Mizzytastic's Mini Normal Review, September 2019

[implosion]

/in to mod a mini, the worst is back up modding so I'd appreciate if he gets added to the game review thread too

Thanks for the clarification on modding requirements, here's all my stuff for review. I'd like a review for normalness and balance please

SETUP

13 players ~ 10 vs 3

5 * Vanilla Townie
1 * Gunsmith
1 * Informed Friendly Neighbour (There are 5 players whom a gunsmith would reveal to

Have a Gun

)
1 * Odd Nights Vigilante
1 * Even Nights Cop
1 * Tracker

1 * Odd Nights Mafia Doctor
1 * Even Nights Mafia Roleblocker
1 * Informed Mafia Goon (There are no town protective roles)

Public information - All private threads have day talk, there is a Mafia Doctor, Mafia are not multitasking unless otherwise specified

DESIGN IDEAS

My initial goal here was to aim for relatively powerful/simple roles (avoiding lots of modifiers or more obscure roles), avoiding setup WIFOM but having a chunk of investigative confusion, and a bunch of symmetry between town and scum. Initially I had a pair of masons, one of whom was informed, but after reading some setup review threads I figured that the setup was probably scumsided for site meta so that's why I used a tracker + friendly neighbour instead. Those are the roles I'm also most up for changing as part of getting this set up to pass.

VANILLA TOWNIE

You are a

Vanilla Townie

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

You win when all threats to the town are dead.

The game thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm.

GUNSMITH

You are a

Town Gunsmith

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

Each night you may visit a player to learn whether they have a gun. You will be informed either that "PLAYERNAME

has a gun

", "PLAYERNAME

does not have a gun

", or "You got

no result

from investigating PLAYERNAME". Roles with a gun are as follows:

In Normal games on mafiascum.net, a Gunsmith gets guilties on all Mafia (except Traitors and Doctors), Cops, Vigilantes, Gunsmiths, Role Cops, Vanilla Cops, Vengefuls, Detectives, Neapolitans, Backups of roles with guns and JoATs that have any of these listed powers. A Werewolf faction should be treated the same as any other Mafia family.

You win when all threats to the town are dead.

The game thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm.

INFORMED FRIENDLY NEIGHBOUR

You are an

Informed Friendly Neighbour

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

Each night you may visit a player. That player will be informed "YOURNAME is a

Friendly Neighbour

who is aligned with the

Town

".

You are

informed

that there are 5 players in this game that a Gunsmith would find to

have a gun

. Roles with a gun are as follows:

In Normal games on mafiascum.net, a Gunsmith gets guilties on all Mafia (except Traitors and Doctors), Cops, Vigilantes, Gunsmiths, Role Cops, Vanilla Cops, Vengefuls, Detectives, Neapolitans, Backups of roles with guns and JoATs that have any of these listed powers. A Werewolf faction should be treated the same as any other Mafia family.

You win when all threats to the town are dead.

The game thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm.

ODD NIGHTS VIGILANTE

You are a

Town Odd Nights Vigilante

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

Each odd night (night 1, night 3, night 5, etc. ) you may visit a player. Assuming no interference, that player will die.

You win when all threats to the town are dead.

The game thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm.

EVEN NIGHTS COP

You are a

Town Even Nights Cop

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

Each even night (night 2, night 4, night 6, etc. ) you may visit a player to learn if they are a member of the mafia. You will be informed either that "PLAYERNAME is a member of the

Mafia

", "PLAYERNAME is

not

a member of the Mafia", or "You got

no result

from investigating PLAYERNAME".

You win when all threats to the town are dead.

The game thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm.

TRACKER

You are a

Town Tracker

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

Each night you may visit a player to learn who they visited. You will be informed either that "PLAYERNAME visited

no one

", "PLAYERNAME visited

TARGETNAME(s)

", or "You got

no result

from investigating PLAYERNAME".

You win when all threats to the town are dead.

The game thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm.

ODD NIGHTS MAFIA DOCTOR

You are a

Mafia Odd Nights Doctor

You form a

Mafia

family along with PLAYERYYYY, a

Mafia Even Nights Roleblocker

and PLAYERZZZZ, an

Informed Mafia Goon

. You may talk with them at any time in your shared private thread.

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

Each odd night (night 1, night 3, night 5, etc. ) you may visit a player other than yourself. You will prevent one kill attempt by normal means made on that player this night.

