Poyzin's Mini Normal Review, June 2020

[Poyzin]

I agree that while the PRs are alive, the scumteam can do some serious PR hunting with their rolecop and roleblock. Assuming that none of the TPRs are mislynched, there will be at least one TPR alive by D3 if the scumteam plays optimally and kills a PR every night. Yet, the rolecop and roleblock abilities become more and more useless whenever they kill a TPR. I've played in many games where the 3-person scumteam is a rb, rc, and goon, and town won their share of them even when there were three TPRs. Town PRs more often than not die before endgame. There's a good chance that the masons would have to cc the mafia when they try to claim to be the team, which would spell d-o-o-m for the masons. However, losing the masons does not equal losing the game, as the game becomes more or less vanilla after the masons die.

The game becoming vanilla isn't really a balancing factor in town's favor. What I mean by that is that it isn't some feedback mechanism as you seem to think that it is. Yes, the scum abilities become useless once all TPRs are dead, but as far as I can tell, there is

no

role that would retain its use for scum after all TPRs are dead (barring a scum vigilante or something, which is not allowed per Normal guidelines).

D1: Mislynch a vt
N1: NK a vt
D2: Roleblocker lynched after mason watched the kill
N2: Mason dies
D3: Mislynch a vt
N3: Mason dies

The sequence of events you have here makes me think that you might think that scum can use any actions they have as well as perform the kill in the same night (given that you see the roleblocker as performing the kill n1). This is not the case – unless scum have the Multitasking modifier, they can perform only one action per night. Just in case you weren't aware – if you were, just ignore me.

If you're in charge, I'll trust your judgement. Would you accept the setup with an even-night roleblocker instead of an all-night roleblocker? (And to go further if an even-night roleblocker is implemented, would you add in an odd-night rolecop to replace the previous rolecop?)

I'm sorry, but I'm not accepting a setup with a Mason Watcher. That needs to be changed. Tracker/Voyeur is a step in the right direction – from there I would still want scum toned down (I agree with Ircher that sticking to only a single scum PR is probably the way to go) and I would still

prefer

that town power be spread out a bit more, but that might not be strictly

necessary

.

I really am sorry with how much I'm making you chop up your original setup. As reviewers I think we have a responsibility to try to stick close to your vision for what your setup should be, but we also have perhaps an even more important responsibility to the players of this game, and I can't in good conscience pass it with the aspects that I've talked about still being in the setup.

using a Ninja shot each night already renders the mason active abilities useless until Night 4 (most masons die before this point)

Figured I'd mention, the first version of the setup that was posted here was made incorrectly. Only the roleblocker and the rolecop should have 1x-Ninja abilities, not the goon. In addendum, I intended for the 1x-Ninja to only apply to the specific action, not the team's actions. (i.e. if the roleblocker uses his Ninja shot, but the rolecop doesn't, then while the roleblock would be invisible, the rolecop and the nightkill would still be able to be tracked.)

Good, that's how Ninjas work as per Normal guidelines.

Thank you for your response. I have taken your considerations to heart and have revised the setup so that both sides are less powerful.

[Poyzin]

I agree that while the PRs are alive, the scumteam can do some serious PR hunting with their rolecop and roleblock. Assuming that none of the TPRs are mislynched, there will be at least one TPR alive by D3 if the scumteam plays optimally and kills a PR every night. Yet, the rolecop and roleblock abilities become more and more useless whenever they kill a TPR. I've played in many games where the 3-person scumteam is a rb, rc, and goon, and town won their share of them even when there were three TPRs. Town PRs more often than not die before endgame. There's a good chance that the masons would have to cc the mafia when they try to claim to be the team, which would spell d-o-o-m for the masons. However, losing the masons does not equal losing the game, as the game becomes more or less vanilla after the masons die.

The game becoming vanilla isn't really a balancing factor in town's favor. What I mean by that is that it isn't some feedback mechanism as you seem to think that it is. Yes, the scum abilities become useless once all TPRs are dead, but as far as I can tell, there is

no

role that would retain its use for scum after all TPRs are dead (barring a scum vigilante or something, which is not allowed per Normal guidelines).

D1: Mislynch a vt
N1: NK a vt
D2: Roleblocker lynched after mason watched the kill
N2: Mason dies
D3: Mislynch a vt
N3: Mason dies

The sequence of events you have here makes me think that you might think that scum can use any actions they have as well as perform the kill in the same night (given that you see the roleblocker as performing the kill n1). This is not the case – unless scum have the Multitasking modifier, they can perform only one action per night. Just in case you weren't aware – if you were, just ignore me.

