Mini Normal 2205: RotITGBSMoD [game over!]

[mastina]

Hi I reviewed this game.

[mastina]

the town had essentially 0 power in a game with 3 scum doctors that were more or less informed of the setup.

The town had a nonconsecutive neapolitan--a role that could, in this game, get six innocents (albeit likely only a maximum of 3 if used N1/N3/N5). While a guilty on a mafia doctor wouldn't be a hard guilty, it would force the mafia doctor to fakeclaim a role. With it being public knowledge that there's a scum doctor, they couldn't realclaim their role and would need to fakeclaim (potentially running afoul of the other roles in the setup).

The rolecop could get a hard guilty on all of the scum. It was, for all intents and purposes, not a N2 rolecop, but a N2 cop. While getting a vanilla result wouldn't hard-clear the player, it'd be a good indicator that the player was town. It could also verify the other investigative roles in the game. Plus, it could also be used on the Neapolitan's result if the Neapolitan got a Not Vanilla Townie result. Neapolitan + Rolecop have insane synergy, with the Neapolitan checking to see if they're VT and the Rolecop able to, if they're not a VT, find out what they are. (With a Doctor result in this game being a hard-scum result.)

The gunsmith couldn't get a guilty in this game, but it wasn't meant to. Its information was meant to deliberately give the town the info that the investigatives in the game were town, especially when paired with the public information that there was a mafia doctor--after all, with there being a mafia doctor, the MAXIMUM possible number of scum guns in the game was two. If the MAXIMUM number of scum guns in the game is two...that means there's a MINIMUM of two town guns in the game. (This is basic deductive reasoning. It was publicly confirmed that at least one mafia doctor was in the game and the information about there being four guns in the game was outed D1. With one mafia guaranteed to not have a gun, it's guaranteed that town has at least two guns, with the possibility of more. For instance if the setup were mafia doctor + goon + traitor as a hypothetical, scum would have ONE gun meaning town would have THREE. That wasn't the setup, but it's an easy example of why the 'minimum' of 2 town guns and 'maximum' of 2 scum guns could indeed end up being just that, with more town guns and less scum guns. In this case all guns being town with none being scum.)

There's also the fact that mafia all being a single power role is not a mechanic unique to this game; at least one prior game featured similar, with all three scum being ungated mafia strongmen (in that game, with the town having a full rolecop that if rolecopping scum would know them to be scum).

The town had no protective power, but it did have a fair amount of investigative power. None of the investigatives could get BOTH hard innocents AND hard guilties, but most of the investigatives could get EITHER hard-innocents (the neapolitan) OR hard-guilties (the detective and the rolecop), while still giving softs of the opposite (soft-guilties for the neapolitan, soft innocents for the detective and the rolecop).

The scum needed to know about the four guns info in order to give them some protection when fakeclaiming. Knowing that there's four guns in the game meant that they'd know that if they claimed a gun role, they'd eventually end up in a counterclaim.

You have to also keep in mind that while scum knew that there were four guns in the game, they had no information on what the guns were. It gave them the general idea that they might be investigatives given the only gun roles that aren't are vigs and vengefuls and vig against doctorx3 is a little oppressive for the town, but it didn't give them a magical roadmap of knowing exactly what the town had and how to counter it. They actually lacked any counterplay at all in fact; their only weapons were fakeclaiming and the factional nightkill. They had no counterplay to a rolecop guilty on them; they had no counterplay to a detective guilty on them; they had the most possible counterplay against the Neapolitan but that still requires them to fakeclaim a role due to how a Doctor claim in this setup is a scumclaim.

[mastina]

rolecop neapo gunsmith are not "strong" prs

They are when it's PUBLIC INFORMATION that scum have a MAFIA DOCTOR.

Rolecop explicitly can get a guilty on a Doctor.
Gunsmith explicitly cannot get a guilty on a Doctor.
Neapolitan can't get a hard-guilty on a Doctor, but CAN get hard-innocents. A VT result from a Neapolitan is a guaranteed innocent, guaranteed to not be scum of any kind.

