podoboq's Mini Normal Review

[N]

podoboq has a 13p mini normal to review. Please be aware all reviewers must pass the final version and this topic will be made public after the game has ended.

Reviewers: Antihero, fferyllt, Cephrir

Thanks for getting back to me. Let me know if there's any information I'm missing here.


1. I will be read to run my game when I get to the top of the list.
2. 13 players
3. I do not have a backup/co-mod, but I'm not against having one. I just haven't taken the time to cobble one together.
4. This will be my first modded game on mafia scum. I moderate the party game in person frequently, and I organized a game over Facebook before, but never on an actual forum. It'll be a first time for me. I am alive in one game at the moment.

Setup information

Opening posts:

Mini Normal #____

Playerlist

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Spoiler: Living Players

Living Players

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Spoiler: Dead Players

Spoiler: Sample Vanilla Townie PM

Welcome to Mini Normal #____!

You are a

Vanilla Townie

.

Abilities:

-During the day phase, you may vote and post as normal.

Win Condition:

You win when all threats have been eliminated and there is at least one town-aligned player alive.

Respond by PM with your role to confirm. The game will begin when at least 10 players have confirmed. You can find the game thread here.

The mafia team has day and night chat.

(This rules post lovingly adapted from Rob13 <3)

First, check out the Boilerplate Mafiascum Game Rules. All of the rules on that page apply unless contradicted by a rule below.

All Site Rules apply at all times.

General Rules:

1. Do not use my color (#49007e).
2. If you believe a mod error has been made or you disagree with any action I took, please PM me immediately.
3. Once you are dead, you are permitted to make a single "Bah" post. Do not influence the game in any way with this post.
4. Do not play against the spirit of the rules or of the game.
5. This ruleset is subject to change at any time. If a change is made mid-game, it will be announced in-thread by the mod.

Voting and Deadline Rules:

1. Votes should be made using bolded text (

Vote: Player

) or a vote tag (VOTE: Player). You can also vote for no lynch.
2. A lynch (or no lynch) occurs when a simple majority is reached. If deadline is reached without a simple majority, a no lynch occurs.
3. All days have a deadline of 14 days, sometimes. Things happen, and extensions will be made in rare circumstances.
4. Each night will end after 48 hours and no sooner. The countdown for a night deadline will not start while a replacement is being sought out.
5. All night actions must be submitted by PM or a relevant private topic. I greatly prefer PM.
6. In the case of five consecutive phases with no deaths, all factions who have not yet achieved their win condition lose.

Activity Rules:

1. A prod PM will be issued if any player does not post for 48 hours. Prods will be announced in-thread. You have 24 hours to pick up your prod either by posting or PM (if at night). After this time, I will begin seeking a replacement.
2. I will seek replacement immediately without waiting 24 hours if a player receives a third prod or more.
3. If you plan to be gone for over 48 hours, please announce that you will be V/LA in-thread (or by PM, if at night).

Sample Win Conditions:

You know the following win conditions are present in the game:

You win when all threats have been eliminated and there is at least one town-aligned player alive.

You win when members of your faction are the only living players, or nothing plausible can prevent this outcome.

Role PMs:

Spoiler: Ascetic Townie

Welcome to Mini Normal #____!

You are an

Ascetic Townie

.

Abilities:

-During the day phase, you may vote and post as normal.
-During the night phase, any actions which target you are ignored aside from those which would kill you.

Win Condition:

You win when all threats have been eliminated and there is at least one town-aligned player alive.

Respond by PM with your role to confirm. The game will begin when at least 10 players have confirmed. You can find the game thread here.

Spoiler: Mafia Goon

Welcome to Mini Normal #____!

You are a

Mafia Goon

.

Your partners are

(PLAYER)

, who is a

Mafia Neapolitan

, and

(PLAYER)

, who is a

Mafia Jailkeeper

.

Abilities:

-During the day phase, you may vote and post as normal.
-You share a factional PT, located here, where you may talk during day and night.
-You share a factional kill each night. You must choose which of you will commit the kill.

