Something_Smart's Mini Normal Review

[N]

Something_Smart has a 13p mini to review for both normalcy and balance. All reviewers must agree to the final version before the game can enter signups. Please be aware this topic will be made public after the game finishes.

Reviewers: Cheery Dog, Aeronaut, callforjudgement

Here is all the setup information I have currently created. If it's not enough, just let me know and I'd be happy to add what needs to be added.

Something_Smart's Mini Normal

Players: 13
Setup:
1 Mafia Goon
1 Mafia 1-shot Encryptor
1 Mafia Universal Backup
1 Town Jailkeeper
1 Town Odd-night Tracker
1 Town 2-shot Neighborizer
1 Town Neapolitan
1 Town PGO
5 Vanilla Townies

Post #0:

Alive Players:

1.
2.
etc.

Dead Players:

Spoiler:

Modkilled Players:

Spoiler:

Don't make me do this.

Post #1:

The Rules:

1. All site rules apply.
2. Be nice. Mafia games can get heated but remember never to attack the person.
3. Play to your wincon.
4. Days are approximately 14 days long, nights are approximately 48 hours long. Extensions may be given the circumstances warrant it.
5. Failure to post at least once every 48 hours will result in a prod.

Prod-dodges do not count toward this limit. It must be content.

If you do not pick up your prod in 24 hours, or if I have to prod you a third time, I will look for a replacement.
6.

Please

put votes in this format: VOTE: Something_Smart. Technically, bolded votes are allowed (

Vote: Something_Smart

), but they are a lot harder to see. It's easier for you and easier for me.
7. If you have a question for me, put it in bold and say

@Mod

or

@Something_Smart

. If it's not something you want made public, feel free to shoot me a PM.
8.

This lovely shade of yellow (#FFBF00) is the mod color.

Do not use it. Do not impersonate me.
9. Do not discuss this game in any other thread except in PTs created specifically for this game. Do not discuss any other ongoing game in this thread.
10. Do not quote any out-of-thread communications with me or with any other player.
11. The day after you are lynched or nightkilled, you may make one "bah!" post with no game-related information in it.
12. Do not pretend to break any of these rules. Pretending to break a rule is punishable just as harshly as actually breaking it.
13. My word is law. Just because it is not stated here does not mean that it is acceptable. I am generally a nice person and will give you a warning if you do something I don't approve of, but it's always better to ask than risk the consequences (see rule 7).
14. This game follows the Normal Guidelines. At least one player has the following role PM:

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Vanilla Townie.

You have no special abilities. Your weapons are your mind and your vote.
You win when all anti-town factions have been eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

15. This game is

3 mafia

versus

10 town

.

Role PMs:

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Vanilla Townie.

You have no special abilities. Your weapons are your mind and your vote.
You win when all anti-town factions have been eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

Please respond to this PM indicating you understand your role, your win condition, and rule number 6.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town Jailkeeper.

Each night, you may PM me the name of one player. Any actions taken by that player will fail, and that player will be protected from one kill attempt.
You win when all anti-town factions have been eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

Please respond to this PM indicating you understand your role, your win condition, and rule number 6.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town Odd-night Tracker.

Each odd-numbered night (1, 3, 5...), you may PM me the name of a player. You will be informed of who that player targeted with their action that night. If that player did not use an action, you will receive the result "Your target did not visit anyone last night." If your action fails for any reason, you will receive "Your action failed, and you did not receive a result."
You win when all anti-town factions have been eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

Please respond to this PM indicating you understand your role, your win condition, and rule number 6.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town 2-shot Neighborizer.

At two times during the game, during the night, you may PM me the name of a player. That player will be added to your Neighborhood topic, which will be created once you have successfully added a player. All players who are currently alive and in the neighborhood may post in this topic at any time.
You win when all anti-town factions have been eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

Please respond to this PM indicating you understand your role, your win condition, and rule number 6.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town Neapolitan.

Each night, you may PM me the name of a player. You while learn whether or not that player has the role "Vanilla Townie". If your action fails for any reason, you will receive "Your action failed, and you did not receive a result."
You win when all anti-town factions have been eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

Please respond to this PM indicating you understand your role, your win condition, and rule number 6.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town PGO.

