inspectorscout's Mini Normal Review

[N]

inspectorscout 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: mastin2, TellTaleHeart, Cogito Ergo Sum

Hey N!

I'm ready to mod when I hit the top of the queue.
My game will be a 13 player game. It is the first game game I am modding.
I have a qualified back-up moderator, Foxbird.
I have no current modding commitments, but I will be the back-up moderator of Foxbird's mini normal, which is currently in the process of being reviewed.

My setup is finished.
=============

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

I will be your moderator during this game! If, for some reason, I can't completely do what I have to do (i.e. regular votecounts, resolving night actions in time, ...), my awesome back-up moderator, Foxbird, will take good care of all of you!

Playerlist

Player 1
Player 2
Player 3
Player 4
Player 5
Player 6
Player 7
Player 8
Player 9
Player 10
Player 11
Player 12
Player 13

Spoiler: Living Players

Spoiler: Dead Players

Spoiler: Modkilled

==================================

Game Rules

All Forum Rules and Guidelines should be followed, along with the following rules.

Deadlines

• Day phases will last fourteen days.
  
• Night phases will last two days.

General Rules

• Do not quote your role PM, what has been said in PT's or other private communication. Paraphrasing is generally fine.
  
• Keep the game in this thread, and in the PT's you were given access to by the mod. Do not contact anyone outside of these threads about the game.
  
• This is my mod colour. Do not use it.
  
• Do not discuss ongoing games. Meta from finished games is fine.
  
• Do not use encrypted or hard-to-see text (including "invisible" text, text below the 50% text size option, or text hidden via BBCode (not including spoilered text)).

Activity

• If a player doesn't post in-game after a period of 72 hours, I will prod that player.
  
• If a player is prodded, that player has 24 hours to make an in-game post with actual content, not just a prod dodge. If they don't, they will be force-replaced.
  
• If a player received 3 prods and/or prod-dodges excessively, that player will be subject to a force-replace.
  
• Setting a V/LA tag alone is not accepted. Please tell me (in bold) when and for how long you will be VL/A, preferably a few days in advance. If you are going to be V/LA for longer than 1-2 weeks, you might want to request a replacement.

Votes and Lynching

• Votes must be in the format of VOTE: Player Name or
  VOTE: Player Name
  . As long as I understand who you are voting for, it's fine. If it looks like a vote, it will count as a vote.
  
• Unvoting when changing your vote is not necessary, but welcome.
  
• A player will be lynched if half of the living players +1 have voted for that player.
  
• You may vote for a
  No Lynch
  . If half of the living players vote for a No Lynch, the game will proceed to Night without a lynch.
  
• If a lynch is not achieved at deadline, no lynch will occur.
  
• The game goes to twilight once a lynch has been achieved. You may continue to post until I lock the thread.
  
• Once dead, you may post a single ''bah post''. These may not include any information that could have any relevance to the game. After that, you are no longer allowed to post in any game thread (except the dead thread) until the game is over

Behavior

• Harassment of an individual player is NOT permitted. While this is a competitive game, no personal attacks will be tolerated.
  
• Always play to your win condition.
  
• Do not discuss this game anywhere else with anyone else unless your role allows you to. Private topics will be provided.
  
  
  Breaking the rules
  
  
• If you break the rules, you will be modkilled.
  
• Pretending to break the rules also counts as breaking the rules.
  
• I have the right to change the rules at any time, if needed. I will notify you if this happens.

Setup

• This is a closed setup.
  
• The town-mafia ratio is confirmed to be 10-3.
  
• This game is confirmed to be non-multiball.
  
• Mafia does NOT have daytalk.
  
• Mafia can do the factional nightkill next to their other abilities, if any.
  
• This setup has been reviewed for balance and normalcy by [insert great, perfect, very cool people here]
  
• There is at least 1 person with this role PM:

Spoiler: Sample Role PM

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Vanilla Townie.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.

You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

================
Setup:
1x Mafia Roleblocker
1x Mafia 1-shot Ninja
1x Mafia Goon

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
1x Town 1-shot Bulletproof
6x Vanilla Townies

================

Role PM's:

Spoiler: Vanilla Townie

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Vanilla Townie.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.

