Least Normal of the Normal

[Cook]

ITT we discuss and create roles that are technically normal but function as anything but.

To discourage use as a collaborative deck, please do various things to prevent these posts from being used as role cards (for instance, discussing a lot, or doubleposting role ideas).

[Cook]

Combined Loud Doctor Vigilante

– a visitor that can only kill ascetics.

Backup-Finder-Finder

– finds backup finders.

[Gypyx]

congrats for making 2 roles that aren't normal lol

strong-willed ain't a thing

Backup Finder isn't a possibility in the two cases because
- backup is a modifier, and can't be used for finder

Finder isn't a role on it's own, therefore you can't backup anything, just like you can't have a Town Enabler for instance

[Gypyx]

Town Personal Detective

can only find vigilantes

[Ircher]

Backup Finder – does it find backups or is it a backup to finders?

The former. A role-finder must have a specific role it finds; generic finders are not to my knowledge normal.

Edit: Technically speaking, backup is a modifier, so like Gypyx points out, that use case isn't normal either.

[Umlaut]

Backup Finder isn't a possibility in the two cases because
- backup is a modifier, and can't be used for finder

Does this also mean no Ascetic-Finder, Bulletproof-Finder, and Ninja-Finder? Those are all listed as modifiers too.

[Gypyx]

Backup Finder isn't a possibility in the two cases because
- backup is a modifier, and can't be used for finder

Does this also mean no Ascetic-Finder, Bulletproof-Finder, and Ninja-Finder? Those are all listed as modifiers too.

yes, it is specifically [role], putting a modifier is considered as a variation

think it's not that great of a feature tbh, like, why take that away

[Umlaut]

I'm working on a game with this theme... which is why I'm not going to post any of my ideas here

[Gypyx]

if you need help with outreageous stuff i'm your man btw !

[Cook]

congrats for making 2 roles that aren't normal lol

strong-willed ain't a thing

Backup Finder isn't a possibility in the two cases because
- backup is a modifier, and can't be used for finder

Finder isn't a role on it's own, therefore you can't backup anything, just like you can't have a Town Enabler for instance

fixed

[Jake The Wolfie]

Loyal Serial Killer.

That's it. That's the tweet.

[Ircher]

Town Backup Neighbor

It's not abnormal per se, but it is a somewhat weird interaction.

[Jake The Wolfie]

A Loyal Serial Killer basically has to endgame a non-killing townie, or else they lose. Oh, and they essentially don't have a killing ability.

[Not_Mafia]

Disoyal Friendly Neighbour

[House]

A Loyal Serial Killer basically has to endgame a non-killing townie, or else they lose. Oh, and they essentially don't have a killing ability.

They do if there are two in the game.

[Cook]

Activated

plus

Loyal/Disloyal

, and

Neighbor

are a role+modifier combo that interact incredibly strangely.

First of all, we must assume that while Neighbor is a passive ability, by it becoming Activated it is now an Active ability, the choice whether or not to join the Neighborhood. But at the same time,

who does Loyal/Disloyal refer to?

My hypotheses are as follows:

1. Doesn't apply.
   This seems most likely.
   
2. Disloyal/Loyal refers to the neighborhood.
   Thus, joining it also vets the current list of neighbors, which could be interesting if a Loyal Activated Neighbor means it can only join a neighborhood with no scum.

[Jake The Wolfie]

A Loyal Serial Killer basically has to endgame a non-killing townie, or else they lose. Oh, and they essentially don't have a killing ability.

They do if there are two in the game.

I don't think it's considered normal to have multiple SKs in the game.

[Cook]

A Loyal Serial Killer basically has to endgame a non-killing townie, or else they lose. Oh, and they essentially don't have a killing ability.

They do if there are two in the game.

I don't think it's considered normal to have multiple SKs in the game.

Certainly not in Mini Normal.

[Cook]

A Loyal Serial Killer basically has to endgame a non-killing townie, or else they lose. Oh, and they essentially don't have a killing ability.

They do if there are two in the game.

I don't think it's considered normal to have multiple SKs in the game.

