chilledtea's Mini Normal Review

[chilledtea]

Can I / Should I use this thread as a Mod thread?

Anyways to summarize the changes :

1) Change vote tags in rules.
2) Remove rule no 2 from setup info.
3) Add a rule in setup info which states that mafia cannot carry out factional kill along with their individual ability (if any).
4) Remove 1-shot Cop, and change tracker, gunsmith roles.

[Marquis]

You can use it as a mod thread.

That looks good, though. We still do need to see the final role PMs, rules, setup info, etc. already edited to reflect the changes (which is what I think the others have been waiting on too).

[chilledtea]

Yes I will do so. Was away for a while.

[chilledtea]

General Rules :

1) All site-wide rules apply. In particular, no discussion of ongoing games is allowed.
2) No discussion of this game allowed anywhere outside this game thread (which includes PMs), unless otherwise stated by your Role PM.
3) My Mod color is (#tobedecided). Do not use it.
4) Do not quote your Role PM or any other PMs from the Mod, real or fabricated.
5) Play to your win condition. Do not claim scum with another player regardless of your alignment, there will be consequences.
6) No personal attacks.
7) Do not edit or delete your post, even if you have the ability to do so.
8) No using encrypted text, small text, bright-coloured text, or otherwise make it hard to see what you are writing.
9) Use common sense. There are probably many other rules but I forgot about them. If it feels wrong, please don't do it. If in doubt, contact the Mod.
10) Expressing intent to break a rule, fake breaking a rule, finding loopholes in a rule or encouraging someone to break a rule is equivalent to breaking the rule itself and will suffer similar consequences.

11) Questions relating to roles, either yours, or someone else's or imaginary, will not be entertained in the game thread. If you have a question regarding roles, you have to ask me by PM and it won't be answered in the game thread.

Voting and Lynching rules:

1) Day phases will last 8 days.

2) Night phases last exactly 2 days (48 hours)
3) Use either bold tags or vote tags to vote someone. It is preferable if you vote at the start of a line.
For example :

VOTE : chilledtea

Code: Select all

[b]VOTE : chilledtea[/b]

or
VOTE: chilledtea

Code: Select all

[v]VOTE : chilledtea[/v]

4) Votes to No Lynch are accepted, indicated by

VOTE: No Lynch

or VOTE: No Lynch.
5) To unvote, use the unvote tag (UNVOTE: ) or bold (

UNVOTE :

), but I'll accept VOTE: Unvote as well.
6) Votes in quote tags will not be counted. Please do not put votes in any other tags, they will not be counted either.
7) It takes a strict majority (half of all players plus 1, rounded down) to achieve a lynch. It takes a weak majority (half of all players, rounded up) to No Lynch.
8) If a majority was not met by deadline, a No Lynch will happen.
9) When a lynch has been achieved, it is final, and any further votes or unvotes will not count. Everyone (including the lynched person) may continue to post until I post the lynch scene.
10) When you are dead, do not post, game related or not. This means no ‘bah' posts.
11) If the Mod has made an error in the vote count, please post the error in thread.

Activity and Replacements:

1) 48 hours without a post will incur a prod.
2) If you do not respond to the prod by posting in the main thread within 24 hours, you will be replaced.
3) Three prods and I will also replace you.
4) If a replacement happens near deadline, I may grant an extension. I reserve the right not to give this extension if I feel it's being abused.
5) If a replacement happens at Night, I will freeze the deadline until a replacement is found.

Setup Information:

1) This is a 13 player Normal closed setup. It follows the Normal game guidelines.
2) It is also guaranteed that at least one player is a Vanilla Townie, who will receive the role PM as shown below.
3) Natural Action Resolution is in effect.
4) Please submit Night actions on time. Overdue Night actions will not count, even if I haven't resolved them yet.
5) If you believe the Mod has made an error in resolving effects, please PM me.
6) A single Mafia member cannot carry out their factional kill, along with his/her night action (if any).

