Poyzin's Mini Normal Review, June 2020

[Poyzin]

Fun stuff, thanks for the PT!

I'm available to discuss any modifications if y'all find any problems with the present setup.

[Poyzin]

If it makes a difference, scum used to have 2x Ninja modifier that they could use among their team, but I don't believe that doing so is technically "normal" for all tenses and purposes. However, I took liberty and gave everybody a 1x-Ninja for flavor purposes.

https://smashboards.com/threads/midnigh ... m2.486900/

This was the original game, which was supposed to be played last summer but never ended up happening. Would you suggest removing the modifier from the Goon, or add in a Chocolate Townie for the benefit of town? I personally like the aesthetics of a full 1-shot ninja team (if that's even a thing) but I can see the untapped power in that, especially when the scumteam is already powerful without the modifiers.

[Poyzin]

However, I took liberty and gave everybody a 1x-Ninja for flavor purposes.

EBWOP
and gave all of the scumteam a 1x-Ninja for flavor purposes, referring to the remake of this game, which is queued at my homesite. It's not final, and subject to change.

[Poyzin]

Town:
[1] Watcher Mason
[1] Follower Mason
[1] Neapolitan

[7] Vanilla


Mafia:
[1] 1x-Ninja Roleblocker
[1] 1x-Ninja Rolecop
[1] Goon


This is the modified setup. The third 1x-Ninja modifier is only added to the Goon if a Town Visitor appears in the game; the problem was, I removed the chance of a Visitor and left in the 1x-Ninja. That actually makes a lot more sense.

[Poyzin]

(I keep confusing the semi-open version and the open version and just assume that they're the same. They're not. Hopefully the confusion is cleared, there shouldn't have been 3 1x-Ninjas in this version, only two as long as the Visitor is removed.)

[Poyzin]

Thank you for the response.

I am going to politely disagree with your first point; in most any game of mafia, the town PR could be put into a position where they need to claim D1 that would effectively doom town. As an example, in a game where the only PR is a town cop, yet they play poorly and find themselves at the end of a wagon, would it be the setup's fault for that? I do see the problem with a PR being outed early on which would give scum the advantage, but this situation can be extended to most games of mafia where town relies on a PR. Of course, you do have the final say, and I'd be willing to compromise with you to reduce the swing of this setup (because this setup's nature is to be swingy). I just disagree with the notion that the watcher mason claiming D1 makes the setup problematic because the same can be translated to any game where the most important role claims D1.

On the flipside, I do agree that there is a lot of power stacked onto just a handful of roles, which can definitely be problematic depending on one's perspective of power in mafia and how much game solving should be done at night. I can see high power on both sides leading to a problem, as it means that the loss of one mason or one mafioso can lead to a faction's downfall. This leads in to the benefits of limiting the presence of power roles for a more vanilla experience and forces players to rely on social strategy with a few sparse PRs thrown into the mix to help guide town in the right direction. (At the same time, I originally named this setup Midnight Ops with the intention of putting an emphasis on the night phases, and the power struggle between the warring masons and mafioso. 3 Town and 3 Scum night actions are naturally going to be hectic and are going to lead to aggressive hunting from both ends, but this is what I kept in mind when creating the setup and making it loosely balanced: "There is still going to be one kill a night. The game will move at the same pace, but the watcher and the follower will be working together to check players for actions and nighttime discussion and scumhunting. At the same time, the mafia, knowing that there are two investigative roles working in tandem, are given options to try to deceive and maneuver the investigations through their 1x-Ninja, and can shutdown the masons whenever they end up outting themselves." In the end, the benefits of the roleblock and the rolecop are largely based on how many PRs are left. A majority of the rolecop hits are going to be vt, and roleblocks on vts are functionally useless. The 1x-Ninja only affects the mason's results, meaning that in the unfortunate situation where all of the TPRs are killed and town takes out 1 or 2 of the mafia, the game becomes functionally vanilla on both sides as the rolecop/roleblock/ninja abilities are useless to a town of vts.



With THAT being said, I can see why you think the setup is scumsided, as an early mason death could mean tragedy for town. (I don't know if this is necessary), but would the setup be acceptable if the Roleblocker was even/odd night only? By doing this, scum would be less disruptive at night, giving the masons / neapolitan more room to operate.

[Poyzin]

Alright. Thank you for the reply. I will admit that scum is able to get away with mistakes far more than town could. I think you are perfectly justified to look at different ways that things can go wrong. The Neapolitan unable to distinguish between the masons and the mafiosi was a deliberate design choice.

