Akarin's Large Normal Review, November 2020

[mastina]

I think that the setup is in the balanced range on paper (but see below concern).
Scum know the setup and have three roles to check for the town power roles--but they have the same numbers as they would in a Mini, while the town has extra.

The town's roles are all fairly strong, with two kill-deniers and two investigatives, but I have one concern:
The Innocent Child Psychologist is likely to not ever get any results in the game. If they are protected by the Alien, they get No Result, and the scum knowing precisely the night that the Innocent Child was protected means that they can just off the IC the next night.

So on paper, it's in the balanced range, but if you want the psychologist to actually see use, I'd suggest splitting that role in half, leaving the IC as just the IC (or if you want the IC to have a power, some extra worthless ability that doesn't give the town extra power, like turning the IC into an IC Checker), and turning one of the VTs into a Psychologist (since I don't see any of the other roles that could have the Psychologist role tacked onto them).

[mastina]

So do you think that's going to feel too bad for the IC? And do you think that makes the setup scumsided?

Well, if you intend for the psychologist to not actually be used...then yes. The town, instead of two protectives and two investigatives, for all intents and purposes, has only the one investigative. It feels like it'd be in the 60-40 scum-town range because while the town knows that the scum know the setup, the town does not themselves know the setup.

The IC doesn't know about the alien, and the alien might get to know the ic is a psychologist but isn't guaranteed to know that (a setup revolving around a town PR claiming their power on D1 is generally not going to play out as expected given they may see reason not to claim). Plus, the town roles have strong anti-synergy. The alien targeting the hider is a waste; the alien targeting the hider's target may or may not effect the hider's hide (need to double-check on that interaction to see which takes priority, I

think

off the top of my head Alien > Hider in Normals but do need to check that interaction since I don't have it memorized off the top of my head), the alien can cause a false guilty by targeting either the fruit vendor or the fruit vendor's target, and the scum roles are very good at finding the town PRs quickly.

Mafia may not be multitasking, but their kill still counts as a pr checker of sorts, meaning that even lacking multitasking, they get to check for three power roles every single night that there's three alive.

One thing which I feel would bring it back to acceptable is a town voyeur. Voyeurs are normally a "throw it in" role for a town to bridge gap in power without actually giving them much, but in this case in this setup, I actually think that a Voyeur is

precisely

what the town needs if you want to keep the psychologist on the IC. The voyeur allows for the town to overcome a lot of their anti-synergies, without overpowering the town the way a stronger investigative would. It also can't generate a guilty (unless on a scum fakeclaim), but

can

generate situational conditional innocents.

[mastina]

Voyeur can't see Alien, but can see Fruit Vendor and Hider. Do you think an un-flipped Fruit vendor is much of an innocent?

Voyeurs don't see the exact role; to a Voyeur, a Fruit Vendor gives the exact same result as a Checker--"You saw a miscellaneous action". Same for Hider, actually--per this page (which is more used for Voyeur/Follower results), Hider is

also

a miscellaneous action.
So aside from the psychologist (who is a Role Investigation result), Miscellaneous is the only role result a voyeur can get, aside from 'action failed' or 'you did not see any action'. (Well, also 'nightkill' from targeting the scum kill I guess.)

I mean I do actually like the idea, just wondering if it's enough.

I think it is, yes. I feel like the setup is on paper close to balanced without the town voyeur, it's just the in practice anti-synergy of the town roles + scum having the information advantage that pushes it into scumsided. With the voyeur, that bridges the in-practice gap so that the setup is more balanced in reality, at least in my opinion.

The one thing to be aware of is a Voyeur result from multiple miscellaneous actions, which I believe would separate them, e.g. "You saw three miscellaneous actions".

[mastina]

My understanding is that the Alien is like a Rolestopper, so the Hider can't target the Alien-abducted player, right? And then the Hider would end up actually vulnerable to an NK that night.

Correct.
And per what I said before: you'll need to redo the Voyeur role PM because Voyeurs don't get the exact role type or even modifiers, they get

only

the category of the role--"Your target was visited by (number--a, two, three, etc.) Blocking Action(s)", "Your target was visited by (number--a, two, three, etc.) Jailkeep Action(s)", "Your target was visited by (number--a, two, three, etc.) Protection Action(s)", "Your target was visited by (number--a, two, three, etc.) Miscellaneous Action(s)", "Your target was visited by (number--a, two, three, etc.) Killing Action(s)", "Your target was visited by (number--a, two, three, etc.) Role Investigation Action(s)", "Your target was visited by (number--a, two, three, etc.) Action Investigation Action(s) (not including your own)", "You did not see any actions target your target", or "Your action failed, and you receive no result", or something to that effect.

[mastina]

Also, just want to check, a hypothetical Babysitter would register as a kill IFF it actually died that night, right? Otherwise it would just always be a Protect?

Correct.

And I'm pretty sure this works, so:
/pass!