New Normal Guidelines - April 2017 update!

[StrangerCoug]

Compared to the other investigative roles in the normal list, it's quite strong, perhaps trumped only by the cop.

[GreyICE]

You mean in the neutered list of investigative roles it's okay?

Weak Neigborizor blows it out of the water. So does Jail keeper or roleblocker. So does Gunsmith. I'd estimate it as around the same strength as a 1-shot cop, and much weaker than a 2-shot cop. Would you put a godfather in a game with a 1-shot cop?

[StrangerCoug]

You mean in the neutered list of investigative roles it's okay?

What do you mean the "neutered" list?

Weak Neigborizor blows it out of the water. So does Jail keeper or roleblocker. So does Gunsmith. I'd estimate it as around the same strength as a 1-shot cop, and much weaker than a 2-shot cop.

I'll admit that I'm unfamiliar with the weak neighborizer—you have to remember that I'm old school here. (I do think it would single-handedly break the setup, though.) As for jailkeeper or roleblocker, those aren't traditionally thought of blocking roles, not investigative roles, and the possibilities with false negatives with gunsmith would make me argue that it and tracker are about the same strength.

Would you put a godfather in a game with a 1-shot cop?

I never made an argument about balance. My argument was about normalcy. That said, I don't exactly see what the problem here is that you're trying to present. I'd put godfather and cop together; why would limiting the cop create a balance problem (assuming all other roles are vanilla)?

[GreyICE]

The normal roles are lacking many strong investigative roles - Hider, Goon cop, publishing cop, elite bodyguard (okay not investigative role, but hey dead scum), you get the idea.

Weak Neigborizor blows it out of the water. So does Jail keeper or roleblocker. So does Gunsmith. I'd estimate it as around the same strength as a 1-shot cop, and much weaker than a 2-shot cop.

I'll admit that I'm unfamiliar with the weak neighborizer—you have to remember that I'm old school here. (I do think it would single-handedly break the setup, though.) As for jailkeeper or roleblocker, those aren't traditionally thought of blocking roles, not investigative roles, and the possibilities with false negatives with gunsmith would make me argue that it and tracker are about the same strength.

Weak Neighborizer is a Neighborizer that dies if they target scum. Aka Mason Recruiter, with standardized language.

If you think Tracker is both good and an investigative role, you must admit that Roleblocker and Jailkeeper are better. Obviously if a tracker and a roleblocker target the scum committing the nightkill, the tracker gets slightly more information, but the roleblocker/jailkeeper just plain stops the kill. Therefore they are equal information roles to the tracker, but with a doctor component the tracker lacks.

Frankly, unless you have the sort of role madness game where everyone has a PR (admittedly potentially what you're more used to), Trackers mostly get no result whatsoever. There may be 2-3 roles in the game tops that give a tracker result. Even if a tracker targets scum, they have a 1/3 or 1/2 chance of seeing the scum commit the night kill most often. Trackers rise in utility outside the normal queue (just as town roleblockers plummet) but the fact is they are weak and situational.

Ninjas are a crap attempt to balance a role that isn't actually strong in the first place.

[callforjudgement]

Weak Neighbourizer is a very strong investigative role. I've placed it in a Normal before now, and the rest of the setup had to be designed around it. It's still less powerful than an unlimited-shot Cop, but not by much.

However, I'm glad that both strong and weak investigative roles exist. Sometimes your setup wants something powerful to balance around; other times, it wants something like Tracker that just gives the town an edge. (And Tracker is one of the weaker investigative roles around, although it's still strong enough to make a noticeable difference to the balance of a setup, unlike something very week like Voyeur.)

[kuribo]

Also we should really denormalize godfather and ninja because those should eventually be classified as bastard.

I've never understood this argument and always felt that calling godfathers and ninjas "bastard" is to extend the bastard description so far as to render it completely meaningless.

Same with cop sanities.

Without these counters, cops are so powerful that no half-decent mod would ever include a cop of any manner. It's basically an "I Win" button for town.

[callforjudgement]

1-Shot Cop is a perfectly fine role that can be used in a variety of setups without balancing around it.