Any time any player successfully uses an action on you during the night, that player will die. The action will still go through. This death cannot be blocked or prevented.
You win when all anti-town factions have been eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

Please respond to this PM indicating you understand your role, your win condition, and rule number 6.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Mafia Goon.

Your partners are YYYY,

Mafia 1-shot Encryptor

, and ZZZZ,

Mafia Universal Backup

. You share a private topic (link) during which you can talk during pregame, during the night, and during some days. You also have a factional kill that one Mafia member can carry out during the night, in addition to using their role's ability.

You win when the Mafia control 50% of all living players or nothing can prevent the same.

Please respond to this PM indicating you understand your role, your win condition, and rule number 6.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Mafia 1-shot Encryptor.

Your partners are YYYY,

Mafia Goon

, and ZZZZ,

Mafia Universal Backup

. You share a private topic (link) during which you can talk during pregame, during the night, and during some days. You also have a factional kill that one Mafia member can carry out during the night, in addition to using their role's ability.

Once during the night or during pregame, you may choose enable daytalk for the following day. During that day, you and your partners may post freely in the Mafia private topic. This ability cannot be blocked.

You win when the Mafia control 50% of all living players or nothing can prevent the same.

Please respond to this PM indicating you understand your role, your win condition, and rule number 6.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Mafia Universal Backup.

Your partners are YYYY,

Mafia 1-shot Encryptor

, and ZZZZ,

Mafia Goon

. You share a private topic (link) during which you can talk during pregame, during the night, and during some days. You also have a factional kill that one Mafia member can carry out during the night, in addition to using their role's ability.

You will inherit the role of the first player to die who has a role other than "Vanilla Townie" or "Mafia Goon". You will receive a PM indicating your role abilities at that time.

You win when the Mafia control 50% of all living players or nothing can prevent the same.

Please respond to this PM indicating you understand your role, your win condition, and rule number 6.

Flavor:
Flavor is just going to be inspirational quotes with votecounts and flips, with maybe a few quotes in the OP.

Action resolution:
Jailkeeper: protects against Mafia factional kill only (not PGO). Can roleblock Tracker, Neighborizer, Neapolitan, and the Mafia factional kill. Cannot roleblock or protect against PGO kill. Cannot stop the Encryptor from enabling daytalk.
Tracker: Can see Jailkeeper, Neapolitan, Neighborizer, and the Mafia factional kill.
Neighborizer: Has one neighborhood PT for all neighborized players. PT stays after death of Neighborizer. Mafia may neighborize their partners and will still gain a separate thread. All neighborhoods have daytalk. If roleblocked, one shot will be expended.
Neapolitan: Recieves "Vanilla Townie" on all Vanilla Townies. Recieves "Not Vanilla Townie" on Jailkeeper, Tracker, Neighborizer, Goon, Encryptor, Backup. (Recieves death on PGO.) Receives "no result" if roleblocked.
PGO: Will kill Jailkeeper, Tracker, Neighborizer, Neapolitan, and whoever commits the Mafia factional kill if visited by them. The action used by the visitor will still succeed.
Mafia: Do not have daytalk, except when enabled by the Encryptor. Can submit all night actions in the Mafia thread. Can use a factional ability and a personal ability in the same night.
Encryptor: During one night or during pregame, may activate ability to enable daytalk for the following day. The Mafia thread will remain open throughout that day. Cannot be roleblocked.
Backup: Will receive a copy of the first PR to die. Everything that interacts with that role interacts with the Backup's role in the same way. If the tracker tracks the Backup carrying out an action and making a kill, the Tracker will see both visits.

Result PMs:
Tracker:

The result from your night action:
Your target visited YYYY last night.

The result from your night action:
Your target did not visit anyone last night.

The result from your night action:
Your action failed, and you did not receive a result.

Neighborizer:

Your neighborization was successful! You may talk with your new neighbor here (link).

Your neighborization was successful! Your new neighbor has been added to your neighborhood.

Your neighborization was unsuccessful.

Neapolitan:

The result from your night action:
Your target is a Vanilla Townie.

The result from your night action:
Your target is not a Vanilla Townie.

The result from your night action:
Your action failed, and you did not receive a result.

