What happened to Vanilla Cop?

[PokerFace]

What happened to Vanilla Cop? Unless I am miss remembering, wasn't Neapolitan what vanilla cop originally was?

The current version of Vanilla Cop finds power roles. Goons are seen as vanilla (You can't confirm anyone as any alignment as this role. You can only verify power role claims. You don't find who is truly vanilla)

Neapolitan finds vanillas and non vanillas. Goons are seen as non-vanilla (You can confirm vanilla townies as this role and find who truly is vanilla)

Why has Vanilla cop changed into a weaker version of itself? Its become a crappy variant of its past self

Neapolitan should be called Vanilla Cop because it finds Vanillas

and the Vanilla Cop we have today should be called Power Role Cop or Non Vanilla Cop

[Ether]

Yes, vanilla cops are a binary rolecop, and they're pretty weak.

The crappy variant was the one that was used more. Back in April, the NRG recognized them and put that version onto the whitelist for normal roles under that variant, leaving the stronger gunsmith-lite version orphaned and nameless. Shortly afterward, I joined the NRG and started arguing for the inclusion of the stronger version. It didn't have a name anymore, so I gave it one: the Neapolitan. And as of last week, it caught on.

Honestly, I like the name Neapolitan more. I don't like this thing where the -Cop suffix gets stuck onto random information roles, and I'm glad that the stronger more useful version has a name that's distinct from all that. It's pretty sweet wordplay, too, if I do say so myself.

[Ether]

PS. Everyone should go use lots of Neapolitans, they're totally sweet.

[PokerFace]

I didn't know you were in NRG again. I'm glad that you are and are bringing the more powerful role back (Neapolitan does sound cool). But a role really should do what it says.

They kinda each do the opposite of what they say now

Perhaps the roles should be Vanilla Finder and Power Role Finder?

[Ether]

Honestly those are really bland names with no heart to them. A new role is a time to get creative!

I wouldn't mind changing the vanilla cop name into something else. (I'd probably throw in a Binary modifier, so people can use it both with rolecops, and with other information roles like trackers/followers and watchers/voyeurs. Really just those three, I guess. Those pairs would be getting the same results under that modifier.)

I don't know what the name Neapolitan says to you or how you're getting that it does the opposite of what it says. It's a person from a city in Italy, and an ice cream flavor with separate sections for vanilla and other flavors.

(Granted, if you wanted to get

really

precise about that meaning, I guess you'd get some trinary vanilla townie/power role/mafia goon result, but I'm pretty sure nobody has ever used that and I'm not convinced it's something that needs to be a mainstream normal role instead of just a weird gimmick.)

EDIT:

Vanilla Finder

Also, keep in mind that the name Vanilla Cop stuck on the other version

because

people kept using it that way. It's not as precise as you're thinking.

[PokerFace]

Neapolitan is a good name. And I guess when you put it the way you just did, it does do what it says

But Vanilla cop (the new vanilla cop) really doesn't do what it says. NRG shouldn't have made it weaker in the first place. They should have just made a new role and name and not changed what was already good. They kinda ruined it. If it ain't broke don't fix it. I want vanilla cop to be what it used to be and this new vanilla cop to be pushed to the very back of the freezer and get neglected

[PokerFace]

I agree the term finder and or the term cop shouldn't be just tacked onto things. So ultimately I guess we are going about the process wrong

I just want a name that sticks to a role and does what its always done in the end

[Ether]

The thing is...I like the stronger version, and you like the stronger version, but more than half of people were using the weaker version. (Even if that more than half was like a 60/40 split.) That was the majority position, and it absolutely does make sense to those people.

[PokerFace]

That may be true but I still don't like the change

I guess I'll just settle for the fact that the stronger role has the cooler name

Would anyone raise a fit if I updated the wiki to mention what came first and or this thread?

We don't have to change the names, but I'd still like the history preserved

[Ether]

I don't know which one actually came first. I think both sides assume that people are referring to their version when they see it, and it's usually not clarified. I wasn't happy when I learned that the NRG had standardized one and not the one I liked, but I am glad that the standardization happened, because they're completely different roles, and of course I like how things turned out in the end.

