Datisi's Micro Normal Review, February 2020

[implosion]

Alright:

- Town Rolecop
- Town 1-Shot Cop
- 5 VT

- Mafia Gunsmith
- Mafia Encryptor

Spoiler: role PMs

vanilla townie

Welcome, [playername]. You are a

Vanilla Townie

.

Abilities:

• You have no special abilities, but you have your voice and your vote.

You win when all the threats to the Town have been eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this PM with your role name.

town rolecop

Welcome, [playername]. You are a

Town Rolecop

.

Abilities:

• Each Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn that player's role (but not their alignment).

You win when all the threats to the Town have been eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this PM with your role name.

town 1-shot cop

Welcome, [playername]. You are a

Town 1-Shot Cop

.

Abilities:

• Once in the game, at Night, you may target one player. Assuming no interference with your action, at the end of the Night phase, you will be informed if they are
  Town
  or
  Mafia
  .

You win when all the threats to the Town have been eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this PM with your role name.

mafia gunsmith

Welcome, [Playername]. You are a

Mafia Gunsmith

.

Factional:

• You are a member of the Mafia, along with [name], who is a
  Mafia Encryptor
  .
  
• Once every Night, a living member of the Mafia may submit a factional kill action.
  
• You may talk with your living teammates in the Mafia Private Topic, located here. You may talk there during Nights. You may also talk there during Days so long as your faction includes at least one living player with an ability named
  Encryptor
  .

Abilities:

• Each night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will determine whether they
  Have a gun
  or
  Do not have a gun
  .

You win when the Town has been eliminated, or nothing can stop this from occurring.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this PM with your role name or by posting in your PT.

mafia encryptor

Welcome, [Playername]. You are a

Mafia Encryptor

.

Factional:

• You are a member of the Mafia, along with [name], who is a
  Mafia Gunsmith
  .
  
• Once every Night, a living member of the Mafia may submit a factional kill action.
  
• You may talk with your living teammates in the Mafia Private Topic, located here. You may talk there during Nights. You may also talk there during Days so long as your faction includes at least one living player with an ability named
  Encryptor
  .

Abilities:

• You, and anyone else present, may talk in Private Topics containing you even during the Day.

You win when the Town has been eliminated, or nothing can stop this from occurring.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this PM with your role name or by posting in your PT.

[implosion]

Primary: PenguinPower
Secondary: Ircher

[Datisi]

Well hello there!

[PenguinPower]

Hello hello. Lunch time for me so I'll go ahead and take a look.

[PenguinPower]

You want to give me a quick overview of what you're going for with your setup? Assume the Mafia Gunsmith is to cause confusion for the Rolecop while acting as a PR hunt tool for Mafia. Rolecop will catch Mafia with the Encryptor. Potentially game is over with successive lynches after N1.

[PenguinPower]

Town clears aren't a problem though.

[PenguinPower]

Also, I'm going to ask eventually so might as well ask, what's your ruleset look like?

[Datisi]

Well, pretty much that, I wanted to try to create a setup where a Mafia Gunsmith could serve as a weaker version of a Rolecop. I'm not sure what you mean by "Town clears aren't a problem"?

pedit: this is my ruleset from the last game I ran.

Spoiler:

Rules

Shamelessly stolen

Inspired by Plotinus's ruleset.

important bit

• Days: up to 7 days, Nights: 48 hours.
  
• Majority lynches.
  
• VOTE: tags are
  necessary.
  
  
• 36 hours before prod, 24 hours before replacement.
  
• Bah posts allowed. (limit: 1, free of game related content)
  
• Don’t be a dick.

1. Follow all site rules.
   
   
2. Mod colour
   – My mod colour is
   teal
   . You can use it if you want, just don't attempt to impersonate me.
   
3. Behaviour
   - Don’t be a dick, no personal attacks.
   
4. Don't talk about ongoing games
   - You may not talk to each other about this game outside of threads I have created for this purpose. You may not talk about other ongoing games in this thread.
   
5. Provable randomness
   - is against the rules. Saying that you rolled a dice is fine, using dice tags or random.org is not.
   
6. Cryptography
   - is forbidden. Breadcrumbing is okay.
   
7. Confirmation
   - You have about 48 hours to confirm your role and your alignment by PM. Game will start sooner if everyone confirms. Posting in a private topic counts as confirmation.
   
8. Days
   - Days will last up to 7 real-life days. Extensions may or may not be granted if there are replacements, or if the circumstances call for it (for example, if the site was experiencing issues).
   
9. Activity
   - You must post at least once every 36 hours or I will Prod you. You then have 24 hours to post in the game thread or I will replace you. If you come back before I find a replacement, you can stay. Players can request me to prod somebody early. This will only count as an official prod if you don't post before you would have been due for a prod. If you haven't posted in the 24 hours before the thread is locked for night, you must reply to the night start PM or you will be replaced during the night.
   
