JacksonVirgo's Mini Normal Review, December 2020

[implosion]

Forgot to send the setup to you. I have two versions, the first is prior to showing this to the worst and after is what we came up with.

Mini Normal - Millers Silence (13p)

Spoiler: Setup V1

Millers Silence

Town Informed Macho Cop-Enabler Miller

Town Novice Cop

Town Non-Consequtive Motion Detector

Town Odd-Night Jailkeeper Even-Night Jailkeeper

Vanilla Townie

Vanilla Townie

Vanilla Townie

Vanilla Townie

Vanilla Townie

Vanilla Townie

Mafia 2-shot Roleblocker

Mafia Vanilla Cop

Mafia Informed Goon

Setup Information

• Informed Cop-Enabler Miller is informed "Mafia is informed that there is a Macho Cop-Enabler Miller"
  
• Informed Goon is informed "There is a Macho Cop-Enabler Miller"

Spoiler: Setup V2

Millers Silence

Town Informed Macho Cop-Enabler Miller

Town Even-Night Cop

Town Tracker

Town Jailkeeper

Vanilla Townie

Vanilla Townie

Vanilla Townie

Vanilla Townie

Vanilla Townie

Vanilla Townie

Mafia 1-shot Roleblocker

Mafia Vanilla Cop

Mafia Informed Goon

Setup Information

• Informed Cop-Enabler Miller is informed "Mafia is informed that there is a Macho Cop-Enabler Miller"
  
• Informed Goon is informed "There is a Macho Cop-Enabler Miller"

[implosion]

Primary: Ircher
Secondary: Isis

[JacksonVirgo]

Ego

[JacksonVirgo]

Some context

may

be necessary to understand the concept. MS's meta leans towards Millers claiming D1 to be believed effectively, whereas this setup flips that on it's head by essentially incentivizing it to stay hidden to have the Cop be effective but also have a false-positive result that will effectively get eliminated if they're checked. So it's either they claim and lose the Cops abilities which won't likely happen in practice or they don't claim and risk getting red-checked and eliminated (miller would likely either die or be claimed prior to lylo). I can definitely see the swing in this setup, that's why I suggested two versions to try and minimize it as best I can taking into consideration my experience designing setups.

the worst helped balance this setup prior to submitting it, credit where credit is due

[Isis]

I like the second one better. The setup conceit seems fine.

One concern I'd have from a design perspective is the mafia making an assumption that that cop is only gated by the enabler, an assumption that would have been virtually correct in your first draft and is pretty defensible for that reason. That could lead to them shooting based on PR spec rather than read quality more often, which isn't the worst thing ever but might be the kind of thing scumteams complain about not enjoying (the setup had red herrings etc). They'll actually do pretty fine in V2 if they shoot obvtown townies and hope they flip miller but if they think they only have one roleblock and there's an ungated sane cop that could seem more important than anything else in the game.

You could either give the mafia more information, or bring the assumption back to essentially correct by going with a N2N3 cop. Or maybe just ignore it because it's not a bulletproof vengeful level setup criticism or anything.

pedit: yeah I could understand the concept on reading it.

[JacksonVirgo]

Wouldn't an ungated Cop make a setup have more swing than an Even-Night Cop? Mafia would likely gun for the Cop regardless so I think it isn't an issue. On the other hand, I don't think telling Mafia explicitly that the Cop is gated in addition to the Enabler is a good idea as it gives too much setup information than what they should have.

[Isis]

I think N2N4N6 cop is actually higher swing than N2N3 cop.

[Isis]

I'm implicitly conceding the other points in stating that one.

[JacksonVirgo]

Town Compulsive Novice 2-shot Cop sounds nicer owo

[JacksonVirgo]

Can you explain why the N2,4,6 cop is swingier?

[JacksonVirgo]

I'm good with any form of Cop, although only a 2-shot essentially I don't think I'm a big fan of.

[JacksonVirgo]

Enabler and searching for it is useless after N3 in that case, which is again a red-herring which you say Mafia hates.

[JacksonVirgo]

That and every night you get three Town town that you know isn't the Enabler. The elim, the kill and the vcop check.

[Isis]

A cop that has survived to report on their N4 shot is necessarily in an extremely good position for town, but is unlikely and unexpected to get there. The N4 investigation is more likely to be also alive and was also targeted with a more mature understanding of the gamestate.
The potential to possibly investigate 3 times is very high swing because most of the time that possibility was enabled it will be because the jailkeeper connected, which is itself a townswing.
Zero investigation scenarios also happen slightly more on the even cop, with the N2 investigation getting roleblocked N2 or investigating the NK N2 and the macho dying N3, N2N3 cop gets a medium performance with one investigation when that happens, even cop gets nothing..
I haven't been reviewing long so maybe I understand swing backwards but those seem like the lower probability events with higher advantaged states for one side.

[Isis]

oh yeah, it is a good point that it feels bad for there to come a later point when macho hunting is 100% pointless.

[Isis]

i'd probably pass the setup as-is if I was primary

[JacksonVirgo]

Would Odd-Night Cop be a better fit and make the JKer Novice so they get at least one check? Mafia is very unlikely to hit a Cop check.

[JacksonVirgo]

i'd probably pass the setup as-is if I was primary

Oh neat!! I feel like I did a good job with this one ahaha

[Isis]

Would Odd-Night Cop be a better fit and make the JKer Novice so they get at least one check? Mafia is very unlikely to hit a Cop check.

