Mafiascum.net

A Gunsmith is a Cop that gets false guilities and innocents on slightly different roles from cops. Sure, "technically" it checks to see if they have a gun, but in gunsmith setups they are basically always used as an alignment investigative. Sure, there are the false results, but there are false results with Cops too, albeit in a slightly different fashion.

Now, I'm fine with a Gunsmith setup with false guilties and innocents, over a Cop setup really because they're a lot more predictable and can be proven or disproved. For example there is no way of proving a Miller claim besides Role Cop, but you can prove a vigilante through the second death. Meanwhile on the false innocent side, through (to give an example) a vigilante shot disappearing with no idea where it went, the players can accurately guess at the existence of a Mafia Doctor.

The kind of stuff I'm talking about is (at a bare bones level):

6 VT, 1 Cop, 1 Goon, 1 Godfather
6 VT, 1 Gunsmith, 1 Goon, 1 Mafia Doctor

Besides the Mafia Doctor's "protect" (which is functionless in this setup), those setups are identical, yet only one of them is blacklisted.

My problem I see is that, if not regulated, people who want to make an investigative-based setup where the investigative can get false innocents (which Cop no longer can with Godfather dead) can make a setup around a Gunsmith which is entirely functionally identical to a blacklisted-due-to-godfather setup with a Cop.

I'm not saying outright blacklist Gunsmiths, or Maf Docs, I'm just saying that this seems like a loophole which could be abused with little effort to get around the Godfather blacklisting, and a large part of me would be happier in Normal games if this was something that was explicitly stated as not allowed.

It's more that if you get a role PM saying "You are a Gunsmith" you're highly aware that there's a decent chance that there are roles in the setup that will give you misleading results.

If you get a role PM saying "You are a Cop" you're much less likely to suspect this (especially if you have a limited number of shots).

Really? I can't talk from experience because I've never been a Cop in a non-open setup, but my first thought would be to take any results with a pinch of salt because godfathers/millers exist and many Normal mods would put one in when there is a Cop.

In post 327, Davsto wrote:Really? I can't talk from experience because I've never been a Cop in a non-open setup, but my first thought would be to take any results with a pinch of salt because godfathers/millers exist and many Normal mods would put one in when there is a Cop.

People on this site have stretched the word "bastard" to such a ridiculous length that they complain about millers, godfathers, and cop sanities. Unless you're explicitly told that your results are 100% certain, you should assume there's a possibility you're not sane / Miller / godfather.

I've seen people call sane cops bastard in the absence of roles that confuse them, too. The main conclusion that can be drawn from this is that for pretty much any mechanic you can come up with, there will be someone willing to call it bastard.

My main issue is that I'm worried that, with Godfathers being banned, we'll see a rise in Gunsmiths to essentially "get around" that whole rule, loophole abuse, etc, since it's not overly difficult to create a setup that is functionally identical to a blacklisted Cop equivalent.

With gunsmiths, the meta isn't for fake guilties to claim in their first post. Since both are therefore going to possibly happen (although I don't know what we'd actually allow in terms of balance)

Some comments / questions / suggestions.

- First a nitpick, but on the wiki page for the normal guidelines, "If you are not moderating on mafiascum.net, you are not bound by this page." really comes across as arrogant to me.

- I think it may be useful to have separate wiki pages for normal versions of roles. Especially for new mods and players, who come out the newbie queue and choose the normal queue to play and / or mod their first game, the wiki pages are cluttered with info that's not relevant to them. I think a page that just describes the normal version of a role would come in handy. Maybe include role PMs for those who can't be arsed to write their own.

- In addition, I think it may be useful to dedicate a page to the greylist role phenomenon, explaining what it is, and what is generally allowed, perhaps some examples. You should perhaps change the name as well, greylist is the most common term believe, but this implies the role is listed somewhere, which isn't necessarily the case.

- Universal backups are restricted to power roles of the same faction. Are regular backups as well? It's not mentioned, so I'm wondering if opposing faction backups are actually legal.

- Are jack-of-all-trades required to only use 1-shots, or can you use other numbers? For example: .

- I would love to see "all-purpose shots" for jack-of-all-trades. Say you have 2 abilities, and 2 shots, but can choose how to spend them. For example:
This role could use 2 role cop abilities, 2 tracker abilities, or a mix.

- I'd also love to see "informed" as a normal modifier, though with the exact implementation decided during review. Imagine a world where cops where informed about godfathers. But that's just one example, it could have so many uses.

I don't really think spreading things across multiple wiki pages is desirable.

In post 332, Sméagol wrote:- Are jack-of-all-trades required to only use 1-shots, or can you use other numbers? For example: Jack-of-all-trades (1-shot cop; 2-shot neapolitan).

It's a bit of a grey area. The role doesn't specify that the one-shot abilities need to be distinct, so there is some space for giving a JoAT a 2-shot ability but it should at least feel like a JoAT; I wouldn't allow the example role you gave but e.g. 1xCop,1xRB,2xDoc would be okay.