Each night a member of your family may perform a factional kill. A member of your family will visit a player, and assuming no interference that player will die. You may not act as a doctor and perform a factional kill on the same night.

You win when all members of the town are dead, or nothing can prevent such from happening.

The game thread is

here

and your Mafia private thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm or your private thread.

EVEN NIGHTS MAFIA ROLEBLOCKER

You are a

Mafia Even Nights Roleblocker

You form a

Mafia

family along with PLAYERXXXX, a

Mafia Odd Nights Doctor

and PLAYERZZZZ, an

Informed Mafia Goon

. You may talk with them at any time in your shared private thread.

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

Each even night (night 2, night 4, night 6, etc. ) you may visit a player other than yourself. You will prevent all actions that player takes that night which require them to submit an action to the moderator.

Each night a member of your family may perform a factional kill. A member of your family will visit a player, and assuming no interference that player will die. You may not act as a roleblocker and perform a factional kill on the same night.

You win when all members of the town are dead, or nothing can prevent such from happening.

The game thread is

here

and your Mafia private thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm or your private thread.

INFORMED MAFIA GOON

You are aa

Informed Mafia Goon.

You form a

Mafia

family along with PLAYERXXXX, a

Mafia Odd Nights Doctor

and PLAYERYYYY, a

Mafia Even Nights Roleblocker

. You may talk with them at any time in your shared private thread.

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

You are

informed

that there are no protective roles aligned with the town. In a normal game protective roles are an Alien (not the faction), Babysitter, Bulletproof, Bodyguard, Commuter, Doctor, Hider, Jailkeeper or Rolestopper, a Backup for one of these roles, or a Jack-of-all-Trades with the ability from at least one of these roles.

Each night a member of your family may perform a factional kill. A member of your family will visit a player, and assuming no interference that player will die. You may not act as a roleblocker and perform a factional kill on the same night.

You win when all members of the town are dead, or nothing can prevent such from happening.

The game thread is

here

and your Mafia private thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm or your private thread.

Mafia Mini Normal 21XX - Boardgames

A game of hidden roles and social deduction.

Modded by

Mizzytastic

. Backup modded by

the worst

. Revied for normalcy and balance by

AAAA

and

BBBB

INITIAL FLAVOUR (boardgames)

PLAYERS

1. 
   
2. 
   
3. 
   
4. 
   
5. 
   
6. 
   
7. 
   
8. 
   
9. 
   
10. 
    
11. 
    
12. 
    

Spoiler: Alive

1. 
   
2. 
   
3. 
   
4. 
   
5. 
   
6. 
   
7. 
   
8. 
   
9. 
   
10. 
    
11. 
    
12. 
    

Spoiler: Dead

No one

yet

IMPORTANT EVENTS

Night 0

:

Pregame

Rules blatantly ripped off inspired by Korina's from various Mafia and Mish Mash games. I like his formatting and have no shame. Some additions from Plotnius' rules.

Follow the spirit of the rules, not just the letter. If you have any questions feel free to pm me or

ask me bolded

and I will clarify.

CONTENT RULES

1. Follow all site rules as listed here.
   
2. Avoid usage of the words "lynch" or "hang" and related terms. My suggestion is elimination, elim, E-1, ELo, MELo, etc.
   
3. This is a game where we get to call each other scum and manipulate and lie others. Beyond that please keep it civil, I don't ever want to reach the point where I don't want to read the game I'm running.
   
4. Don't talk about ongoing games. Advice can be found here.
   
5. No provable randomness.
   
6. No cryptography. Breadcrumbing is allowed.
   
7. No hidden text or text smaller than 75.
   
8. Claiming mafia is ok. Claiming your team is not.
   
9. You may request a private notes thread.
   
10. Don't directly quote mod communications, or shared private threads, real or faked. Paraphrasing is ok, quoting from a personal notes thread is ok.
    
11. At end of game you will have 48 hours to redact any posts you have made in game related private threads, or request that the thread is not shared. Following that, any threads will be shared.
    
12. If you require a replacement please ask via pm. Do not discuss replacements (yours or others) in any game threads other than a private notes thread.
    
13. #8000FF
    is my colour, please avoid it.

DEADLINES, ACTIVITY and V/LA

1. You will have 48 hours to confirm role and alignment by pm or private thread. The game will start after 48 hours or 10/13 players have confirmed.
   
