Plum's Mini Normal Review, July 2019

[implosion]

Subject: Normal Queue Thread (Players and Mods)

/ in to Mod a mini

Hello - would you like to design a setup, or run a pre-designed one?

If the former, send me the setup at your leisure so I can start the review process.

Thanks!

Hi, thanks, I was just about to send my setup to you!

Spoiler: Setup

Town (10)

Town Indecisive Doctor

*1

Town Bodyguard

*1

Town Roleblocker

*1

Town Night 3+ Vigilante

*1

Town Tracker

*1

Vanilla Town

*5

Mafia (3)

Mafia Jailkeeper

*1

Mafia Tracker Enabler

*1

Mafia Roleblocker Enabler

*1

Spoiler: Vanilla Town

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

Your role in this game is

Vanilla Town

.

Abilities:

• You have no special abilities.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Town Indecisive Doctor

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

Your role in this game is

Town Indecisive Doctor

.

Abilities:

• Doctor:
  Once every Night you may target another player to protect them from one killing action.
  • Indecisive:
    You may not target the same player with this ability on two consecutive Nights.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Town Bodyguard

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

Your role in this game is

Town Bodyguard

.

Abilities:

• Bodyguard:
  Once every Night you may target another player to protect them from one killing action. If you protect a player who would be killed that Night, you will die.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Town Roleblocker

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

Your role in this game is

Town Roleblocker

.

Abilities:

• Roleblocker:
  Once every Night you may target another player to prevent them from using any targeting abilities that Night.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Town Night 3+ Vigilante

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

Your role in this game is

Town Night 3+ Vigilante

.

Abilities:

• Vigilante:
  Once every Night you may target another player to kill them.
  • Night 3+:
    You may use this ability on Night 3 and every Night thereafter.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Town Tracker

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

Your role in this game is

Town Tracker

.

Abilities:

• Tracker:
  Once every Night you may target another player to see who they targeted that Night.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Mafia Jailkeeper

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

Your role in this game is

Mafia Jailkeeper

.

Factional:

• Mafia Team:
  Your teammates are
  [Playername], Mafia Tracker Enabler
  and
  [Playername], Mafia Roleblocker Enabler
  .
  
• Mafia Communication:
  You may talk with your living teammates during Nights only here.
  
• Mafia Factional Kill:
  Once every Night, a living member of the Mafia may submit a factional kill action.

Abilities:

• Jailkeeper:
  Once every Night you may target another player to prevent them from using any targeting abilities that Night
  and
  to protect them from all killing actions.

You win when only members of the

Mafia

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Mafia Tracker Enabler

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

Your role in this game is

Mafia Tracker Enabler

.

Factional:

• Mafia Team:
  Your teammates are
  [Playername], Mafia Jailkeeper
  and
  [Playername], Mafia Roleblocker Enabler
  .
  
• Mafia Communication:
  You may talk with your living teammates during Nights only here.
  
• Mafia Factional Kill:
  Once every Night, a living member of the Mafia may submit a factional kill action.

Abilities:

• Tracker Enabler:
  (Passive)
  If no players with an ability named
  Tracker Enabler
  are alive, all players with an ability named
  Tracker
  will lose use of that ability and will be informed of such.

You win when only members of the

Mafia

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Mafia Roleblocker Enabler

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

Your role in this game is

Mafia Roleblocker Enabler

.

Factional:

• Mafia Team:
  Your teammates are
  [Playername], Mafia Jailkeeper
  and
  [Playername], Mafia Tracker Enabler
  .
  
• Mafia Communication:
  You may talk with your living teammates during Nights only here.
  
• Mafia Factional Kill:
  Once every Night, a living member of the Mafia may submit a factional kill action.

Abilities:

• Roleblocker Enabler:
  (Passive)
  If no players with an ability named
  Roleblocker Enabler
  are alive, all players with an ability named
  Roleblocker
  will lose use of that ability and will be informed of such.

You win when only members of the

Mafia

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Game PMs

You may no longer use the following ability:

Tracker

.

You may no longer use the following ability:

Roleblocker

.

Your

Track

ability returns:

[Playername]

targeted

[Playername]

.

Your

Track

ability returns:

[Playername]

targeted

No one

.

Your

Track

ability returns:

No result

.

