Normal Guidelines Current Suggestions/Changes

[Creature]

By adding godfather/honest, you're taking town's only way to have trustable clears.

[mhsmith0]

I strongly am against just throwing roles into the set of whitelisted roles just for the sake of it or "because it might be interesting", especially if it's something that appears to have just been made up for no purpose beyond that (if anyone wants to link me a non-role-madness game where e.g. honest was used, for instance, feel free to correct me). the entire point of Normal games is to be as straightforward as possible.

I basically agree w this conceptually.

As for Novice, I believe it's already Normal (because Night-Specific is, and it's just a special case of Night-Specific). You might have to name it "Night 2+" rather than "Novice", but using the more widely used name for it is likely a benefit for Normals, rather than a detriment.

It's not explicitly normal, which is something that came up when I proposed it. I'm fine w it being explicitly normal, and/or all timing-based modifiers being explicitly normal.

I thought ninja and encryptor were already normal, though I must admit that whether ninja should be was already up in the air the last time I checked. That said, I support them being normal.

Ninja/encryptor are normal for scum. The idea is maybe you make them normal for town, which I'm not entirely sure I agree with. Mason encryptor MAYBE, but that's what the greylist is for.

Honest seems like a loophole around the ban on godfathers, and I think it's more worth it to un-blacklist that if we want Mafiosi that investigate as innocent.

If you want innocent results, use a gunsmith and give mafia a traitor or doctor. We explicitly have this functionality already in games, there is no good reason to do an end-run around the godfather ban. Cops are expected to be 100% accurate in normal games, and if you want a cop that isn't known to be 100% accurate in a normal game, that's what gunsmith is for. STRONGLY oppose an "honest" or similar modifier.

[Ether]

I like Loud. It opens up a need for strategizing and doesn't come with any nasty surprises. Also, while I don't know if they're common, I did already know what they are.

Heavy is kind of silly. A heavy mafiate pretty much autoloses if it's the last scum alive, so I guess that's interesting. And heavy also lets you make an innocent child that only activates when there's only one scum alive, which is pretty cool; I like giving scum more incentives to stick together. I guess I don't mind this, but I'd never heard of it before, so I'm skeptical about its normality.

Unstoppable is stupid, we don't need that arms race, not to mention all the annoying action resolution questions it raises.

Hated is an interesting negative utility role in a way that millers frequently aren't, but it's also a crazy gambit magnet and I don't really want to do that to the meta. Also, everybody who's commented on it hates it, so it's probably, you know, a very unfun role. Loved is really boring and pointless on town, but in a harmless way that makes me not really care much either way. Having a loved mafiate does have a really interesting design space--if scum can keep it alive, then LyLo is a day sooner--but with our balance being what it is, do we really want that?

Honest, on top of being a really terrible name for a modifier about deception, is just a godfather. We blacklisted those.

I agree with implosion on Loyal--it only really affects investigative roles, and it's kind of an edge-case. (It's worth noting that any investigative role with the Loyal modifier can clear innocents as well as a cop can.) I dunno...it's a cop that in theory gives scum a slight argument for getting out of guilty results, but it doesn't seem like a very major change to me.

Actually, reading further, loyal gaoler is kind of cool too.

Town ninjas and town encryptors are just tacky. Yes, there are edge-cases where they can be used, but who gives a shit? Do we seriously need 3+ person neighborhoods where the daytalk shuts down when THIS ONE SPECIFIC PERSON dies?

With the result that I still have to look up what a voyeur or a motion detector did again.

Yeah, voyeurs and motion detectors are dumb. (Motion detectors actually do have some edge-cases where they're slightly relevant--with all but one scum dead, they can clear people the same way followers/trackers can. And having a mostly-useless investigative role with the weak modifier lets you confirm things without getting false innocents when you're roleblocked. But yeah...in general, it's silly to add roles to the whitelist unless they actually have some meaningful function.)