Sample Role PM

:

Spoiler:

Welcome to Mini Normal [x]!
You are a

Vanilla Town

.
You get to vote for a lynch every day phase in which you are alive.
You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and at least one town member is alive.
[link for game thread]

Role PMs :

Town Roles :

Welcome to Mini Normal [x]!
You are a

3-shot Tracker

.
You get to vote for a lynch every day phase in which you are alive.
During night phase, you can track a person to see whom they targeted (if any). You are limited to using it on only 3 night phases in the game.
You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and at least one town member is alive.
[link for game thread]

Welcome to Mini Normal [x]!
You are a

3-shot Gunsmith

.
You get to vote for a lynch every day phase in which you are alive.
During night phase, you can track a person to see if they own a gun. You can use it on only 3 night phases in the game.
You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and at least one town member is alive.
[link for game thread]

Welcome to Mini Normal [x]!
You are an

Ascetic

.
You get to vote for a lynch every day phase in which you are alive.
You cannot get targeted by anyone during the night, except for kills.
You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and at least one town member is alive.
[link for game thread]

Welcome to Mini Normal [x]!
You are a

Bodyguard

.
You get to vote for a lynch every day phase in which you are alive.
During night phase, you have the option of selecting one player to be saved from one kill. If successful, you get killed instead of your target.
You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and at least one town member is alive.
[link for game thread]

Welcome to Mini Normal [x]!
You are a

2-shot Vigilante

.
You get to vote for a lynch every day phase in which you are alive.
During night phase, you have the option of selecting one player to be killed. You can only shoot twice in the game.
You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and at least one town member is alive.
[link for game thread]

Welcome to Mini Normal [x]!
You are a

Vanilla Town

.
You get to vote for a lynch every day phase in which you are alive.
You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and at least one town member is alive.
[link for game thread]

Mafia Roles :

Welcome to Mini Normal [x]!
You are a

Mafia Goon

.
You get to vote for a lynch every day phase in which you are alive.
During night phase, you can talk with your faction members [redacted] and [redacted] in your private thread. You can also carry out the faction kill.
You win when mafia is the only faction that is alive or if nothing can stop that from happening.
[link for game thread]
[link for mafia PT]

Welcome to Mini Normal [x]!
You are a

Mafia Vanilla Cop

.
You get to vote for a lynch every day phase in which you are alive.
During night phase, you can talk with your faction members [redacted] and [redacted] in your private thread. You can also carry out the faction kill. You can check one person to see if they are vanilla or otherwise. You cannot do more than one action on one night.
You win when mafia is the only faction that is alive or if nothing can stop that from happening.
[link for game thread]
[link for mafia PT]

Welcome to Mini Normal [x]!
You are a

Mafia Doctor

.
You get to vote for a lynch every day phase in which you are alive.
During night phase, you can talk with your faction members [redacted] and [redacted] in your private thread. You can also carry out the faction kill. You can protect one person from getting killed on one night. You cannot do more than one action on one night.
You win when mafia is the only faction that is alive or if nothing can stop that from happening.
[link for game thread]
[link for mafia PT]

[chilledtea]

Just for information, the gunsmith will get a

1) "doesn't have a gun" on tracker.
2) "doesn't have a gun" on mafia doctor.
3) "has a gun" on gunsmith itself.
4) "has a gun" on mafia vanilla cop and goon.
5) "has a gun" on vig
6) "doesn't have a gun" on bodyguard.
7) No Result on ascetic.
8) "doesn't have a gun" on all vanilla town.

[chilledtea]

What happened to this?

[Cephrir]

I believe the investigative results should be "XXX doesn't have a gun"/etc. but you probably were just implying that.

What about results for everyone else?

[chilledtea]

The others are relatively simple and encountered more frequently. Vanilla Cop will give vanilla results for goon/VTs and not vanilla for everything else (except ascetic).
Tracker is similar too.

[Marquis]

I'm good with this and am ready to /approve.

Just remember that in the instance of a Tracker tracking another PR to the Ascetic, even if that action was ignored by the Ascetic, the Tracker will still see them visiting that target. Just in case, because that's the only real non-straightforward case of Tracker results. The rest as you probably already know are "visited XXX" or "didn't visit anyone" or "no result", etc.

[chilledtea]

Ok cool. Didn't think of that possibility.

