Something_Smart's Mini Normal Review

[callforjudgement]

1-shot Encryptor is something that isn't covered in the Normal rules (not in the sense of "this isn't Normal", but in the sense of "this is apparently Normal but there's no guidance to suggest what it actually does"). I guess that if we're taking an analogy with Bulletproof, it'd allow the scum to collectively send one message during the day (and be activated automatically when that happens), but that's clearly ridiculous, so one day of messages makes a lot more sense. Does that make it blockable? The only other role I can think of along these lines is activated PGO and I don't know whether that's blockable either.

I think this probably comes down to the category of "mod decides, but needs to have a plan confirmed in advance", like with roleblocker vs. jailkeeper. So making the role unblockable is entirely reasonable. Normally I'd write the role as "Strong Encryptor" to make the unblockability clear from the flip, but that's a bad idea in this case as it might be misinterpreted as being able to make an unblockable

kill

. I guess we're just going to have to live with the ambiguity.

[Something_Smart]

Spoiler: Updated OP

Something_Smart's Mini Normal

Players: 13
Setup:
1 Mafia Goon
1 Mafia 1-shot Encryptor
1 Mafia Rolecop
1 Town Rolestopper
1 Town Roleblocker
1 Town Neighborizer
1 Town Neapolitan
6 Vanilla Townies

Post #0:

Alive Players:

1.
2.
etc.

Dead Players:

Spoiler:

/spoiler]
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. 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. In case you don't know, you can vote with:

Code: Select all

[vote]Something_Smart[/vote]

and unvote with

Code: Select all

[unvote][/unvote]

Unvotes are not necessary to change your vote.
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 is

3 mafia

versus

10 town

.
15. 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.

Please respond to this PM indicating your understand your role and your win condition.

Post #2:

Role PMs are out! The game will begin when 11/13 have confirmed.

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 your understand your role and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town Rolestopper.

Each night, you may PM me the name of one player. All actions that any other player attempts to perform on your target, including kills, will fail. Neither you nor they will be notified if this occurs.
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 and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town Roleblocker.

Each night, you may PM me the name of one player. Any action that player attempts will fail. You will not be notified if this occurs.
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 your understand your role and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town Neighborizer.

Each 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 your understand your role and your win condition.

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 your understand your role and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Mafia Goon.

Your partners are YYYY,

Mafia 1-shot Encryptor

, and ZZZZ,

Mafia Rolecop

. You share a private topic (link) during which you can talk during pregame, during the night, and during the day if and only if YYYY has enabled daytalk for that day. 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 your understand your role and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Mafia 1-shot Encryptor.

Your partners are YYYY,

Mafia Goon

, and ZZZZ,

Mafia Rolecop

. You share a private topic (link) during which you can talk during pregame, during the night, and during the day if and only if you have enabled daytalk for that day. 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 your understand your role and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Mafia Rolecop.

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 the day if and only if YYYY has enabled daytalk for the following day. You also have a factional kill that one Mafia member can carry out during the night, in addition to using their role's ability.

Each night, you may target a player, either by PM or by posting your target in the private topic. You will learn that player's role name. If your action fails for any reason, you will receive "Your action failed, and you did not receive a result."

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 and your win condition.

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

Action resolution:
Rolestopper: Can stop the Roleblocker, Neighborizer and Mafia factional kill. Will cause Neapolitan or Rolecop investigations on the target to return "no result".
Roleblocker: Can stop the Rolestopper, Neighborizer and Mafia factional kill. Will cause Neapolitan or Rolecop investigations by the target to return "no result".
Neighborizer: Has one neighborhood PT for all neighborized players. PT stays after death of Neighborizer.
Neapolitan: Recieves "Vanilla Townie" on all Vanilla Townies. Recieves "Not Vanilla Townie" on Rolestopper, Roleblocker, Neighborizer, Encryptor, Rolecop and Goon. Receives "no result" if roleblocked or if target is rolestopped.
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.
Rolecop: Recieves "Vanilla Townie" on all Vanilla Townies. Receives "Town Rolestopper" on Rolestopper. Receives "Town Roleblocker" on Roleblocker. Receives "Town Neighborizer" on Neighborizer. Receives "Town Neapolitan" on Neapolitan. Receives "no result" if roleblocked or if target is rolestopped.