You can mention the history. You can see me arguing for it a bit here, although most of it takes place in the NRG treehouse and/or by generally making myself look like a quack over it via SiteChat/ScumChat/Skype.

I guess I'll just settle for the fact that the stronger role has the cooler name

Exactly!

[Untrod Tripod]

I always like Alignment Cop, Flavor Cop, FBI Agent, SpecificThingCop, PowerCop

as the variants

[Kagami]

I don't see any harm in having the weaker version, though I do like the Vanilla-townie-cop.

Imo, most town roles are too strong, resulting in setups where either most of the town is vanilla, or the scum have abilities that render the town roles nigh-useless. If most of the town is vanilla, then games are often decided by whether or not the strong roles are eliminated early on.

I also like X-cop. It's immediately apparent what the role does without the player having to be worried about quoting their role PM and makes flips a lot simpler.

[PokerFace]

I also like X-cop. It's immediately apparent what the role does without the player having to be worried about quoting their role PM and makes flips a lot simpler.

This is why I like the name to match the power, but because of how often each role is getting used, values are getting wrongly distributed here

[Ether]

Again, the trouble is that Vanilla Cop is an ambiguous name and everyone on both sides takes their own interpretation for granted when they see it.

Imo, most town roles are too strong,

I don't think so. People's perceptions of what's actually a balanced game tend to be pretty far off the mark, even with the NRG. I think people are often too inclined to nerf what roles they do put in.

[PokerFace]

There's a part of me that wants to call Neapolitan as Neapolitan or Vanilla cop

And there's a part of me that wants to call the new vanilla cop, Taste Tester or Food Critic

Especially since a taste tester or food critic still has to rate them after trying them. You still got to figure out what their alignment is after you take a bite

(I want ice cream real bad right now. Thread has made me hungry)

[Ether]

Honestly I think a vanilla cop should just stick with its current name, or be changed to Binary Rolecop. Despite what I said about bland names...well, it's a bland role.

I do wish we'd rename Friendly Neighbors, though. Having Neighbors and Friendly Neighbors as two completely different things is kind of dumb. (I suggested Socialite and Debutante as alternatives earlier, and still like those. In general I prefer names that are only one word.)

[PokerFace]

Yay I'm partly to blame for the neighbor name confusion. I forgot about friendly neighbors when i gave unconfirmed masons that name

Names are not as important as the meaning in the end. Shakespeare would agree

[Ether]

I remember at the start of that whole "make masons confirmed again" movement, I wanted the name to be Pledges, but figured, "Bah, this movement will never catch on anyway." And then suddenly neighbors everywhere.

Friendly neighbors were such a minor thing at that point. Like, they existed, but I think they were mostly just another weird Xylbot role? And Xylbot roles had some weird naming conventions in general. It figures they'd be the role to make the jump into forum mafia with their name intact.

[PokerFace]

yep. I created a monster. Neighbor mainly stuck because I thought of it at the right time

For what its worth Pledges does sound like an awesome name.

Probably should make the neighbor alias pledges and the new vanilla cop alias taste tester or food critic (whatever sounds better)

[Ether]

I think it's much too late to rename neighbors again. It's not a bad name, anyway. Friendly neighbors, though...those, yeah, I'd love to change.

But yeah, I don't like those names for vanilla cops.

[quadz08]

"A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet" definitely applies to this discussion.

[PokerFace]

Yes

[Ether]

Let's rename Friendly Neighbors to Roses.

[Faraday]

Friendly Neighbour is an excellent name.

[Sméagol]

Having to look at a lot of roles on the wiki recently, I get the arguments.. Neighbours vs friendly neighbours is confusing. And vanilla cop vs neapolitan.. Where I come from, vanilla is not a thing, so I have a complete outsider / objective look on these things. I see the arguments for both. As for the names, I'm also not really fond of the cop this and that stuff, but then I'm not that fond of the tradional mafia flavour anyway, that too is almost non-existent on my usual site.

Anyway, although not technically correct, the first word that comes to my mind when thinking of that friendly neighbour, is "confidant".