You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Town Watcher

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Town Watcher.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- At night, you may target a player. You will be told who visited that player that night.

You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Town Neighborizer

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Town Neighborizer.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- At night, you may target a player. If your action succeeds, that person will be permanently added to your neighborhood, where you may chat during the night.

You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Town Jailkeeper

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Town Jailkeeper.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- At night, you may target a person. That person will be roleblocked. You will also protect them against a nightkill.

You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Town 1-Shot Bulletproof

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Town 1-Shot Bulletproof.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- Once during the game, if you are killed at night, you will survive. You will not be notified when this happens. This does not prevent death by lynch.

You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Mafia Goon

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Mafia Goon.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- You share a factional kill with [name], Mafia Roleblocker and [name], Mafia 1-shot Ninja.
- You may talk with the other mafia members here at night.

You win when all members of the town are eliminated, or when nothing can prevent this from happening.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Mafia Roleblocker

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Mafia Roleblocker.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- At night, you may target a person. That person will be roleblocked that night.
- You share a factional kill with [name], Mafia Goon and [name], Mafia 1-shot Ninja.
- You may talk with the other mafia members here at night.

You win when all members of the town are eliminated, or when nothing can prevent this from happening.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Mafia 1-Shot Ninja

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Mafia 1-Shot Ninja.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- Once during the game, if you perform the factional nightkill, you may choose to make it a ninja kill. This will prevent anyone from seeing you visiting anyone that night.
- You share a factional kill with [name], Mafia Roleblocker and [name], Mafia Goon.
- You may talk with the other mafia members here at night.

You win when all members of the town are eliminated, or when nothing can prevent this from happening.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

=================

Action resolution:
Roleblocker/jailkeeper (if they target each other, whoever submitted first gets their action resolved first.)
Factional nightkill
Neighborizer
Watcher

If the neighborizer is killed the night he adds someone to his neighborhood, he will not be able to add his target. He will therefore not be seen by the watcher.
Bulletproof is a passive modifier and cannot be roleblocked.
No feedback given to: Factional kill, Neighborizer, Jailkeeper, Roleblocker, 1-Shot Bulletproof, 1-shot Ninja.
Watcher gets results as:
If nobody visited their target: "Your target was not visited."
If their target was visited: "Your target was visited by [player]"
If the watcher was jailkept/roleblocked: "No result."

If this setup is not advised due to coflicting roles, I could make the jailkeeper a doctor and the 1-shot ninja a 1-shot strongman.

[mastin2]

If you're gonna have a role to counter the watcher, you don't need to double-down on it.
So basically, the roleblocker is redundant with the watcher.

I'd just nix the roleblocker and have it be the 1x ninja. With that, I'd be pretty ready to call it balanced pretty much, but with the roleblocker, I'd say heavily scumsided: town has very little power, and what little they have is countered twice by scum.

[TellTaleHeart]

Hi inspectorscout! I remember you from my newbie game. ^_^
It's nice to see you still around.

[TellTaleHeart]

I have to agree with mastin that overall this is a scumsided setup.

On your scumteam, you have the roleblocker as a general counter and a ninja as a counter to the watcher. I recognize that watcher is a very powerful role so I can understand your decision to include the ninja. Given that the watcher and the jailkeeper are town's only real powers in this setup, I don't agree with including a roleblocker which is going to allow scum to shut down those powers quickly.

Additionally, the 1-shot Bulletproof and Jailkeeper combination on the town side reduces the individual utility of both. It creates situations where it's ambiguous if a missed kill is the result of the bulletproof or the jailkeep. You saw this for yourself in the newbie game: scum tried to kill Huntress and she didn't die because she was bulletproof, but the missing kill made the jailkeeper think he'd successfully jailed scum.

If the neighborizer is killed the night he adds someone to his neighborhood, he will not be able to add his target. He will therefore not be seen by the watcher.

Killing the neighborizer causes his action to fail? What is the rationale behind that?

[TellTaleHeart]

If a player doesn't post in-game after a period of 72 hours, I will prod that player.