Win Condition:

You win when members of your faction are the only living players, or nothing plausible can prevent this outcome.

Respond by PM with your role to confirm. The game will begin when at least 10 players have confirmed. You can find the game thread here.

Spoiler: Mafia Jailkeeper

Welcome to Mini Normal #____!

You are a

Mafia Jailkeeper

.

Your partners are

(PLAYER)

, who is a

Mafia Neapolitan

, and

(PLAYER)

, who is a

Mafia Goon

.

Abilities:

-During the day phase, you may vote and post as normal.
-You share a factional PT, located here, where you may talk during day and night.
-You share a factional kill each night. You must choose which of you will commit the kill.

-During the night phase, you may choose another player. That player will not be able to perform any of their night actions, and will also be protected from any incoming attacks that night.

Win Condition:

You win when members of your faction are the only living players, or nothing plausible can prevent this outcome.

Respond by PM with your role to confirm. The game will begin when at least 10 players have confirmed. You can find the game thread here.

Spoiler: Mafia Neapolitan

Welcome to Mini Normal #____!

You are a

Mafia Neapolitan

.

Your partners are

(PLAYER)

, who is a

Mafia Jailkeeper

, and

(PLAYER)

, who is a

Mafia Goon

.

Abilities:

-During the day phase, you may vote and post as normal.
-You share a factional PT, located here, where you may talk during day and night.
-You share a factional kill each night. You must choose which of you will commit the kill.

-During the night phase, you may choose a player. You will be told if that player is a Vanilla Townie. You will receive results in the form of “Your target is vanilla,” or “Your target is not vanilla.”

Win Condition:

You win when members of your faction are the only living players, or nothing plausible can prevent this outcome.

Respond by PM with your role to confirm. The game will begin when at least 10 players have confirmed. You can find the game thread here.

Spoiler: Town odd-night Cop

Welcome to Mini Normal #____!

You are a

Town odd-night Cop

.

Abilities:

-During the day phase, you may vote and post as normal.
-During each odd night phase, you may choose another player. You will be told if that player is a member of the town team or the mafia team. Your results will come in the form of “Your target is a member of the town,” or “Your target is a member of the mafia.”

Win Condition:

You win when all threats have been eliminated and there is at least one town-aligned player alive.

Respond by PM with your role to confirm. The game will begin when at least 10 players have confirmed. You can find the game thread here.

Spoiler: Town Deputy

Welcome to Mini Normal #____!

You are a

Town Deputy

.

Abilities:

-During the day phase, you may vote and post as normal.
-If a doctor dies, you will gain all of their abilities.

Win Condition:

You win when all threats have been eliminated and there is at least one town-aligned player alive.

Respond by PM with your role to confirm. The game will begin when at least 10 players have confirmed. You can find the game thread here.

Spoiler: Town Jailkeeper

Welcome to Mini Normal #____!

You are a

Town Jailkeeper

.

Abilities:

-During the day phase, you may vote and post as normal.
-During the night phase, you may choose another player. That player will not be able to perform any of their night actions, and will also be protected from any incoming attacks that night.

Win Condition:

You win when all threats have been eliminated and there is at least one town-aligned player alive.

Respond by PM with your role to confirm. The game will begin when at least 10 players have confirmed. You can find the game thread here.

Spoiler: Town Motion Detector

Welcome to Mini Normal #____!

You are a

Town Motion Detector

.

Abilities:

-During the day phase, you may vote and post as normal.
-During the night phase, you may choose a player. You will be told if that player visited or was visited by another player. You will not be told which actions were performed, or by whom. The results you will receive will be either "You did not detect any motion," or "You have detected motion."

Win Condition:

You win when all threats have been eliminated and there is at least one town-aligned player alive.

Respond by PM with your role to confirm. The game will begin when at least 10 players have confirmed. You can find the game thread here.

Spoiler: Vanilla Townie

Welcome to Mini Normal #____!

You are a

Vanilla Townie

.

Abilities:

-During the day phase, you may vote and post as normal.

Win Condition:

You win when all threats have been eliminated and there is at least one town-aligned player alive.