It's the unlimited version that causes problems, and even then it can be balanced, e.g. Cop + 6 VT vs. 2 Goon is reasonably balanced (possibly a little townsided, but not much). However it tends to be somewhat swingy (like that setup is).

[StrangerCoug]

If you think Tracker is both good and an investigative role, you must admit that Roleblocker and Jailkeeper are better.

I'll concede that.

I've never understood this argument and always felt that calling godfathers and ninjas "bastard" is to extend the bastard description so far as to render it completely meaningless.

Same with cop sanities.

I agree with the argument that calling godfathers and ninjas bastard waters down the term "bastard," but to the point that it's meaningless, I'm not 100% sure I agree. I do think it's an attempt to shift the meaning to "roles that screw up other roles", in which case you can probably argue that

EVERY

power role would be bastard in some way.

[mastin2]

Wait, duplicate roles can be normal?

Can and has been for many instances.

It's the fault of the players if they assume otherwise.

While it's a pretty safe bet you're not going to have five investigative roles in a Normal, having two trackers for instance is something that can and has been done before.

[Ether]

It's interesting. Godfathers used to be ubiquitous, but they're only in 7 of the most recent 90 mini normals. (If anyone's curious, 6 of those 7 had a full cop, compared to

11

12 full cops for the other 83 mini normals.)

I wish the Normal rules had a place for roles that are normal if, and only if, they are announced publicly or the town is otherwise given explicit warning. A tailor/framer would be a much better role if the town knew about it beforehand, or if its existence were confirmed in the cop's role PM, and that would take the cop down a peg too.

EDIT: looked at the archives a little more closely.

[kuribo]

I agree with the argument that calling godfathers and ninjas bastard waters down the term "bastard," but to the point that it's meaningless, I'm not 100% sure I agree. I do think it's an attempt to shift the meaning to "roles that screw up other roles", in which case you can probably argue that EVERY power role would be bastard in some way.

When I think "bastard," I don't think of things that can be foreseen such as "oh, I may have an innocent on a Godfather," or "Oh, I may not be a Sane Cop."

I think of Space Monkey Mafia when I think of "bastard." To me, that was the quintessential example of a bastard game.

[kuribo]

*awaits the inevitable veteran that will come in and comment on the PTSD that Space Monkey Mafia caused them*

[StrangerCoug]

When I think "bastard," I don't think of things that can be foreseen such as "oh, I may have an innocent on a Godfather," or "Oh, I may not be a Sane Cop."

And that's not what it was ever intended to mean.

[Oversoul]

I feel like as time goes on Normals become feature less and less roles.

[callforjudgement]

Wait, duplicate roles can be normal?

Can and has been for many instances.

It's the fault of the players if they assume otherwise.

Although I have a side note on this: if two players both claim to be unlimited town cops, it's more likely that the setup contains zero town cops, than that it contains two. (I've seen this happen

twice

. As it happens, you moderated one of them.)

Another thing I've seen happen twice: if a player claims to have used a Cop investigation on a claimed miller, they are likely scum. (Admittedly, one time it was a Town Godfather – me – but that was a split role/alignment game, and claiming the role makes it effectively identical to Miller. In retrospect, I'm not 100% sure why my slot claimed the role; it's not like it proves the role's out of scum hands because if one scum gets it, another scum could claim it. Nonetheless, it was claimed before I replaced in.)

[quadz08]

I feel like as time goes on Normals become feature less and less roles.

you are just more aware of other roles - the latest revision of the Normal guidelines actually added roles, I believe

[callforjudgement]

We removed some, but added more.

[pisskop]

How would I resolve cross roleblocking and also self-targeting roleblocking?

[callforjudgement]

Roleblockers can't target themselves in a Normal.

Crossblocking is something that the current guidelines / action resolutions don't do very well at. As far as I know (although I might be wrong), there isn't an "official" answer. (Note that the answer rarely matters unless one of the players doing the blocking also has a second ability in addition to the block, e.g. a JK's protection or the scum factional kill.)

[Wake1]

I feel like as time goes on Normals become feature less and less roles.

you are just more aware of other roles - the latest revision of the Normal guidelines actually added roles, I believe

And I'd say it was done rather nicely. *Enjoying the latest edition.

It would be neat if the 'Loud' modifier was Normalized in the future.