Result PMs:
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.

Rolecop:

The result from your night action:
Your target is a [Vanilla Townie, Town Rolestopper, Town Roleblocker, Town Neighborizer, Town Neapolitan].

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

Neighborized:

You are now in a neighborhood! You can access it here (link). You may post in it at any time while you are alive.

Did I miss anything?

[callforjudgement]

You need some rule along the lines of "If more than half the players are voting for another player, that player will be 'lynched' and removed from the game. If deadline is reached before a player is lynched, the day will end with no lynch.". There are plenty of ways to word it, but a) without that rule, the game doesn't make sense, b) people won't know whether you're using majority or plurality voting. (Basically everyone at mafiascum uses majority voting and you should, too, but there's enough doubt that it's worth making it clear.)

You need to make it clear (either in role PMs or in the rules) that players can't self-target. (Partly because that's what Normal rules say, partly because if you have a Rolestopper and Roleblocker, self-targeting can lead to situations that the normal rules don't resolve.)

Your Rolecop results are wrong. Here are the correct results:

"Vanilla" on a VT or Goon; "1-Shot Encryptor", "Rolestopper", "Roleblocker", "Neighborizer", "Neapolitan" on the power roles.

The point is that rolecopping someone doesn't give away their alignment. Of course, the scum already know what it is in this case, but you shouldn't make the role do something different just because it doesn't matter to the setup. (Note that it's not 100% useless for scum to rolecop their buddies; they might do it to give a false positive to a hypothetical Tracker. There isn't a Tracker in the setup, but

they

don't know that…)

There are a couple of other interactions I had to check to avoid that the (e.g. is it possible for the roleblocker to be considered to have lied about their role because they tried to block the flipped non-Strong Encryptor and didn't know they were blockproof?), but in each case, there turned out to be no problem (in this case, because only scum can observe the fact that daychat is open). So with the changes I suggested above, everything looks fine normalcy-wise.

In terms of balance, I'm personally fine with it, but I'm not confident enough (nor allowed by NRG rules) to sign off on the balance simply by myself. Given the situation, I'm going to ask the listmod for help.

[Cheery Dog]

That's a strange way to word majority rule lynch, but I guess I'm used to the 50%+1.

and yeah rolecop shouldn't be revealing alignment, mafia versions need to be the same as the town version. (and the mafia don't actually know that's it's not multiball, we wouldn't have passed balance if it was, but that's besides the point)

[callforjudgement]

"50%+1" is misleading because with 9 players, the lynch threshold is 5, not 5½. "More than half" is a nice simple way to describe the actual rule that people use. ("A majority" would also be mathematically correct, but too many people don't know what that means.)

Mafia do know it's not multiball in this case (10:3 is in the setup advertisement), although I agree that we should write the roles as if they didn't.

[Cheery Dog]

I forgot whether that was included or not when I skimread the updated post.

That's probably why I went with using >50.1% for my own games (but don't trust my rules). I didn't fancy the (rounded down) addition.

[Aeronaut]

Sorry this has taken me so long to take a look at, it's been strange week.

I've read through the roles in your updated post:

1 Mafia Goon
1 Mafia 1-shot Encryptor
1 Mafia Rolecop

1 Town Rolestopper
1 Town Roleblocker
1 Town Neighborizer
1 Town Neapolitan
6 Vanilla Townies

This looks pretty good, but I feel like two blocking roles, the town may be a bit overpowered. You might consider making them X-shot or even/odd-night.

