Menalque wrote:Hey, here’s my proposed setup for the mini normal I’d like to run:
Town
- weak doctor
- 1 shot vig
- psychologist
- 7 VT
Scum
- 1 shot commuter
- 1 shot strongman
- goon
Do I need to send you opening post/rules or would that wait for when the review thread is up?
Cheers
Menalque's Mini Normal Review, November 2019
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Menalque's Mini Normal Review, November 2019
Last edited by implosion on Sat May 23, 2020 1:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.- implosion
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Here was my rough logic in the creation:
I wanted to make a setup with some element of power from what I view as the main groups of power — offensive, defensive, investigative, confirmable town. I don’t really love confirmable town, as I feel it’s fun if you are one but otherwise slightly more stagnant.
So I decided on the doctor first. I was originally thinking something like 2 macho doctors one of whom was weak, but decided it would be less fun if there were two potential protections every night.
I was originally also thinking a weak hider, because I liked the concept after seeing it in AvP. But I thought that the potential for two people being safe per night would be slightly unbalanced against scum. So I thought it would be a fun concept to have the doctor be weak instead. It was a way to add some additional investigative power, but in such a way that it wouldn’t be too strong (if the crumb was unclear and they went after scum, for instance) or letting them try to save town. It would also mean that if they crumbled they’d need to be clear on whether they’d picked someone to save or someone to investigate. Lastly, I thought it was fair to scum — as in, if someone was scum but playing a very towny game then they might get to kill the doctor for free. It would also expose them to greater suspicion though, so I don’t think this would be too scum siding.
I also wanted some sort of investigative role, and I stumbled across the psychologist on the wiki. I liked the idea of having an investigative who would become weaker as the game went on in the game. So if they had a good read on who to check they’d be rewarded, but they would be unlikely to save the game with a good check right before lylo, unless scum were to deepwolf and have only one player kill every time.
The vig is in to partly help balance against the psychologist but also as a potential save for the game later on if accurate but only 1 shot to stop excessive shooting.
Then mafia power was to balance against the town. I thought town power was fairly weak due to modifiers so I wanted to make scum power pretty weak too. 1 shot strongman was to balance against a possible fox’s psychologist from early on, or otherwise to prevent doc from being able to indefinitely save a universal townread or otherwise very strong player.
Commuter was to give scum a longshot counter against a psychologist investigation, weak doctor attempt, or the vig. Didn’t think they needed much more than this, although I guess making it factional might work?- Flavor Leaf
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I’ll be able to comment and read up on this more closely tonight!CHECK OUT MY HOW TO PLAY AS SCUM GUIDE Maybe it'll help you catch me
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I can go ahead and give some initial feedback bc why not.
As is, this setup is scumsided but is probably a good starting place. My internal rules of thumb put balance in mini normals right now at something like "four moderately strong town power roles, with scum having possibly some power but nothing that offsets the town too badly". It's definitely possible to make a balanced setup with only three town power roles, but they need to all be powerful, and all of these roles are probably medium-strength or so. Weak doctor is quite powerful but can be swingy, 1-shot vig is like, an average amount of power (but is a good fit with 1-shot vig because both of those roles are extremely likely to flip parity once, putting the game from odds to evens back to odds) and psychologist makes sense with those roles but also obviously has limitations.
The big point is that scum don't need to have a counter to everything the town has; that logic is part of what led to mini normals being very scumsided on average a long time ago, because a lot of them had full scum roleblockers and those games tended to be especially scumsided. In particular I think the commuter is a bad idea here; a weak doctor targeting someone and not dying would be considered almost the gold standard of "this person is town", and it would be incredibly unlikely for town to win after that happens if the weak doctor claims it and scum plays decently well. It is unlikely to happen since it's a 1-shot commuter, but etc.
Beyond that, town will also probably need some more raw power, but I'll let the reviewers give their opinions. They also might disagree with me that it's scumsided in which case I'm happy to defer.- Menalque
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I agree with this. Weak Doctor can guilty someone really nicely at the price of their death. This makes an i kill able slot, and kind of goes near the same reason why godfather isn’t allowed in normals, albeit with more swing and less plausibility of actually happening thus making that situation even more damning to town if it were to happen.In post 5, implosion wrote:. In particular I think the commuter is a bad idea here; a weak doctor targeting someone and not dying would be considered almost the gold standard of "this person is town", and it would be incredibly unlikely for town to win after that happens if the weak doctor claims it and scum plays decently well. It is unlikely to happen since it's a 1-shot commuter, but etc.