The generally used prod timer for mini games is 48 hours. I've only seen large games use 72 hours as the prod timer.
While won't have to prod players as much, it might make your game drag a little.

[inspectorscout]

Hello guys, thanks for reviewing my setup!

@mastin: is only a 1-shot ninja a bit useless? I added it in to give an innocent result to the watcher, but before that happens the watcher has to watvh the right person AND scum has to use the ninja at that moment.
@TTH: Hey! Wow nice that you still recognise me out of all those players in your games
I can get rid of the bulletproof, although the ambiguity in the newbie game was there due to the setup being semi-open

I let the neighborize fail because I counted it as 'recruiting' im NAR. Willchange when I update everything.

I'll change the prod timer to 48 hours, as well.

Ok so, I'll remove the roleblocker, the 1-shot bulletproof,the neighborizer can still recruit on the night of their death, prod timer is 48 hours (I still have to add a moderator color, will do that as well oops)

Gotta go, I will post an updated version when I get back.

[mastin2]

1-shot ninja is actually a good precision role: it is a one-time use to guarantee anonymity, to be withheld until the perfect moment where it's needed.
Extra shots overpower it.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

The mafia roleblocker was definitely too powerful, so it's good that's gone but tt the same time, the Watcher-Jailkeeper can wreak havoc on a scum team, so to me just having a 1-shot Ninja on the scum side seems like a risk. Maybe include a back-up ninja (or universal back-up if you want the flip to give less information)? Admittedly inelegant, but it definitely does the job.

I let the neighborize fail because I counted it as 'recruiting' im NAR. Willchange when I update everything.

See here for what is considered to be the standard role resolution for Normals (in which Neighborizing falls under Miscellaneous). (Your Roleblocker/Jailkeeper interaction was also different but that's no longer relevant.)

Additionally, the 1-shot Bulletproof and Jailkeeper combination on the town side reduces the individual utility of both. It creates situations where it's ambiguous if a missed kill is the result of the bulletproof or the jailkeep. You saw this for yourself in the newbie game: scum tried to kill Huntress and she didn't die because she was bulletproof, but the missing kill made the jailkeeper think he'd successfully jailed scum.

On the other hand, it does also make it more likely that town ends up preventing 2 kills, thereby giving the town an extra lynch. I think the latter effect is at least as strong as the one you describe in a 13p game.

[inspectorscout]

What about having a scum joat?
1-shot ninja, 1-shot tracker or something
It gives them a little bit more power to find power roles, yet not that much.
If that's a bit stacked, I could split both of them up as well.

But yes, like CES said, I believe just a ninja is not much power. Town has quite some power imo.

[mastin2]

I'd be fine with a mafia joat.

[inspectorscout]

1x Mafia JOAT (1-shot ninja, 1-shot tracker)
2x Mafia Goon

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
7x Vanilla Townies

I'll work on some role PM's right now. Some have 'you may target a player' and others 'you may target a person'.

[inspectorscout]

Updated:

Removed 'modkilled', I'll add it if it's needed during the game itself.
Added mod color, changed prod timer to 48 hours, added your names as reviewers.
Changed the setup to what has been discussed so far.
Changed role PM's accordingly, fixed inconsistencies.
Moved neighborizer to the correct place in the NAR, added results of tracker.

===============================

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

I will be your moderator during this game! If, for some reason, I can't completely do what I have to do (i.e. regular votecounts, resolving night actions in time, ...), my awesome back-up moderator, Foxbird, will take good care of all of you!

Playerlist

Player 1
Player 2
Player 3
Player 4
Player 5
Player 6
Player 7
Player 8
Player 9
Player 10
Player 11
Player 12
Player 13

Spoiler: Living Players

Spoiler: Dead Players

==================================

Game Rules

All Forum Rules and Guidelines should be followed, along with the following rules.

Deadlines

• Day phases will last fourteen days.
  
• Night phases will last two days.

General Rules

• Do not quote your role PM, what has been said in PT's or other private communication. Paraphrasing is generally fine.
  
• Keep the game in this thread, and in the PT's you were given access to by the mod. Do not contact anyone outside of these threads about the game.
  