Spoiler: Mandatory "but..."

To your point about the Neapolitan checking a mason, the chance that their non-vanilla check is a mason is a 2/5 chance. At that point, they are more likely to hit scum, but this is being said under the pretext that the mason's played townie enough to not warrant being checked. From my (limited) experiences of playing with masons, the duo used their private conversation to talk about how to remain townread so that they wouldn't have to out themselves. When you have a masoner perpetually advocating for your towniness, the chance that you'll find yourself on the bottom of a lynch would be far lower than a typical PR who is playing bad, making the chance of this happening be much slimmer than normal.

I agree that while the PRs are alive, the scumteam can do some serious PR hunting with their rolecop and roleblock. Assuming that none of the TPRs are mislynched, there will be at least one TPR alive by D3 if the scumteam plays optimally and kills a PR every night. Yet, the rolecop and roleblock abilities become more and more useless whenever they kill a TPR. I've played in many games where the 3-person scumteam is a rb, rc, and goon, and town won their share of them even when there were three TPRs. Town PRs more often than not die before endgame. There's a good chance that the masons would have to cc the mafia when they try to claim to be the team, which would spell d-o-o-m for the masons. However, losing the masons does not equal losing the game, as the game becomes more or less vanilla after the masons die. I predict that the masons would catch two scum in an action or in a lie before they themselves are outed (because two would have to back up each other's mason cc), but it may be more realistic to say that they'll only catch one scum.

D1: Mislynch a vt
N1: NK a vt
D2: Roleblocker lynched after mason watched the kill
N2: Mason dies
D3: Mislynch a vt
N3: Mason dies

At this point, there are 2 scum left in a town of 7 with a neapolitan. This is an example of a suboptimal town play: they mislynched every day that they didn't have decisive evidence from a mason, and we can assume that scum would have figured out the other mason by now and killed them in the night. Now, scum has a goon and a rolecop in a town of 7, and the neapolitan is still alive and has checked three people, two if we say that they checked the mason N3 leading to a useless result. This is already a poor situation to be in for town, which can be considered punishment for mislynching D1 and D3. Yet, the game still isn't even in LyLo, Neapolitan has two vt clears, and there is still a reasonable chance for a town victory. Sure, scum didn't even play particularly well here, which I will agree with you that the setup in its current form is a bit scumsided, but victory from both sides is completely plausible, and I'm willing to work with you to reduce the power of the scumteam. I have some suggestions outlined below.

I'm of the personal opinion that scum being nailed by the mason team would be even more tragic than the mason d

If you're in charge, I'll trust your judgement. Would you accept the setup with an even-night roleblocker instead of an all-night roleblocker? (And to go further if an even-night roleblocker is implemented, would you add in an odd-night rolecop to replace the previous rolecop?)

using a Ninja shot each night already renders the mason active abilities useless until Night 4 (most masons die before this point)

Figured I'd mention, the first version of the setup that was posted here was made incorrectly. Only the roleblocker and the rolecop should have 1x-Ninja abilities, not the goon. In addendum, I intended for the 1x-Ninja to only apply to the specific action, not the team's actions. (i.e. if the roleblocker uses his Ninja shot, but the rolecop doesn't, then while the roleblock would be invisible, the rolecop and the nightkill would still be able to be tracked.)

[Poyzin]

On a different topic, would a Tracker Mason + Voyeur Mason be more powerful or less powerful than a Watcher Mason + Follower Mason?

[Poyzin]

making the chance of this happening be much slimmer than normal.

To clarify, while I view the chance is much slimmer than normal, it is still very well a chance, and I think that your worry about the Neapolitan checking and outing a mason is a perfectly valid, and could very well happen. Yet, the Neapolitan should still know that by claiming a non-vanilla result on a player, they could potentially screw over their faction by outing a mason, which means that the Neapolitan has to do some serious planning so that their actions don't backfire resulting in a town loss.

In the end, the Neapolitan probably has the hardest job out of any of the roles. Scum doesn't need to strategize as much as the Neapolitan does, which goes back to the setup being more scumsided if the Neapolitan acts like a liability and outs the mason. I predict that the Neapolitan would probably just keep their results to themselves to save the masons, but you never know.

[Poyzin]

My main suggestion would be that you significantly tone down the power of scum to only having a single role. It is actually a bit uncommon for scum to have multiple power roles in a mini normal. Aside from that, you'll likely need to replace the watcher with something else due to the mason interaction.

To that, would you accept an odd-night rolecop and an even-night roleblocker (while keeping the 1x-Ninja)?