Spoiler: Ruleset

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• In the event of a rules infraction, the Moderator reserves the right to warn, to force-replace, and/or to Mod-kill with removal of win-condition.
  • If I have questions or concerns about rule breaking, game integrity, and/or appropriate response to rule breaking, I may consult the
    Game Integrity Consultant
    ,
    [Playername]
    . This user is aware of the game's setup but not its role distribution and is intended to serve as an unbiased consultant for game integrity issues.

Game Participation Information and Guidelines

• Plum
  is the color I will use for certain Moderator communication purposes. It's not really a big deal if you use it because I will never use it to publicly comment an edit into a user's post and all public Moderator communication will be clearly marked as such in ways other than text color.
  
• Votes should be posted using vote tags (i.e. VOTE: Plum). It is not necessary to unvote before placing a new vote, but using an UNVOTE: alone will reset you to not voting anyone. If it looks like a vote on a player in this game, it will be treated as such.
  
• A player is lynched when the number of votes for that player is greater than half of the number of living players. If there is no majority at deadline, there will be no lynch for that Day.
  
• The deadline for each Day will be 10 real-life days. The deadline for each Night will be 48 hours.
  
• This game obeys the constraints of a Normal Game.
  • This game does
    not enable Mafia factional daytalk by default
    .
    
  • This game includes at least one player assigned the role of
    Vanilla Town
    , with the following Role PM:
    
    
    Hello,

    [PLAYERNAME]

    . Welcome to

    Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

    
    
    Your role in this game is

    Vanilla Town

    .
    
    

    Abilities:

    • You have no special abilities.

    You win when only members of the

    Town

    remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.
    
    Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

[implosion]

Primary: mastina
Secondary: BulletNLynchProof

[mastina]

Initial thoughts: neat idea for a setup and I wouldn't say it needs

much

fundamental changes, but as it is, this setup IS a little scumsided. If you turned the jailkeeper into a goon, and/or changed the vig into Novice (which is N2+), I'd call it more balanced. Tracker as a weak investigative plus strong kill denial plus a vig able to shoot a little bit earlier into the game.

[Plum]

Hmmm. I'm intrigued - I wasn't sure exactly how the balance fell on this one but I was assuming it was just a bit Town-sided, to be honest (largely because of how many named Town roles with some power there are, including both Roleblocker and Tracker in a double Mafia Enabler setup - I feel like Town claims here are strong, though only the Tracker does much to confirm any of them). I might also fall into a different camp than you with regard to Vig power - I think it would

probably

strengthen Town a tiny bit to have it start Night 2 vs. Night 3 (and increase swing a little more than it would strengthen Town) but it's kind of marginal. I get that it would get more chances to shoot Town powerroles by accident and even if it hits scum it's 2/3 to remove a Town power anyway (though the player and claim remain on the board). It's a little weird because you're saying that if this setup had a Novice Vig it would on balance be better for it not to shoot Night 2 and play as though it were a Night 3+ Vig. But you might be right - I did think of the role of the Night 3+ Vig in this setup as being able to help clear out an extra scum late in the game if one of the stronger powerroles was disabled but information was out there.

Not sure what you mean by "Tracker as a weak investigative plus strong kill denial"? If you feel strongly about weakening the scumteam, I would be more inclined to limit the Jailkeeper shots than cut it altogether. I would have said two shots, but if you think that downgrading all the way to Goon is appropriate, well, two shots doesn't mean that much more than "don't use it until you know what to aim at". I know that "free" shots are valuable, but they're definitionally the least valuable, on average ...

I want to confirm based on released setup review threads I've read that in Normal Games any living enabler for a role is enough, which is why I worded the PMs that way.

While I'm here, if I have a couple of thoughts on roles and/or modifiers that I think could potentially at some point be valuable whitelistable tools for Normal Games, what's the best way of bringing it up with the Normal Group (if any)?

[Plum]

Oh also, do Normal guidelines allow disabled roles to be explicitly notified? I looked for some precedent but what I saw seemed ambiguous.

[BNL]

Feels like too little town power.

Thought this was super swingy at first then I noticed that the enablers dealt with the swing, but I think that makes the setup complicated.

[BNL]

Oh also, do Normal guidelines allow disabled roles to be explicitly notified? I looked for some precedent but what I saw seemed ambiguous.

Both are fine afaik

[mastina]

I feel like Town claims here are strong, though only the Tracker does much to confirm any of them

The town claims here are only strong with the accompanying flip of the scum whose role they are enabled. Town has no way of knowing a town tracker is town truthclaiming until they see a scum tracker enabler flip; similarly so for a roleblocker. Until such a time as those mafia roles are lynched (in which case, it's mafia lynched), town can and very realistically will lynch those claims in spite of them being, on the flip of a specific scum player, nigh-conftown.

