Normal Guidelines Current Suggestions/Changes

[Firebringer]

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.

[mastina]

Modifiers I am explicitly okay with being Normal: Loved, Hated, Loyal, Loud. All have seen great use across the site and I feel more than qualify to meet the standards of what we consider normal.
Modifiers I personally would like even though I'm not sure they'll go through: Ninja, Encryptor.
Modifiers I am mostly okay with: Novice.

Modifiers I am not so okay with: Unstoppable, Honest, Heavy.

[RadiantCowbells]

Isn't Loyal already normal? It really fucking should be.

[Creature]

I was Town Novice 1-shot Strongman Vigilante.

idk why the wiki doesn't have modifiers like it.

[Firebringer]

I was Town Novice 1-shot Strongman Vigilante.

idk why the wiki doesn't have modifiers like it.

Wiki has it, but it isn't considered normal role

[mykonian]

I've seen Hated used, obviously. The rest I haven't seen much of in practice.

I think a couple of these could happily work and take up people's slot for an non whitelist role. Unstoppable, the town ninja and town encryptor, novice seem easy inclusions that way. These are mechanics that are already normal, but applied slightly differently. Loyal is probably alright there as well.

Loud would be an entirely new mechanic to be included in a normal. I would want to be very careful about that. It could be fun, but honestly that should be tested in themes before it suddenly turns up in normals from nowhere. Normal is a keyword, but also has it's original meaning. You don't want new things to happen in that part of the site, there's so much more room for creativity elsewhere. For me loyal is sitting between this and the previous block actually, I'm not sure about that one. The benefit is that it only affects one player and they know about it, but I would really love to have this become mainstream before it becomes normal. With loud, you have to explain it's significance to newbies, so really you'd want every experienced player to know about it already to not end up with a game where half the players are confused about a claim. The latter should be avoided at all costs in a normal.

Honest is straight up a bad idea. Godfathers disappeared before the normal rules adjusted, there's no particular reason to turn that back.

Heavy is too close to a mechanic for me, too big a focus on the roles. If it becomes a common thing in themes, sure, you could consider it, but that's miles away imo.


Loved and hated are the oddballs here. We know about them, but they do fundamentally change the daygame in a normal. It's a very big question if you want to touch that, or if you want to keep the experience as basic as it is now.

[Prince Lyon]

Unstoppable, the town ninja and town encryptor, novice seem easy inclusions that way. These are mechanics that are already normal, but applied slightly differently. Loyal is probably alright there as well.

I agree with this but I also think Loud should be added.

I am wary of adding Loved/Hated to normal games and I think it's probably better that we don't.

[mykonian]

I'm not seeing how loud is already a part of our normal games right now, to the point that we aren't sending: "you are blocked" messages to people here on MS, while other sites might do.

[Firebringer]

I'm not seeing how loud is already a part of our normal games right now, to the point that we aren't sending: "you are blocked" messages to people here on MS, while other sites might do.

It doesn't tell you what they did, it just tells you that they visited you.

I mean you could also have an alternative modifier for telling you what kind of action someone visited you with (But not telling you who visited you) Maybe that could be called Heavy instead, idk.

Both could be interesting to add to the dynamic of normal games.

[mykonian]

Both could be interesting to add to the dynamic of normal games.

I hate you so much right now.

How can this be what normal means. If it's not something you play with in every other theme game, how could it be "normal". This is the last type of game which needs something "interesting". It just needs to be a simple, fun, mafia experience with some scumhunting and some nightkills where everybody understands what they are going to get.

I mean, we've done this actually, some roles got pushed through that really didn't get used all that much. With the result that I still have to look up what a voyeur or a motion detector did again. This is supposed to be the gametype where all that is obvious, because you've seen it dozens of times already.

[Prince Lyon]

I'm not seeing how loud is already a part of our normal games right now, to the point that we aren't sending: "you are blocked" messages to people here on MS, while other sites might do.

Loud is very simple to understand and adds unique gameplay without increasing the burden of knowledge.

[Firebringer]

I hate you so much right now.