If you're in charge, I'll trust your judgement. Would you accept the setup with an even-night roleblocker instead of an all-night roleblocker? (And to go further if an even-night roleblocker is implemented, would you add in an odd-night rolecop to replace the previous rolecop?)

I'm sorry, but I'm not accepting a setup with a Mason Watcher. That needs to be changed. Tracker/Voyeur is a step in the right direction – from there I would still want scum toned down (I agree with Ircher that sticking to only a single scum PR is probably the way to go) and I would still

prefer

that town power be spread out a bit more, but that might not be strictly

necessary

.

I really am sorry with how much I'm making you chop up your original setup. As reviewers I think we have a responsibility to try to stick close to your vision for what your setup should be, but we also have perhaps an even more important responsibility to the players of this game, and I can't in good conscience pass it with the aspects that I've talked about still being in the setup.

using a Ninja shot each night already renders the mason active abilities useless until Night 4 (most masons die before this point)

Figured I'd mention, the first version of the setup that was posted here was made incorrectly. Only the roleblocker and the rolecop should have 1x-Ninja abilities, not the goon. In addendum, I intended for the 1x-Ninja to only apply to the specific action, not the team's actions. (i.e. if the roleblocker uses his Ninja shot, but the rolecop doesn't, then while the roleblock would be invisible, the rolecop and the nightkill would still be able to be tracked.)

Good, that's how Ninjas work as per Normal guidelines.

1. You're right, that was a bad argument on my end. All normal scum PRs have no game changing effect after the TPRs are dead, and you had a good counterpoint. I was just trying to point out that any special powers that the scumteam had would be rendered useless upon the death of the TPRs, but this is constant through all normal mafia games, so it wasn't the best thing to say on my end. Apologies.

2. I selected to have the eve-night roleblocker commit the kill, because I thought it would be realistic given that they couldn't have roleblocked that night. (I do get multitasking though).

3. I've replaced the Watcher / Follower with a Tracker / Voyeur combo; hopefully that makes the masons less strong and be unable to get helpful information from self-targeting.

4. (I said that because technically, the masons wouldn't be shut down until Night 4 because any of the actions that weren't from the ninja-shot would be completely visible, and the masons would be able to track these.)

[northsidegal]

Alternatively,

Town:
[1] Tracker Mason
[1] Voyeur Mason
[1] Neapolitan

[7] Vanilla


Mafia:
[1] Roleblocker
[1] 1x-Ninja Goon
[1] 1x-Ninja Goon

This setup is moving in the right direction, but I would still call it scumsided. Not

terribly

so, but still slightly scumsided. I also think that there are various anti-fun factors that don't prohibit the setup from being passed, but on a personal level (rather than as a reviewer) I think the setup would be better without. For instance, Ninjas make a lot of sense versus a Watcher – a Watcher is a super powerful role and Ninjas are one of the only balancing factors to avoid basically game-winning situations for town involving Watchers. Also, if a Watcher watches the person who gets killed by scum and gets "no result", they understand what's happened, and in that case the function of the Ninja was to hide the identity of who performed the kill. When you have Tracker / Ninja, it gets a lot uglier – you can get situations where the Tracker correctly tracks the person performing the kill and yet sees nothing, potentially leading to false clears.

Some people are outspoken about how Ninja should not be a normal role, because of its similarity to Godfather. To put my thoughts concisely, I think Ninja/Watcher is a fine interaction but Ninja/Tracker is potentially a really unfun one.

On a more setup balance level, Tracker and Voyeur aren't really so powerful that Ninja shots are necessary to counter them.


I think that if you removed the Ninjas I would pass this setup as is.

[northsidegal]

Eh. I say that. But I would still prefer one more low-power role be given to town. Turning the Voyeur Mason into a Follower would probably be fine although it would keep more of the swinginess that I would prefer to move away from.

I think my ideal here is like a day X something or other or an even night something, just some weak role. It's not entirely in town's favor because it also reduces the VT pool for the Neap, which I think is probably a better direction – putting the focus more on day play and the eventual massclaim rather than on the night actions.

[Poyzin]

Would adding a Town Visitor make the setup passable?

[northsidegal]

Er, no, I don't think so. If anything, that would weaken town in a not insignificant manner – it's a lot of WIFOM (town visitor is basically useless on its own and almost never included in games), and it's a false positive for literally every town role: the tracker, voyeur, and neapolitan.

[northsidegal]

How about this: keep the ninjas and add a 1-shot Follower, or remove the ninjas and i'll pass it as is?