Also, what do you refer to about the "mason interaction"?

[Poyzin]

If they are both forced to claim to confirm themselves, scum have to guess which one to kill (assuming the masons don't full claim and only claim the mason part of their role).

This is fair enough, the two could easily lie about which is the watcher and who is the follower and nail scum at the cost of a mason. Would you suggest a Tracker and Voyeur combo then?

[Poyzin]

Town:
[1] Tracker Mason
[1] Voyeur Mason
[1] Neapolitan

[7] Vanilla


Mafia:
[1] 1x-Ninja Even-Night Roleblocker
[1] 1x-Ninja Odd-Night Rolecop
[1] Goon

[Poyzin]

Alternatively,

Town:
[1] Tracker Mason
[1] Voyeur Mason
[1] Neapolitan

[7] Vanilla


Mafia:
[1] Roleblocker
[1] 1x-Ninja Goon
[1] 1x-Ninja Goon

[Poyzin]

(Tbf the second one looks a lot better than I thought it would, even if I didn't want to get rid of the rolecop).

[Poyzin]

I agree that while the PRs are alive, the scumteam can do some serious PR hunting with their rolecop and roleblock. Assuming that none of the TPRs are mislynched, there will be at least one TPR alive by D3 if the scumteam plays optimally and kills a PR every night. Yet, the rolecop and roleblock abilities become more and more useless whenever they kill a TPR. I've played in many games where the 3-person scumteam is a rb, rc, and goon, and town won their share of them even when there were three TPRs. Town PRs more often than not die before endgame. There's a good chance that the masons would have to cc the mafia when they try to claim to be the team, which would spell d-o-o-m for the masons. However, losing the masons does not equal losing the game, as the game becomes more or less vanilla after the masons die.

The game becoming vanilla isn't really a balancing factor in town's favor. What I mean by that is that it isn't some feedback mechanism as you seem to think that it is. Yes, the scum abilities become useless once all TPRs are dead, but as far as I can tell, there is

no

role that would retain its use for scum after all TPRs are dead (barring a scum vigilante or something, which is not allowed per Normal guidelines).

D1: Mislynch a vt
N1: NK a vt
D2: Roleblocker lynched after mason watched the kill
N2: Mason dies
D3: Mislynch a vt
N3: Mason dies

The sequence of events you have here makes me think that you might think that scum can use any actions they have as well as perform the kill in the same night (given that you see the roleblocker as performing the kill n1). This is not the case – unless scum have the Multitasking modifier, they can perform only one action per night. Just in case you weren't aware – if you were, just ignore me.

If you're in charge, I'll trust your judgement. Would you accept the setup with an even-night roleblocker instead of an all-night roleblocker? (And to go further if an even-night roleblocker is implemented, would you add in an odd-night rolecop to replace the previous rolecop?)

I'm sorry, but I'm not accepting a setup with a Mason Watcher. That needs to be changed. Tracker/Voyeur is a step in the right direction – from there I would still want scum toned down (I agree with Ircher that sticking to only a single scum PR is probably the way to go) and I would still

prefer

that town power be spread out a bit more, but that might not be strictly

necessary

.

I really am sorry with how much I'm making you chop up your original setup. As reviewers I think we have a responsibility to try to stick close to your vision for what your setup should be, but we also have perhaps an even more important responsibility to the players of this game, and I can't in good conscience pass it with the aspects that I've talked about still being in the setup.

using a Ninja shot each night already renders the mason active abilities useless until Night 4 (most masons die before this point)

Figured I'd mention, the first version of the setup that was posted here was made incorrectly. Only the roleblocker and the rolecop should have 1x-Ninja abilities, not the goon. In addendum, I intended for the 1x-Ninja to only apply to the specific action, not the team's actions. (i.e. if the roleblocker uses his Ninja shot, but the rolecop doesn't, then while the roleblock would be invisible, the rolecop and the nightkill would still be able to be tracked.)

Good, that's how Ninjas work as per Normal guidelines.

Thank you for your response. I have taken your considerations to heart and have revised the setup so that both sides are less powerful.

[Poyzin]

I agree that while the PRs are alive, the scumteam can do some serious PR hunting with their rolecop and roleblock. Assuming that none of the TPRs are mislynched, there will be at least one TPR alive by D3 if the scumteam plays optimally and kills a PR every night. Yet, the rolecop and roleblock abilities become more and more useless whenever they kill a TPR. I've played in many games where the 3-person scumteam is a rb, rc, and goon, and town won their share of them even when there were three TPRs. Town PRs more often than not die before endgame. There's a good chance that the masons would have to cc the mafia when they try to claim to be the team, which would spell d-o-o-m for the masons. However, losing the masons does not equal losing the game, as the game becomes more or less vanilla after the masons die.