In that sense, there's the self-balancing mechanism in play: get conftowned by a flip, but lose access to the role; remain not conftown, but have access to the role.

Not sure what you mean by "Tracker as a weak investigative plus strong kill denial"?

I was referring to the town's PRs as a whole: tracker, as a weak investigative.
Plus strong kill denial in the form of a bodyguard, indecisive doctor, and roleblocker. That's three methods every night of preventing the scum from killing who they want to.

This is where the town more or less needs to be in power; the need access to those tools. The problem comes from the fact that between the scum nightkill, the scum's natural access to information (they are going to be able to deduce that the setup has both a town tracker and a town roleblocker), and the scum's jailkeeper, the scum have access to 2.5 ways per night of hunting/shutting down those roles and have the safety net of knowing that if scum are lynched those roles are disabled anyway.

A scum jailkeeper is also particularly devastating against the vig thanks to the vig being so late in the game; if the jailkeeper survives, they can shut down the vig shot and prevent the vig from becoming known as conftown. (Which is why one of the ways to make the game not scumsided is to allow the vig the ability to shoot earlier.)

Similarly, the tracker is the town's only definitive investigative--if the tracker is permanently blocked, then they can't get results. There's also the disaster scenario; what if the town roleblocker roleblocks scum, but the scum jailkeeper jailkept the roleblocker? It can lead to falsely clearing a scum player. (It shouldn't, but it can.)

Or even worse than that: what if the town roleblocker claims, and the scum jailkeep the town tracker? Do you think that, reasonably speaking, the town is likely to conclude that the tracker was roleblocked by an unclaimed, unknown, roleblocker? Or is it more likely that they are going to assume that the claimed town roleblocker is simply a scum roleblocker that roleblocked the town tracker?

An ungated scum jailkeeper is an

incredibly

strong role in this setup because it serves as the perfect counter to almost every town role. That's why I'd think that, as-is, the game would be slightly scumsided.

If you feel strongly about weakening the scumteam, I would be more inclined to limit the Jailkeeper shots than cut it altogether. I would have said two shots, but if you think that downgrading all the way to Goon is appropriate, well, two shots doesn't mean that much more than "don't use it until you know what to aim at". I know that "free" shots are valuable, but they're definitionally the least valuable, on average ...

I'd say limiting the shots works as well for balance. A 2x scum jailkeeper has less opportunities to shut the town down, while still giving the scum some leverage.

While I'm here, if I have a couple of thoughts on roles and/or modifiers that I think could potentially at some point be valuable whitelistable tools for Normal Games, what's the best way of bringing it up with the Normal Group (if any)?

There's a thread for it, would take a bit to track down the link for it tho.

[implosion]

Oh also, do Normal guidelines allow disabled roles to be explicitly notified? I looked for some precedent but what I saw seemed ambiguous.

Yeah, notifying them is fine.

[BNL]

I feel that town needs more power? Yeah there’s some kill stopping and killing but I don’t think it’s enough to balance the setup by itself, and the tracker is quite a weak investigative. The only thing town has going is being able to protect their power roles, albeit temporarily.

I think bumping the vig up to N2 gives town sufficient power here.

Actually, I’m not even sure of the notion that an enabler flip conftowns the town PR: What’s stopping scum from having both a roleblocker and a roleblocker enabler?

[Plum]

I mean, I don't actually have anything against putting a Mafia Tracker Enabler in a Normal game with no Tracker, ditto Roleblocker Enabler with no Roleblocker. It's something I would do (well, propose and get reviewed, obviously). Both in one game might be a bit much even for me.

What I'm hearing is 1+ of the following: Limit Jailkeeper to 2 shots, change Vig to Novice Vig instead of Night 3+ ... I could also change Mafia Jailkeeper to Mafia Roleblocker so it gets disabled. I'm getting a ballpark of choose two of those three options and that's better balance. Does that sound about right? If so, do you have a balance preference for which two to choose?

[mastina]

Vig to novice + limiting shots of the jailkeeper to 2 would be my recommendation. I'd be comfortable with passing the setup with those changes.

