Pine's Mini Normal Review

[Nexus]

Hello!

Thanks for joining my queue! Please let me know, via return PM:

1. That you'll be ready to run your game when you get to the top of the list
2. How many players your game will have (13 or under for a mini; 14 or over for a large)
3. Who your backup/co-mod will be, if you have one (compulsory for larges)
4. What, if any, other modding experience and/or commitments you have

Also, in order to ensure that Normal games stay "normal", we require that setups be evaluated. When it is ready, please forward your full setup to me, including the following:

1. Your opening posts (rules and flavor, if any). Remember: your opening post
   must
   contain a copy of your Vanilla Townie role, which will be public knowledge to all game participants
2. The complete text of all role PMs
3. Any hidden moderator information (this includes any possible result PMs)

As soon as they are available, your game will be assigned to a panel of reviewers who will check/discuss your game in a private topic with you. When they are satisfied that your game fits within the boundaries of MafiaScum's definition of Normal, they will let me know. Until I receive that go-ahead from them, your game will not enter the sign-up phase, even if you reach the top of the moderating queue.Once you've been approved, please post the role distribution in the PT so a co-/backup mod can take over in an emergency.Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, and good luck!

Howdy! Sorry for slow reply, holidays and such. Going out of Town with uncertain wifi situation later today, so I wanted to get this done before I left. I signed up to mod to help alleviate the dearth of active mini normals, so I decided to go with a very stripped-down setup, as they seem to be in very short supply. Answers to your questions:

1. I should be prepared to get going shortly. My approach will be fairly bare-bones, and I will likely improvise flavor as I go along to conform to the actions of the players. I am not presently authorized to mod, so I'll need to be added to that user group.
2. 13 players.
3. I've asked Aeronaut. I'm waiting for a reply, but I anticipate his assent.
4. I have no other modding commitments. My only modded game was Mini 1298: Pine's Lightning Mafia, which was eaten in a tiger attack. It went pretty smoothly.

===Setup===

1. Opening posts

Post 1 - Player list and title page. This will be adaptable according to who is alive or dead, and will be updated as I go. It will be pretty bland.

Post 2 - Rule set. Shamelessly stolen from Cephrir's NY 199, slight modifications. Pretty standard.

Spoiler: Rule Set

General Rules

1. The site-wide rules and Boilerplate Mafiascum Game Rules are in play. Please know them.
2. Be nice. I will be the arbiter of what 'nice' is. I am pretty tolerant about this but there is a line.
3. Do not discuss the game outside the game thread, except with the moderator, unless your Role PM specifies that you may do so. Do not discuss other ongoing games in this thread or in any topics you might have access to.
4. You may ask me questions either in the thread or via PM. For some questions, I may be willing to answer via PM but not in-thread for a variety of reasons.
5. Do not quote private communication with me directly. Paraphrasing is acceptable; if you're not sure whether a post violates this rule, ask me or don't post it. You also may not pretend to quote communications with me. This includes your Role PM.
6. My color is

DARK ORANGE

; please don't use it.
7. No dice tags or otherwise provably arbitrary algorithms.
8. Do not attempt to emulate out-of-thread communication using encryption or hidden/obscured text.
9. Don't do things you know you shouldn't do, even if I've neglected to include a rule on the matter. Likewise, attempts to circumvent these rules via semantics will be treated harshly.
10. I reserve the right to warn, force-replace, or modkill as I deem necessary. Don't push it.
11. I reserve the right to add to or change the rules.

Procedural Rules

1. If you wish to vote for a player, please use vote tags or bold tags. That said, if you forget the tags, your vote will still count if it is clear to me that a vote was intended.
2. A player is considered lynched when he or she reaches a number of votes equal to half the number of living players rounded down plus one.
3. You may continue discussion in twilight before I show up and lock the thread. Do not post after I officially state that you are dead.
4. If no majority is reached by deadline there will be No Lynch.
5. Days will have a non-negotiable deadline of 2 weeks. I may choose to extend a deadline in special circumstances, but it's unlikely. Don't count on it.
6. Nights last 48 hours.
7. Prods go out after 48 hours. Failure to post in a timely fashion after a prod, or accumulating several prods, may result in force replacement at my discretion.
8. A single mafia member can both kill and take another action.