The public information was public for good reason--the balance of the setup relied on players being aware of the public information and the implications of it. The implications of a Mafia Doctor are that,
-The mafia have a MAXIMUM of two guns, with the possibility that they have less than that (in this case zero but could easily be only one)
-The town, when the Informed claims, know that they have a MINIMUM of two guns, with the possibility that they have more than that (in this case four bout could easily be three)
-The gunsmith isn't meant to get hard guilties or hard innocents (the presence of a mafia doctor means AT LEAST one false innocent and AT LEAST two false guilties)
-The town's roles likely have power which interacts with the mafia doctor (in this case, the gunsmith and the rolecop)
-The town is presumably low in killstopping power itself, which must be compensated for in other ways

All of these, between the public information and the town Informed claiming their information, are things that are reasonably easy to deduce.

While they don't give the town a roadmap to victory, they should've given the town a fairly good idea of what was going on in the setup.

The town roles have a lot of synergy built into them; the scum had basically nothing going for them in terms of power.

While there are some roles that are universally going to be strong or universally going to be weak, there are some roles that, situationally, can be much stronger than normal or much weaker than normal.
In this game you got examples of both. Gunsmith, normally a much stronger role, was a much weaker role than normal, acting more akin to a vanilla cop than anything else as a role that could check for fakeclaims to some extent and verify existing claims but otherwise couldn't get alignment-indicative results.

And rolecop, normally a much weaker role, was a much much stronger role than normal, acting more akin to a cop than anything else as a role that if targeting scum would get an immediate hard-guilty.

Also Neapolitan is always a strong role, even gated to every other night. VTs are hard innocents the same as if the Neapolitan were a cop and this game had a 50% chance of targeting a VT given there were six of them. PRs and mafia are never hard guilties, but they can confirm town PRs to some extent and force scum to lock themselves into a PR claim (which in this game was extra oppressive given the town's information of knowing how many guns were in the game and knowing about the mafia doctor).

Plus, detective, while oneshot, only gets stronger and stronger the longer they wait to use their power in this setup, so long as they do get a shot off before lylo. If they target scum who have killed, that's a hard guilty. It's a tricky role to use, but at its fullest can act as a 1x cop.

Imagine the N2 rolecop gets a guilty on one scum Doctor.
Then imagine the 1x detective gets a guilty on a different scum Doctor.

Suddenly, scum have, inarguable, indefensible, hard-guilties on two of their members that are incredibly likely to leave two scum dead (revealing a significant part of the setup gimmick) and confirming at least two town with a high chance of confirming more (the detective, rolecop, and gunsmith all move to conftown upon two scum being guiltied and dead, and the Neapolitan can generate extra innocents on top of that even if not viewed as innocent themselves).

In that situation, the town has a minimum of 3 conftown with a chance of getting 5 conftown. (Gunsmith, Detective, Rolecop, Neapolitan, and Neapolitan's innocent.) 5 conftown with two scum dead.
All of this doable before D4.

It didn't pan out that way, it panned out in one of the worst possible ways for the town, but the town had a lot more tools at their disposal than you give them credit for.

[mastina]

Investigating a doctor =/= auto guilty in this setup.

Technically speaking? Technically speaking? From a purely theoretical technical point of view?

Sure, you could have it be public information that there's a mafia doctor in the game, have an Informed Gunsmith know the number of guns in the game, have a rolecop, and have a town Doctor.

But while that's technically speaking the truth, that's the sort of thing that wouldn't pass a balance review because the reviewers would point out that the town doctor is effectively a miller in a game that already is hard on the town.

So pragmatically speaking, while a doctor result from a rolecop isn't a 100% guilty, it's still a 99.99% guilty where balance of probability, just by applying simple odds, the doctor is likely to just be scum.

[mastina]

you're balancing the game as if the town had the information that their power roles had guns and the mafia have no guns.

To at least some extent?