• This is my mod colour. Do not use it.
  
  
• Do not discuss ongoing games. Meta from finished games is fine.
  
• Do not use encrypted or hard-to-see text (including "invisible" text, text below the 50% text size option, or text hidden via BBCode (not including spoilered text)).

Activity

• If a player doesn't post in-game after a period of 48 hours, I will prod that player.
  
• If a player is prodded, that player has 24 hours to make an in-game post with actual content, not just a prod dodge. If they don't, they will be force-replaced.
  
• If a player received 3 prods and/or prod-dodges excessively, that player will be subject to a force-replace.
  
• Setting a V/LA tag alone is not accepted. Please tell me (in bold) when and for how long you will be VL/A, preferably a few days in advance. If you are going to be V/LA for longer than 1-2 weeks, you might want to request a replacement.

Votes and Lynching

• Votes must be in the format of VOTE: Player Name or
  VOTE: Player Name
  . As long as I understand who you are voting for, it's fine. If it looks like a vote, it will count as a vote.
  
• Unvoting when changing your vote is not necessary, but welcome.
  
• A player will be lynched if half of the living players +1 have voted for that player.
  
• You may vote for a
  No Lynch
  . If half of the living players vote for a No Lynch, the game will proceed to Night without a lynch.
  
• If a lynch is not achieved at deadline, no lynch will occur.
  
• The game goes to twilight once a lynch has been achieved. You may continue to post until I lock the thread.
  
• Once dead, you may post a single ''bah post''. These may not include any information that could have any relevance to the game. After that, you are no longer allowed to post in any game thread (except the dead thread) until the game is over

Behavior

• Harassment of an individual player is NOT permitted. While this is a competitive game, no personal attacks will be tolerated.
  
• Always play to your win condition.
  
• Do not discuss this game anywhere else with anyone else unless your role allows you to. Private topics will be provided.

Breaking the rules

• If you break the rules, you will be modkilled.
  
• Pretending to break the rules also counts as breaking the rules.
  
• I have the right to change the rules at any time, if needed. I will notify you if this happens.

Setup Information

• This is a closed setup.
  
• The town-mafia ratio is confirmed to be 10-3.
  
• This game is confirmed to be non-multiball.
  
• Mafia does NOT have daytalk.
  
• Mafia can do the factional nightkill next to their other abilities, if any.
  
• This setup has been reviewed for balance and normalcy by mastin2, TellTaleHeart and Cogito Ergo Sum.
  
• There is at least 1 person with this role PM:

Spoiler: Sample Role PM

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Vanilla Townie.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.

You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

================
Setup:
1x Mafia JOAT (1-shot ninja, 1-shot tracker)
2x Mafia Goon

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
7x Vanilla Townies

================

Role PM's:

Spoiler: Vanilla Townie

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Vanilla Townie.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.

You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Town Watcher

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Town Watcher.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- At night, you may target a player. You will be told who visited that player that night. You can not target yourself.

You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Town Neighborizer

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Town Neighborizer.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- At night, you may target a player. If your action succeeds, that player will be permanently added to your neighborhood, where you may chat during the night.

You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Town Jailkeeper

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Town Jailkeeper.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- At night, you may target a player. That player will be roleblocked. You will also protect them against a nightkill.

You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Mafia Goon

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Mafia Goon.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- You share a factional kill with [name], Mafia JOAT and [name], Mafia Goon.
- You may talk with the other mafia members here at night.

You win when all members of the town are eliminated, or when nothing can prevent this from happening.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

Spoiler: Mafia Jack-of-all-Trades

Welcome to Mini Normal [number]!

You are a Mafia Jack-of-all-Trades.
Abilities:
- During the day, you may vote to lynch.
- At night, you may use one of the following abilities:
• Once during the game, if you perform the factional nightkill, you may choose to make it a ninja kill. This will prevent anyone from seeing you visiting anyone that night.
• Once during the game, at night, you may target a player. You will be told who that player visited. You can not yourself.
- You share a factional kill with [name], Mafia Goon and [name], Mafia Goon.
- You may talk with the other mafia members here at night.