[Ether]

So, uh...

I posted this in the NRG treehouse, but I'm not sure how many normal reviewers actually read the NRG treehouse? It didn't get any response, anyway. Naturally that means the only thing to do is KEEP POSTING IT.

---

I really don't like vanilla cops as weakened rolecops. Rolecops already aren't that strong, and we have plenty of crappy investigative roles already. A role that returns the same positive results on mafiates and town power roles is a lot more interesting, strategically. Even if "vanilla cop" doesn't wind up being the name for that role, it should still exist.

(Speaking of which, I also like the idea of a role that gets positive results on mafiates and SOME power roles but not on others, determined during setup design and not inherent to the roles themselves. Gunsmith positives always felt arbitrary to me, and I think it would have been better to just straight-up say that they're arbitrary per game then tie their results to flavor that doesn't exist.)

I wish we had a one-word name for motion detectors. I REALLY wish we had a better name for friendly neighbors, because having both neighbors and friendly neighbors as completely unrelated roles is dumb. Maybe Debutante or Socialite for the latter?

I think the voyeur/follower results should be a lot more condensed than what NAR covers; I don't think NAR works very well for that. Here's what I'd go with:

• -Kill. This is a straightforward one!
  -Disrupt. This covers roleblocking and rolestopping, but also covers other roles that mess with other player's actions. So if framers, tailors and bus drivers were normal, or if you had a follower in a theme game, this is what it'd get. Note that a voyeur targetting someone who's been rolestopped will still get [No Result], not [Disrupted].
  -Investigate. Any of the many roles that gets results (and get specifically notified if they're disruptive, which most roles don't) falls here. Yeah, trackers and cops work on sort of different principles, but I don't think there's a good reason in practice to distinguish here.
  -Empower. This directly gives new powers or information to other players.
  Friendly neighbors
  Debutantes and neighborizers fall under here. Fruit vendors and message senders technically do, even if the information is just "You now have a kiwi." Inventors and motivators also go here, in theory.
  -Protect. Technically a specialized disruptive role that only disrupts nightkills.
  
  -Visit. This is the miscellaneous section, which for normal game purposes only applies to custom roles.

Any action that does or can potentially do more than one of these things gets the highest applicable result--so, a follower will see a gaoler being Disruptive. For the same reason, a CPR doctor is a Killing role, not a Protective role, in theory. (Obviously CPR doctors are not normal.) Note that action types that are more likely to come from scum are closer to the top.

If people are interested, I can expand this and make a thread about it to try to cover roles in themes better. There's plenty of space not covered by that list, but it's not really applicable to the current Normal queue, mostly.

[StrangerCoug]

Being the person that conceived the voyeur, I'd like to see that thread. I feel your way slightly weakens the voyeur from how I usually mod it, but weakening a role is not necessarily bad.

[Ether]

A role that returns the same positive results on mafiates and town power roles is a lot more interesting, strategically. Even if "vanilla cop" doesn't wind up being the name for that role, it should still exist.

Neapolitan.

[Bicephalous Bob]

Gunsmith is pretty close.

Also, the point of Normalcy is that it doesn't push for any progress itself, but instead more or less neutrally reflects the conventional site meta, right? There are enough roles that would make Normal games more interesting (percentageless Faith Healers), but that doesn't mean they'll get implemented before people use them in their own games.

[Ether]

Gunsmiths are tied to arbitrary flavor, so they can't out doctors and some other list of roles that was never compiled with mechanical impact in mind. I don't oppose them, exactly, although I would still prefer it if their results varied from game to game. But they aren't the same thing, even if they fill similar niches.

Vanilla cops in the nerfed rolecop sense and vanilla cops in the detect vanilla townies only sense were previously used at an almost even split. But with vanilla cops being standardized as the former, the latter doesn't even have a name now. This design space is important, and it needs to keep existing.

As far as I can find, exactly two motion detectors have been used in completed games on this site, and both of them are in games that are over 5 years old. I don't really have a problem with them being normal now, but I don't think that that's an accurate reflection of site meta at all.

EDIT: Those motion detectors were nerfed trackers, incidentally. They weren't affected by their target being targeted, so it's not even quite the same role.