It dents the conceit of the setup a lot since claiming miller day1 is punished less. But it seems fine.

[JacksonVirgo]

Would Odd-Night Cop be a better fit and make the JKer Novice so they get at least one check? Mafia is very unlikely to hit a Cop check.

It dents the conceit of the setup a lot since claiming miller day1 is punished less. But it seems fine.

Wait how is it punished less?

[Isis]

If I understand enabler properly, a D1 miller claim means the miller is NKed night one but the cop gets one investigation that occurs the same night. With even night, there's no investigations at all.

It's fine though.

[JacksonVirgo]

If I understand enabler properly, a D1 miller claim means the miller is NKed night one but the cop gets one investigation that occurs the same night. With even night, there's no investigations at all.

It's fine though.

Ah I see

[Ircher]

So it's either they claim and lose the Cops abilities which won't likely happen in practice or they don't claim and risk getting red-checked and eliminated (miller would likely either die or be claimed prior to lylo).

I like this concept a lot. I think it's really a clever idea that incentives actually thinking through mechanical decisions rather than going through the motions.

I like the second one better. The setup conceit seems fine.

I agree--the second one looks better. I think it's better not to concentrate all the power in one or two roles, and the second one also looks closer to what I would consider balanced.
---
I think the setup is pretty closed to balanced, but I don't think it's quite there yet. We will assume that we're talking about setup 2 since we all seem to agree that's the better of the two setups.

The general rule for mini normals is that town needs three moderately strong roles against an all goons team. Since the miller is mostly negative utility (and probably won't claim their info day 1 to avoid being killed), I would say this setup has roughly 3 PRs. Jailkeeper is a strong role, and the other two roles are moderately strong. Thus, the town roles are strong enough as-is. I would consider changing the cop's to N2 N3 like Isis suggested because there's a good chance even night doesn't get an investigation.

My main issue here is that scum have a lot of power, and while it's true that town has sizable amounts of power (and that this is a double investigative setup), I think it's too much and could easily lead to town being crushed. Remember, town already has the negative utility role which already serves as a gate of some kind. Since this is a double-investigative setup with a doctor like role, I do think mafia needs some additional power, just not as much as they have.

Thus, my suggestions boil down to this:

1: Gate the vanilla cop. Being able to identify any of them will be very powerful against this town, and Vanilla Cop is a really powerful tool here. I think 1-Shot or Novice 2-Shot would be fine. The former is probably better since N1 is the most critical night for info anyway. Mafia also already have the benefit of knowing that a cop exists, so I'm not particularly worried about them being blindsided here.
2: Make the cop N2 N3. This change isn't binding like #1 (as in it's optional), but I think it's better simply because surviving N4 as a PR is rather difficult in practice. Getting effectively zero investigations would probably hurt town a lot here.

[JacksonVirgo]

I do think the VCop should be gated now that you've brought it up. Are you saying that having a 1-shot OR a Novice 2-shot is your choices? Is there a reason why you said 1-shot instead of 2-shot because I think a plain 2-shot would probably be better overall. Compulsive Novice 2-shot Cop is fine as well (I don't really like the look of N2 N3 Cop lol).

[JacksonVirgo]

Spoiler: Role Cards

Town Informed Macho Cop-Enabler Miller

Town Informed Macho Cop-Enabler Miller

You are informed that Mafia are informed that there is a Macho Cop-Enabler Miller. If will appear as a member of the Mafia to a Cop. If you are to die, all Cops will lose their ability.

You win when all threats to the Town are eliminated.

You can find the game thread here

Town Compulsive Novice 2-Shot Cop

Town Compulsive Novice 2-Shot Cop

You can check a player twice, you will know if they are a member of the Mafia or not. You must peform an action when you can, failure to do so will lead to your action being done at random. You cannot make an action on night one.

You win when all threats to the Town are eliminated.

You can find the game thread here

Town Tracker

Town Tracker

You may check a player each night, you will see who they visited if anybody.

You win when all threats to the Town are eliminated.

You can find the game thread here

Town Jailkeeper

Town Jailkeeper

You may jailkeep a player each night, you will protect them from kills but you will role-block your target.

You win when all threats to the Town are eliminated.

You can find the game thread here

Town Vanilla Townie

Town Vanilla Townie

You have no abilities outside your voice and your vote.

You win when all threats to the Town are eliminated.

You can find the game thread here

Mafia 1-Shot Roleblocker

Mafia 1-Shot Roleblocker

Only once, you may choose to roleblock a player. This will stop their ability if they have one.

You win when all threats to the Mafia are eliminated or nothing can stop that from happening.

You can find the game thread here

You can find the Mafia PT here

Mafia 2-shot Vanilla Cop

Mafia 2-shot Vanilla Cop

Only twice, you may check a player to see if they're Vanilla or not.

You win when all threats to the Mafia are eliminated or nothing can stop that from happening.

You can find the game thread here

You can find the Mafia PT here

Mafia Informed

Mafia Informed

You are informed that there is a Macho Cop-Enabler Miller.

You win when all threats to the Mafia are eliminated or nothing can stop that from happening.

You can find the game thread here

You can find the Mafia PT here

And yes, I did use my tool (the one in development not the one thats hosted rn). Lemme know if those are wrong etc