[implosion]

(FYI, this is up next if it passes before the current game in signups fills)

[Poyzin]

I’ll take you up on the 1-shot follower. The masonry tracking roles and the 1-shot ninjas on the mafia team are the two things that I really wanted to keep at the very least.



Two things that are now off-topic: Guaranteeing a visitor can be very good for town, especially if they claim immediately to see if the scumteam will cc, as they can become town confirmed by the voyeur targeting whoever the visitor announces, and serves functionally like a probable named townie. A visitor in this game while there is a Voyeur is almost always a net positive for town as they can confirm that the action that was used was a Visit rather than a kill. I also wanted to say that I believe that ninjas are just as fine with a tracker as they are with a watcher imo. The tracker knows perfectly well that a Ninja is in the game, which means that they can never COMPLETELY clear a player just because they didn’t see anything, while they can surely guilty if they watch a player target the nightkill victim. I agree that there is a difference if the players do not know that there is a ninja, but because the setup is completely open and the 1-shot ninjas are known to the tracker, it should be clear that just because they don’t see anything, doesn’t mean that they are ever cleared.

[Poyzin]

On the visitor topic; I’m not saying that a Visitor is a powerful town role by any means, but it’s almost never bad, just as much as an IC is never bad (but unlike an IC, visitors aren’t mod confirmed. They can still be confirmed in this setup though, and it’d be risky for scum to counter claim the visitor).

[northsidegal]

I agree that there is a difference if the players do not know that there is a ninja, but

because the setup is completely open

and the 1-shot ninjas are known to the tracker, it should be clear that just because they don’t see anything, doesn’t mean that they are ever cleared.

Hold on – I was not under the impression that this setup was meant to be completely open, and that completely changes balance considerations. It's also not really standard for the Normal queue, although you can do it if you want to, it just must be announced to the players during signups.

To be clear – you intend for this setup to be completely open? As in, all roles are publicly available information?

[Poyzin]

I was under the impression that the setup would be open, yes. Are open setups not normal?

[Poyzin]

I should say, the setup being open was my intention here.

[Poyzin]

(I thought the normal queue was meant for Open games tbh)

[Poyzin]

(Yeah I should’ve made this clear from the beginning, it seems I’ve made a mistake...)

[Poyzin]

(I needed to go to the Open queue...)

[northsidegal]

I was under the impression that the setup would be open, yes. Are open setups not normal?

Open setups

can

be normal. The majority of Normal setups are not open.

Basically, you can run this game as an Open in the Normal queue, but it's not a common occurrence, and it affects the balance.

[northsidegal]

It's an understandable mixup to make. Now that it's cleared up, it's up to you how you want to proceed from here. Basically any option should be fine, so really it's your choice.

[Poyzin]

The setup is already known publicly so I think Open is the way to continue.

[implosion]

Not putting this game in signups yet in case it being open affects balance decisions, and putting osuka's 8p pre-designed in first (so should fill fairly quickly) - let me know when this setup is ready.

[implosion]

(Though do take your time if needed)

[northsidegal]

okay, sorry, just need to get more into open-setup balancing mode rather than normal mode, and kind of take it from the start.


so, uh, i think that knowing that it's open, the setup as we last had it is probably the best incarnation of it so far?

Town:
[1] Tracker Mason
[1] Voyeur Mason
[1] Neapolitan

[7] Vanilla


Mafia:
[1] Roleblocker
[1] 1x-Ninja Goon
[1] 1x-Ninja Goon

three masons versus a vanilla scumteam in an open setup is at least approximately balanced (i believe this to be fairly uncontroversial)

minus one mason, plus a tracker and a voyeur is probably pretty strongly in town's favor, the roleblocker is a mitigating factor but also has the effect that if the voyeur correctly checks the block target then that's basically an innocent for the voyeur (assuming scum aren't WIFOM gods and roleblock themselves)

add on the fact that everyone, scum and neapolitan included, knows to look out for the masons. that probably ends up in scum's favor just because people are fairly bad at not revealing masons really early and the three eyes of the scumteam can PR hunt more easily


i think that a good scumteam probably eviscerates town this game but town already has more than enough power and giving them any more risks a less than stellar scumteam sort of getting destroyed

[northsidegal]

i'm sorry to say that i don't like this setup, and i think that there's a high chance of people being annoyed at me for passing it

that being said, i think that this is pretty much its best incarnation, so i'm going to pass it regardless

from here i'll need to see your role PMs, night result PMs, and rules

[implosion]

People can't be too annoyed since they'll know exactly what they're signing up for, since I'll announce it as an open.

[northsidegal]

-shrug-

never underestimate people's ability to sign up for a setup without reading anything about it