Fredrick A Campbell's Mini Normal Review, June 2020

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Subject: Normal Queue Thread (Players and Mods)

/in to mod a self-designed mini

Here's the setup.

Town Neapolitan
Town Loud Bodyguard
Town Compulsive Roleblocker
Town Combined Universal Backup Mailman
Town Psychologist
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Mafia Commuter
Mafia Indecisive Motion Detector
Mafia Simple Gunsmith

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Primary: mastina
Secondary: northsidegal

[Fredrick A Campbell]

This is my first time doing a setup design. Please give me the appropriate feedback.

[northsidegal]

ego

[northsidegal]

without even commenting on balance, i notice that this is a somewhat complicated setup – definitely in the upper percentages of complexity when it comes to normal games. if you don't mind, i'd be interested in hearing a bit of your thought process when it comes to designing it.

for instance, i'm a bit confused as to the purpose of the simple gunsmith – isn't that essentially just a slightly weaker vanilla cop?

[Fredrick A Campbell]

without even commenting on balance, i notice that this is a somewhat complicated setup – definitely in the upper percentages of complexity when it comes to normal games. if you don't mind, i'd be interested in hearing a bit of your thought process when it comes to designing it.

for instance, i'm a bit confused as to the purpose of the simple gunsmith – isn't that essentially just a slightly weaker vanilla cop?

It is.

[Fredrick A Campbell]

The difference is they may receive no result because of the roleblocker instead of the player not being a vanilla townie.

[Fredrick A Campbell]

The loud bodyguard, if he targets a mafia, will unintentionally inform the mafia that some other player has targeted them. The mafia may want to kill them in response.

The compulsive roleblocker messes with the simple gunsmith's results. The gunsmith may get no result as if they had targeted a power role when it was actually because the roleblocker targetted them. Also, the roleblocker may stop some town roles from being used.

The combined universal backup mailman may decide to use a role they acquired (more likely to be a town role than a scum role). If they choose to use this new found power, they need to send the player they are targetting a message. I don't think the message part is really essential but just a nice addition that actually functionally does nothing.

The town psychologist gets to know if the player targeted has the ability to kill the player but has not yet killed. In some situations, they may get a negative on scum and a no result on the mafia commuter.

The mafia commuter would give the psychologist no result. I would allow the mafia commuter to perform the factional kill but it seems like the wiki page doesn't give any guidelines on the matter.

The mafia indecisive motion detector would get to know if a power role performed their action. However, if they target a vanilla townie that has been targeted, they may think the player is a power role.

The mafia simple gunsmith would get no result or a negative (the gunsmith wouldn't get a positive since he could only successfully target vanilla townies). Sometimes, he would get a no result even if he targets a vanilla townie because of the roleblocker.

[northsidegal]

Err, without trying to sound too snippy here, I understand how all of these roles work mechanically – it would be fairly concerning if I didn't as a reviewer. I was more interested in your thought process behind the setup's design. Basically, why you made things the way they are.

Mafia commuters cannot commute and kill on the same night unless they are multitasking.

[Fredrick A Campbell]

My apologies. I misunderstood what you meant. I actually put in random roles and modifiers. Was that actually an OK thing to do?

[mastina]

I actually put in random roles and modifiers. Was that actually an OK thing to do?

Technically, nothing against it, but given what setup was created, I'd note that there is a high likelihood that a first-time mod running the setup you're proposing would make moderator errors; it is a setup with enough complexity that even an experienced moderator who is a member of the nrg might make a mistake. That, plus depending on how random the roles/modifiers were which you selected, there's also the potential lack of familiarity with how the roles function.

Don't take this as a comment discouraging you from running a setup like this, though. If you want to design a mostly-random setup, mostly random in every way, we can balance around that and since that'd be your design intent, what you were aiming for, it'd be something we could help tweak to make balanced (albeit presumably swingy), it's just that it's something which I'd recommend you do with a very, very close eye backing you up to help ensure you wouldn't make a mistake.

[Fredrick A Campbell]

I actually put in random roles and modifiers. Was that actually an OK thing to do?

Technically, nothing against it, but given what setup was created, I'd note that there is a high likelihood that a first-time mod running the setup you're proposing would make moderator errors; it is a setup with enough complexity that even an experienced moderator who is a member of the nrg might make a mistake. That, plus depending on how random the roles/modifiers were which you selected, there's also the potential lack of familiarity with how the roles function.

Don't take this as a comment discouraging you from running a setup like this, though. If you want to design a mostly-random setup, mostly random in every way, we can balance around that and since that'd be your design intent, what you were aiming for, it'd be something we could help tweak to make balanced (albeit presumably swingy), it's just that it's something which I'd recommend you do with a very, very close eye backing you up to help ensure you wouldn't make a mistake.

Ok. So, I would need a backup moderator, right?

[Fredrick A Campbell]

Do we start balancing the setup now or are we supposed to do something else first?

[northsidegal]

Sorry about the delay. Yes, the first step is to balance the setup. With regards to the random roles, I wouldn't say that it's not okay, but I would say that it would probably be confusing to the players.