Certainly not in Mini Normal.

[Gamma Emerald]

Town Backup Neighbor

It's not abnormal per se, but it is a somewhat weird interaction.

........

[Gypyx]

Activated

plus

Loyal/Disloyal

, and

Neighbor

are a role+modifier combo that interact incredibly strangely.

First of all, we must assume that while Neighbor is a passive ability, by it becoming Activated it is now an Active ability, the choice whether or not to join the Neighborhood. But at the same time,

who does Loyal/Disloyal refer to?

My hypotheses are as follows:

1. Doesn't apply.
   This seems most likely.
   
2. Disloyal/Loyal refers to the neighborhood.
   Thus, joining it also vets the current list of neighbors, which could be interesting if a Loyal Activated Neighbor means it can only join a neighborhood with no scum.

it doesn't apply yes

[Datisi]

Town Backup Neighbor

It's not abnormal per se, but it is a somewhat weird interaction.

........

[Kerset]

hey look impo did this for us!

I don't think something like x-shot townie is normal; there are

a lot

of implied semantics that exist in normal roles and modifiers. The point of this post will be to argue just that; that there are many semantics that people generally don't think about when designing roles because we usually don't need to, but that we have to respect those semantics. You can think of them like a programming language; the modifier "x-shot" expects to be modifying an active role, so something like 2-shot townie or 2-shot ascetic (without the word "activated" between them) would be like a syntax error. The semantics of a normal role are not "any number of modifiers, then either an active role or vanilla"; they have to fit together.

There are a lot of things like this that at minimum I would never pass as a reviewer and at most should never exist in a normal game. I think backup traitor also fits somewhere in there. Some other examples:


-Novice Macho Townie, Loyal Innocent Child, 3-shot Vengeful, etc. These modifiers are all supposed to modify roles that have an active ability; they're not allowed to modify a passive. There can be exceptions; a modifier like night 2 can apply to a passive role like innocent child or informed, for which there is a clear meaning and useful design space. This has precedent. But you can't just slap a modifier like loyal on a role that it has no meaning on.

-Combined cop. Combined is supposed to have two or more roles. I could probably make like a dozen different extremely specific ways to misuse combined. Like, combined even-night cop odd-night doctor. Good luck trying to figure out what that role is supposed to do. One example of a semantic at play here is that a role that is put into a "combined" clause cannot have targeting-specific modifiers attached (e.g. night-specific modifiers, indecisive, roaming, etc). It wouldn't make sense for you to have a targeting restriction on two different abilities that differ if the abilities are combined. But those abilities could have other modifiers! Combined Loyal Doctor Disloyal Roleblocker, for example, is a perfectly valid role that protects allies and blocks enemies, though probably pretty strong in the hands of town for various reasons.

-Serial killer enabler. What would it even mean for a serial killer to not be enabled? That's their alignment, not their role; their kill is essentially factional.

-Jack of all trades (Watcher, Bodyguard, Bulletproof Doctor). Jack of all trades is supposed to have active roles as its shots; it doesn't make sense for it to have a 1-shot "bulletproof doctor". Though you could do this by changing Bulletproof Doctor to Combined Doctor Activated Bulletproof (it's just that the complexity cost here would only rarely justify including so much verbiage).

I could rattle off a list of things that are ambiguously valid as well. Can you have a night 1-2 universal backup? What happens if a role dies during the day? Can you have a compulsive vengeful? Compulsive is supposed to modify activated roles, but it's obvious what is meant here, and while it's probably valid i can't think of a good reason to take that choice away from the vengeful. Even like, novice macho townie that I mentioned earlier could be considered valid. The point here isn't whether any of these is valid, the point is that there's such a combinatorially large number of ways to combine these words that we can't possibly decide all of them in advance. And also that I disagree with Umlaut's 666, and I think it gets at the heart of it: not all modifiers are the same in terms of how they can be used semantically, and one modifier being valid to attach to a vanilla townie doesn't mean all modifiers are. This ambiguity is also why there's reviewer discretion.