Normal Roles

[Nexus]

What roles that are currently non-normal, or greylist, do you want to see on the Normal List?

In order to get decent responses, I would like:

1. The role
2. A sample PM
3. A reason why you think it should be on the Normal List

This is the advance on some new ideas for the Normal Queue that I am working on.

Thanks

Nexus

[beeboy]

1. Hider
2. Each night you may target a player and hide behind them. You will become untargetable that night and if your target has an anti-town wincon or is killed you will die. (prolly a better way to word this)0
3. It's a pretty interesting and standard mafia role which is a lot more skill testing then other powerful PRs like watcher/cop and I want to see it in more games.


Can't really think of other roles I think belong in the normal role list.

[mastina]

• Fruit Vendor
  (which for some ungodly reason doesn't even have its own fucking page in spite of it being a standardized role we've used for literally YEARS that is universally known and understood):
  1. ROLE:
     Currently listed on the Visitor page, it is a nerfed version of a friendly neighbor: a player gives information to another player, but that information contains no inherent definitive alignment.
     
  2. SAMPLE PM:

     Code: Select all

     During the night, you may target a player. That player will be told they have received a piece of fruit, but not who sent it.

     
     
  3. WHY TO ADD:
     This is a role which is so common and universal that it's frankly dumbfounding it's not already whitelisted. In fact, many reviewers (myself included) can even sometimes FORGET that it's technically not a whitelisted role. It's
     that
     common.
     
     The role has seen use countless times in an endless number of games. It sees use on JOATs, and it has many variants. (For instance, an increasingly popular variant is the Loud Fruit Vendor.) It is a role which is so common, easy to understand, and universal in definition that it is easy to add modifiers. Loyal fruit vendor, for instance. The role simply has no reason to NOT be whitelisted. How common, exactly, is it?
     
     In the Normal Queue alone, there are 507 matches for the term. (Approximately.) Spread across 43 topics spanning AT LEAST two years back.
     Sitewide, it's 3619 and counting mentions, in 606 topics. It has a unique function in games and is universal. There's no way a person can look at "fruit vendor" and not know what role they are getting. They know exactly what it is, and its commonality makes it a great addition to the whitelist which is long-overdo.

[Alisae]

1. Arsonist
2. During the night, you can douse someone. During the night, you may ignite, which will cause all Doused targets to catch fire, causing them to die at the end of the night unless protected by a Firefighter. You cannot use Douse and Ignite on the same night.
3. Its BASICLY a delayed vigilante. Like, this doesn't have to be limited to SK only, it can be a town role as well (and a scum role but probably not for normal games). Mods just don't put them in games for some reason even though Vigilante or a normal SK if you REALLY want to make it third party is just basicly better.

While we're at it

1. Firefighter
2. During the night, you may target someone. You will protect your target from being doused in accelerant and protect them from being ignited. You cannot target yourself.
3. If the above were to be approved, might as well have the role that counters it.


Also I'm nthing the Fruit Vendor and hider btw.

[Espeonage]

1. The role: Chocolate Townie / Named Townie
2. A sample PM

You will appear as Non-Vanilla to any roles that receive results in the form of Vanilla/Non-Vanilla

3. A reason why you think it should be on the Normal List

We already have false negatives/positives in the form of Miller and Ninja in the explicitly normal. This, much like Fruit Vendor above are used to tone back the power of certain investigative roles without clearing a scum (ala Godfather) which provides a balance tool where it is needed for mods.

I would argue that if this were not allowed to be normal then Miller should come out of the Normal pool.

[acidphoenix]

ninja as modifier and universal instead of scum limited

You are a <alignment> <ninja> <other role.>

<description of other role.> Any night actions you take cannot be seen by roles that get results based on the actions players performed.

honestly i don't see why this is alignment restricted in the first place / not listed as a modifier

edit: strongman too

[acidphoenix]

1. The role: Chocolate Townie / Named Townie
2. A sample PM

You will appear as Non-Vanilla to any roles that receive results in the form of Vanilla/Non-Vanilla

3. A reason why you think it should be on the Normal List

We already have false negatives/positives in the form of Miller and Ninja in the explicitly normal. This, much like Fruit Vendor above are used to tone back the power of certain investigative roles without clearing a scum (ala Godfather) which provides a balance tool where it is needed for mods.