Post 3 - VT Role PM

Spoiler: VT Role PM

Welcome to Pine's Death Trap! Here's your role information:

You are a

Vanilla Townie

. You have no special powers.

Win Condition: You win if the town eliminates all opposing factions. At least one member of your faction must survive.

Please /confirm in thread. Day One will be started after 12/13 players have confirmed.

Post 4 - Flavor

Spoiler: Flavor

A dim, flickering light intrudes on the splitting headache that greets you as you slowly wake up. A fresh wave of dizziness greets you as you sit up, surrounded by twelve other people in various stages of their own groggy awakenings. Looking around, you see a moldering old room, appearing to be a stripped-down old storeroom or basement. The only light comes from a pair of bare incandescent bulbs hanging from wires on the ceiling. A few ratty old couches are the only furnishings, and an imposing steel door bars the only exit.

Yessss...that's it, children, time to wake up! The game is afoot, and the party is ready to begin! Welcome to my humble little maze. Each of you has been injected with a lovely little cocktail which I like to call Pine's Pick Me Up. It shall, of course, kill you.

A fairly ominous silence resonates for a few interminable moments.

"An antidote is available to those who can prove their worthiness, which is to say, those who can most effectively amuse me!

A deep and unsettling laugh echoes around the sparse chamber.

"The first door may be bypassed only with a sacrifice. Offer me one of your own, and I will...consider...unlocking it.

GO!"

2. Setup - I'm thinking purely mountainous. The players won't know that, of course, though a 3x Goon scumteam could reasonably guess a low-power game. Alternatively, 8xVT, Cop, Doc vs Godfather, 2xGoon is also classic. VT PM above, here's a Goon. If the review committee suggests the second setup, I'll generate the Cop, Doc, and GF PMs.

Spoiler: Goon Role PM

Welcome to Pine's Death Trap! Here's your role information:

You are a

Mafia Goon

. You have no special powers, but may communicate with your partners, Goon PLAYER and Goon PLAYER at night in this Scum Thread.

Win Condition: You win if your team eliminates all opposing factions. At least one member of your faction must survive.

Please /confirm in thread. Day One will be started after 12/13 players have confirmed.

3. There is no hidden Mod information at this time, given the simplicity of the setup.

[Pine]

Hey guys. It's a mountainous game, unless you think it'd be better with some simple roles. Should make review pretty straightforward.

[Firebringer]

Mountainous is very scum sided.
And your alternate setups would not be allowed because godfather is an explicitly not normal role.

[Pine]

Since when? Eh, doesn't matter. I was gone for a while, must have missed that.

Cop and Doc vs Roleblocker then?

[Firebringer]

Since when? Eh, doesn't matter. I was gone for a while, must have missed that.

Cop and Doc vs Roleblocker then?

I think other people have various opinions on mountainous, but I personally have never seen town win mountainous.

Cop and Doc vs roleblocker would be better but has potential "follow the cop" issues, if your fine with that.

[Pine]

Rolelocker is meant to counter follow the cop.

[Firebringer]

Of course the roleblocker alleviates that but if it dies early then scum may have issues.

[Pine]

Hence why I initially wanted a Godfather. Follow the Cop also falls apart if Doc is killed.

[Pine]

I could come up with a completely alternate setup, if you're not into mountainous or near-mountainous

[Firebringer]

We can work with near mountainous
Ill let other reviewers have a look and give input.

[mykonian]

hi.

3:10 mountainous is iirc around 21% for town by calculation. That's not going to work out.
2:11 scum wins as well. This has previously been passed as "normal but not balanced" as historic evidence shows that scum still just win these games in practice (and town performs worse than expected). They got passed because it is an historic setup and for a while people were fine with playing these. It's been a while and we lost this escape clause as it was the cause of some of the worse games put through the normal queue, for very little benefit in terms of modding freedom, it really rarely got used. So N abolished it.

Or in other words, FB is right. Town doesn't win those setups although people might enjoy the concept of playing in one. Confusingly, the best way to get it to work would be in the themed queue as you get more tools to take an axe to scums (night kill) power, by changing it altogether, introducing a white flag mechanic, giving them a "godfather with a weak heart" etc.

