Mini Normal 2015 - Lab Rat Mafia - Finished

[mastina]

Good job town!

Yep, fairly solid performance. You barely needed the PRs at all.

What'd you think of the setup, btw?

[mastina]

oh by the way, the text of the role pms made it impossible for mafia to use a PR and kill at the same time, severely hobbling projectmatt from doing anything that could potentially turn the game around

This is because in the new Normal guidelines, in order for the mafia to be able to both kill and action, they need the Multitasking modifier.

I did not design the role to have it. Having two dead scum in the first two days of the game is...well, it's the town performing as well as is possible; that obviously is going to tip the scales massively in the town's favor.

With so much as one scumbuddy alive, the mafia JOAT can make a big difference--the mafia just got really, really unlucky.

Admittedly, this is something I could have asked about adding, but my setup reviewer thought that the lack of the multitasking modifier kept the mafia from being overpowered, so it was in fact part of the setup design, albeit not something I had a strong attachment to.

as an example of a clearer flaw in the role pms provided to me, the mafia role pms seemed to technically (as in, if you read the text and didn't think about how mafia normally works) give each member of the faction their own killing ability

This can be traced to me not knowing I'd actually be responsible for writing said PMs; I thought I only needed to specify the roles and then that'd basically be it. But, since the prewritten role PM project is not yet finished, the job did get put on me so I wasn't quite as meticulous as I'd have been if I were designing roles normally, soyeah; it's an issue which will be fixed when we have the prewritten PMs.

[mastina]

Mason tracker feels like an OPed role. Once it had the guilty on NM, there was literally nothing he could do.

I go into the details of my thought process behind the setup design in the design thread, but my basic process here was that I wanted a Vigilante to be in the same game as Masons, with an absolute 0% chance of the Vigilante shooting a (presumably unclaimed) mason. (Thus, mason-vig.) From there, knowing that the town would need a couple of extra PRs, I added in the jailkeeper and mason-tracker.

The tracker was a mason as to not give the town four power roles (mason-vig, mason, jk, tracker is MUCH stronger than mason-vig, mason-tracker, jk) and also to prevent a tracker from getting a guilty on a mason-vig (which is the type of interaction I wanted to avoid creating). I wanted to have a weak investigative for the town, because with just masons, the vig, and the jailkeeper, the town had no surefire way of gathering any information.

For that purpose and to that end, tracker is a generally good go-to role, because it is fairly worthless in the earlygame short of dumb luck. (Which it got.) It does have some lategame power behind it, but the tracker is never designed in ANY game by ANY moderator to get a guilty N1 after a scum lynch D1. (I guarantee you that scenario doesn't play out in any review thread.)

That having been said, in hindsight, a motion detector would probably have served much the same function here, but it's honestly not a role I much think about using. (Because to me, Motion Detector is a different role which serves as a nerfed watcher/voyeur variant; I know that's not the site standard, but it's what *I*,

personally

, think of when I think of motion detectors, so in designing this setup, it didn't cross my mind to use a motion detector.)

[mastina]

I thought the setup was very novel. I kept thinking the 3 prs were quite powerful . I think the mafia goon could've been something different like a mafia encryptor , mafia ninja, or something else in order to balance the sides...at least in terms of abilities.

Mafia had daytalk by their role PM wording. Also, an ungated ninja would never be something I'd pit against a tracker; even a 1x ninja against a tracker is honestly a bit cruel. (Ninja is more of a watcher counter.)

If the mafia were to receive a buff, the most likely would just be to make the JOAT be multitasking in my opinion, since not acting did in fact nerf them.

[mastina]

What was the final setup? I think I got it, but I wanna see it laid out.

Mason-Tracker
Mason two-shot Vigilante
Jailkeeper
VT x 7

Informed Mafioso (informed, "there is at least one masonry in this game")
Mafia JOAT (Roleblocker, Rolecop, Watcher)
Mafia Goon

Masons and Mafia both have daytalk.
Mafia, due to new guidelines, don't have the ability to both kill and action.

[mastina]

When will the review PT be released?

Whenever implosion releases it, which is...
...Well honestly, that's not something I know.