I would argue that if this were not allowed to be normal then Miller should come out of the Normal pool.

ftr i agree with this but i would argue that miller should come out of the normal pool regardless; as far as i can tell it only adds dumb wifom to the game rather than any sort of interesting mechanic

i'd be fine with named <alignment> existing and miller being removed too

edit based on lack of responses in ms discord: why is Delayed explicitly non-normal

[AxleGreaser]

Blue sky thinking / kite flying.

Role or mechanic: LyloProxyHammer (name needs work too)
This is not at this time suggestion for a normal role or normal mechanic.

Strong Reason

: TBMK it has never been play tested once.
Done.

---

It is however a mechanic that I think could be considered normal if it is found not to have bad unexpected side effects.

Effect:

When enabled by consenting posts in the scum PT(?). One scum player can with one post vote for the entire consenting part of the team.

ProxyVote: PlayerX

Limitation: Must be announced. (not a surprise to town)

Use case: At LYLO 1 scum player in one continent (TZ) casts the vote that hammers, the day. In terms of balance this tilts setups slightly towards scum, vs the case where players either have to play the day out in a more usual way or have rearranged their IRL to synchronize the hammer. The goal is to reduce the amount players tradeoff of {IRL vs wincon} and
make it more about skill at mafia (AKA normal mafia).

It also reduces how much people make reads in mafia during LYLO based on knowledge of other players IRL availability to synchronize hammer. Also a good thing (normality enhancing) by making the game more about making reads on post contents made during the game not on outside potentially personal knowledge.

If the scum player messes up and it does not hammer the day out? The role then leaves them as the only outed player. : yes that's an extra advantage over the splat of the entire scum team wagon piling to hammer vote when they have miscounted. Also produces fewer farcical(unsatisfying) endgame scenarios.

However it does move the game in a direction I think is "normal", makes the game about posting and reads not mechanics. Makes the game a thing you can do without it consuming your IRL.

Other possible names for such a Mechanic:

Mechanical Advantage

. (scum are assumed to be able to coordinate themselves when required to hammer.)
When town get themselves outplayed and in LYLO, and Town votes Town, any one Scum can mechanically win the game by Proxy voting.
I might even allow scum to ask for a vote count in the Scum PT. AKA get mod confirmation that as of post XXX in main the wagon is at L-3

Other theoretical potential situations? With plurality lynch at 2v2 it is TBMK an assumed scum win (AKA win condition achieved), It needs to be to avoid this.
If both townies vote scum first then theirs is the wagon to reach 2 first and so gets lynched. Mechanical advantage assume scum votes first at day break if they choose to.

dons flame proof undies. /out

[mastina]

In general, I'm not in favor of removing perfectly acceptable roles from games which have noted prior utility; we should generally be

adding

to the whitelist, not

shrinking

it.

[acidphoenix]

i agree as a matter of principle but think the existence of miller actively detracts from games, because i don't think the wifom presented by it is good in any way for a

i don't think miller should be removed from the whitelist EXCEPT to put it on the blacklist, but i would rather it be on the blacklist than left on the whitelist

i would extend the first part of the above to all roles, not just miller (no role should be removed from the whitelist without


idk if it deserves explicit whitelisting but i can't think of a good reason for delayed / town arsonist to be explicitly non-normal

vanillaiser / neutral arsonist should probably be removed from the blacklist also but i understand reasons for them to be blacklisted at least

[Smocaine]

1. Arsonist
2. During the night, you can douse someone. During the night, you may ignite, which will cause all Doused targets to catch fire, causing them to die at the end of the night unless protected by a Firefighter. You cannot use Douse and Ignite on the same night.
3. Its BASICLY a delayed vigilante. Like, this doesn't have to be limited to SK only, it can be a town role as well (and a scum role but probably not for normal games). Mods just don't put them in games for some reason even though Vigilante or a normal SK if you REALLY want to make it third party is just basicly better.

While we're at it

1. Firefighter
2. During the night, you may target someone. You will protect your target from being doused in accelerant and protect them from being ignited. You cannot target yourself.
3. If the above were to be approved, might as well have the role that counters it.


Also I'm nthing the Fruit Vendor and hider btw.

[beeboy]

1. Arsonist
2. During the night, you can douse someone. During the night, you may ignite, which will cause all Doused targets to catch fire, causing them to die at the end of the night unless protected by a Firefighter. You cannot use Douse and Ignite on the same night.
3. Its BASICLY a delayed vigilante. Like, this doesn't have to be limited to SK only, it can be a town role as well (and a scum role but probably not for normal games). Mods just don't put them in games for some reason even though Vigilante or a normal SK if you REALLY want to make it third party is just basicly better.