Universal Backup:

You are now a [Jailkeeper, Odd-night Tracker, 2-shot Neighborizer, Neapolitan, PGO, 1-shot Encryptor].
[Abilities copied from corresponding role PM].

[Something_Smart]

Hey! Thank you all for doing this for me!
I will start off by saying I misread the universal backup wiki page, and I didn't realize it couldn't back up roles of another alignment. If it's possible to keep this role as my allotted non-whitelisted role, that would be nice. If not, my thought was to remove the JK and change the UB to a roleblocker.

[Cheery Dog]

The PGO currently holds the non-whitelist slot. But since I don't think you actually need the PGO here, using the variant universal backup should be fine.

Actually the PGO and Universal Backup do not go together at all.

[Something_Smart]

The idea behind the PGO was to balance out the high amount of town power, but I guess if it's not normal and it could just claim anyway, it's probably not a good idea to have.
One thing that worried me about this non-normal backup (obviously, I'd have to call it something different, like Master Backup) is that if it claims UB and is confirmed to have the ability it gets, it may be considered confirmed town or at least be the subject of a lot of setup spec.
The other thing that worries me is that the Master Backup might be a bit too swingy. I tried to balance the town roles so that they would all be of about equal utility to scum, but I don't know very much about that so what do you guys think about it?

[callforjudgement]

Just dropping in to say that I've looked at this setup, but it requires a ton of thought. It's a very complex setup (probably more complex than I'd typically expect in a normal).

Quick initial thoughts: The PGO + Mafia Master Backup is both abNormal (2 roles that are greylist at best; I'm inclined to veto PGO as being too far outside the spirit of a Normal), and something of a balance disaster; if the PGO dies first, scum effectively retaliate to the many investigative roles around with a kill. In general, swing will be a huge problem in this setup, given that you're double-rewarding the Mafia when town power roles die (the town don't have the role, the scum do), and that most of the town power roles gain power as the game goes on and become disproportionately better as the scumteam gets smaller. Thus, early power role deaths will make a huge difference to the balance.

[Something_Smart]

I definitely agree about the PGO, in that it is not necessary. As far as the other roles go, given that the Master Backup can only inherit one role it doesn't reward the scum too much for killing PRs, and I don't think any of the town roles would be that useful for scum (with the exception of Neapolitan-- I suppose a Neapolitan kill N1 might screw the town over so badly that it would need to be addressed).

Your point about town roles getting stronger as the scumteam diminishes is a good one; could that possibly be solved by giving scum a JOAT (1-shot Ninja, 1-shot Strongman)?

[callforjudgement]

Not really.

The big problem with this sort of setup is that two of the town investigatives are capable of catching the scum that does the kill, but not the other scum. As such, they're relatively weak when the scumteam is large (although town has

enough

investigatives that there's nonetheless a high chance of one of them getting useful information early), and much more powerful when the scumteam is smaller. No ability given to a single scum can counteract that, as there's (approximately, but pretty accurately) a 1 in 3 chance that that scum member dies first. Your ninja strongman actually probably makes the positive feedback effect worse, because the chance that that scumteam member might die early means that the scumteam may well use the shots in the early game (at least the ninja shot; strongman shots are normally saved to break up a potential follow the cop, rather than for JK immunity).

The Neapolitan is the odd one out here; they can't catch scum directly and have an incentive not to claim results (because it helps scum figure out where the town power roles are). As such, that role helps to hold the setup together, as opposed to the other roles that are trying to tear it apart. With 6 VTs (I'm assuming we're removing the PGO), it has a reasonable chance (about 50%) of confirming townies, and as such it's probably worth a little less than 2 confirmations if unlimited-shot (like the version you have there). (Confirmation count is something I use to try to balance setups; it's adjusted by subjective criteria a lot, such as who's doing the confirming or what sort of things can be confirmed, but overall something like 3 and a bit confirmations at Night is probably about the right place for a 10:3 setup.) However, a (reasonably) powerful unlimited-shot investigative like the Neapolitan is swingy in its own right, as town's chances will depend on how quickly they die.

I'm finding it hard to gauge the balance of this setup because so much of the action is in the late game, but feel that it probably has unacceptably high swing. Once that's fixed, it'll change the balance anyway, so we should probably try to get the swing under control first and then worry about the win chances for the various factions.

