GeorgeBailey's Mini Normal Review, October 2021

[implosion]

Subject: Normal Queue Thread (Players and Mods)

/in to mod setup designed by Datisi

1x town encryptor-finder
1x town novice pt cop
1x town friendly neighbour encryptor
7x vanilla townies

2x mafia backup encryptor
1x mafia informed neighbourizer (there is a friendly neighbour encryptor in the game)

Could Datisi also have access to the review thread?

[implosion]

Primary: mastina
Secondary: Gypyx

[mastina]

I'm pretty sure this is actually incredibly townsided--the town basically has two cops and a conftown-miller, against a scumteam that has basically zero counterplay aside from the nightkill. They don't have any way of knowing what the town has, they don't have any safety, they basically have nothing. They can win by making the right nightkills, but that's about it.

Even if it isn't townsided, I'd at least call it unhealthily swingy given the difference between the town roles being killed early vs. the town roles living to get results.

[Datisi]

huh. and here i was ready to make a post saying "uh, pretty sure this is way too scumsided. about 10 mintes after i sent the pm to implo, i realized that the encryptor-finder is much weaker than i thought, as the "not an encryptor" result isn't a clear".

though maybe it becomes a clear once one scum encryptor dies...? anyway. georgebailey told me he wanted a game built around encryptors, so that was my starting point. i will think about this setup today and figure out a way to scumside it more.

[Gypyx]

Just putting that for personal reference, but like, the setup's basically without the Encryptor stuff

Town Cop1
Town Novice Cop2
Town Cop1miller Friendly Neighbor

Maf goon x2
Mafia Cop1/2 Godfather Cop2 Framer

basically, Mafia winning this setup relies on town getting confused with their power, which i agree with mastina is pretty swingy

[mastina]

One possible fix: give one of the backup encryptors either a gated blocking action of some kind (rb, rolestop, jk, alien), or an unlimited ungated but not OP investigative (not rolecop, but a variant like vanilla cop, a Simple/Complex role, Neapolitan, or similar).

Not both, obviously, but one of the two would help give them some agency here. (To be clear, this would make them a Mafia [role] Backup Encryptor).

[Datisi]

aaagh, sorry for not getting to this sooner, last two days have been pretty busy for me :/ will do this tomorrow goddammit

[Gypyx]

it ok

[Datisi]

thank

[mastina]

it ok

^

[implosion]

how DARE you have a life outside the normal queue why i never

[implosion]

oh i didn't even realize there was a gap between this and mastina's post i just randomly saw this in my egosearch :X

[Gypyx]

lol

[Datisi]

okay so uh, i decided i didn't like the original setup *that* much, and i started changing things here and there, and i ended up with this abomination

1x town 2-shot vigilante
1x town novice pt cop
1x town n1 gunsmith
1x town informed neighbourizer (at least one member of the mafia is an encryptor)
6x vt

1x mafia informed traitor enabler (xxx is a mafia traitor encryptor)
1x mafia 2-shot jailkeeper traitor enabler
1x mafia traitor encryptor

which i frankly kinda like, but i am not sure about the balance, and the amount swing maaaybe feels a bit much, so. help.

[Gypyx]

ooooh um

i don't know how the normal policy has evolved on that, but there was a normal review in the past where traitor enabler was a role that really wasn't accepted for normalcy, i'll try looking 4 it

[Gypyx]

https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=123&t=72093

hey mastina was in it too

[Datisi]

yeah i remembered there being an idea about that beforehand and it getting shut down, but i figured it was a while ago and things might have changed

[Gypyx]

well idk

@Implo

think it's appropriate to summon our overlord here

[mastina]

Yeah, pretty sure that is an executive call where the answer is the interaction, though THEORETICALLY Normal, isn't actually Normal.

Will wait for implosion to confirm tho.

[Datisi]

theoretically normal is my favourite kind of normal

[Gypyx]

#MakeTheoreticallyNormalNormalAgain

[implosion]

I was kind of expecting that call to be more recent than in 2017. Honestly, thinking about it now... it's not really problematic. It certainly

feels

non-normal in some ways but it's distinctly non-problematic because the town will know that the traitor was "recruited" when it happens because, well, what else could a traitor enabler dying mean. The main cogent point that I think was made in that other thread is that a traitor being recruited goes against normals but I think it's not a problem given that it'd be publicly happening. I think this is also less problematic than that game bc that one had two traitors and like was mentioned scum might have had weird incentive to hardbus the enabler, which doesn't really exist here. Tbh it's potentially even a good design pattern as another way to give some negative utility to mafia without having to go as strongly as a full regular traitor.

So yeah I think I'm fine with it tbh.

[Gypyx]

woooo

will actually review when like, my brain works at at least 10% speed

[mastina]

I'm still a little bit uncomfortable with the concept because Normals explicitly ban role changes.
A traitor changing to Goon due to a traitor enabler's death more or less functions as a role change. They'd still FLIP as a traitor, and the traitor-enabler having flipped first will mean that the town knows they were a goon, so it's not something I'm hard-against as it's something the town can reasonably figure out the mechanics of.

It's something that they can understand intuitively without needing any handholding, it's self-explanatory, and it's an interaction that's technically Normal, but the role-change aspect of it still doesn't feel "Normal" to me. I'm willing to trust implosion on this call tho so will review on balance within 82 hours.

[GeorgeBailey]

Just gonna ego, sorry.

Was gonna before but Idk what to say that's constructive.