Typically in Normal games when you get to the stage of the game where everyone claims and you go from there, people try to think through what the mod must have been thinking when designing the setup. A large part of the game becomes arguments over whether or not a role makes sense within the context of the rest of the setup, and if the roles were decided randomly then I think that it'll leave people either fairly confused or sort of frustrated.

My personal suggestion to you would be to reduce this setup's complexity, both for the sake of the players and perhaps for your own sake in not having to keep track of a large amount of complicated night actions. So I guess just to throw out a setup that mostly builds off of what you already have and goes in the direction of less complexity:

Town Neapolitan
Town Tracker
Town Follower
Town Psychologist
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Mafia Commuter
Mafia Indecisive Motion Detector
Mafia Goon

This is just an example setup, you don't have to take it into account at all if you don't want to (but if you do then feel free to!). If you'd like to retain more of your original setup then again I'd say my personal suggestion is to lower the complexity – say, by removing some of the modifiers.

[Fredrick A Campbell]

Considering this is my first game design. I'm on board with the proposed setup.

[Fredrick A Campbell]

What else do we have to do?

[northsidegal]

There are a few things:

I'll need to see the rules that you're planning on using.
I'll need to see your role PMs for these roles (I can help you with this if you want)
I need to see all the potential night result PMs that might be sent out

[Fredrick A Campbell]

It's late on this side of the globe. I'll get back to you tomorrow.

[Fredrick A Campbell]

Spoiler: Role PMs

Welcome Player! You are a

Town Neapolitan

.

You have the following active ability:
-Each Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn whether or not that player is a Vanilla Townie.

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

Confirm by replying to this PM with your role name and alignment.

Welcome Player! You are a

Town Tracker

.

You have the following active ability:
-Each Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn whether or not that player has an unused active killing ability (which gives a "positive" result), as opposed to having no kill or a kill that has already been used (both of which give a "negative" result).

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

Confirm by replying to this PM with your role name and alignment.

Welcome Player! You are a

Town Follower

.

You have the following active ability:

-Each night, you may follow a player in the game and you will discover what action the player performed that night.

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

Confirm by replying to this PM with your role name and alignment.

Welcome Player! You are a

Town Psychologist

.

You have the following active ability:

-Each Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn whether or not that player has an unused active killing ability (which gives a "positive" result), as opposed to having no kill or a kill that has already been used (both of which give a "negative" result).

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

Confirm by replying to this PM with your role name and alignment.

Welcome Player! You are a

Vanilla Townie

.

You have no active abilities.

You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

Confirm by replying to this PM with your role name and alignment.

Welcome Player! You are a

Mafia Commuter

.

No roles will target you successfully.

You and your partner share a factional kill each night. You must choose which of you will commit the kill. You may not commit the kill.

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

Confirm by replying to this PM with your role name and alignment or by posting in your PT.

Welcome Player! You are a

Mafia Indecisive Motion Detector

.

You have the following active ability:

-Each night, you may target a player. Assuming no inteference with your role, you will detect motion if the player performs an action or an action was performed on the player. If neither occurs, you will not detect any motion.

You and your partner share a factional kill each night. You must choose which of you will commit the kill. You may commit the kill and use your ability on the same night.

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

Confirm by replying to this PM with your role name and alignment or by posting in your PT.

Welcome Player! You are a

Mafia Goon

.

You and your partner share a factional kill each night. You must choose which of you will commit the kill. You may commit the kill and use your ability on the same night.

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

Confirm by replying to this PM with your role name and alignment or by posting in your PT.

[northsidegal]

a few things:

your tracker PM is a psychologist PM.

i would prefer more elaboration in the follower role PM. something like "you will discover what type of action the player performed that night, if any, from the following categories: {Commute, Blocking, Jailkeep, Protection, Miscellaneous, Kill, Role Investigation, Action Investigation}".

commuter isn't a passive role, it's an active one. that means that in the role PM you need something like "each night you may commute, causing any actions that target you to fail". it also means that commuters can commit the kill if they choose to forego commuting.

the indecisive motion detector cannot kill and use its ability on the same night, because it is not multitasking. that line should also probably be removed from the goon PM, because the goon does not have an ability.

[northsidegal]

i would prefer more elaboration in the follower role PM. something like "you will discover what type of action the player performed that night, if any, from the following categories: {Commute, Blocking, Jailkeep, Protection, Miscellaneous, Kill, Role Investigation, Action Investigation}".

by the way, this is sort of unintuitive, so just so you know the list of types of roles is on this page: Natural Action Resolution/Normal Game

[northsidegal]

err, the list of types of actions that can be performed for what you return to a follower. you get what i mean.

[Fredrick A Campbell]

I'm actually not to sure how to phrase some of the roles' actions. Specifically neapolitan, psychologist, motion detector, commuter, and potentially the mafia's night kill.

I'll post a corrected version of the PMs.

[northsidegal]

everything besides what i mentioned seemed fine to me, but i'll take a second look once you've updated.

[Fredrick A Campbell]

I meant for the follower ability but I just noticed the categories in post 19.