[Something_Smart]

So the biggest problems with the setup right now are:
JK/Tracker's power heavily depends on # of scum left- contributes to swing
Neapolitan is the only balancing role- contributes to swing
Master Backup benefits from town PR deaths- contributes to swing
So as a whole the setup is insanely swingy.

I'm thinking about ideas for fixing these problems, if you have any I'd love to hear them.
I'm leaning toward scrapping the Master Backup, as that will reduce swing and give me more freedom with the non-whitelisted role to fix the swing more.

How would these ideas affect the swing?
Jailkeeper-> Doctor
Tracker-> Backup Neapolitan or Motion Detector or Night 3 Cop
Master Backup-> Roleblocker or Tracker

[callforjudgement]

JK→Doctor is a large improvement swing-wise. Doctors have no investigative ability and can help prevent town power roles dying, reducing one cause of swing.

For the Tracker role, Backup Neapolitan would probably give away too many details of the setup (although swing would indeed reduce as a result); it's not a role people think of adding to a game as a "fake backup". Motion Detector is basically useless except that it has a small chance of catching scum in a lie at massclaim; this basically means it only triggers in lylo. This would be swingy except that the role is so weak that it probably won't matter whether it dies or not. Night 3 Cop is fairly swingy in that its three possible results (dead on or before night 3, finds scum, finds a townie) are reasonably different in power level, and all of them have a reasonable chance of happening, but it probably has lower swing than Tracker just because it's one-shot.

A Mafia Tracker tends to cause town power roles to die early. Likewise, a Mafia Roleblocker gives another method via which the Mafia can nullify town roles. These make the worst case for scum less likely, but no less devastating if it does actually happen. Does this count as "good enough town play / bad enough scum play that town deserve the win"? Possibly it does, although I'm less sure than in some other setups I've reviewed, given that it mostly relies on scum failing. (The roleblocker might be necessary if we have a Doctor and a Neapolitan to prevent a Follow-the-Cop style strategy building up a critical mass of confirmed VTs. That said, this isn't an Open, and I don't think town have enough information to know that the strategy would work, meaning that they're unlikely to try it.)

How attached are you to the idea of the Mafia being able to inherit a choice of roles from town? It's an idea I haven't seen before, and we might be able to make it work. In such a case, I think a minimal start would be to give Mafia a Rolecop; this would increase the chance that they discovered a town power role fast enough to be able to have some impact on the game intentionally, rather than by chance. (Additionally, losing the Rolecop wouldn't be too much of a swing problem because it would be most useful early; lategame it would mostly only help scum by letting them get their fakeclaims in order, which tends to reduce swing.)

[Something_Smart]

If we have a Doctor (and I don't see why not), Backup Neapolitan is not necessary to reduce the swing from the Neapolitan potentially dying early.

With the Doctor-Neapolitan combo, I don't know if another investigative role is required. What about a commuter? (Either 2- or 3- shot or full.) It doesn't seem very swingy but it would probably add an appropriate amount of power. The commuter is basically in the same vein as the PGO, except minus a whole lot is swing.

Concerning the Mafia PR, I like the Rolecop idea. It would help to weaken Follow the Neapolitan but would be nicely counteracted by the commuter. Honestly I'm not too worried about Follow the Neapolitan because if it wants to catch scum, it has to risk outing town PR's, plus there's no way to know there is a doctor without them claiming.

Honestly, what I liked about the idea behind the original setup was that all the roles were useful to scum as well. If they aren't, it makes the Master Backup even swingier as it may get a useless role. So given that we can't maintain that, it's probably better to scrap the whole idea and just go with a rolecop.

I'm assuming that because you haven't mentioned the Neighborizer or the Encryptor, there's nothing wrong with them, right?

[callforjudgement]

Encryptor's pretty much null in terms of swing, as it places the setup between full-daytalk and no-daytalk, both of which are allowed in Normals anyway. (For what it's worth, far too many games I review include one, mostly because mods feel like they should have scum power roles.) Neighbourizer is relatively weak and thus something I consider later in setup analysis, when it's more finely balanced. (That said, it is probably negative utility for scum, especially because if scum want to fakeclaim universal backup then they'd probably have to use it rather than just save the shot.)