Yes, because that's something the town had at least partially the info available to know.

The town knew there was at least one mafia with no gun, because the town knew there was at least one mafia doctor. (Mafia doctors do not have guns.)
The town knew there were four roles in the game with a gun.
The town knew that with one mafia doctor (which did not have a gun), that there were at least two town players with a gun. (With four guns in the game, and one mafia guaranteed to not have a gun, that meant a maximum of two scum-guns meaning a minimum of two town guns.)

The town knew that at least 2/4 of their PRs would have guns.
And that at least 1/3 of the scum would not have guns.

Having some faith in a PR with a gun being town is thus logical and to be expected, because the town KNOWS it to be at least partially true.

The town not fully believing all of the PRs was something that was expected in the review. It was not expected to have the town fully believe every one of their PRs with guns to be town, sure! But having faith in

some

of them being town from the available information, IS.

The town didn't need to trust all of their PRs to be town, but the town should have at least some trust in at least

some

of their PRs to be town, given the information they had at their disposal. It wasn't expected for all four to be seen as town, but 2-3 seen as town given the public info and outed info was the expected result given that the town knew 2 guns minimum came from town.

Also in general, I would like to reiterate that knowing there is a mafia doctor in the game, while not meaning there isn't a town doctor in the game 100%, does mean the chances of a town doctor plummet to .01%. A town doctor in a game where there's public information of a scum doctor isn't 100% impossible, but it's 99.99% improbable in that it's something you're almost never going to ever see. It IS expected that there isn't a town doctor in a game where there's publicly confirmed presence of a mafia doctor. The presence of a town doctor in a game where it's public information that there's a mafia doctor is explicitly going to be the exception to the rule of them not being there.

[mastina]

how does the existence of a mafia doctor imply that the chance of a town doctor is at 00.01% ?

Well aside from the fact that both reviewers and game designers almost never have two of the exact same role but have it be different alignments, aside from the fact that it would in this specific setup where there is public information be very unfair to the town doctor given the public info of a scum doctor, aside from the fact that town doctor doesn't fit into the setup but scum doctor does, aside from the general gunsmith mechanics where doctors are scum in games with gunsmiths, aside from all of that?

Just general design principle and the expectations of players and the process of reviewers I guess.

Which is to say there's a lot of reasons. It's not one singular reason that a town doctor in a setup with a publicly known mafia doctor is incredibly unlikely; it's a bunch of reasons that largely overlap.

do you think its not a reasonable assumption for the town to believe that if they have a gunsmith that at least one bad guy should have a gun?

If lacking any other information? If it's a normal gunsmith without an Informed and there's no public information about a mafia doctor? Sure! It's reasonable under normal circumstances to assume that with a town gunsmith, the scum have at least one member with a gun.

When given the information at your disposal, listing the exact total number of guns in the game and with the public information of at least one mafia doctor in the game? Not as much. Given the specific setup information, I'd say it's neither inherently reasonable nor unreasonable, that blindly assuming either way would be a mistake, that the best approach would be to use judgement augmenting reads with the call. If things make more sense with no gun then it's perfectly plausible for no scum gun; if things make more sense with one scum gun then it's perfectly plausible for one scum gun. It's a situational assumption given the information you were given.

Designers/Reviewers do not give information arbitrarily (in most cases)--usually when it is given it is given for good reason and gives significant insight into the special mechanics for that game, it's gimmick if it has one. And every piece of information compounds on itself, both in terms of actual information (public + Informed) and in terms of roles (flipped + trueclaimed). For instance, the synergy between the town roles in this game is something that a reviewer would expect a player to pick up on when the roles are claimed.

The synergy between rolecop + Neapolitan is relatively obvious.
The synergy between detective + rolecop is maybe not as obvious but still present. (Detective can find a killer and rolecop can check them if they claim vig for instance.)
The interactions between gunsmith and the other investigatives is well-known for how they build off of each other.
Plus, investigative-heavy setups which lack in protectives/killing are a thing that gets run often enough to not be entirely out of the blue. I've seen plenty of triple-investigative games where the town literally had a Neapolitan and Gunsmith and another powerful investigative, all at once, at the cost of no protective PRs. So a setup featuring heavy investigative roles which have guns isn't something that comes out of left field; there is precedence for their existence.

