Plum's Micro Normal Review, October 2019

Plum · Post Post #2 (isolation #0) » Thu Oct 24, 2019 5:16 pm

Hi, I have a setup!

Spoiler: Setup

Spoiler: Role PMs

Hello,

PLAYERNAME

. Welcome to

Mafia ####: Autumnal Mafia

.

Your role in this game is

Vanilla Town

.

Abilities:

You have no special abilities.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm with your role name by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the

game thread

before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Hello,

PLAYERNAME

. Welcome to

Mafia ####: Autumnal Mafia

.

Your role in this game is

Town Loyal Simple Fruit Vendor

.

Abilities:

Fruit Vendor:
Once every Night you may target another player to give them a piece of fruit.
- Loyal:
  This ability will only resolve if you target a player who shares your alignment (
  Town
  ).
- Simple:
  This ability will only resolve if your target is Vanilla (
  Vanilla Town
  or
  Mafia Goon
  ).

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm with your role name by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the

game thread

before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Hello,

PLAYERNAME_A

. Welcome to

Mafia ####: Autumnal Mafia

.

Your role in this game is

Town Backup Tracker

.

Abilities:

Tracker:
Once every Night you may target another player to see who they targeted that Night.
- Backup:
  You may use this ability only if another player with an ability named
  Tracker
  has died.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm with your role name by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the

game thread

before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Hello,

PLAYERNAME

. Welcome to

Mafia ####: Autumnal Mafia

.

Your role in this game is

Town Night 1 Informed

.

Abilities:

Informed:

(Passive)
You know that the following information is true:
- Night 1:
  
  (Passive)
  You will receive this ability's information on Night 1.

You win when only members of the

Town

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm with your role name by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the

game thread

before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Hello,

PLAYERNAME_X

. Welcome to

Mafia ####: Autumnal Mafia

.

Your role in this game is

Mafia Encryptor

.

Factional:

Mafia Team:
Your teammate is
PLAYERNAME_Y, Mafia Informed
.
Mafia Communication:
You may talk with your living teammates in the
Mafia Private Topic
. You may talk there during Nights. You may also talk there during Days so long as your faction includes at least one living player with an ability named
Encryptor
.
Mafia Factional Kill:
Once every Night, a living member of the Mafia may submit a factional kill action.

Abilities:

Encryptor:

(Passive)
Private topics you have access to are available for talk during Days.

You win when only members of the

Mafia

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm with your role name by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the

game thread

before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Hello,

PLAYERNAME_Y

. Welcome to

Mafia ####: Autumnal Mafia

.

Your role in this game is

Mafia Informed

.

Factional:

Mafia Team:
Your teammate is
PLAYERNAME_X, Mafia Encryptor
.
Mafia Communication:
You may talk with your living teammates in the
Mafia Private Topic
. You may talk there during Nights. You may also talk there during Days so long as your faction includes at least one living player with an ability named
Encryptor
.
Mafia Factional Kill:
Once every Night, a living member of the Mafia may submit a factional kill action.

Abilities:

Informed:

(Passive)
You know that the following information is true:
- This game includes exactly
  zero
  players with the role
  Tracker
  .
- This game includes exactly
  one
  player with the role
  Backup Tracker
  .

[/list][/list]

You win when only members of the

Mafia

remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm with your role name by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the