Commuter's a good example of a role that's useful for both town and scum (it allows scum to dodge investigatives), and it has no swing issues. Of course, scum aren't exactly going to be able to kill it unless there are limits on it.

Follow the Neapolitan isn't something I'm worried about here. It's one of the things you have to check for, but the checks look good.

If we're trying to get the setup to work as initially designed, it's worth checking which roles would be useful for scum to snag with the Backup, while avoiding having too many lategame-focused roles for town. (Note that having one such role isn't too terrible; it's when you have them in multiples that things start getting overly swingy.) Let's run through the list of explicitly-Normal-as-town roles (barring Masons and Neighbours who presumably wouldn't be stolen by a Backup, roles that confirm themselves as town because allowing them into scum hands would be nonsensical, and Universal Backup due to recursion):

Useless or negative utility for scum: Bodyguard, Cop, Doctor, Neighborizer
So weak it'd be unbalanced as a Backed Up role: Motion Detector, Voyeur
Potentially useful for scum, but not in this setup: Gunsmith,
Mildly useful for scum, nothing special: Commuter, Follower, Jailkeeper*, Neapolitan, Roleblocker*, Rolecop, Rolestopper, Tracker*, Vanilla Cop, Watcher**
Overly powerful in scum hands: Vigilante
Depends on how the role is defined: JOAT

In the "mildly useful" section I've placed one asterisk against the roles that get more useful for town in lategame (thus causing excess swing if there are too many), and two asterisks against the Watcher, who is so powerful in town hands that it distorts the rest of the setup.

The role that stands out to me most here is the Rolestopper. In town hands, it's basically a Doctor, which is good; we wanted something like that in the setup. In scum hands, on the other hand, it's actually useful, unlike the Doctor: you can use it to save a buddy from an investigation, or make your kill target immune to Doctoring and Jailkeeping. (The first method here is better in the setup, although scum wouldn't know that.) So if we're trying to use the Master Backup idea, I think we definitely want a full Rolestopper in the setup.

Neapolitan and Commuter are also fine on the town side, and putting that against a Rolecop and Master Backup on the scum side would give us something similar to the original idea of the setup, but with fewer swing issues. So at the moment, we have something like

[ilst]
[*]Town Neapolitan
[*]Town Commuter
[*]Town Rolestopper
[*]7 VT
[*]Mafia Rolecop
[*]Mafia Master Backup
[*]Mafia Goon
[/list]

Although I haven't run the balance numbers yet, I unfortunately suspect that this is scumsided. Before trying to balance it further, though, I'd like to see what you think of the general idea here, and whether it fits what you were aiming for.

[callforjudgement]

Ugh, screwed up the markup, and you can't edit in PTs. I meant this:

• Town Neapolitan
  
• Town Commuter
  
• Town Rolestopper
  
• 7 VT
  
• Mafia Rolecop
  
• Mafia Master Backup
  
• Mafia Goon

[callforjudgement]

Whoops, just realised that you can't rolestop the kill as you'd stop the kill from going through.

This is good for balance in this setup, as it means that Mafia would use the role in a way that would benefit them.

[Something_Smart]

I really like the idea of the Rolestopper, first of all. It has interesting interactions with Neapolitan and Rolecop.

And I do like its interactions with the Master Backup, but the Master Backup just doesn't feel right with these roles. Scum getting Commuter or Rolestopper is almost the same, and having a Neapolitan and a Rolecop seems unnecessary. The Master Backup was designed for the original setup and requires all town PR's to be (1) non-alignment-specific and (2) of approximately equal value to scum. It's a neat idea but I just think it's too constraining and it makes things awkward.

Also, while I admit that the encryptor was added for the reason you mentioned, I like it because I know how useful daytalk can be and it gives the scum an opportunity to strategize and maybe pull off a gambit while not making them too powerful (because 1-shot).

So how's this setup?
Town Neapolitan
Town 3-shot Commuter
Town Rolestopper
Town Neighborizer
6 VT
Mafia Rolecop
Mafia 1-shot Encryptor
Mafia Goon

[callforjudgement]

The Commuter looks a bit out of place here. Its main goal is going to be to try to earn a free mislynch via stopping two kills (between Commuter and Rolestopper); it doesn't do anything else for the setup because there are no investigatives that depend on unusual numbers of kills (sometimes Commuter/Bulletproof can act as a false positive for these).