[Something_Smart]

Spoiler: OP v1.2

Something_Smart's Mini Normal

Players: 13
Setup:
1 Mafia Goon
1 Mafia 1-shot Encryptor
1 Mafia Rolecop
1 Town Rolestopper
1 Town Roleblocker
1 Town Neighborizer
1 Town Neapolitan
6 Vanilla Townies

Post #0:

Alive Players:

1.
2.
etc.

Dead Players:

Spoiler:

/spoiler]
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. 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. In case you don't know, you can vote with:

Code: Select all

[vote]Something_Smart[/vote]

and unvote with

Code: Select all

[unvote][/unvote]

Unvotes are not necessary to change your vote.
7. If more than half the players are voting for a player, then that player is lynched and removed from the game, and the day will end. If the deadline is reached before a lynch occurs, the day will end without a lynch.
8. 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.
9.

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

Do not use it. Do not impersonate me.
10. 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.
11. Do not quote any out-of-thread communications with me or with any other player.
12. The day after you are lynched or nightkilled, you may make one "bah!" post with no game-related information in it.
13. Do not pretend to break any of these rules. Pretending to break a rule is punishable just as harshly as actually breaking it.
14. 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).
15. This game is

3 mafia

versus

10 town

.
16. 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.

Please respond to this PM indicating your understand your role and your win condition.

Post #2:

Role PMs are out! The game will begin when 11/13 have confirmed.

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 your understand your role and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town Rolestopper.

Each night, you may PM me the name of one other player. All actions that any other player attempts to perform on your target, including kills, will fail. Neither you nor they will be notified if this occurs.
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 and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town Roleblocker.

Each night, you may PM me the name of one other player. Any action that player attempts will fail. You will not be notified if this occurs.
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 your understand your role and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town Neighborizer.

Each night, you may PM me the name of one other 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 your understand your role and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Town Neapolitan.

Each night, you may PM me the name of one other 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 your understand your role and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Mafia Goon.

Your partners are YYYY,

Mafia 1-shot Encryptor

, and ZZZZ,

Mafia Rolecop

. You share a private topic (link) during which you can talk during pregame, during the night, and during the day if and only if YYYY has enabled daytalk for that day. 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 your understand your role and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Mafia 1-shot Encryptor.

Your partners are YYYY,

Mafia Goon

, and ZZZZ,

Mafia Rolecop

. You share a private topic (link) during which you can talk during pregame, during the night, and during the day if and only if you have enabled daytalk for that day. 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 your understand your role and your win condition.

Welcome, XXXX, to Mini #: Inspirational Mafia!

You are a

Mafia Rolecop.

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 the day if and only if YYYY has enabled daytalk for the following day. You also have a factional kill that one Mafia member can carry out during the night, in addition to using their role's ability.

Each night, you may target one other player, either by PM or by posting your target in the private topic. You will learn that player's role name. If your action fails for any reason, you will receive "Your action failed, and you did not receive a result."

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 and your win condition.

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

Action resolution:
Rolestopper: Can stop the Roleblocker, Neighborizer and Mafia factional kill. Will cause Neapolitan or Rolecop investigations on the target to return "no result".
Roleblocker: Can stop the Rolestopper, Neighborizer and Mafia factional kill. Will cause Neapolitan or Rolecop investigations by the target to return "no result".
Neighborizer: Has one neighborhood PT for all neighborized players. PT stays after death of Neighborizer.
Neapolitan: Recieves "Vanilla Townie" on all Vanilla Townies. Recieves "Not Vanilla Townie" on Rolestopper, Roleblocker, Neighborizer, Encryptor, Rolecop and Goon. Receives "no result" if roleblocked or if target is rolestopped.
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.
Rolecop: Recieves "Vanilla Townie" on all Vanilla Townies. Receives "Town Rolestopper" on Rolestopper. Receives "Town Roleblocker" on Roleblocker. Receives "Town Neighborizer" on Neighborizer. Receives "Town Neapolitan" on Neapolitan. Receives "no result" if roleblocked or if target is rolestopped.

Result PMs:
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.