2. The thread will be locked during pre-game, confirmation, and night time.
   
3. Day 1 will last for 10 days. Day 2 onwards will last for 7 days.
   
4. Nights will last for 48 hours.
   
5. Post game advancing content every 48 hours, or every 72 hours during the weekend, or you will receive a prod. An example of game advancing content is "I got prodded. XXXX is still scum". If you repeatedly post at the end of the prod timer your prod timer may be reduced.
   
6. If you get prodded 3 times, or fail to replay to a prod after 24 hours, you will be replaced.
   
7. If you wish to go V/LA, please do so via pm or
   bolded
   in the game thread.
   
8. If you are V/LA your prod timer will be every 72 hours.
   
9. If you are going to be V/LA for an extended time with zero access please ask for a replacement instead.
   
10. If you are 24 hours away from a deadline for taking an action I will send you a reminder. This does not count as a prod.

GAME ACTIONS

1. If you wish to vote for a player please use VOTE: PLAYER vote tags. If you use
   VOTE:PLAYER
   bold tags I may miss it.
   
2. If a majority of players vote for the same player that player will be eliminated, and twilight will begin.
   
3. If a majority of players vote for VOTE: No Elimination or the deadline is reached, no player will be eliminated and twilight will begin.
   
4. During twilight all living players are still alive and may talk as normal until the thread is locked and night begins. Votes and unvotes will no longer be counted.
   
5. Once a player is dead and their role and alignment revealed, they are no longer allowed to post in the public thread or any shared private threads they have access to, even a BAH post. They will be granted entry to the dead thread.
   
6. Night actions may be submitted by PM, or by Mafia private thread. If you do not submit an action you will do nothing. You are free to change your mind up until deadline.
   
7. I will accept a shortened night phase if all players ask for it via PM.
   
8. If I think it counts, it counts. Don't play around with edge cases if you don't want to risk me interpreting it the wrong way.

GAME SETUP

1. Unless otherwise specified, any player with access to a private thread may talk in that thread at any time, including the day.
   
2. Unless otherwise specified, roles are not multitasking.
   
3. There is comfirmed to be a
   Mafia Doctor
   in this set up, who may or may not have some number of modifiers.
   
4. If you are aligned with the
   Town
   your win condition reads "You win when all threats to the town are dead."
   
5. If you are aligned with the
   Mafia
   your win condition reads "You win when all members of the town are dead, or nothing can prevent such from happening."
   
6. At least two players have recieved the role pm below.

VANILLA TOWNIE

You are a

Vanilla Townie

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

You win when all threats to the town are dead.

The game thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm.

[implosion]

Primary: schadd_
Secondary: Ircher

[Mizzytastic]

Ego, and all that.

[schadd_]

this is strong for town, and adding to that, town can get a lot done fast without mafia being able to do much about it - even if it were closer to balanced, that's not something people like to play against. there is a guaranteed 2 good results as soon as night 1, and most likely there are four: friendly neighbor confirmed town, vig confirmed town (via extra kill), tracker result, gunsmith result (it is only 2 if the doctor protects + the mafia kill someone else relevant)

the tracker is really strong here, as mafia are doing a lot of actions - the doctor and roleblock actions are both things that are really scary to get tracked (e.g. if the roleblocker gets tracked to someone, then executed, then the tracker has an extra innocent result) and the mafia has less ability to coordinate who perpetrates the nightkill

obviously a gunsmith misfire is pretty rough and also likely but if the informed townie gets their secret out asap (which they should, and can be expected to imo) i think a gunsmith might be hesitant to claim an early has-a-gun result, which would be the worst case. moreover, at the end of the day the information + the confirmed mafia doctor indicates to town that there are three town roles with guns, which is quite useful for clarifying things

the biggest problem, to me, is that power is very diffuse. even in spite of the night-specificity that helps the mafia out, they still have 5 people that they need to find and kill, which is hard. i would suggest

removing the friendly neighbor (and keeping the inform, which i like)

and

making the tracker 1-shot or making the cop night 2 only

[Mizzytastic]

Honestly I was overshooting my sense of balance because everything I see is "site meta for normals is so town sided". I initially had a pair of masons there. I'd be quite happy to get rid of the tracker entirely and just have an informed townie, or do you think the one shot tracker is a necessity? I'd like to keep the even and odd night symmetry if possible.