I'd say the town power is mostly in two places: the Neapolitan, and the chance of two no-kill nights. The worrying thing here is that if town

get

their extra mislynch, the setup is only slightly townsided (depending on how useful the Neapolitan results are, and if the Neighbourizer manages to do some convincing scumhunting in the QTs). If they don't, which is much more likely (they only get six tries to stop two kills, and scum probably won't repeat a target or aim for an obvious target once they see a failed kill), it's pretty scumsided, with town not having any roles that can save themselves by claiming. I think the town needs something extra here.

(Also, where did the other reviewers go to? I was hoping for input from someone else.)

[Something_Smart]

(Well, I really appreciate your help, it's been awesome.)

We changed Jailkeeper to Doctor (and then to Rolestopper) to reduce the swing when one scum is left. But I think you said one role that increases power with one scum remaining is ok, so how about a roleblocker rather than a commuter?

[callforjudgement]

That seems like it could be balanced; it's stronger than Commuter (especially in this setup) and yet none of the roles produce firm investigation results because they interfere with each other, so there's less chance of a blowout. Another thing to look out for is if any of the roles could confirm themselves by claiming, but I doubt it; some of the roles are confirmable but even when confirmed, they're believable as the opposite alignment.

One thing I'm a little worried about is that the Neapolitan confirms a townie as town, then the townie gets rolestopped and scum's kill on the confirmed townie fails. That isn't really unbalanced but it would feel bad for the scum. (It does, however, give them enough information to probably play correctly from then on, in addition to confusing the roleblocker.) Another potential possibility that would cause problems would be if the Neapolitan survives until lylo and uses it to 1v1 a scum who claims VT but scans as not-VT. This is relatively unlikely (the Neapolitan would be 50% likely to survive until lylo given a 4:3 lylo if they were very good at crumbing and scum didn't have a rolecop, so the chance is much lower in practice), and also not really a problem; again, it's most likely just to be a case which leaves the scum player annoyed. I don't think either of these is a dealbreaker but I'm mentioning them in case you or one of the other reviewers have comments.

Anyway, I think this setup is within reasonable balance bounds; I normally judge 9ps, and the more players there are in a setup, the harder it is to judge balance, but also the less it matters (the larger the setup gets, the less impact any individual balance mistake has compared to random chance). The game seems about right in terms of confirmation count, and there doesn't seem to be a town or scum blowout situation (town blowout D1/N1 is to lynch scum, prevent the kill and not know why, and confirm a VT, which is actually pretty small as blowouts go; scum blowout is to kill the Neapolitan and discover the Roleblocker, and town still have a flghting chance if that happens, not to mention that the construction of the setup makes it less unlikely than the average scum blowout).

In terms of normalcy, things generally look pretty good. You haven't explained what voting does or how unvoting works; I'd recommend you throw a mention in because we sometimes get newbies in Mini Normals and they might not necessarily be able to guess. Obviously, you'll need to write up a new set of PMs and action resolutions as the setup has changed (it might not be worth bothering doing this until the other reviewers turn up, though, because they might well want changes to the setup), but the ones you had before show a good understanding of how action resolution in a Normal works. (You did miss the "you are neighborized" PM from the list of possible night results, though.) I'd recommend that the example VT PM in the rules is the same as the actual VT PM (you missed a line); it wouldn't be a balance issue in this case but it might lead to a VT trying something stupid, or possibly even an attempt to skirt the edges of rule 10. (I've seen it happen before.) I'd also recommend you explain the situation with activated Encryptor better in the other scums' role PMs; something like "you can talk during pregame and during the night; while the Encryptor action is active, you can also talk during the day". Some people are going to get confused at a role PM that says they can sometimes talk during the day, but not when; seeing an Encryptor on their team would probably clear it up, but it's best to be safe.

You also need to work out what happens if the Encryptor action gets roleblocked; this is a case that isn't covered by the normal action resolution because Encryptor is normally passive, but becomes active if made 1-shot. As far as I can tell, the roleblock works, and you lock the mafia PT so that they don't talk in there because they think they're allowed to; to avoid confusion, you should probably post something there like "The Encryptor action failed, so this thread is locked", because the failure is observable and would confuse the scum otherwise. (The Encryptor action is untargeted, so it can't be rolestopped.)