In the normal queue, hmm. Have to start from 2:11, 40% town chance of winning blind. But then they get bored because they keep lynching vt's, demoralized after two days, if not three, after which the last day you've got a game with a couple of lurkers and scum who also want the game to get over with.

One could try to start from an inadvertent mountainous setup, where the claims at least add some spice, with the slight trouble that one of the scum might get caught out simply because he's at the start of the massclaim (that will come someday) before he's seen through the setup. Otoh, might help town that little. Going from there you could deviate from the idea with one minor real role (your tracker, BG, whatever you fancy) and hope this makes up towns deficit.

Otherwise I think it's quite tricky to get a mountainous game to actually work for you, and it might be nicer to have some simple powerroles if you are looking for a basic game.

[Pine]

Bump?

How does Cop, Jailkeeper, 8x VT vs Ascetic, Goon, Goon strike you?

[Firebringer]

It is a lot better.
Not sure if its balanced though.....

Maybe add a 1 shot bulletproof?

[Pine]

Sure.

Daytalk or no?

[Pine]

Also, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with my current game list. Some of them are rather high-intensity. I'll probably need to hold off until I die a bit.

[Firebringer]

Sure.

Daytalk or no?

Up to you.
As you know day talk can be its best ally if used properly or it could just be there and unused.

If you do have day talk with no encryptor you will have to announce it.

Also, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with my current game list. Some of them are rather high-intensity. I'll probably need to hold off until I die a bit.

I think Nexus can hold off on putting it into sign ups if ur still busy when this review is done.

[mykonian]

yeah I'm with FB that'd it be nice to have a 3rd town role in there. 1 shot bp is light but that works.

[mykonian]

that's to say, if Pine wanted to have something more exciting as a 3rd role, I'd be happy with that as well. I think there's even an escape clause in NAR that passive powers (like the ascetic) would go before the JK's block, but that's something I'll want a lawyer on, so in that case roles that see actions or a killing role would work as well.

[mastina]

I'd call the Cop + JK vs Ascetic setup scumsided, because the ascetic acts as a counter to BOTH town roles: it's immune to their powers, and the only way it gets caught is if the ascetic doesn't claim. And the site doesn't have a "town ascetics MUST claim D1" in the same way a miller does, though half of mafia ascetics claim their asceticness anyway. So a JK can't stop the ascetic from killing, and the cop can't get a result on the ascetic.

It might be more balanced in an all-goon setup: cop + JK is fairly weak as far as town power goes (it's minimal), but each role is strong individually. (Cop is the strongest Normal role, and JK is probably the third-strongest when you exclude cop variants.) They don't synchronize well (the JK blocks the cop when protecting them), but they are both strong by themselves.

A cop + JK setup, in essence, might be swingy because both town roles living = town dominates; both town roles getting outed/killed early = scum dominates, but I don't think the swing inherent to that setup is beyond acceptable ranges; it's within normal levels and I'd call it standard, and more importantly...balanced. It might be unusually light, so the game might be unusually challenging for the town, but it's not a game I see the town being handed a victory easily, or a game I see the scum being handed a victory easily. It comes down to how well the town and the scum play, so I'd be fine with Cop + JK vs Goonx3.

[Pine]

Cop, JK, BP vs Goons with daytalk

[mykonian]

sure, that's an improvement imo. Nobody would be disappointed playing that, I think. And you get your basic setup.

[Pine]

Maybe give scum a 2-shot rolecop or watcher? All three are 1-shot Trackers? I don't want to leave them entirely without recourse

[mykonian]

you happily could, imo.

[mastina]

I'd be slightly concerned about the scum having three chances to find the roles which are the town's strength, but I don't think it actually hurts the town badly. Especially since a JK can cause the trackers to waste their shot, and each tracker only would have one shot, and a scum being lynched before using their shot is wasted, and scum have an incredibly small chance of actually hitting a PR, so overall I'd be fine with a 1xtracker x 3 scumteam. Would be a little bit on the quirky side, and weird, and against cultural norms (all three scum as PRs), but not overwhelming and not debilitating to the town.

[Firebringer]

huh?
Mastina i think u went on a completely different tangent than what pine was talking about