While we're at it

1. Firefighter
2. During the night, you may target someone. You will protect your target from being doused in accelerant and protect them from being ignited. You cannot target yourself.
3. If the above were to be approved, might as well have the role that counters it.


Also I'm nthing the Fruit Vendor and hider btw.

[Nexus]

Yeah empty quoting and nthing is not going to make any difference. It’s more likely to just turn me off.

[callforjudgement]

Fruit Vendor

(which for some ungodly reason doesn't even have its own fucking page in spite of it being a standardized role we've used for literally YEARS that is universally known and understood):

You missed one of the most important parts: "You cannot use this action at the same time as another action." That way using the role confirms not only your own role, but also your actions that night, which is fairly important.

With that fix, I have no objections (and it's a role that I'd have no problems allowing in a game right now via the greylist mechanism; a quick archive check found at least five Normal games with one, although oddly it was as an SK in two of them?).

[callforjudgement]

Meanwhile, I'd like to argue against whitelisting/unblacklisting the Arsonist; it's a role that fundamentally changes the nature of the game (in that the set of doused players has a huge impact on the game's balance but isn't publicly known). In some ways, an Arsonist game is like a Cult game; although it's not as bad, because alignments don't change, scumhunting works very differently. It's comparable to no-reveal, except you don't even know who died.

The main reason Hider isn't whitelisted right now is that there are a huge number of different versions of it and people couldn't agree on exactly how it was meant to work. One potential problem with it is that it's hard to balance a setup around it because it's so strong; in particular, a Hider can safely claim without major downsides (the only real problem is that it then becomes harder for them to breadcrumb their target, as scum will naturally be looking for the crumb), meaning that you have a "follow the Cop" one-player combo (rather than needing two like in a regular setup). In most cases, Weak Cop (which is already whitelisted) is a more dayplay-focused replacement. That said, being overly powerful doesn't appear to be a reason to make a role abNormal, seeing as we have Watcher on there; a role can always be toned down with modifiers.


Incidentally, right now there are no roles that I'd really push for to be made Normal; I'd encourage people to keep experimenting with the greylist. Babysitter looks promising but it hasn't been tested enough yet to really be worth recommending. Activated would probably not be out of place – I'd give it a greylist approval without second thought – but it might be a bit too "mechanical" / "not a real role" to be worth actually putting on the list.

[mastina]

You missed one of the most important parts: "You cannot use this action at the same time as another action."

No, I did not.

That is deliberately not part of the role.

That is something defined on the moderation level, and something most likely public in the first post: whether mafia can use a nightkill in addition to a night action or not.

It is entirely valid to have a mafia fruit vendor which can both kill and action.

You might think that is pointless, but it's not. The mafia fruit vendor which has the ability to kill and action can still act as a confirmation of role without confirmation of alignment...and that is absolutely something valuable in of itself to have.

Whether mafia can kill and action is not something which should ever be defined in the role.
It is something which should be defined in the RULES.

[mastina]

Whether mafia can kill and action is not something which should ever be defined in the role.
It is something which should be defined in the RULES.

See also: other mafia roles.

We don't specify whether roleblockers can universally action or kill in the Normal guidelines for good reason--
...Because it is on the moderator to decide if a mafia roleblocker can both kill and action.
Some mods will say they cannot.
Others will say they can.

It can even be the difference in balance.
A mafia roleblocker who cannot action and kill is inherently weaker for the mafia than one which CAN action and kill.

Yet the normal guidelines allow for both, with it being the moderator defining which it is in their game. (And the responsibility of the reviewer to ask.)

That's more or less why having it as part of the role I would not be okay with; it is something which the moderator should decide, not the Normal Guidelines.

[mastina]

(Incidentally I know that at the very least two of my mini normals used a fruit vendor, and in both games my rules publicly stated that mafia could both kill and action. I also am well aware however that there is a history behind having fruit vendors in games where mafia cannot both kill and action. But again, for me this is an individual-moderator call, not something we should universally make one be the case and therefore innately remove the chance of using the other.)

[callforjudgement]

I consider the Fruit Vendor to be so inherently tied to the "cannot kill and action" mechanic that the mechanic comes along with the role, even if it isn't in use elsewhere in the game. (That is, even in a game where scum normally can kill and action, they can't kill and fruit-vend.)