Respond by PM with your role to confirm. The game will begin when at least 10 players have confirmed. You can find the game thread here.

Hidden moderator information

The setup is 4x Vanilla Townie, 2x Ascetic Townie, 1x Town Motion Detector, 1x Town Jailkeeper, 1x Town odd-night Cop, 1x Town Deputy, 1x Mafia Goon, 1x Mafia Jailkeeper, and 1x Mafia Neapolitan.

In the case of both jailkeepers targetting eachother at night, neither is protected, and both lose any other actions they are attempting to perform that night. Essentially, they both end up role blocked, but not protected.

Motion Detector receives results in the form of "You have detected motion," "You did not detect any motion," or "no result" in the case of targeting an ascetic or being role blocked.

Cop receives results in the form of "Your target is a member of the town," "Your target is a member of the mafia," or "no result" in the case of targeting an ascetic or being role blocked.

Mafia Neapolitan receives results in the form of "Your target is vanilla," "Your target is not vanilla," or "no result" in the case of targeting an ascetic or being role blocked.

[Antihero]

town loses this 9.9 times / 10

[Antihero]

ok a few things:

> i don't think you gave town enough power to justify giving scum a blocking ability, much less a blocking ability AND an investigative
> the two town ascetics are comically, over-the-top neg utility. even forgetting about the probable "counterclaim" war that's going to happen, it's two townies that can't be confirmed by the (already gated by the odd-night modifier) cop and can't be protected by the jk
> the results you gave for the scum "neapolitan" are actually results a vanilla cop would get. neapolitans get results in the form of "vanilla townie" or "not vanilla townie"

[Antihero]

i think even w/ an all goon scum team, this setup would still be scumsided

[fferyllt]

I like the 2 ascetics, but I have a twisted sense of humor. I'd remove the gate modifier on the cop, though.

[podoboq]

Hey everybody. I'll let you know right off the bat, I do not trust myself to balance a normal yet. Less than a year site experience, and only one actually normal game (I like role madness), so I was jumping in under the assumption that my setup would need a lot of work.

As such, I kinda just wanted to get something rough out there, that encapsulates a lot of the ideas I wanted to use. Please, help me rip this apart and turn it into something I can actually run!

> the two town ascetics are comically, over-the-top neg utility. even forgetting about the probable "counterclaim" war that's going to happen, it's two townies that can't be confirmed by the (already gated by the odd-night modifier) cop and can't be protected by the jk

I want the two town ascetics to balance out strong town power. So I would rather up the power of town, or lower the power of scum to justify the inclusion of two ascetics, instead of removing them altogether. Definitely the part of the game I wanted to play with the most.

You say that even a game with all mafia goons would favor scum with this setup. How much do we fix by removing the mafia jailkeeper (turn it into mafia goon), and making the cop each night? Does that leave it scum-sided.

[podoboq]

> the results you gave for the scum "neapolitan" are actually results a vanilla cop would get. neapolitans get results in the form of "vanilla townie" or "not vanilla townie"

Understood. I was misunderstanding what "vanilla" meant in context, and didn't understand that mafia goons and serial killer technically return vanilla to a vanilla cop. I will update the role PM so that it's accurate to Neapolitan.

[Antihero]

I want the two town ascetics to balance out strong town power. So I would rather up the power of town, or lower the power of scum to justify the inclusion of two ascetics, instead of removing them altogether. Definitely the part of the game I wanted to play with the most.

totally fair. i'm not saying "never be unpredictable and throw a curve ball" but for this you actually do need to give town some power

[Antihero]

You say that even a game with all mafia goons would favor scum with this setup. How much do we fix by removing the mafia jailkeeper (turn it into mafia goon), and making the cop each night? Does that leave it scum-sided.