game thread

before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Spoiler: Game PMs

Spoiler: Ruleset

General Rules

Read and obey the site rules.
Play to win.
Remember that everyone playing is actually a real person. Treat every player and Moderator in this game with a basic level of respect.
Do not talk about this game outside the thread unless your role allows you to, and then only in the manner expressly permitted by your role.
When you die, you must stop posting in any game-related topics immediately.
Do not edit posts, if you somehow have the powers to do so. Do not use invisible text. Do not use small text. Do not use or abuse cryptography. Do not do anything I haven't mentioned that breaks the spirit of this rule.
Do not quote any private communication from the moderator or from any sanctioned out-of-thread game communication (e.g. a Neighborhood private topic) in the game thread. Close paraphrases may or may not be prohibited by the spirit of this rule. If you're unsure, please ask me first.
The Moderator will not respond publicly to any direct public communication about this game (but will check for errors without comment if concerns about vote count accuracy are mentioned). If you have any questions or concerns, communicate them to the Moderator privately.
If you request replacement, you must stop posting in any game-related topics immediately. You may not replace back in or rescind your request.
Do not fake breaking a rule.
Participate actively.
- I will send prod notifications to any player who has not posted over 48 real-life hours and is not V/LA.
- If a player would receive their third prod notification, they will receive a prod notification and an official warning.
- If a player would receive their fourth prod notification, they will be force-replaced.
- If you have upcoming V/LA, please let me know privately. I will note V/LAs publicly. Players will not be sent prod notifications during their V/LA periods.
In the event of a rules infraction, the Moderator reserves the right to warn, to force-replace, and/or to Mod-kill with removal of win-condition.
- If I have questions or concerns about rule breaking, game integrity, and/or appropriate response to rule breaking, I may consult the
  Game Integrity Consultant
  ,
  Username
  . This user is aware of the game's setup but not its role distribution and is intended to serve as an unbiased consultant for game integrity issues.

Game Participation Information and Guidelines

Plum
is the color I will use for certain Moderator communication purposes.
Votes should be posted using vote tags (i.e. VOTE: Plum). It is not necessary to unvote before placing a new vote, but using an UNVOTE: alone will reset you to not voting anyone. If it looks like a vote on a player in this game, it will be treated as such.
A player is lynched when the number of votes for that player is greater than half of the number of living players. If there is no majority at deadline, there will be no lynch for that Day.
The deadline for each Day will be 10 real-life days. The deadline for each Night will be 48 hours.
This game obeys the constraints of a Normal Game.
- This game does
  not enable Mafia factional daytalk by default
  .
- This game includes at least one player assigned the role of
  Vanilla Town
  , with the following Role PM:
  Hello,
  PLAYERNAME
  . Welcome to
  Mafia ####: Autumnal Mafia
  .
  
  Your role in this game is
  Vanilla Town
  .
  
  Abilities:
  - You have no special abilities.
  You win when only members of the
  Town
  remain alive or nothing can prevent the same.
  
  Please confirm with your role name by PM and make sure to read the game rules in the
  game thread
  before posting. Good luck and have fun!

Plum · Post Post #3 (isolation #1) » Thu Oct 24, 2019 7:03 pm

Oh, a minor correction, in the rules it says 10 day Days and 2 day Nights but actually because it's a Micro I'll be using 7 day Days/36 hour Nights.

Plum · Post Post #7 (isolation #2) » Fri Oct 25, 2019 4:38 am

My thinking: Fruit Vendor can get hard innocent results on half the potential targets and PR/guilties on the rest (but is dependent on targets claiming fruit). N1 Informed is guaranteed a hard innocent result if they live to Day 2 (originally was just regular Informed but I guess I was thinking about early massclaim breaking strategies?) and can play out as soft-confirming themselves when they claim their information.

Mafia are essentially informed that Tracker is safe to claim, but if you massclaimed and had full Tracker, full Backup Tracker, Loyal Simple Fruit Vendor, and N1 Informed [X is Town Backup Tracker] claimed in a 9p, you'd expect something to be up because that would be hard to consider balanced even with Mafia Multitasking Roleblocker (assuming 7:2 I guess). It's a pretty good thing to claim if run up early but will have enough setup questions raised late game that it shouldn't be guaranteed. If they have to claim later it gives the Mafia interesting questions (maybe claiming 1-shot or other gated/limited Tracker would be better in some cases).

Note that with Encryptor and Informed Mafia, Encryptor has access to the relevant information Day 1 (so if they happen to be the one run up Day 1 they know the implications of claiming Tracker).