10. Vacation/Limited Access
    - If you need to be absent for longer than this, you should declare
    V/LA
    in bold in the thread like this: [
    b]

    @Mod: I will be v/la until Thursday

    [
    /b]. While you are V/LA, you will be nudged once every 48 hours. Two nudges equals one prod. If you have not posted game advancing content in 4 days, regardless of V/LA status, you will be replaced.
    
11. Prodging
    - A naked "prod dodge" does not reset the prod timer. To avoid being prodded/replaced for inactivity, include some game advancing content in your prodges, such as "got prodded; xxxx is still scum."
    
12. Quoting
    - You may not quote (or copy paste) any private information into the thread, including your role PM and any mod communication.
    
13. Voting
    - Votes must be in the format VOTE: Datisi. Vote tags are
    necessary
    , votes done in bold tags will not be counted. Unvotes are nice but not required. If I think it’s a vote, it’s a vote, no tricks. Type [
    v]Datisi[
    /v] to vote and [
    uv]Datisi[
    /uv] to unvote.
    
14. Lynching
    - Days end early when a simple majority of players (50% of living players + 1 rounded down) vote to lynch somebody. If a majority is not reached at deadline or if a majority of the players vote for no lynch, the day will end without a lynch. At evens, 50% is sufficient for no lynch. It takes (100% of living players + 1) votes to lynch the Moderator.
    
15. Twilight
    - Begins when a majority is reached and lasts until I lock the thread. You're still alive until I flip you so you can talk in any game threads you have access to until then, but no votes or unvotes will be counted.
    
16. Night
    - Night lasts at least 48 hours. The night phase can be shortened if every living player -- even those with no night actions -- agrees to it and if I'm not busy.
    
17. Action submissions
    - You may submit actions via PM (if town) or PT (if scum). If the actions are not submitted by the deadline then you do nothing. You can change your mind as many times as you like before the deadline.
    
18. Reminders
    - If I don't hear from you about your night actions, I'll PM you 24 hours before the deadline. This doesn't count as a prod. If I still don't hear from you, you will take no action.
    
19. Notes PT
    - Let me know if you want a private thread to store your thoughts and feedback for the other players. This thread will be made public immediately after the game. You may draft posts in your notes PT but you may not talk about your notes PT in public. You definitely may not use the notes PT to demonstrate that you've had a town mindset in private all along; just put your town mindset in public to begin with and keep your notes to yourself.
    
20. Play to win
    - this particular game, not some future one, and keep it fun!

[PenguinPower]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Town clears aren't a problem"?

Town isn't going to win via clears from investigatives.

I'm assuming scum aren't multitasking by default?

[Datisi]

I was thinking they would be, but I'm open to either.

[PenguinPower]

If you want to make them multitasking your either need to state it in your rules or actually make the role Multitasking Mafia Gunsmith.

[Datisi]

I'm aware, I just figured I'd first have to know if they are Multitasking or not - what would be better balance wise that is.

[Datisi]

So, which one would be better? And how problematic/likely is it the game ends with successive lynches after N1?

[PenguinPower]

It's unlikely that both scum are hit N1 (of course that depends on play), but I just wanted to point it out. The Mafia Gunsmith isn't really weaker than a Rolecop here (I'd actually say stronger given the tendency for Gunsmith's to be town and Rolecops to be scum) since the only two Town PRs have guns. Encryptor is basically default scum chat with a potential Rolecopguilty given that there are only two scum and Encryptor is likely a mafia role, especially in a small setup.

Town get one clear/guilty via 1-shot Cop and a potential guilty on Encryptor via the Rolecop. Gunsmith, again, would tend to be viewed as town, but this could cause confusion with three investigative roles in the game.

I wouldn't add multitasking.

[Datisi]

No multitasking is fine by me. Would that have to be stated in the rules as well? And "no daytalk by default"?

How's the rest of the setup looking? Does it need tweaking anywhere else?

[PenguinPower]

If multitasking and daychat are not in your ruleset as defaults they are assumed not to be included by default. You are free to explicitly state something to the effect of "Mafia do not have daychat and are not multitasking by default" if you want to.

I think it's pretty close to balanced as is, but I'll wait to see if Ircher has any thoughts or catches anything I may have missed.

[Datisi]

Understood. Thanks.

[Ircher]

I think the balance is fine.

One comment about the rules: I would highly encourage you to count bold votes in addition to vote tags unless there is a strong reason not to (i.e.: using an automated votecounter that searches only for vote tags). As your rules states, we want to discourage people from doing vote tricks because that messes with the game in s non constructive way. People shouldn't be allowed to fake a hammer by bolding their vote instead of using vote tags.

[Datisi]

The reason I chose not to count bold votes previously was because I was afraid of accidentally missing those votes. Though in the games that I have modded I haven't missed any bold text, so I'm fine changing that rule.

[Datisi]

Do I need to have the updated ruleset reviewed too?

[PenguinPower]

Nah. If that's the only change, I'll take a look at your game thread once it's up to make sure it's there.

