Menalque's Mini Normal Review, November 2019

[implosion]

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

[implosion]

Primary: mastina
Secondary: Flavor Leaf

[Menalque]

Hype

What do we think?

[Menalque]

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]

I’ll be able to comment and read up on this more closely tonight!

[implosion]

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]

Waiting to hear from the others but thank you implosion

My first thought if they agree is to add something like loud visitor to town, remove the commuter from scum but make the strongman factional

[Flavor Leaf]

. 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.

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.

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 here

[Flavor Leaf]

Unkillable* in regards to if the weak doctor hits the commuter the night they commute.

[mastina]

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]

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]

Thanks for everything so far, everyone.

So it seems clear that the 1 shot commuter needs to be taken away from scum. If loud visitor is too weak, what about a motion detector? Or if town is still too weak perhaps loud visitor + nea?

[Menalque]

So yeah, my main suggestion would be lose the commuter add a motion detector. I feel like adding a raw nea might be too strong because there are too many VTs so if motion detector was still too weak to add some sort of named townie who the nea wouldn’t be able to confirm.

[Flavor Leaf]

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.

[Flavor Leaf]

I personally wouldn’t even mind loud visitor and motion detector.

[Menalque]

Five named townies including two investigatives and another potential investigative in a mass claim feels like it would be townsiding?

[Menalque]

Idk, I think I lean towards thinking a lot of setups are slightly over townsided in normals and I was hoping to avoid that.

[mastina]

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]

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.

Yeah, looks good!

[Menalque]

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.

Yeah, this is the one!

Okay, I’ll go

steal

find a ruleset and get the role PMs done.

I think that’s it before it’s ready for sign ups?

[Flavor Leaf]

Yep. Just need to see the Role PM’s.

[Menalque]

Spoiler: VT

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mini Normal X: Menalque's favourite places

Sucks to be you, you're a regular old

Vanilla Townie

.

Abilities:

• You have no special abilities.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Weak Doctor

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mini Normal X: Menalque's favourite places

Well aren't you lucky! Your role in this game is

Weak Doctor

.

Abilities:

• Each night phase, you may protect a player to stop them from being killed.
  
• However, if you target a member of the scum team, you will die.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Psychologist

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mini Normal X: Menalque's favourite places

Well aren't you lucky! Your role in this game is

Psychologist

.

Abilities:

• Each Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn whether or not that player has an unused active killing ability (which gives a "positive" result), as opposed to having no kill or a kill that has already been used (both of which give a "negative" result).

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: 1 shot vig

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mini Normal X: Menalque's favourite places

You drew one of the lucky straws, and your role in this game is

1-shot Vigilante

. Careful with that gun, chief!

Abilities:

• Once in the game, you may attempt to kill another player at night.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: motion detector

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mini Normal X: Menalque's favourite places

You drew one of the lucky straws, and your role in this game is

Motion Detector

.

Abilities:

• Each night, you may target another player. If your action is successful, you will learn whether any actions were performed on or by that player, but not by whom, or which actions.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: 1-shot strongman

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mini Normal X: Menalque's favourite places

I guess you were on the naughty list because your role in this game is

1-shot Strongman

, you bad boi.

Factional:

• Mafia Team:
  Your teammates are
  [Playername], Mafia Goon
  and
  [Playername], Mafia Goon
  .
  
• Mafia Communication:
  You may talk with your living teammates at any time during the game here.
  
• Mafia Factional Kill:
  Once every Night, a living member of the Mafia may submit a factional kill action.

Abilities:

• Strongman:
  Once in the game you may choose to perform the factional nightkill as a strongman. This will override any protective actions that may have been used on your target.

You win when only members of the

Mafia

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: goon

Hello,

[PLAYERNAME]

. Welcome to

Mini Normal X: Menalque's favourite places

I guess you were on the naughty list because your role in this game is

Mafia Goon

, you bad boi.

Factional:

• Mafia Team:
  Your teammates are
  [Playername], Mafia 1-shot Strongman
  and
  [Playername], Mafia Goon
  .
  
• Mafia Communication:
  You may talk with your living teammates at any time during the game here.
  
• Mafia Factional Kill:
  Once every Night, a living member of the Mafia may submit a factional kill action.

Abilities:

• You have no special abilities.

You win when only members of the

Mafia

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the thread before posting. Good luck and have fun!

[Menalque]

These be the rules

• First up, it's the one, the only, the classic: obey all site rules. You knew this already, didn't you? Find them here.
  
• Don't be a toxic d-bag. I reserve the right to lock the thread and consult with the list mod to force replace for this. You know what it is. Don't push the line.
  
• Be around, you signed up for this. It's not fair to any of your teammates if you're not posting. Specifically, at a minimum, I'm expecting you to post once ever 36 hours. If you don't, and you're not on V/LA then you get prodded by me sending you a snarky message asking you to come and post. Don't respond to one of said snarky messages by posting in the thread and I replace you. If you come back before I find a replacement and grovel sufficiently, I may let you stay in the game. 3 prods, and you're out.
  
• Don't quote any mod comms. Don't quote anything from any PTs that you may or may not have.
  
• Don't talk about ongoing games.
  
• DON'T TALK ABOUT ONGOING GAMES.
  
• No-ho-ho-ho: provable randomness, cryptography etc. You know what I mean and if you don't then PM me before you do it to seek clarification. The answer is probably no, though.
  
• Play to your wincon! This is literally why you're here, no?
  
• Don't pretend to be me. The easiest way to do this is to avoid using
  this colour
  but if you reallllly wanna use it that's cool. This is only kind of a dictatorship.
  
• You vote by using

  Code: Select all

  [vote]Menalque[/vote]

  or bold tags like these

  Code: Select all

  [b][/b]

  if you hate me and want to make my life harder. If it's clear who you mean when you're voting, I'll count it. Up to you if you wanna risk that quickhammer gambit.
  
• Lynches will be achieved at 50% of living players +1. You can chat away as much as you like in twilight until I lock the thread.
  
• Day phases will be a number of real life days equal to the number of players still alive +1 with a minimum length of 7 days.
  
• At night when the cool stuff is happening like murder and shizzle, you get 48 hours to decide what you're doing.
  
• I know I may seem to you like a perfect human being, but I am, in fact, not. I may fuck up the VCs or whatever. Pls let me know if I do. Being a dick about it is optional.

[Menalque]

Would any of you be willing to backup mod this for me?

[Flavor Leaf]

Everything looks good to me.

I can backup if you need it.