How can this be what normal means. If it's not something you play with in every other theme game, how could it be "normal". This is the last type of game which needs something "interesting". It just needs to be a simple, fun, mafia experience with some scumhunting and some nightkills where everybody understands what they are going to get.

I mean, we've done this actually, some roles got pushed through that really didn't get used all that much. With the result that I still have to look up what a voyeur or a motion detector did again. This is supposed to be the gametype where all that is obvious, because you've seen it dozens of times already.

No need for hate.
I would prefer Normals to be less stringent in whats available to mods, especially when the role/modifier isn't completely game changer to the meta.

Some of these we are obviously not there for them to be considered "Normal" yet, Yeah I agree. But I think us talking about it could get us there if that makes sense.

Like do I want all of these in the game tomorrow? No. Its just to get us to move in that direction. I think none of these harm the game state at large.

[mykonian]

I mean I like you. And then you break my heart like this

and yes, talk is good. Mods using them is good, though maybe not all in normals straight away. Normals can, have and should change over time. But it's up to the mods and players to do that, the rules can follow after them, like they did with the godfather. The role disappeared a while before N decided the point had been reached where players no longer expected it in a normal game, and it should get the axe. Mods made the meta change, and mods are wonderful creative people who know what they like in games and their players would like.

To make my point clear, I don't think there's any of these that Nexus should make a statement about to make them explicitly normal. None of these roles are going to be expected in a normal, you'd shock the meta in stead of letting it go where it wants. A couple of these roles are similar in mechanics and they could happily be included without changing anything from the top down. The rest probably needs a lot of exposure first.

[pieguyn]

I don't think loved or hated should be Normal. I've never seen loyal before, "unstoppable" is fine even though I know it as strong-willed, ninja and encryptor should be allowed for town, I've never seen honest before,

"heavy"/public

and loud are things I've seen rarely but I think are fine being Normal (EDIT: public should be graylisted, I think, but not whitelisted), and novice at this point appears to be somewhat-common and isn't unusual at all, so is fine being Normal.

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.

[callforjudgement]

People outside the NRG won't know this, but I've been pushing for Loyal to be explicitly Normal for a while.

I don't think we should add Normal modifiers too quickly, though. Loyal is the main one I care about adding. Most of the list above would be bad ideas, though, or at least too early; the only other ones I'd consider adding are the "can't be roleblocked" modifier (which has some naming issues), and Loud, and I wouldn't really push for either of those even though they're both fairly widely used. (Really, for something to be Normal, I'd like it to be commonly used, easy to understand,

and

serve a real setup design purpose; Loyal fits all three, but something like Loved fails the third test (and arguably the second due to lylo behaviour). This means it's mostly a flavour role, and flavour roles are best consigned to Themes.) Honest would be a terrible idea for the same reason as Godfather, incidentally.

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.

[StrangerCoug]

Chipping in my opinion even though I feel nobody listens to old fogeys like me in terms of what should be normal... My Mafia-playing heyday was an earlier time...

• I would push for
  BLACKLISTING
  the loved and hated modifiers as deviations from the standard lynch mechanic (and with the potential for nasty surprises, to boot).
  
• Loyal is good to have whitelisted. The jury is still out on unstoppable, but in my opinion it's good to have modifiers that strengthen a role whitelisted.
  
• 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.
  
• 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.
  
• I wouldn't whitelist heavy and loud. Gun to my head, I'd blacklist heavy as more appropriate for theme games and leave loud graylisted (since a precursory glance at it suggests it'd be good for confirming power roles).
  
• Novice sounds like a good modifier to whitelist.

[implosion]

I also err on the side of loved/hated not being explicitly normal. I think deviations from majority lynch change the game at a more fundamental level. They're also just bad roles; it's no fun to be a hated role, especially because if you're town the optimal play if you aren't nightkilled is likely to out yourself to get lynched before lylo. I'm not sure if loved is intended to be a town-only modifier, but it has problems either way; if it isn't a town-only modifier then loved mafia getting to what would be lylo means that they've already won; if it is a town-only modifier then it's a glorified innocent child because as long as it isn't lylo the town can test their claim by putting them at what would be l-0.

Honest is essentially just godfather? I fail to see any difference. Town are already seen as town for all alignment checks, because, you know, they're town?