[Plum]

Sounds good to me. This is how the setup and edited Role PMs would look in that case:

Spoiler: Setup

Town (10)

Town Indecisive Doctor

*1

Town Bodyguard

*1

Town Roleblocker

*1

Town Novice Vigilante

*1

Town Tracker

*1

Vanilla Town

*5

Mafia (3)

Mafia 2-shot Jailkeeper

*1

Mafia Tracker Enabler

*1

Mafia Roleblocker Enabler

*1

Spoiler: Town Novice Vigilante

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

Your role in this game is

Town Novice Vigilante

.

Abilities:

• Vigilante:
  Once every Night you may target another player to kill them.
  • Novice:
    You may use this ability only starting on Night 2.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Mafia 2-shot Jailkeeper

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mafia #[Mini Normal #]: Mafia à la Mode!

Your role in this game is

Mafia 2-shot Jailkeeper

.

Factional:

• Mafia Team:
  Your teammates are
  [Playername], Mafia Tracker Enabler
  and
  [Playername], Mafia Roleblocker Enabler
  .
  
• Mafia Communication:
  You may talk with your living teammates during Nights only here.
  
• Mafia Factional Kill:
  Once every Night, a living member of the Mafia may submit a factional kill action.

Abilities:

• Jailkeeper:
  Once every Night you may target another player to prevent them from using any targeting abilities that Night
  and
  to protect them from all killing actions.
  • 2-shot:
    You may use this ability only twice during the game.

You win when only members of the

Mafia

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

[mastina]

Yeah that looks good to me.

[Plum]

Okay, well, if BulletNLynchproof signs off on it, I guess that's that. Thanks so much! I'm looking forward to running the game

By the way, about those role and modifier proposals I have ... just the Normal Game change thread in MD, or somewhere else?

[implosion]

There isn't really a formal system from outside of the NRG; there have been some ideas from outside that I've heard and implemented before though. You can put them in this thread, or pm them to me, or just put them in this thread if you want :p

[Plum]

Mostly I just considered the utility of a couple of things:

A faction-specific backup or a cross-faction-specific backup. Like a Universal Backup but backs up only the first power role from their faction to die (or for cross-factional, from a different faction). The main utility this would add would be to keep Town at the same number of power roles if one got killed early without respect to which one died.

A Watcher except it cannot detect kills - target a player and see all players who targeted that player with a non-kill action. Has utility confirming claims and detecting odd things like Roleblocks that wouldn't come from Town, but it doesn't get to see the scum kill just for guessing who will be the target and doesn't have the Cop/protect aspect. If you guys like it, my brain spitballed Gumshoe as a potential name, even though it really only suggests sleuthing in general.

These both might be, like, okay ideas but not really filling gaps that need filling (or filling them but not well enough to justify them, or the gaps are just not really big enough to warrant worrying about filling them), but they're things that occurred to me when sketching out setup ideas.

[implosion]

FYI, the current universal backup

is

faction-specific; it only backs up roles of its own alignment. I think it's the kind of area where having too many different roles can get potentially cluttered/confusing (backup that inherit specific/any role x backups that inherit their own/other/any alignment already = 6 different kinds of backups). It's nice to have but I'm not sure it's worth the design space.

I like gumshoe though. Could spitball it forward in the nrg at some point. Maybe also a tracker variant. Both would be really weak roles, though. Could be good for multiroles (eg combined gumshoe voyeur)

[Plum]

Oh, if Universal Backup is faction-specific, well, that already exists then and I just misunderstood Universal Backup? Huh. Okay.

I feel like Tracker is a good role that's not too powerful at baseline but Watcher is very powerful and it can be hard to make it feel fair without workarounds like giving access to Ninja or something, because of how it counters the scum kill so heavily - but I think if it couldn't detect the kill, it would baseline be weaker than a plain Tracker but it could still be valuable in the right circumstances (like the example you gave).

[implosion]

yeah, it's just sort of natural to give tracker the variant if it's also being given to watcher. I agree it conceptually makes more sense as a watcher variant. Might want to not even make the tracker variant bc it'd potentially be just bad design to give a tracker without the reward of being able to find kills. That said I can imagine utility for it in like, setups where the town already has a role like jk/rb that gets stronger with fewer scum.

[BNL]

Okay, well, if BulletNLynchproof signs off on it, I guess that's that. Thanks so much! I'm looking forward to running the game

By the way, about those role and modifier proposals I have ... just the Normal Game change thread in MD, or somewhere else?

Only the primary reviewer needs to sign off, and that’s not me.

[mastina]

(To be clear, I have signed off on this.)