Besides, if a Fruit Vendor can perform other actions at the same time, the role is just a Visitor; you can confirm you're a Fruit Vendor but you can't confirm that you don't have another role too. A confirmed fruit-vend doesn't mean anything unless it's mutually exclusive of

something

.

[zoraster]

Maybe it would help if a template were provided for role pms?

[Not Known 15]

I support Hider and Fruit Vendor.
Also potentially this nice role:

1.Role:Vanillaizer
2.

You are a Vanillaizer. You are aligned with the Town/Mafia/You are the Serial Killer.
Each night you may target one person to vanillaize. If they are not Vanilla, they will turn into Vanilla(Goon for Mafia) and they will be told that they were vanillaized. Vanillaizing has instant effect, the target shows up as Vanilla to Vanilla Cop and Rolecop, for example, and their role action(not faction kill) for the same night is disabled.

3. Yes, it is not widely used... because it is blacklisted(and cannot be used in normals). It can be added as a strong tool for the Mafia(or even the Serial Killer) to allow them to bypass any doc/Bodyguard protection to neutralize a power role threat while eliminating other more pressing threats first(unless the target is Ascetic or Commuter). It seems to be a really interesting but powerful role(so powerful that you will rarely see it in full ability). In the hands of Town, it can be a huge liability if someone indiscriminately uses it. But it can be also an asset, especially if someone claims a low power role and then does not report being vanillaized(because they were a goon). Or you throw it into the game as fake guilty for Rolecops(no please do not restrict it to evils).
It looks like a really nice role. Of course, due to its power for scum it needs to be handled with care but that is a thing for reviewers.
(Note: I deliberately used this version as this version makes the Vanillaizer a more powerful(permanent) roleblocker with feedback(but it also changes Rolecop results and Vanilla cop results) that does not run into any problems with delay or, far worse, fake role results.)

[Alisae]

Meanwhile, I'd like to argue against whitelisting/unblacklisting the Arsonist; it's a role that fundamentally changes the nature of the game (in that the set of doused players has a huge impact on the game's balance but isn't publicly known). In some ways, an Arsonist game is like a Cult game; although it's not as bad, because alignments don't change, scumhunting works very differently. It's comparable to no-reveal, except you don't even know who died.

I don't really understnad how a town Arso does this?

[callforjudgement]

Dousing doesn't do anything until you ignite, so the number of currently doused players has a high impact on how powerful the role is. Additionally, the Arsonist doesn't want to reveal, or they risk getting killed before they can get a good ignite off. As a result, the balance of the game depends strongly on the alignment and number of the doused players (the number of doused players isn't predictable because they can die through other means).

A vig kills players and flips them. An Arsonist sort-of kills players without flipping them (yet), and with a chance that they won't die at all. Which one sounds more like a Normal role, and which one sounds more like a Theme role?

[Zachrulez]

i agree as a matter of principle but think the existence of miller actively detracts from games, because i don't think the wifom presented by it is good in any way for a

i don't think miller should be removed from the whitelist EXCEPT to put it on the blacklist, but i would rather it be on the blacklist than left on the whitelist

i would extend the first part of the above to all roles, not just miller (no role should be removed from the whitelist without

Is the miller role still actually on the whitelist? It should be blacklisted for the same reason the godfather role was blacklisted.

... Either that or both are whitelisted. You can't really do something to one role while not doing the same to the other.

[Something_Smart]

1. Role: Vengeful

2. You are a [Town/Mafia] Vengeful. If you are lynched, you will immediately have the opportunity to kill any other player. That player will die and their role will be revealed before the night begins.

3. Vengeful is a widely used role that does not contain any mechanics that are unreasonably confusing or misleading, except that it can potentially bite quickhammering scum in the butt (although it's always their prerogative to not attempt to quickhammer). It allows for some creative play as a role whose main utility is being lynched, and it can introduce the possibility of more town-aligned kills without the downside of vigilantes being cleared. In the same vein, it can bring town back onto odd numbers, at the cost of lynching someone who's most likely town (and scum vengeful claim gambits would become a possibility).

Mods should probably be given the choice of whether to deactivate it in LYLO, since scum vengefuls are VERY strong and if not deactivated in LYLO they are almost game-breaking if they are not the last scum alive. This is something that the NRG would need to be on the watch for as it could have a huge impact on balance, but I don't think it's impossible to deal with. Or even if you don't think it's something they should have to deal with (given that I could see new mods wanting a scum vengeful and reviewers not realizing quite how powerful it is), vengeful could be made a town-only role. It's not exactly confirmable anyway.