[Prince Lyon]

I wouldn't mind having like

a town ninja vig

[pieguyn]

upon further reflection, I don't know if I like town ninja being allowed since when I ran it in a game once, the discussion immediately became about "town ninja? wtf?", and I don't think that's a particularly good dynamic to induce in Normal gameplay.

[Firebringer]

upon further reflection, I don't know if I like town ninja being allowed since when I ran it in a game once, the discussion immediately became about "town ninja? wtf?", and I don't think that's a particularly good dynamic to induce in Normal gameplay.

Idea is you claim it early because it's a negatively utility and then meta shifts so scum would also claim it.

[pieguyn]

if town ninja sees widespread use outside of Normal games I'd agree with that, but as it is town ninja is really rare (I haven't seen one outside of that game). I don't think it's good to introduce new dynamics like that in Normal games just for the sake of it, as I said in my previous post in this thread.

EDIT: to be clear I'm not saying blacklist it, I think it should be graylisted so that people still have the option to try it out in a game if they think it'll make it interesting.

[mhsmith0]

if town ninja sees widespread use outside of Normal games I'd agree with that, but as it is town ninja is really rare (I haven't seen one outside of that game). I don't think it's good to introduce new dynamics like that in Normal games just for the sake of it, as I said in my previous post in this thread.

+1

The basic point of normal games is that they have NORMAL roles, and if town ninja isn't normal, it shouldn't exist. I also really struggle to see the point of a town ninja; what setups would it even be helpful or interesting in?

[callforjudgement]

From a setup design point of view, Town Ninja (+ a power role) is most useful when you've given the scum a Tracker in order to get an influence of control over which power roles they kill, and want to reduce the chance they kill the Ninja (the idea being that if they track the Ninja going nowhere, they'll be more likely to kill someone else). It's fairly common for me to try to control the outcome of scum investigatives in this sort of way. However, so far I haven't felt a need to use a Ninja modifier for the purpose; you can normally do it just fine with things that are already Normal.

[mhsmith0]

Trying to nerf a scum investigative by creating a town counter to it... I don't think that's especially normal design tbh. In general the idea is to how town power, and either it's about the right amount on its own, or if it's too much, you give scum some power to counter it. At least htat's my headspace on that issue.

[callforjudgement]

It's not so much about nerfing. It's more trying to control the power of the town roles via choosing which ones are likely to die first. If a role's key to the setup, you want to try your best to prevent them dying N2 or N3 (N1 is typically unavoidable).

I've run a setup before now which had a Mafia Tracker which was intended as negative utility; the information they got mostly directed kills onto the wrong people. That was an attempt to reduce swing, because certain kills would reduce it and certain kills would increase it. It wasn't an attempt in its own right to limit the power of scum roles.

[popsofctown]

I think modifiers on roles in normals have to pass a cost benefit analysis, where the benefit is enabling new setup design space that wasn't possible before :if I add one tracker it's townsided, if I give the mafia a doc, it's scumsided, but if I have this modifier it's poyfect: and the cost is allowing too many total possibilities into normals to the point that it becomes too hard to fakeclaim. (like, you're scum, and your dayplay was actually really good for scum, and deserves reward. But you have to fakeclaim in LyLo. So you fakeclaim ninja tracker or loud doctor, because if you didn't claim a modifier occasionally, then on average your fakeclaims would be fishier. But then oops, the modifier doesn't fit the setup.) This is exacerbated if people don't randomly put meaningless modifiers in their setups, which is a thing they theoretically ought to do, but then will actually do with some uncertain consistency (putting the ninja modifier on setups with no investigatives, adding loyalty to the doc even though there is no vigilante).