Loyal is fine but I'm not sure I see the use; a loyal investigative role is essentially a glorified cop who gets false positives in town ascetics. A loyal protective role might as well be just the protective role. A loyal vigilante or disruptive role is reasonable but might also be unfun to play as or with.

Novice is good, but like cfj says it's sort of like night-specific; it might make more sense to just generalize night-specific to allow a player to act on a specific subset of nights (i.e., allow "you are a night 1 and 4+ vigilante").

Unstoppable is fine but phrasing seems ambiguous ("cannot be stopped from being performed" should also bypass ascetic, no?)

ninja/encryptor/loud are fine to me.

heavy seems maybe a bit specific to whitelist.

[mastina]

Argument for making Loud normal:
It is a widely-used modifier, largely established, is easy to understand, and we already have a role which uses a Loud-like mechanic whitelisted: a friendly neighbor. For that matter, a fruit vendor works on a similar principle, albeit one which doesn't tell the player who gave the fruit.
This would allow for expanding that. (For instance, a Loud Fruit Vendor would be a nerfed friendly neighbor! That's a very pragmatic use of the modifier.)
A scum player with a loud action would have to think carefully about what to claim and who to target.
A town player with a loud action must take caution in trying to target only town, as to not give scum free information.

Arguments for making Loved/Hated normal:
There's literally no reason aside from hating these roles to not have them be Normal. Of all the modifiers, they are probably hands-down THE most commonly used, not only on mafiascum but on other sites as well. (Okay maybe they're not the most common offsite but they are known and used offsite--loved/hated is such a well-known mechanic that it transcends mafiascum!)

They are a well-known mechanic, and have been widely established. They are not modifying things beyond reason: one extra vote or one fewer vote to lynch. They are easy to know. They are easy to use. They have an established role in games: to make a player harder to kill or to make it easier to kill them. While these modifiers are best applied on town (loved scum is unfair to the town; hated scum is unfair to the scum), they're still able to be used as either alignment and they have a place in modifying roles.

Everyone knows that they are. Everyone knows what they do. They've been around for years, they're widely used, they're common, and there's nothing about them which fundamentally goes beyond what you can reasonably expect from a game. I honestly don't see why people seem to think this is an issue. There's nothing about them which isn't Normal. There's nothing about them which is gamebreaking, there's nothing about them which is weird, they function within the usual mechanics of a game and don't fundamentally change it any more than any other modifier does. (A loved/hated claim is no worse than a miller/ascetic claim in terms of "we need this lynched".)

Loyal I don't think I need to argue for being Normal since that seems to have support enough on its own.

[implosion]

My problem with hated is just that it's a bad role. I suppose it doesn't really fall into the vat of issues with it being normal.

I think loved scum does go fundamentally beyond what you can reasonably expect from a game: town who see strong (and accurate) evidence that a game is 3:10 have a reasonable expectation that 7 players alive with no dead scum is LYLO, not one lynch past LYLO. It could make sense from a design perspective I suppose if you screw with expected ratios and do something like 2:11 with scum being loved but that seems a bit aberrant. Not awful but eh, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

If loved is a town-only modifier then it's reasonable enough. It's still kind of just a glorified innocent child but it's not really an explicitly bad thing, it just doesn't really add anything new. It functions slightly differently because it automatically claims for itself when it gets lynched. Which I suppose is reasonably enough to differentiate it.

[StrangerCoug]

Arguments for making Loved/Hated normal:
There's literally no reason aside from hating these roles to not have them be Normal. Of all the modifiers, they are probably hands-down THE most commonly used, not only on mafiascum but on other sites as well. (Okay maybe they're not the most common offsite but they are known and used offsite--loved/hated is such a well-known mechanic that it transcends mafiascum!)

They are a well-known mechanic, and have been widely established. They are not modifying things beyond reason: one extra vote or one fewer vote to lynch. They are easy to know. They are easy to use. They have an established role in games: to make a player harder to kill or to make it easier to kill them. While these modifiers are best applied on town (loved scum is unfair to the town; hated scum is unfair to the scum), they're still able to be used as either alignment and they have a place in modifying roles.