You win when all members of the town are eliminated, or when nothing can prevent this from happening.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this message with your alignment and role.

=================

Action resolution:
jailkeeper
Neighborizer
Factional nightkill
Watcher/Tracker


No feedback given to: Factional kill, Neighborizer, Jailkeeper, Roleblocker, 1-shot Ninja.
Watcher gets results as:
If nobody visited their target: "Your target was not visited."
If their target was visited: "Your target was visited by [player]"
If the watcher was jailkept: "No result."
Tracker gets results as:
If their target didn't visit anyone: "Your target did not visit anyone."
If their target visited someone: "Your target visited [player]."
If the tracker was jailkept: "No result."

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

If that's a bit stacked, I could split both of them up as well.

I would definitely split them up. As I see it, in designing a set-up purpose of JoaTs tends to be either that the JoaT gets their more powerful actions early and thereby has a more consistent level of power or that the JoaT gets to make interesting decisions about what roles to use when. I don't think a 1-shot Ninja/1-shot Tracker JoaT really does either whereas splitting up the two powers makes the set-up less swingy.

[TellTaleHeart]

I can get rid of the bulletproof, although the ambiguity in the newbie game was there due to the setup being semi-open

The bulletproof could claim if the jailkeeper thought he had a psuedo-guilty. I might if I were the BP in that situation.
I didn't mean to suggest to get rid of the bulletproof. I was simply stating that I thought the combination could bring down both powers a tad. As Cogito pointed out, there are other situations where there's enough of a benefit to make up for what I'm perceiving as reduced efficiency.

[inspectorscout]

If that's a bit stacked, I could split both of them up as well.

I would definitely split them up. As I see it, in designing a set-up purpose of JoaTs tends to be either that the JoaT gets their more powerful actions early and thereby has a more consistent level of power or that the JoaT gets to make interesting decisions about what roles to use when. I don't think a 1-shot Ninja/1-shot Tracker JoaT really does either whereas splitting up the two powers makes the set-up less swingy.

Yeah, I can do that. Although I believe a JOAT to be a more elegant solution...
I'll wait for TTH's and mastin's opinions on this matter.

PEDIT: lol

@TTH: I think that the ability of town to have 2 protected players in 1 night is a bit strong for this town, especially if it can't be blocked by the no longer existing roleblocker. And even more if the bulletproof stays under radar until later in the game. It was there to balance out the RB for just a bit, but without the RB it's of little use in this setup, and seems a bit lost imo.

[TellTaleHeart]

1x Mafia JOAT (1-shot ninja, 1-shot tracker)
2x Mafia Goon

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
7x Vanilla Townies

I was a

little

afraid that the town didn't have enough power before but now I

really

am with this latest version of the setup.
While the watcher and jailkeeper are good specials, but the neighborizer doesn't add any net town power. A neighborizer claim will not deter town from lynching the slot nor does having a private topic give town an advantage they wouldn't otherwise have through normal gameplay (neglecting the exceedingly rare situations where the watcher gets neighborized and can claim his results in an all-town neighborhood without having to out himself in the game thread). I've used neighborizers of both alignments in several of my games now and I've never seen them have a perceptible impact on the outcome of the game.

And scum now not only have the ability to subvert the watcher but also find one of the specials with the tracker. -.-
My suggestion would be to split the scum JOAT abilities onto two separate players and then add a town rolecop (and maybe a miller).

[inspectorscout]

I could add back the 1shot bulletproof, but a rolecop would be too powerful in combination with the watcher.
A watcher is a very powerful role, and a jailkeeper is pretty strong as well, especially in late game. Neighborizer barely adds anything, but if they recruit one of the other PR's and trust each other it can get powerful as well. Even more if both PR's.

If you dislike the tracker due to power, i could scrap that and give scum a neighborizer as well. I just want to give them

something

more than just 1 PR that has a lot of chance to fail its use.

[TellTaleHeart]

I think your perception of how powerful the watcher is might be a little off, or mine is @_@.