[Cephrir]

Approved

[Ether]

I...have misgivings about this, there's potential for a lot of clears by the gunsmith while the bodyguard slows down the scum's ability to take them out and the vig winnows down the pool of mislynches even if it doesn't hit scum. I think the scum are kind of relying on faux godfather paranoia with their doctor. In a mini, there isn't a ton of difference between a full role and a 3-shot one. The tracker can potentially catch scum in a lie, too, since all of them will be taking actions every night. It's not a guarantee--it's not likely to out the mafia doctor or vanilla cop unless it lives long enough to see them claim vanilla, but...

I dunno. I know scum are favored in minis, but I'm worried about how little breathing room they have here.

[chilledtea]

If the vig does kill townies who are mislynch candidates, then that results in a negative for town as well. They reach lylo/mylo early.

I feel like this is reasonably balanced and there should always be a little room, minis are sometimes too predictable from balance perspective.

[Ether]

Not exactly.

Think of it this way. The town has 4 mislynches, right? That's 4 town-controlled kills. If the vig kills one person, then that's still 4-controlled kills in total; the vig basically just hijacked a future lynch. But if a vig gets both shots in, then that's 5 total town-controlled kills. If town is working from a narrow pool in the first place and the vig is basically acting on that consensus, then that helps it even if both of the vig-controlled kills are on town, as long as it's likely that town would have mislynched them otherwise.

(Or...think of a day with 7 players, one of whom is scum. A townie gets lynched, so six players go to night. If the vig doesn't shoot and scum does, then tomorrow has 5 players, which is two lynches left. If the vig

does

shoot, then tomorrow has 4 players left and that would normally be LyLo--except that if they mislynch town at that point, and the vig is still alive, then it gets to shoot from whoever's left now. In the end, scum have fewer places to hide this way. This example isn't great because that last shot has to hit scum or the town loses, but it applies in situations that aren't LyLo too.)

I mean, there are ways for a vig to make things worse. It could get paranoid about an experienced player who's actually totally on-point, or it could shoot someone without a claim and hit a power role. I'm not, like, anti-vig, I'm just saying that it isn't a net zero on the town, vigs actually do things.

there should always be a little room, minis are sometimes too predictable from balance perspective.

Elaborate?

[chilledtea]

Setup speculation from balance perspective. If there was some doubt behind balance that actually helps in making the game more scumhunting and less setup speculation.

For eg, it should always be a doubtful thing if someone claims "x" role, it shouldn't be easy to clear him/her on the basis of balance. Balance should be a range, starting from a point till another point and something should be considered balanced if it is in those limits.

That was all my opinion.

As far as my experience goes, too many games have a template kind of thing in normals, where in 13 p you are guaranteed to have 3 PRs as town and rarely more than that and that almost clears the PRs as confirmed town.

I am pretty sure that this won't be easy to win for town. If the vig does good shots then it shouldn't go to waste - because of a doctor there is a good chance of that happening. The doctor will have a 33 % chance of stopping a possible kill on his team. Scum has to make good night kill choices too right? The tracker has a chance of outing some of the PRs as well. The doctor could successfully fake-claim as himself. Gunsmith has several possibilities regarding false information.

Nothing is completely concrete when it comes to the town. And limited shots might make it harder for town.

Town play is about teamwork. Some amount of power must be distributed across people. The power shouldn't auto-clear/auto-incriminate anyone imo. It might create discussions, make it easier to have a particular read on someone, etc.

I think the way you are looking at the setup is a bit too much from scum perspective. Scum ultimately will have to play well to win, similar to town.

If town does use its resources effectively as an uninformed team then they kinda deserve the win right? Apart from those two the bodyguard and the ascetic aren't doing much anyways as far as power goes. Bodyguard is mislynch bait as well.

[Marquis]

I wouldn't exactly call the bodyguard mislynch bait - if there were a power role you would consider removing it'd be that, imo. Looking at the setup again, scum is really relying on the Doctor's existence, and if it dies early it'll strengthen the BG claim/Gunsmith/Vig.

