Hmm, so let's look at some review topics for completed Mini Normals. I'm going to focus on ones I wasn't involved in (both so that I can give an "outside opinion" and to avoid any risk accidentally spoiling an ongoing game due to not realising it's ongoing). Other reviewers and people who chip in, feel free to review mine! It's always worth improving as a reviewer.
This is the most recent such topic (unless I've missed one). The original, mod-suggested setup was Tracker, Doctor, 1-shot BP, 7×VT vs. 1-shot Strongman, 2×Goon. The three reviewers rated that original setup as townsided, highly scumsided, and marginally scumsided but balanced enough to run.
This kind-of shocks me; to me, the setup is scumsided and highly so. (The easiest way to see this is to replace the Tracker with an unlimited Cop; I'd still be far from certain that the result is even townsided, let alone broken in town's favour which is what you'd expect after making that change in a hypothetical balanced setup.) So I agree with one of the reviewers but disagree with the other two. The final version of the setup was Cop, Jailkeeper, 1-shot BP, 7×VT vs. JOAT (watch/track/roleblock), 1-shot Strongman, Goon; this passed with basically no discussion. I'd be staring at that setup for hours trying to work out how balanced it was and probably writing paragraphs of text, asking the other reviewers to check my reasoning; it's not an easy setup to review and I'm glad I didn't have to review it, so I'm surprised at the relative speed of the review.
As it happens, scum won
the actual game. Postgame discussion makes it seem as though it's unlikely the setup was responsible, or at least nobody in the game seemed to have problems with the setup (unless I missed something).
Next up is
this review. The originally posted setup was Hated JK, Doctor, 7×VT versus 3×Weak Goon, Traitor (as an Open). I assess the setup in question as highly scumsided (being an Open gives town a lot of power but it isn't enough to balance the huge advantages scum have), and the reviewers in the thread agreed with me. So at least there's agreement there :-D The final setup was Weak Bodyguard, 3×Bodyguard, 6×VT vs. Ascetic Traitor, 2×Goon (as an Open). There was a lot of discussion about the setup before the reviewers decided it was balanced, and this is a setup that needs a lot of discussion and that I doubt I can come to a balance conclusion on without spending a lot of time (which probably isn't worth it for writing this post).
The game ended in a town win; most of the effort the reviewers went to was ensuring that the game wasn't breakable for town (always a risk in an Open). After the game, one of the reviewers changed their mind about the setup and said that it was too swingy to run (and probably also townsided), and the scum were fairly depressed, although given how unusual the setup is I can't really blame the reviewers for missing the issue. (I'd probably have tried to persuade the mod to get the game reviewed by the community at large, though. There's no reason to keep an Open review secret.)
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