/pass

[Datisi]

You are free to explicitly state something to the effect of "Mafia do not have daychat and are not multitasking by default" if you want to.

I also added this and put a sample VT role PM at the end.

[PenguinPower]

Go ahead and post it, but I doubt there will be an issue.

[Datisi]

Sorry, I just want to make sure everything's in order.
The sample role PM is usually under a spoiler.

Spoiler:

Rules

Shamelessly stolen

Inspired by Plotinus's ruleset.

important bit

• Days: up to 7 days, Nights: 48 hours.
  
• Majority lynches.
  
• 36 hours before prod, 24 hours before replacement.
  
• Bah posts allowed. (limit: 1, free of game related content)
  
• Don’t be a dick.

1. Follow all site rules.
   
   
2. Mod colour
   – My mod colour is
   teal
   . You can use it if you want, just don't attempt to impersonate me.
   
3. Behaviour
   - Don’t be a dick, no personal attacks.
   
4. Don't talk about ongoing games
   - You may not talk to each other about this game outside of threads I have created for this purpose. You may not talk about other ongoing games in this thread.
   
5. Provable randomness
   - is against the rules. Saying that you rolled a dice is fine, using dice tags or random.org is not.
   
6. Cryptography
   - is forbidden. Breadcrumbing is okay.
   
7. Confirmation
   - You have about 48 hours to confirm your role and your alignment by PM. Game will start sooner if everyone confirms. Posting in a private topic counts as confirmation.
   
8. Days
   - Days will last up to 7 real-life days. Extensions may or may not be granted if there are replacements, or if the circumstances call for it (for example, if the site was experiencing issues).
   
9. Activity
   - You must post at least once every 36 hours or I will Prod you. You then have 24 hours to post in the game thread or I will replace you. If you come back before I find a replacement, you can stay. Players can request me to prod somebody early. This will only count as an official prod if you don't post before you would have been due for a prod. If you haven't posted in the 24 hours before the thread is locked for night, you must reply to the night start PM or you will be replaced during the night.
   
10. Vacation/Limited Access
    - If you need to be absent for longer than this, you should declare
    V/LA
    in bold in the thread like this: [
    b]

    @Mod: I will be v/la until Thursday

    [
    /b]. While you are V/LA, you will be nudged once every 60 hours. Two nudges equals one prod. If you have not posted game advancing content in 5 days, regardless of V/LA status, you will be replaced.
    
11. Prodging
    - A naked "prod dodge" does not reset the prod timer. To avoid being prodded/replaced for inactivity, include some game advancing content in your prodges, such as "got prodded; xxxx is still scum."
    
12. Quoting
    - You may not quote (or copy paste) any private information into the thread, including your role PM and any mod communication.
    
13. Voting
    - Votes must be in bold in the format VOTE: Datisi or
    Vote: Datisi
    . Strong preference for using vote tags instead of bold tags. Unvotes are nice but not required. If I think it’s a vote, it’s a vote, no tricks. Type [
    v]Datisi[
    /v] to vote and [
    uv]Datisi[
    /uv] to unvote.
    
14. Lynching
    - Days end early when a simple majority of players (50% of living players + 1 rounded down) vote to lynch somebody. If a majority is not reached at deadline or if a majority of the players vote for no lynch, the day will end without a lynch. At evens, 50% is sufficient for no lynch. It takes (100% of living players + 1) votes to lynch the Moderator.
    
15. Twilight
    - Begins when a majority is reached and lasts until I lock the thread. You're still alive until I flip you so you can talk in any game threads you have access to until then, but no votes or unvotes will be counted.
    
16. Night
    - Night lasts at least 48 hours. The night phase can be shortened if every living player -- even those with no night actions -- agrees to it and if I'm not busy.
    
17. Action submissions
    - You may submit actions via PM (if town) or PT (if scum). If the actions are not submitted by the deadline then you do nothing. You can change your mind as many times as you like before the deadline.
    
18. Reminders
    - If I don't hear from you about your night actions, I'll PM you 24 hours before the deadline. This doesn't count as a prod. If I still don't hear from you, you will take no action.
    
19. Notes PT
    - Let me know if you want a private thread to store your thoughts and feedback for the other players. This thread will be made public immediately after the game. You may draft posts in your notes PT but you may not talk about your notes PT in public. You definitely may not use the notes PT to demonstrate that you've had a town mindset in private all along; just put your town mindset in public to begin with and keep your notes to yourself.
    
20. Play to win
    - this particular game, not some future one, and keep it fun!
    
21. Setup Specific
    - Private Topics do not have daytalk by default. The Mafia are not multitasking by default.

Sample Vanilla Townie role PM:

vanilla townie

Welcome, [playername]. You are a

Vanilla Townie

.

Abilities:

• You have no special abilities, but you have your voice and your vote.

You win when all the threats to the Town have been eliminated.

The game thread is here. Please confirm by replying to this PM with your role name.

[PenguinPower]

Yeah. Looks good.