I can see both points, and personally I think I'm a bit biased by how lately 13p games have skewed in scum's favor. Or in better wording, scum have won a lot of recent games despite notions of what we've thought was balanced, and in general for any 2-scum-PR setup I'd want to give town more PR agency of its own.

Also, I think the setup would be better off if both of the 3-shot PRs were just simplified to infinite (no modifier). Otherwise it could lead to a situation where they trust/confirm each other more due to the matching X-shot count. Which isn't exactly a reliable way to trust a claim, but it's happened and if we're concerned about town steamrolling (which is more likely than scum steamrolling, even though I think this setup is fairly close to balanced) better to give them less details to check off in other claims.

[Marquis]

2-shot limits the vig, but 3-shot is effectively infinite in a 13p especially with that vig even existing. It won't really make it harder for town and I'd rather see it removed.

And coming back to the Bodyguard, I think it might be better if you wanted to remove or 1-shot that role as well. Taking a bullet still lets one of the strong PRs get results, and come claim time the BG hurts scum, for reasons including that a Bodyguard claim can be more or less checked by GS anyway.

[Cephrir]

personally I think I'm a bit biased by how lately 13p games have skewed in scum's favor. Or in better wording, scum have won a lot of recent games despite notions of what we've thought was balanced, and in general for any 2-scum-PR setup I'd want to give town more PR agency of its own.

This is where I'm coming from. I had a strong reaction to a recent MD thread and definitely feel the expected mini setup of late is a scumsided baseline. I'd like to fix that.

[chilledtea]

I rather 1-shot BG then remove him. Don't want to dilute town. I don't think the two 3-shot claims will confirm each other that way and one can make scum 3-shot as well.

Between a bodyguard claim and a doctor claim, who has a higher chance of being considered town? But yes, the bodyguard might get confirmed if the doctor dies. I feel like that is not something the mod should balance against. After all, a bodyguard is not a provable role.

My problem is I don't think such changes make that much of a difference other than make the setup predictable.

tracker, bg, gsmith, ascet, vig that's 5 pr's with ascet and bg both weak ones, ascet almost being a negative modifier, this should be reasonably balanced considering the x-shots.

Should I give a PR to scum to balance it out? I rather not dilute the town. Giving a PR to scum doesn't make that much of a difference since I will only allow one action per night.

[chilledtea]

Okay, any suggestions regarding this?

[Marquis]

Can you give a quick role distribution summary of where we're at now? still would also like to see 3-shot simplified by just removing the x-shot modifier in that case, makes for a more open ended game setup spec wise.

thinking back on it again 1-shot bg seems too weak, so I'd be fine with Night X- (as in usable up to a certain Night (Night 3- would be usable Nights 1 2 and 3), Odd or Even Night, or Non-Consec for the BG instead. I don't like a case where he can without a doubt just camp on a publicly claimed PR each Night.

[chilledtea]

Is this regarding the 3-shot tracker or gunsmith or one of them or both of them?

I am thinking of giving a 2-shot BG, unlimited tracker, 3-shot gunsmith.

This is the town setup I am looking at this point:

ascetic, (unlimited/3-shot)tracker, 3-shot gunsmith, 2-shot vigilante, 2-shot bodyguard, vanilla town (5)

[Marquis]

I think I'd be okay with that. Tracker can be unlimited.

More and more I'm seeing mini balance as volatile, influenced mostly by playerlist experience and familiarity with each other. I didn't think that meta was so important in the past, but I think lately it's been camaraderie and familiarity among town that gets them grouped up and working together most often.

Idk, I'm rambling. Scum have been winning more often than town and it's hard to diagnose that. I don't think this setup skews too much in town's favor - as in, I don't think I'm intentionally balancing too far in town's favor here, but if Ceph or Ether have more points to make I'm still open to hearing them. Right now the setup looks fine to me, except that the Mafia will be reliant on their Doctor to live (or rather, the existence of which not be revealed for the sake of setup spec) moreso than the usual Mafia power role. I don't think it's that major of an issue though.

[Cephrir]

im good w that

[chilledtea]

Town Setup :

ascetic, tracker, 2-shot bodyguard, 2-shot vig, 3-shot gunsmith, vanilla town (5)

Ether, tell me if you have problems with this.