All-purpose joat would also be fine in the modified (greylist) role slot.

In post 332, Sméagol wrote:Universal backups are restricted to power roles of the same faction. Are regular backups as well? It's not mentioned, so I'm wondering if opposing faction backups are actually legal.

The only reason universal backups are required to backup their own faction is to prevent something like a Mafia universal backup becoming an innocent child. This isn't a problem with regular backups.

I looked at the OP, when was a miller not town aligned? When was a vigilante not town aligned?

Oddly I'm kind of okay with losing the 'screw with night action' Mafia PRs. Like, normally I'd be against this sort of thing, but it never felt in any way good for a normal game. Like "oh, I tracked the scum team member that sent in the night kill but they were a Ninja! Cool! What a great mechanic!"

Like, board game theory time, I like actions that make people feel good about their use of them. Using a tracker right feels good. Using a roleblocker right feels good. Using a doctor or a jailkeeper right feels good. They're good solid meaty actions with clear good use/bad use cases. Cop definitely falls more grey. I mean you get town, good. You get scum, good. You keep targeting one of the people who dies at night, you're me. I'm the best cop. But like really, it's not a role with ups and downs.

Godfather, Ninja, same way. I've seen some great Godfather plays, but mostly it's like a bonus. Ninja, same but worse. You more feel lucky than good, and town doesn't feel like they were outplayed they feel like it was PR bullshit.

Town starts at a disadvantage anyway. They need those PRs. I think normal games, where you have very few, the PRs should mostly work. Save the wacky hijinks for the PR heavy games. On the plus side, this also gets rid of some passive always on no thought roles, and I really dislike those.

Ninja is effectively giving scum the ability to send nobody in the night (so of course, there's nobody to track/watch).

In that respect, I don't feel that it's broken; unless scum has only 1 member, it's not giving town misleading information. I do feel that it has the wrong balance properties, though; you're taking a town ability (Tracker/Watcher) which is better in the lategame, and then entirely negating it until a particular scumteam member dies. Taking a lategame-focused ability and making it even more lategame-focused is basically just adding swing.

Godfather is different because no matter how many members on the scumteam, town can get a result that falsely clears a scumteam member, and scum can ride that to victory unless the presence of the role is suspected.

If there is a cop, a Gf is fair imo, otherwise it's too predictable that there might be a traitor or something.
At this rate there will be no cops in mini normals.

Godfather are poor design and balance, if cops die off because of there being no godfathers, they weren't worth saving

In post 339, Shadow_step wrote:If there is a cop, a Gf is fair imo, otherwise it's too predictable that there might be a traitor or something.
At this rate there will be no cops in mini normals.

And the problem with this is...?

In post 341, mhsmith0 wrote:

In post 339, Shadow_step wrote:If there is a cop, a Gf is fair imo, otherwise it's too predictable that there might be a traitor or something.
At this rate there will be no cops in mini normals.

And the problem with this is...?

You know I love the cop role.

Sorry if this has been asked before or is stated somewhere that I didn't see. On the 'normal' page it has a list of explicitly normal roles. Can you have a combination of roles? Can there be, for example, a Mafia Encryptor Tracker or a Town Commuter Mason? Does that still count as normal?

In post 343, krylea wrote:Sorry if this has been asked before or is stated somewhere that I didn't see. On the 'normal' page it has a list of explicitly normal roles. Can you have a combination of roles? Can there be, for example, a Mafia Encryptor Tracker or a Town Commuter Mason? Does that still count as normal?

I do not think so, although some roles, such as neighbours, can be modifiers and thus can be combined with other normal roles. Its possible that encryptor and mason might be in the same boat; I haven't checked.

These modifiers are explicitly normal : Ascetic, Backup (with or without primary role present), Bulletproof, Enabler (with or without primary role present), Even/Odd Night, Macho, Neighbor, Night Specific, Non-Consecutive Night, Weak, X-Shot

Normal Games may use any amount of approved roles (so long as there is at least one Vanilla Townie) in conjunction with approved modifiers.

so having a neighbour encryptor is normal but Encryptor tracker is not. and being mason is not counted as a modifier in normal guidelines.

These are all the things that are considered as a modifier (not normal neccessorry) in Mafia scum and Mason and encryptor are not listed as one cause they have a unified function and are not just altering something else.

I was just thinking of strongman modifier and was thinking its a useful modifier, but it kind of sucks its limited range of utility. At least for setup-wise.

If a role cop is in the game, they see strongman and its a instant guilty.

I was thinking what if the modifier was just changed to being it modifies an action to be "unstoppable". That way it can be used to power up town. It won't act as incriminating if scum strongman is checked by role cop.

Or maybe just name this modifier something completely different and add it as a Normal Modifier.
Just random thoughts. {reposted from normal review}

Needs to happen to ninja if that's what we're doing

That's a good idea, for town it can help counteract roleblockers as well.

Strong-willed is the name I know that modifier by.