldn't announce publically, because my standard policy is to never confirm roles unless absolutely necessary, and a public confirmation does exactly that. Definitely would tell the players themselves when they get poisoned though, particularly because just targeting the goo doesn't mean the player got poisoned.

[AnonymousGhost]

Got it. Do you think I should mention in the Goo Player's role PM that their poisoned target will get privately notified?

[Jingle]

You can, if you'd like, and it isn't really a concern balance wise. I wouldn't, to be honest, but would answer if the goo asked me if the poisoned players were notified of their status. Mostly because I intentionally try to push players to ask the mod questions if they feel their role is ambiguous/confusing and actively try not to give them ideas on how the roles should be implemented. That's my own little crusade to shift meta towards bombarding the mod with questions, though, so it's entirely up to you

[AnonymousGhost]

Neat.

So, what's the final balance and swing of this setup? This'll be the final load out.

[Jingle]

Scum:
Vanilla Cop
Goon
Conditional Ninja

Town:
Indecisive Elite Bodyguard
Ascetic Townie
Ninja Lawyer
Neapolitan
Conditional Loved Tracker
Indecisive 2-Shot Motivator
Activated 1-Shot Hated 50% Toxic Goo
4 Vanilla Townies

Assuming Ari doesn't see any gaps in my logic (which to be fair, is entirely possible), I'd sign off on the balance with the disclaimer that it's a little swingy. I'd definitely put the modular and the list of possible roles in the advert for the game to ensure you attract the right kind of people, as well as the deadline rules because they are nonstandard (standard being 2 weeks/2 days with 48 hour prods).

[AnonymousGhost]

Cool. As long as it's reasonably balanced, I'll take the small swing chance.

Thanks for your help Jingle!

Anything else that you'd recommend, rule-wise or whatnot? Like things/rules to include or remove?

[Jingle]

Rules look good to me. The game will end bit is a bit redundant when you tell the players it's 11v3, but I assume that's just because you're going for a reusable rules template and it's perfectly fine to include.

You hit the big ones, like DBAD (Don't Be a Dick), Deadline/Activity, and boilerplate MS rules, which takes care of most things. The right to append and pretending to break a rule bits should cover everything else, so

[AnonymousGhost]

Yay!

Thanks Jingle! You're the best!

[AnonymousGhost]

Figuring out the turn order: Reasonable Action Resolution Article

Scum

:
Vanilla Cop
Goon
Conditional Ninja

Town

:
Indecisive Elite Bodyguard
Ascetic Townie
Ninja Lawyer
Neapolitan
Conditional Loved Tracker
Indecisive 2-Shot Motivator
1-Shot Activated 50% Toxic Goo
4 Vanilla Townies

[AnonymousGhost]

Quick question to the both of you: does my method for resolving Turn Order have to fit into the Normal guidelines? I asked CFJ and their newest method and they made an offhand comment about it, which got me thinking about it.

[AnonymousGhost]

Never mind! I just PM'd mastina about this!