'mkay so if you're leaving the scum neapolitan you've got

2 goons, 1 neapolitan
vs
1 cop, 1 deputy, 1 jailkeeper, 1 motion detector, 2 ascetic, 4 vt

since there's as many PRs as VTs, that means the neapolitan is going to be finding PRs pretty frequently

in general you want 3 decent PRs. cop and jailkeeper are decent, deputy is middling. i'd do something else with that motion detector. that role's only useful in very specific situations (1 scum alive gives them potential for definitive clears)

[podoboq]

You say that even a game with all mafia goons would favor scum with this setup. How much do we fix by removing the mafia jailkeeper (turn it into mafia goon), and making the cop each night? Does that leave it scum-sided.

'mkay so if you're leaving the scum neapolitan you've got

2 goons, 1 neapolitan
vs
1 cop, 1 deputy, 1 jailkeeper, 1 motion detector, 2 ascetic, 4 vt

since there's as many PRs as VTs, that means the neapolitan is going to be finding PRs pretty frequently

in general you want 3 decent PRs. cop and jailkeeper are decent, deputy is middling. i'd do something else with that motion detector. that role's only useful in very specific situations (1 scum alive gives them potential for definitive clears)

I'm not married to the neapolitan. I want some kind of investigative role that gets an odd result from an Ascetic, and that was the first one that came to mind. I'm very open to changing it.

Gonna go look for a better town PR to add in. I'm definitely happy changing the cop to be all-nights.

[podoboq]

How about Tracker instead of Motion Detector? Seems better for town, and doesn't have a very negative interaction with Ascetics (who don't have a night action to track anyway).

[fferyllt]

Wait, I thought the deputy was useless in this setup. Would the deputy inherit the dead jailkeeper's protection?

[podoboq]

Wait, I thought the deputy was useless in this setup. Would the deputy inherit the dead jailkeeper's protection?

Deputy is backup cop.

[podoboq]

However, I have a stupid typo in my role pm. It says they inherit the abilities of a "Doctor." Whoops. Will correct that

[Cephrir]

I like the direction we've already moved in. I think cop is pretty strong, and cop-deputy-tracker-jk might be excessive?

[Antihero]

I think cop is pretty strong, and cop-deputy-tracker-jk might be excessive?

usually, maybe

but here we're trying to compensate for 2 ascetics

[Cephrir]

True. It's hard to work around that.

[podoboq]

True. It's hard to work around that.

If I have to sacrifice the idea of two ascetics in a game this small in order to make the game normal (in the everyday sense), I'm open to doing that. I've also considered the possibility of giving the ascetic modifier to one of the town PRs instead, but it somewhat stifles the reason I wanted to have two ascetics in the first place.

[Antihero]

to me... the only way this could get townsided is if town's smart enough to figure out that podo is throwing a curveball and townreads the two ascetics on role. i very, very, very much doubt that's going to happen

am i being too cynical?

[Cephrir]

I wouldn't say it's out of the question. But I certainly wouldn't have a lot of faith. Those players are gonna have to look town, and maybe pray neither of them ever get investigated? Which could happen with only the one cop. If they both claim right away, they might both get townread as well. I bet the town wouldn't lynch BOTH of them.

I think there's got to be a way we can make it work.

[Cephrir]

Also to some extent if a town sees two ascetic claims and says yeah we're definitely lynching both of those regardless of play or anything else then they kind of deserve to lose.

[podoboq]

Alright, so right now we're looking at the setup as 4x Vanilla Townie, 2x Ascetic Townie, 1x Town Tracker, 1x Town Jailkeeper, 1x Town Cop, 1x Town Deputy, 2x Mafia Goon, and 1x Mafia Neapolitan.

[fferyllt]

Anecdotal story and all, but my second micro game at ms had 2 millers who claimed in their first posts. We didn't lynch either of them.

I really like the 2x ascetic aspect of the setup.

[podoboq]

Anecdotal story and all, but my second micro game at ms had 2 millers who claimed in their first posts. We didn't lynch either of them.

I really like the 2x ascetic aspect of the setup.

I'm glad you like it. I'm really excited to run it

Let me know if there's anything else I need to do to work on this setup. If I get the all clear (or if I just get bored), I'll start updating all of my assets.

[Antihero]

go ahead and update the role pm's. i think i probably like this