Loud and Heavy are the only ones in the list that make me feel like they pass that cost benefit, although the ones that fail aren't totally due to cost or totally due to benefit. But I would still want to see those run in themes more total times before being added to normals (although I haven't been around site much lately and am just kinda assuming they are still fringey)

[drealmerz7]

just loved and hated from this list for me should be normal - you can do a lot with changing setups and nuance to balance with these 2 modifiers (hated scum is fine if you know what you're doing with your setup)

not enough energy to elaborate on all the things

[Ircher]

NRG asked me to get public thoughts on suggested changes to Normal games.
This is not for your suggestions but simply if you think it should be added:

Time to redefine normal games:

Add these modifiers for all alignments:

Loved:

Player takes one more vote to lynch than normal. This isn't active during LYLO/MYLO. Mod cannot note it specifically in the vote count unless a person is at required number to lynch that they aren't lynched.

Hated:

Players takes one less vote to lynch than normal. This isn't active during LYLO/MYLO. Mod cannot note this in the vote count.

Loyal:

Players actions only work on people of same alignment and are considered roleblocked if they target someone of different alignment.

Unstoppable:

Players actions cannot be stopped from being performed. This doesn't mean they will get correct result (For instance Miller/Ascetic/etc).

Ninja:

(For town)

Encryptor:

(For town)

Honest:

Player will be seen as Town to all alignment checks. (Could be used for town or mafia, but more likely a mafia role/Replacement for Godfather)

Heavy:

Players actions are announced to game thread. Example "X visited Y last night!"

Loud:

Player visited by you is informed you visited them.

Novice:

Can't act night 1 [I don't know why this wasn't already normal]

I will update this thread if any of these get added.

Good: Loyal, Ninja, Loud, Novice
Ok: Encryptor
Not so Good: Loved, Hated, Unstoppable
Bad: Honest, Heavy

[chamber]

if town ninja sees widespread use outside of Normal games I'd agree with that, but as it is town ninja is really rare (I haven't seen one outside of that game). I don't think it's good to introduce new dynamics like that in Normal games just for the sake of it, as I said in my previous post in this thread.

+1

The basic point of normal games is that they have NORMAL roles, and if town ninja isn't normal, it shouldn't exist. I also really struggle to see the point of a town ninja; what setups would it even be helpful or interesting in?

I really don't think that's the point of normal games at all. It's part of the way that they've been executed. The point of normal games is providing a normal experience. A town ninja may not be common, but it doesn't use unusual mechanisms. I really see no issue with it at all. Your approach leads to an ever decreasing list of what's considered normal because there will always be trends, roles that are more popular than the others, and then anything on the fringe will get culled.

[chamber]

NRG asked me to get public thoughts on suggested changes to Normal games.
This is not for your suggestions but simply if you think it should be added:

Time to redefine normal games:

Add these modifiers for all alignments:

Loved:

Player takes one more vote to lynch than normal. This isn't active during LYLO/MYLO. Mod cannot note it specifically in the vote count unless a person is at required number to lynch that they aren't lynched.

Hated:

Players takes one less vote to lynch than normal. This isn't active during LYLO/MYLO. Mod cannot note this in the vote count.

Loyal:

Players actions only work on people of same alignment and are considered roleblocked if they target someone of different alignment.

Unstoppable:

Players actions cannot be stopped from being performed. This doesn't mean they will get correct result (For instance Miller/Ascetic/etc).

Ninja:

(For town)

Encryptor:

(For town)

Honest:

Player will be seen as Town to all alignment checks. (Could be used for town or mafia, but more likely a mafia role/Replacement for Godfather)

Heavy:

Players actions are announced to game thread. Example "X visited Y last night!"

Loud:

Player visited by you is informed you visited them.

Novice:

Can't act night 1 [I don't know why this wasn't already normal]

I will update this thread if any of these get added.

I think some of these however would change things. Loved and Hated when not announced could do really screwy things. Especially on mafia. Breaking expectations about how core rules work is very sketchy. I'd almost want those explicitly blacklisted.

Novice just seems like it would encourage bad setup design. Likewise for unstoppable.(both are fine normalcy wise, but I'm afraid new mods who want to be snowflakes would use these things) Loyal behaves weirdly on a lot of roles. Seems like its really meant to be a doctor or jailkeeper modifier. Loyal jailkeeper is actually a role that seems great from a design perspective.