Plum · Post Post #9 (isolation #3) » Fri Oct 25, 2019 4:43 am

Whoa, lol. Glad you think it's neat. I mayyyyy start building a portfolio to apply to the NRG eventually ...

Plum · Post Post #11 (isolation #4) » Sat Oct 26, 2019 12:43 pm

Also interested in northsidegal's thoughts

Plum · Post Post #15 (isolation #5) » Sat Oct 26, 2019 6:19 pm

I appreciate NSG's thoughts here - I'm going to sleep on it but I have some tentative ideas for a variation on this setup that keeps some if the subversive elements without being as binary.

Plum · Post Post #16 (isolation #6) » Sun Oct 27, 2019 5:35 am

How do the reviewers think this setup compares to the previous version?

Spoiler: Setup

Plum · Post Post #18 (isolation #7) » Mon Oct 28, 2019 8:00 am

Lol no offense taken, I was trying to brainstorm something that left the red herring aspect mostly intact and important but made the game less about whether the Town can correctly figure out that the Tracker claim is scum in claim/massclaim situations, because that did seem less than desirable. So I toned back the information Mafia had so that they had more complex choices about what claims were good. But keeping Town Simple Loyal Fruit Vendor and the Informed getting a full inno Night 1, I wanted to bring the balance back (given that the issues brought up by the reviewers were essentially not about balance) by giving something pretty small but tactically useful, and I thought 1-shot Rolestopper was too strong and not really where I wanted to go with the setup. 1-shot FV seemed "safe" to me in that it could muddy the waters if used opportunely but didn't directly cause a misleading soft-guilty like Rolestopper could. But you're more experienced here and if Mafia FV is territory that scares you, that says something to me.

Maybe something else? Mafia Watcher? Mafia 1-shot Neighborizer?

Plum · Post Post #21 (isolation #8) » Mon Oct 28, 2019 9:46 am

Okay, that makes sense, I'll brainstorm more about it then.

Plum · Post Post #22 (isolation #9) » Mon Oct 28, 2019 9:57 am

Spoiler: Setup

This version replaces the Loyal Simple FV with Friendly Neighbor, which could address the "variance on the effectiveness of the fruit vendor" issue. Gives a hard innocent but only of one specific player, and doesn't vary in effectiveness based on whether they hit a Town non-Vanilla. The Town get a total of two hard confirmed innocents but no other direct power. In this version (as in the Mafia 1-shot FV one) the Town Informed and the Mafia are both aware that a Backup Tracker exists but have no information about whether a Tracker exists. Does this improve on the two major issues with the original setup?

Plum · Post Post #23 (isolation #10) » Wed Oct 30, 2019 6:07 pm

Hey everyone - any thoughts to bring the review process forward? Asking mostly because I saw the Micro queue signups moving fast.

Plum · Post Post #25 (isolation #11) » Wed Oct 30, 2019 6:25 pm

Thanks! Hoping for feedback and if appropriate a pass from RC as primary reviewer

Plum · Post Post #28 (isolation #12) » Thu Oct 31, 2019 12:40 am

If both reviewers think it's a little hard for Town, maybe there's some small tweak that could help without undermining the concepts? Could do something like add a oneshot Mailman or Neighborize ability to the Town N1 Informed? Or just swap N1 Informed for regular Informed? Or both?

Plum · Post Post #30 (isolation #13) » Thu Oct 31, 2019 4:42 am

Lol fair

I'm inclined the way northsidegal is, I'd rather put out a setup that's slightly scumsided by today's standards over one that's slightly Townsided. If you both would pass it as such - unless you have a different suggestion for a change that could tweak the balance just that slight bit - I'd be fine with that verdict and take it to the queue.

Plum · Post Post #32 (isolation #14) » Thu Oct 31, 2019 5:58 am

Great, I'll message Implo to make sure he sees because the queue might be ready for it, like, now.

Plum · Post Post #33 (isolation #15) » Thu Oct 31, 2019 5:59 am

Or I guess PM Micc? Both probably makes sense.