Rolecop:

The result from your night action:
Your target is a [Vanilla, Rolestopper, Roleblocker, Neighborizer, Neapolitan, 1-shot Encryptor].

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

Neighborized:

You are now in a neighborhood! You can access it here (link). You may post in it at any time while you are alive.

In terms of balance, I think the fact that none of the claims are confirmable as town (and that the Neapolitan has the tendency to out town PRs) would make it hard for the town to organize its power effectively. I have worried about potential follow-the-neapolitan scenarios, perhaps we could limit that by making the Rolestopper non-consecutive-night.

[callforjudgement]

You forgot to fix the rolecop results. Other than that, the OP's looking good.

The town power here is hard to judge the balance of because it's a large set of relatively low-powered roles, which mean that there are a lot of possible scenarios. This isn't a bad thing for the setup at all; it just makes review more difficult.

Strangely enough, I think having two blocking roles actually weakens town a bit. The existence of the Rolestopper means that the Roleblocker is less useful as an investigative (you can't conclude much from the lack of a kill). The town roles aren't as powerful as they look, as they'll all tend to get in each others' way; town won't get much actual benefit from their blocking roles because they need to stop two kills to gain a mislynch (unlikely) and blocking non-kill actions will more likely hurt town than scum. I do have something of a concern based around scum not knowing what to claim in a setup like this, though (VT is the obvious claim but the existence of the Neapolitan makes it risky; most power role claims will be hard to believe or lead to a 1v1). That said, claims tend to come out at lylo and by that point, either it'll be the first investigative information of the game, or else scum will have a good idea of what's coming. (Possibly both!)

Aeronaut, if you're worried about breaking strategies, what do you think about limiting the shots on the Neapolitan (to maybe 2 or 3)? That way, if town get a Follow-the-Neapolitan set up, they'll pretty quickly just run out of investigations, and it doesn't interfere much with the balance of the setup otherwise.

[Something_Smart]

Oh yeah, I did change the Rolecop results in the result PM, I just forgot to in the action resolution section. Rolecop can receive "Rolestopper", "Roleblocker", "Neighborizer", "Neapolitan", "1-shot Encryptor", or "Vanilla".

[Cheery Dog]

I think there's enough non vanilla roles that follow the Neapolitan shouldn't have any success. Unless Mafia lose their role cop.
I'm happy with how it currently sits, but the Neapolitan being 3 shot is also fine

[Something_Smart]

So this setup is acceptable?
Also, my backup mod does not need experience, right?

[callforjudgement]

I personally think it's probably around OK as it is, but I was waiting to hear back from Aeronaut. Again. :-( If someone raises a balance objection, we should listen to it. I'll send another PM.

The situation with backup mods in Normals used to be that the listmod would back up all the games personally. It's a while since I've seen that happen, though, so it might have changed. A backup mod wouldn't need experience, though (because a mini normal doesn't need experience); the only restriction would be that they couldn't be backing up another game at the same time.

[Aeronaut]

Almost home, will update my thoughts

[Cheery Dog]

Backup mods just need to be allowed to run the game themselves. (Except for newbies who need to have modded a newbie game previously). So mini normals back ups if you include them just need three months on site and played a game.

[Aeronaut]

Yea. I guess you're sort of right about the double-blocking making it weaker instead of stronger. I guess I don't have any problem with it.

I'd be good to pass this setup. I don't see any other balance issues.

[callforjudgement]

OK, /approve, either with a 3-shot or an unlimited Neapolitan. (Something_Smart, you need approval from all three NRG members to be able to run the setup.)

[Aeronaut]

/pass

[callforjudgement]

Cheery Dog?

[Cheery Dog]

I'm happy with how it currently sits, but the Neapolitan being 3 shot is also fine

I suppose repeating is fine

/pass!

[Something_Smart]

Awesome!
Thank you all for your help!

[callforjudgement]

Right. I've let the listmod know, so the game's back in listmod hands for now. (You'll be added to the Normal queue at some point in the near future.)