Everyone knows that they are. Everyone knows what they do. They've been around for years, they're widely used, they're common, and there's nothing about them which fundamentally goes beyond what you can reasonably expect from a game. I honestly don't see why people seem to think this is an issue. There's nothing about them which isn't Normal. There's nothing about them which is gamebreaking, there's nothing about them which is weird, they function within the usual mechanics of a game and don't fundamentally change it any more than any other modifier does. (A loved/hated claim is no worse than a miller/ascetic claim in terms of "we need this lynched".)

I get your point, but I do not think that merely being an established, easy-to-understand role/modifier is sufficient reason to justify normalcy. (That said, I buy your argument that merely being despised is insufficient reason to prevent its whitelisting, or else there would be no whitelisted negative utility roles.) Messing with the majority lynch mechanic, even if via a role modifier, should be left in the domain of theme games and not introduced in normals.

[pieguyn]

loved and hated are just bad roles that put one person at an advantage or disadvantage entirely arbitrarily without respect to any sort of play. I've seen uses of them that I would consider good in theme games, but definitely not in a normal game which generally is supposed to revolve *entirely* around dayplay/scumhunting.

I hate roles like DVs and gladiators for the same reason, for the record.

[TheButtonmen]

Loved / Hated - Warp the core element of the game and are not at all transparent. Note the fact you start needing to throw in special rules such as them not being active during lylo/mylo and needing to fudge the vote counts, these are telltale signs of a poorly designed role that has no place in a normal.

Loyal - I’m really not seeing what the would be used for, loyal docs are basically pointless, loyal vigs/roleblockers are nope. Loyal cops are functionally the same as regular cops. So how exactly do you see this playing out? I’m not at all fan.

Unstoppable - God no, I’m starting to question if you even understand the purpose of normal games. This does terrible things to the game, a role blocker is playing well identifies a role, blocks them and then the effect still happens. Congrats now you’ve got the role blocker telling the game that it can’t be so and so because they were blocked. Or you punish a good scum role blocker for doing their job because you’ve invalidated their role. What the hell is this even trying to add to a game and why the hell do you think it belongs in the normal queue.

Ninja - See the above

Encryptor - what exactly is a town encryptor

Honest - Fuck no there’s a reason that non-sane cops and godfathers are explicitly non-normal.

Loud - What exactly is the player told? That player X visited you last night or that you heard a noise last night?

Novice - Odd/Even, Non-consecutive and x-shot are all already normal. So eh?

All in all I question if there is even an understanding of the spirit of the normal guidelines when I see these suggestions. They're largely novelty trash and contribute nothing to or indeed harm the fundemental game of mafia.

[callforjudgement]

Loyal Doctor's been used before, often in combination with a Vigilante; and a Loyal Bodyguard would remove some of the feel-bad factor from that role (in that players are often irrationally worried about blocking a shot made by town on scum). Loyal Cops give 1-sided results (i.e. they confirm innocents, but can't distinguish a guilty from being blocked), thus acting as a decent nerfed cop role. Loyal Jailkeeper is a combination that's close in intent to the original idea behind Jailkeeper, and isn't really simulated by any other roles. (Actually, even Loyal Vigilante is far from worthless – you use it on the likely lynch the next day to either deny scum the NK from it or confirm the player as scum – but it's not a role many people would enjoy playing.)

[TheButtonmen]

oyal Cops give 1-sided results (i.e. they confirm innocents, but can't distinguish a guilty from being blocked), thus acting as a decent nerfed cop role.

its not nerfed because the optimal play is to treat any blocks as guilties it just adds another thing to make the cop role more swingy imo

Loyal Jailkeeper is a combination that's close in intent to the original idea behind Jailkeeper

youve basically just created a weaker doctor (which is already a fairly weak role), the only thing this fixes is the possibility of follow the cop game but in the year of our lord twenty seventeen on mafia scum dot net i would hope we arent making setups that feature unstoppable cop/doc

[callforjudgement]

It's a way

to

make a setup that doesn't feature unstoppable cop/doc, while allowing the roles to otherwise function with most of their normal effect.