Changes to Normal Games (update September 2022)

[Jake The Wolfie]

I'd like to bring up a perversion not known to the ancient ones

To start off, in Large Theme Games it is allowed to have exactly 2 different Mafia factions.[1] What this means is that you are allowed to have 2 scum factions which are both fully equipped to win.

A mason, adhering to the Normal Requirements, is defined as the following:

A Mason group is a set of players who can communicate (via a shared Private Topic), and who know that every member of the group is Town. In Normal games, Masons are absolutely 100% Town...

[2]

This definition is strict, there are to be no Mafia members inside any masonry. However, I would like to point out something else on the wiki page for Mason:

A Monk is a faction-flipped version of a Mason, giving absolutely confirmation that there are no Werewolves in the monastery, but potentially allowing the possibility of Mafia.

[3]

This, of course is currently not accepted as normal. For one, "Monk" and "Monastery" do not mean anything to the Normal Guidelines, and in fact would be rejected if applied to roles, as it would violate one of the guidelines for Flavor.[4] For another, the Normal Guidelines are quite clear that

Mafia are not allowed inside of a Masony.

However, I do have one proposition to make, which would naturally and only apply to Large Theme games:
Separate Masonries into 2 different categories, Pure Masonries and Exclusionary Masonries.

A Pure Masonry is what we currently have now, with no Mafia factions allowed inside of them what-so-ever. This is the equivalent of what we currently have now.
An Exclusionary Masonry excludes one or more factions from existing inside of the Masonry (such as how a Monastery excludes Werewolves from existing inside of them.)

Now, to properly and strictly make it clear to the player whether they are in a Pure Masonry or Exclusionary Masonry, it would be required that Exclusionary Masonries make it absolutely clear that there is a possibility that there exists a Mafia or Werewolf member inside of the Masonry, while doing the reverse for a Pure Masonry, requiring that they make it clear that no Mafia members can exist within the Masonry.


[1] Normal Game, Setup, Requirement 2
[2] Mason, excerpt from Normal Version
[3] Mason, Variations, Variation 3.
[4] Normal Game, Flavor, Requirement 2.1

[Dwlee99]

You could do neighborhoods of people with an informed modifier that no one in the hood is x faction.

[Ythan]

You could do neighborhoods of people with an informed modifier that no one in the hood is x faction.

Whoa this is sharp.

[Jake The Wolfie]

That may be true, however I feel like standardization where possible is key to having a more streamlined process in both creating and playing Normal Games.

You could argue that Masons are redundant because you could unveil them for what they really are, Informed Neighbors. We use the convention Masons for better understanding of each other when we talk.
Sure, my proposed naming convention probably isn't the best, however the idea behind them should be reduced and simplified.

[Ythan]

I also like your suggestion Jake I just got distracted by Dwlee's deft application of the informed modifier. It does seem that it could be used within the current normal guidelines to accomplish the same effect. Always behind any streamlining though.

[Gamma Emerald]

Neighbors are the mutation of Masons iirc

[Ythan]

I think what he's getting at is that you can describe masons as neighbors plus more (specifically, information), even if they did come first. So they're more complex in that they can be broken down into two other roles, even if those roles didn't exist when masons were first conceived which I suppose probably predates this site.

[Cook]

gonna toss out the name suggestion Allies

[Not Known 15]

Informed Neighbors

Nope!
With Masons and Informed Neighbors are not the same.
Informed gets redacted upon flip.
Mason does not.
(the identity of the other Mason(s) is/are redacted, but not what the mason was informed of)

[TemporalLich]

I don't see why Monk can't alias to Mason for Werewolf-flavor Normals

[Ythan]

Informed Neighbors

Nope!
With Masons and Informed Neighbors are not the same.
Informed gets redacted upon flip.
Mason does not.
(the identity of the other Mason(s) is/are redacted, but not what the mason was informed of)

Ah yes.

[Gypyx]

Multiball-specific roles doesn't seem to me like how normals should work, or at least not how they work currently, but there could be discussion around that? (example : cop doesn't make a difference between werewolves / mafias)

additionally, i have another suggestion, how about an "anti-personal" modifier? Like it makes the role only affect factional abilities, could be useful as a buffing tool for manipulatives or a modifying in an interesting way some roles (anti-personal Role Watcher comes to mind for instance)

[TemporalLich]

multiball-specific Cops and Masons could exist but in Grand Idea you have Bloodhound and Inner Sanctum Keeper for the current Normal ones, whereas Cop and Mason are merely Anti-Mafia.

Multiball-specific Cop/Mason types for Normals? The ones for Mafia, Alternate Mafia, and Blue Mafia are probably bad:

Mafia-Cop - Investigator
Werewolf-Cop - Seer
Alternate Mafia-Cop - Alternate Investigator
Blue Mafia-Cop - Blue Investigator
Alignment Cop - Gets exact alignment

Mafia-Mason - Country Club Member
Werewolf-Mason - Monk
Alternate Mafia-Mason - Suite Member
Blue Mafia-Mason - Yellow Brick Mason
Pseudomason - Members know each other's alignment

And yeah Impersonal could work as a modifier tbh.

[Dwlee99]

additionally, i have another suggestion, how about an "anti-personal" modifier? Like it makes the role only affect factional abilities, could be useful as a buffing tool for manipulatives or a modifying in an interesting way some roles (anti-personal Role Watcher comes to mind for instance)

Nth this

[TemporalLich]

I'd state I want anti-personal to be called something other than Factional or Group, as that would imply that adds an ability as a factional ability.

I'm suggesting Impersonal though it would be very niche in Normals

[Jake The Wolfie]

Informed Neighbors

Nope!
With Masons and Informed Neighbors are not the same.
Informed gets redacted upon flip.
Mason does not.
(the identity of the other Mason(s) is/are redacted, but not what the mason was informed of)

So an Informed Townie would just flip as Vanilla Townie? That doesn't seem to make sense.

And anyway, this is a minor nitpick. Functionally, Masons and Informed Neighbors are identical.

[TemporalLich]

So an Informed Townie would just flip as Vanilla Townie? That doesn't seem to make sense.

And anyway, this is a minor nitpick. Functionally, Masons and Informed Neighbors are identical.

Informed Townie would flip as an Informed Townie, but the info that Townie got would be redacted.

Same applies to Role Cops, they see "Informed" but not the actual info.

[Jake The Wolfie]

Ah, alright. That makes more sense.

[Gypyx]

I'm suggesting Impersonal though it would be very niche in Normals

maybe yeah, but given we have like visitor in the whitelist, i'd say it's not a huge problem to have less common modifiers like that

[Gypyx]

also impersonal pretty damn good

nothing personal, kid

[Wake1]

Looking for feedback, all.

If one were to make a single-ball with 34 players, what's the highest number of Mafia members you would include while keeping it balanced?

[Jake The Wolfie]

For a pure mountainous, [https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... 3P:_31_-_2]31 - 2][/url]

[Wake1]

For a pure mountainous, [https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... 3P:_31_-_2]31 - 2][/url]

I wasn't planning on a mountainous: that would get way too boring.

Thank you for sharing that though.

[Jake The Wolfie]

Then again, there is an interesting idea here.

The scum's winrate will typically go up exponentially for each additiobal player.

[Wake1]

In a 34 I was thinking 7:27, and of course add in all that jazz to balance it out.