Strongman has to stay with one of the roles, so not factional. This makes it so scum have to play around keeping their strongman alive.
I like the Loud Visitor idea, but it’s rather irrelevant and doesn’t do too much, which I believe was the point of it.
I’m on my lunch break, so I’ll have more comments and ideas later, I just wanted to make a quick note and to let you know I’m hereCHECK OUT MY HOW TO PLAY AS SCUM GUIDE Maybe it'll help you catch me
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Unkillable* in regards to if the weak doctor hits the commuter the night they commute.CHECK OUT MY HOW TO PLAY AS SCUM GUIDE Maybe it'll help you catch me
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Honestly, my first impression: if you had an all-goon scumteam, I'd probably pass the setup as is, with the thought of it being near the balanced mark (maybe slightly scumsided), albeit with the expectation that the game while theoretically balanced would probably be a scum stomp.
With a single scum power role, and/or to get a setup where I think that in practice in addition to theory the town can win, yeah, need an extra town PR.- mastina
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To explain: against an all goon scumteam, the "probably theoretically balanced, with the expectation of a scum sweep", comes from the town roles having the ability to wreck scum, even introducing a potential "follow the cop" breaking strategy, in theory. They also synergize incredibly well.
The problem is, in practice, they probably don't. The setup against an all goon scumteam is swingy as fuck, where an early town PR death fucks the town over but a town PR using their action smartly so much as once fucks the scum over, with the theoretical equal chance of either albeit in reality probably leaning towards the town being fucked.
If you keep a scum PR to help mitigate the theoretical follow the cop, then the town needs something extra, a rather significant extra; if you want the town to have some built in backup in case of early town PR death, then the scum would indeed need a little bit of help to break the follow the cop.
So, yeah, basically I do agree: from the original setup, drop one of the scum PRS, and add a town one, and we're looking good.- Menalque
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I agree. The strongman is fine to keep since it’s a one shot.
I like the idea of a motion detector. That’s rather limited in power, and allows scum to play around it still.
Neapolitan seems really strong if ungated here.CHECK OUT MY HOW TO PLAY AS SCUM GUIDE Maybe it'll help you catch me
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I personally wouldn’t even mind loud visitor and motion detector.CHECK OUT MY HOW TO PLAY AS SCUM GUIDE Maybe it'll help you catch me
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Weak Doctor,
1x Vig,
Psychologist,
Motion Detector,
VT x 6
vs.
1x Strongman
Goon x2
That's the proposed setup, yes?
I believe that'd be balanced, yes.- Flavor Leaf
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Yeah, looks good!In post 17, mastina wrote:Weak Doctor,
1x Vig,
Psychologist,
Motion Detector,
VT x 6
vs.
1x Strongman
Goon x2
That's the proposed setup, yes?
I believe that'd be balanced, yes.CHECK OUT MY HOW TO PLAY AS SCUM GUIDE Maybe it'll help you catch me
”Yeah, the moment I realized Flavor was scum I stopped trying because I’m sure as hell not beating him.” - Clemency
”Not bragging about myself as much as I'm actually praising the Scum player of the year...and probably the decade.” - Almost50
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Yeah, this is the one!In post 17, mastina wrote:Weak Doctor,
1x Vig,
Psychologist,
Motion Detector,
VT x 6
vs.
1x Strongman
Goon x2
That's the proposed setup, yes?
I believe that'd be balanced, yes.
Okay, I’ll gostealfind a ruleset and get the role PMs done.
I think that’s it before it’s ready for sign ups?- Flavor Leaf
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Yep. Just need to see the Role PM’s.CHECK OUT MY HOW TO PLAY AS SCUM GUIDE Maybe it'll help you catch me
”Yeah, the moment I realized Flavor was scum I stopped trying because I’m sure as hell not beating him.” - Clemency
”Not bragging about myself as much as I'm actually praising the Scum player of the year...and probably the decade.” - Almost50
"Just accept that FL is too good as scum, period." - Clidd- Menalque
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Everything looks good to me.
I can backup if you need it.CHECK OUT MY HOW TO PLAY AS SCUM GUIDE Maybe it'll help you catch me
”Yeah, the moment I realized Flavor was scum I stopped trying because I’m sure as hell not beating him.” - Clemency
”Not bragging about myself as much as I'm actually praising the Scum player of the year...and probably the decade.” - Almost50
"Just accept that FL is too good as scum, period." - Clidd - Flavor Leaf
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