Also as an aside: setup reviewers as a whole are both moving away from more townsided setups AND trying to make setups revolve more around dayplay than nightplay. As a whole the NRG is trying to encourage solving by scumhunting during the day, rather than on solving a mechanical puzzle revolving around PRs and nightplay. That shift is slow and gradual but it IS happening, so the expectation is that setups shouldn't be easily solved from mechanical assumptions, but rather solved from dayplay.

[mastina]

when you create a setup where the town has to guess at incredibly unlikely things to have a chance of winning
the game is no longer town vs scum
it is town vs mod.

Sure!
But you're arguing that this setup had a need for the town to guess at incredibly unlikely things.

I am stating that, flatly, they didn't need to. Given the public information the town had at their disposal, I would argue that the town needing to make the right conclusions wasn't "incredibly unlikely"--it was something that in most cases, should've been easy to connect point A to point B to point C.

In a game with a mafia doctor publicly confirmed to exist and the public information from the Informed that there's four guns, it's not "incredibly unlikely" to guess that at least two town PRs have guns; it's literally mod-confirmed to be the case off of the info they have. With that, it's not incredibly unlikely to guess at least three town PRs have guns, given the nature of the PRs being claimed. While it might verge into potentially 'unlikely' territory to conclude all four are town, it is not imo

incredibly

unlikely when looking at what the roles actually

are

.

The reasonable conclusion to reach from the roles is either they are genuine or they are very very good scum fakeclaims. If your choices are "either genuine or very good scum fakeclaims", usually the way to determine which is to sort by dayplay. To use your judgement to differentiate between the two, taking reads into account.

Which is a feature, not a flaw. If you're meant to be judging roles by the play behind them by and large rather than automatically townbinning the roles...job well done?

This game's roles weren't designed for the town to think they were scum; this game's roles were designed for the town to not be able to automatically tell that they were town, for them to be able to critically evaluate it and make determinations on real vs good scum fakeclaim off of dayplay.

If the town can clearly tell all of their town PRs are town, that's bad game design. There SHOULD be a level of ambiguity within where almost any town PR

could

be a scum fakeclaim, with you needing to use your judgement to determine if they are real and sincere or if they are scum fakeclaiming their role.

Town PRs are meant to give the town a boost, augmenting their already existing tools--not hand the town the answer to the game on a silver platter, giving them the answer to the game outright of knowing exactly who is town.

The town's roles this game were designed to do exactly that. The town's roles gave them information about the number of guns in the game when it was public info that there was at least one mafia doctor; the town's roles had the potential to generate two guilties and multiple innocents; the town's roles even if not getting guilties/innocents would give them extra information, with built-in synergy, but without giving the town the answer. The town wasn't meant to know their roles were all inherently town; the town was meant to use dayplay enhanced by their roles' claimed information.

you may think you are being "clever" by designing a setup where the town gets hosed but you are really just reducing this game into one where the play of the players does not really matter at all.

What makes the town be hosed in this setup with their roles? Objectively, there shouldn't be anything. The town's roles were all designed to give them a skill-based advantage where when optimally used they could get two guilties and a bunch of innocents, but which even if not used optimally would still give them a boost in information, without being conftown.

Normal Review Group members fundamentally cannot anticipate every variable in a game--the town ignoring dayplay to focus on wrong mechanical assumptions, in a game where the fundamental design is based off of the assumption the town will focus on dayplay with mechanics taking a back seat to it, is simply put: not a variable we could have seen coming because it is incredibly playerlist dependent.

If this same game were run 100 times, the outcome of this game would come up probably a maximum of 1-5 out of those 100 runs, with 95-99 of the other runs not having this conclusion.