The game becoming vanilla isn't really a balancing factor in town's favor. What I mean by that is that it isn't some feedback mechanism as you seem to think that it is. Yes, the scum abilities become useless once all TPRs are dead, but as far as I can tell, there is

no

role that would retain its use for scum after all TPRs are dead (barring a scum vigilante or something, which is not allowed per Normal guidelines).

D1: Mislynch a vt
N1: NK a vt
D2: Roleblocker lynched after mason watched the kill
N2: Mason dies
D3: Mislynch a vt
N3: Mason dies

The sequence of events you have here makes me think that you might think that scum can use any actions they have as well as perform the kill in the same night (given that you see the roleblocker as performing the kill n1). This is not the case – unless scum have the Multitasking modifier, they can perform only one action per night. Just in case you weren't aware – if you were, just ignore me.

If you're in charge, I'll trust your judgement. Would you accept the setup with an even-night roleblocker instead of an all-night roleblocker? (And to go further if an even-night roleblocker is implemented, would you add in an odd-night rolecop to replace the previous rolecop?)

I'm sorry, but I'm not accepting a setup with a Mason Watcher. That needs to be changed. Tracker/Voyeur is a step in the right direction – from there I would still want scum toned down (I agree with Ircher that sticking to only a single scum PR is probably the way to go) and I would still

prefer

that town power be spread out a bit more, but that might not be strictly

necessary

.

I really am sorry with how much I'm making you chop up your original setup. As reviewers I think we have a responsibility to try to stick close to your vision for what your setup should be, but we also have perhaps an even more important responsibility to the players of this game, and I can't in good conscience pass it with the aspects that I've talked about still being in the setup.

using a Ninja shot each night already renders the mason active abilities useless until Night 4 (most masons die before this point)

Figured I'd mention, the first version of the setup that was posted here was made incorrectly. Only the roleblocker and the rolecop should have 1x-Ninja abilities, not the goon. In addendum, I intended for the 1x-Ninja to only apply to the specific action, not the team's actions. (i.e. if the roleblocker uses his Ninja shot, but the rolecop doesn't, then while the roleblock would be invisible, the rolecop and the nightkill would still be able to be tracked.)

Good, that's how Ninjas work as per Normal guidelines.

1. You're right, that was a bad argument on my end. All normal scum PRs have no game changing effect after the TPRs are dead, and you had a good counterpoint. I was just trying to point out that any special powers that the scumteam had would be rendered useless upon the death of the TPRs, but this is constant through all normal mafia games, so it wasn't the best thing to say on my end. Apologies.

2. I selected to have the eve-night roleblocker commit the kill, because I thought it would be realistic given that they couldn't have roleblocked that night. (I do get multitasking though).

3. I've replaced the Watcher / Follower with a Tracker / Voyeur combo; hopefully that makes the masons less strong and be unable to get helpful information from self-targeting.

4. (I said that because technically, the masons wouldn't be shut down until Night 4 because any of the actions that weren't from the ninja-shot would be completely visible, and the masons would be able to track these.)

[Poyzin]

Would adding a Town Visitor make the setup passable?

[Poyzin]

I’ll take you up on the 1-shot follower. The masonry tracking roles and the 1-shot ninjas on the mafia team are the two things that I really wanted to keep at the very least.



Two things that are now off-topic: Guaranteeing a visitor can be very good for town, especially if they claim immediately to see if the scumteam will cc, as they can become town confirmed by the voyeur targeting whoever the visitor announces, and serves functionally like a probable named townie. A visitor in this game while there is a Voyeur is almost always a net positive for town as they can confirm that the action that was used was a Visit rather than a kill. I also wanted to say that I believe that ninjas are just as fine with a tracker as they are with a watcher imo. The tracker knows perfectly well that a Ninja is in the game, which means that they can never COMPLETELY clear a player just because they didn’t see anything, while they can surely guilty if they watch a player target the nightkill victim. I agree that there is a difference if the players do not know that there is a ninja, but because the setup is completely open and the 1-shot ninjas are known to the tracker, it should be clear that just because they don’t see anything, doesn’t mean that they are ever cleared.

[Poyzin]

On the visitor topic; I’m not saying that a Visitor is a powerful town role by any means, but it’s almost never bad, just as much as an IC is never bad (but unlike an IC, visitors aren’t mod confirmed. They can still be confirmed in this setup though, and it’d be risky for scum to counter claim the visitor).