[Mizzytastic]

Another thing I had considered was some form of miller to mess with the cop and keep to the design goal of investigative confusion over setup WIFOM but the vig bait aspect seemed cruel.

[schadd_]

having the tracker is surely not a necessity, though i am more confident in the balance with it, also it is just a fun role to exist in this setup

you can stack a miller onto the informed townie. lol. i think that the inform slightly seems like it would come from town, so the miller sort of cancels that out

so we would have:
gunsmith
informed miller
odd-night vig
even-night cop
1-shot tracker
5vt

odd-night doc
even-night roleblocker
informed goon

[Mizzytastic]

having the tracker is surely not a necessity, though i am more confident in the balance with it, also it is just a fun role to exist in this setup

you can stack a miller onto the informed townie. lol. i think that the inform slightly seems like it would come from town, so the miller sort of cancels that out

so we would have:
gunsmith
informed miller
odd-night vig
even-night cop
1-shot tracker
5vt

odd-night doc
even-night roleblocker
informed goon

I would be happy to run this set up. I'll get the new pms done tomorrow as I'm currently supposed to be trying to sleep and so on my phone. Is there anything completely missing beyond the new role pms that I need to provide?

[Mizzytastic]

Also if you want to explain why the 1 shot tracker is better for assessing balance I'm curious just from my interest in game design. I think I get why its fun (goes from too much town info at each night to something that could clutch it for town or just add to the investigative noise depending, and gives a bit more space for setup spec for the free protective fake claim scum might attempt)

[implosion]

The "site normal meta is be very townsided" thing is kind of less true than it was say two or three ish years ago. Rather, standards of balance were such back then that town winrates were significantly <50% in normals, so to adjust NRG members would push a conception that what the average person considered balanced was actually a bit scumsided, roughly.

[schadd_]

Also if you want to explain why the 1 shot tracker is better for assessing balance I'm curious just from my interest in game design. I think I get why its fun (goes from too much town info at each night to something that could clutch it for town or just add to the investigative noise depending, and gives a bit more space for setup spec for the free protective fake claim scum might attempt)

just intuition. i think if there's scum counterplay (and there is, though a somewhat small amount) you usually want 3 strong power roles plus a little bit; the inform and the tracker cover that. i wouldn't want a full tracker because it would bother me for mafia to have 4 things to have to consistently worry about, and the lack of a tracker feels like town doesn't have enough stuff

[Mizzytastic]

New role pms

INFORMED MILLER

You are an

Informed Miller

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

If you are investigated by a Cop they will be informed that you are a member of the

Mafia

.

You are

informed

that there are 5 players in this game that a Gunsmith would find to

have a gun

. Roles with a gun are as follows:

In Normal games on mafiascum.net, a Gunsmith gets guilties on all Mafia (except Traitors and Doctors), Cops, Vigilantes, Gunsmiths, Role Cops, Vanilla Cops, Vengefuls, Detectives, Neapolitans, Backups of roles with guns and JoATs that have any of these listed powers. A Werewolf faction should be treated the same as any other Mafia family.

You win when all threats to the town are dead.

The game thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm.

ONE SHOT TRACKER

You are a

Town One-shot Tracker

Each day you may talk in the game thread and vote on who to eliminate.

Once during the game, you may visit a player at night to learn who they visited that night. You will be informed either that "PLAYERNAME visited

no one

", "PLAYERNAME visited

TARGETNAME(s)

", or "You got

no result

from investigating PLAYERNAME".

You win when all threats to the town are dead.

The game thread is

here

, please confirm your role and alignment via pm.

[Mizzytastic]

In terms of flavour I'm just gonna be sharing curious facts about boardgames or introducing board games that people may not have come across if it's not their hobby. The only thing I'm not 100% sure would be ok is using games with themes of death/zombies etc for execution vote counts.

[schadd_]

passing this !

[implosion]

i am presently dabbling in great western trail a lot. and also playing copious amounts of race for the galaxy on bga.

[Mizzytastic]

I don't know great western trail (adds to list), race for the galaxy is fun but I've found it's one of those games that can feel solo even if you are playing with others. That said I've not had the chance to play with any of the expansions.

My initial flavour for the main thread was gonna be monolopy (and the history of The Landlords Game), and then dead thread gets mysterium and mafia thread gets werewolves of millers hollow for what I feel are both super obvious reasons.

[implosion]

And you're already up!

(Also you may enjoy this if you've not seen it though you may well have!)