The watcher is definitely a powerful special because it gives a

huge payout

(caught scum) for a task that's not particularly demanding (guessing who the nightkill is going to be). But with the 1-shot ninja functionally sidelining the special for a night, it's far from a sure thing. Also, the fact that a 1-shot ninja might tip off the scum team to the presence of a watcher takes away the element of surprise.

Neighborizer barely adds anything, but if they recruit one of the other PR's and trust each other it can get powerful as well. Even more if both PR's.

In theory, yes, but I've never seen this happen in practice and I wouldn't count on it for the purposes of balancing a setup.

If you dislike the tracker due to power, i could scrap that and give scum a neighborizer as well. I just want to give them something more than just 1 PR that has a lot of chance to fail its use.

Depending on how experienced the player base is, they could see doubling up the roles as a guarantee that one of them has to be scum (role symmetry). Your scum neighborizer will likely

not

be all that happy with you post-game. >.>

[TellTaleHeart]

If you want to give scum a special you can't balk at giving your town serious firepower, hon.

The scum tracker isn't game-breakingly powerful. But every power you give to scum pushes that EV further toward the scum side. Since scum already start

far

ahead in the expected mountainous EV at the 10:3 ratio, so you need to even the odds with a powerful town to make it balanced.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

A Mafia 1-shot Tracker really isn't that strong and Watcher and Jailkeeper are both really solid town PRs, so I think the current proposal's close to balanced. Maybe add the 1-shot BP back? I don't think you need more than that.

[inspectorscout]

True, it's just that I have the feeling I'm giving town way too much already.

Setup:
1x Mafia1-shot Ninja
1x Mafia Goon
1x Mafia 1-shot Tracker

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
1x Town Universal Backup
1x Town 1-shot Bulletproof
5x Vanilla Townies

I think this is townsided but there is less swing and not more, but more consistent town power. The universal backup can be a counter for the scum tracker, the bulletproof to shift the balance a bit.

PEDIT: Ok, then mastin2 will be the tiebreaker

[inspectorscout]

Before I fuck up: neighborizer adding all his targets to the same PT is considered normal, right?

[TellTaleHeart]

Now I feel like you swung too far the other way. x_x
The universal backup feels clunky and inelegant here. Specifically, scum potentially having to shoot two people to get the watcher role out of the game feels unfair. If I'm scum and I see a watcher flip, I'm not going to plan out the next night actions thinking there's a secret universal backup around the corner waiting to fuck me.

Suggestion #1

1x Mafia 1-shot Ninja
1x Mafia Goon
1x Mafia Goon

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
1x Town 1-shot Bulletproof
6x Vanilla Townies

This was your original setup minus the roleblocker. So this is what mastin suggested in her first post.
I still have a nagging feeling that this is scumsided, but it's not so much where I would veto it if Cogito and mastin approved.

Suggestion #2

1x Mafia 1-shot Ninja
1x Mafia Goon
1x Mafia Goon

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
1x Town Backup Jailkeeper
6x Vanilla Townies

This is your latest setup minus the bulletproof, the tracker, and restricting the backup to not include the watcher, which is what we're afraid of getting out of control.

Suggestion #3

1x Mafia Jack of all Trades (1-shot Ninja, 2-shot Tracker)
1x Mafia Goon
1x Mafia Goon

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
1x Town 1-shot Bulletproof
1x Town Rolecop
5x Vanilla Townies

This one's my pet setup and probably what I would go with if it were me running the game. I think the rolecop rounds the town out well without overshooting the power level. The only thing it can do is confirm role claims and force the scum JOAT to come up with bullshit powers if he gets investigated. The lack of a vig is going to point to the bulletproof being town, but that's really the only directly alignment-indicative information to be gleaned there.

[inspectorscout]

I like suggestion one, but I'd put a 1shot tracker on a different mafia guy. I think you are seriously overestimating the power of a ninja and underestimating what a jailkeeper and watcher can do.

Suggestion 2 is...also not very elegant, just like the universal backup. The other options are better.

Suggestion 3 is also good imo, but in general i dislike rolecops. I could do this one though

[TellTaleHeart]

I didn't use the JOAT for number 1, I used the 1-shot ninja.