[Poyzin]

I was under the impression that the setup would be open, yes. Are open setups not normal?

[Poyzin]

I should say, the setup being open was my intention here.

[Poyzin]

(I thought the normal queue was meant for Open games tbh)

[Poyzin]

(Yeah I should’ve made this clear from the beginning, it seems I’ve made a mistake...)

[Poyzin]

(I needed to go to the Open queue...)

[Poyzin]

The setup is already known publicly so I think Open is the way to continue.

[Poyzin]

I had planned on writing "begrudgingly accepted by northsidegal" in the thread itself.

The problem that I see with making the review thread public is that while we're talking about different strategies that both sides can use, I'd rather not give the players access to that and would rather have them make decisions for themselves. Additionally, if they come to the thread and see how much the reviewer doesn't like the setup, it is going to make the players less likely to enjoy the game if the reviewer has an openly negative of the setup itself, and the last thing I want to do is to make the players not want to play. If anything, I'd rather have the PT open up after the end of the game. But if this is an issue about trying to uphold a reputation, then I don't know what to do.

Also, I have the role PMs.

[Poyzin]

Mafia Roleblocker
Welcome, [Player Name]. You are a Roleblocker, and are a member of the Mafia faction along with your Goon partners, [Player Name] and [Player Name].

Abilities:
Factional communication: You may talk with your partners at any time here [Conversation link].
Factional kill: Each night phase, you or one of your partners may perform a nightkill.
Roleblock: If you are not committing the nightkill, you may instead select a player to roleblock; that player will not be able to perform their night action.

Win condition: You win when at least half of the living players are mafia, or when nothing can prevent this from happening.



Mafia Goon
Welcome, [Player Name]. You are a Goon, and are a member of the mafia faction along with your Goon partner, [Player Name] and your Roleblock partner, [Player Name].

Abilities:
Factional communication: You may talk with your partners at any time here [Conversation link].
Factional kill: Each night phase, you or one of your partners may perform a nightkill.
1x-Ninja: Once per game, you may choose to make your nightkill be invisible to the Tracker and Voyeur.

Win condition: You win when at least half of the living players are mafia, or when nothing can prevent this from happening.



Tracker Mason
Welcome, [Player Name]. You are the Tracker Mason, and you share a private topic with your partner [Player Name], the Voyeur Mason.

Abilities:
Private communication: You may talk with your partner at any time here [Private Topic link].
Track: Each night, you may check a player to learn who that player targeted, but not what action they used.

Win condition: You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and there is at least one town player alive.



Voyeur Mason
Welcome, [Player Name]. You are the Voyeur Mason, and you share a private topic with your partner [Player Name], the Tracker Mason.

Abilities:
Private communication: You may talk with your partner at any time here [Private Topic link].
Voyeur: Each night, you may check a player to learn what actions were performed on your target, but not by whom.

Win condition: You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and there is at least one town player alive.



Neapolitan
Welcome, [Player Name]. You are the Neapolitan.

Abilities:
Investigate: Each night, you may investigate a player; you will be told whether or not that player is a vanilla townie.

Win condition: You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and there is at least one town player alive.



Vanilla Townie
Welcome, [Player Name]. You are a Vanilla Townie.

Abilities:
Your weapon is your vote, you have no night actions.

Win condition: You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and there is at least one town player alive.

[Poyzin]

Color will be added when the role PMs are officially sent out.

[Poyzin]

Huh, I didn’t actually realize you needed more stuff for this. Rules and night results are probably the easiest part to make, I could’ve thrown something together lol

Anywho, I hosted the game on my homesite from late-June to July as a semi-open setup. I didn’t really think about calling this one off, but I think it was pretty obvious now that it wasn’t happening. Ironically, town destroyed scum, and there was an argument that the setup was more townsided? Idk, the lynches were scum/town/town/scum/scum for a town victory with 4 still alive at the end.But that was with an odd-night roleblocker and an even-night rolecop, with the possibility of a chocolate townie or a traitor in the game to give it a little spice.

I don’t actually plan on hosting this game here anymore; I apologize for flaking, but I just wanted to host this somewhere as it was the first setup I ever designed (I made it a year back or something) and wanted to host it for history’s sake. Thank you for the review however, it did give me crucial info to use while balancing; I stuck with the tracker/voyeur because the watcher follower had a broken interaction as you described previously, so it did help me out. Anywho, I’m probably going to disappear again. Truly, I am grateful for your time!