Prods of 48-with-substantial-content+24 are going to be hard for some players to keep up with; I fear that if you don't allow for prod-dodging, you're going to have to find a lot of replacements. (Of course, I might be completely wrong about this.) This is completely your call; I just thought you should be aware of the potential problem.

You might want to consider whether to place a statement about faction sizes in your game advertisement (if you do, it should also be in the rules). "This is a 10:3 game" is reassuring to people who don't like multiball. This is entirely optional – sometimes it's fun to have to figure out the faction sizes too – but most mods don't realise it's an option, so I'm bringing it to your attention.

Finally, I tend to get a little annoyed at seeing a "Modkilled" section in the first post, especially when it's nearly always empty; it sort-of gives off the impression of "this mod is triggerhappy". (I just have an alive and dead, and would put modkills in the dead section if I ever had to make one.) This is just a personal preference/peeve of mine and has nothing to do with the Normal guidelines, I just thought I'd point it out. (You are perfectly free to ignore me on this.)

[callforjudgement]

Oh, something else you didn't mention anywhere is what you do with confirmations and when you end pregame.

The "standard practice" for a 13p Mini would be to leave the main game thread locked until eleven players had confirmed. (The idea is to guarantee that at least one scum had confirmed before allowing the game to start.) This doesn't need to be mentioned in your rules, but would typically be mentioned in a post you made after sending out the role PMs. (Something like "All role PMs have now been sent out. The game will start when 11 of 13 players have confirmed.)

[Cheery Dog]

Unless the neighbouriser is extremely familiar with other people's games (and can probably do it without the nieghbourhood) I don't think it's going to mean anything.

I see the last iteration as being able to pass balance, none of those roles are particularity swingy.

[callforjudgement]

@Cheery Dog: It's definitely pretty low on the swing. What do you think of the balance win-percentage-wise? To be balanced, a game both has to have non-excessive swing, and a win percentage around 50%.

[Cheery Dog]

Should be slightly better than a mountainous. if I have any idea on how win percentage can actually be figured out.

[callforjudgement]

"Slightly better than a mountainous" is unfortunately too low. The town win rate in practice for 2:11 Mountainous stands at an enormous 0%.

That said, town have a

lot

of advantages here compared to a typical Mountainous.

Aeronaut, care to weigh in? I haven't seen you post here at all.

[Cheery Dog]

I meant EV wise or something.

I'll shut up since I don't know what I'm actually trying to compare.

But I ant think of what would be added/removed to do bettered balance that what is currently there.

[Aeronaut]

So sorry! Will take a look at this, have been swamped.

[Something_Smart]

Let's see...

First of all, I don't think scum will be too surprised if their kill on the conftown fails, and I doubt that would make it a bad game. I also don't think an investigative role causing a 1v1 is going to upset the scum; it's no worse than a redcheck or any other investigative guilty.

I agree that neither team has an opportunity for a slam dunk. The town power roles have a hard time getting definitive guilties, and there are enough of them that they won't (most likely) all die early.

Concerning the administrative stuff (rules, PMs, clarifications), I'll start taking a look at the things you mentioned. I can definitely change the rules about voting and fix the sample VT PM, and I can also clarify daytalk in the scum PMs.

My intention with the Encryptor was to make it unblockable because encryptor is normally passive. In my head, I likened it to a 1-shot bulletproof. Even if that person got to choose the night they were bulletproof, it still wouldn't be blockable I don't think? Honestly though it affects the balance very little and I'd go with whichever you think is more Normal.

As for the prod rule, I just happen to think that prod-dodges are just as useless as not posting. In hindsight it does seem a little harsh given that the prod-dodging player has already received a strike for being prodded. I think I'll change that.

I will place a faction size statement in the advertisement. I did in the rules too (rule 15, after the VT PM, maybe I should switch those rules around). That was already my intention not to have people worrying about other factions, especially since that would pretty much only be day 1 (due to a max of one kill per night) and therefore would become moot anyway.

As for the modkilled section, I thought it was standard, but if omitting it's not abnormal, then I will gladly do it, as they mostly just do nothing and are redundant.

And yeah, thread unlocking at 11/13 confirmed is fine.