inspectorscout's Mini Normal Review

[TellTaleHeart]

Hi inspectorscout! I remember you from my newbie game. ^_^
It's nice to see you still around.

[TellTaleHeart]

I have to agree with mastin that overall this is a scumsided setup.

On your scumteam, you have the roleblocker as a general counter and a ninja as a counter to the watcher. I recognize that watcher is a very powerful role so I can understand your decision to include the ninja. Given that the watcher and the jailkeeper are town's only real powers in this setup, I don't agree with including a roleblocker which is going to allow scum to shut down those powers quickly.

Additionally, the 1-shot Bulletproof and Jailkeeper combination on the town side reduces the individual utility of both. It creates situations where it's ambiguous if a missed kill is the result of the bulletproof or the jailkeep. You saw this for yourself in the newbie game: scum tried to kill Huntress and she didn't die because she was bulletproof, but the missing kill made the jailkeeper think he'd successfully jailed scum.

If the neighborizer is killed the night he adds someone to his neighborhood, he will not be able to add his target. He will therefore not be seen by the watcher.

Killing the neighborizer causes his action to fail? What is the rationale behind that?

[TellTaleHeart]

If a player doesn't post in-game after a period of 72 hours, I will prod that player.

The generally used prod timer for mini games is 48 hours. I've only seen large games use 72 hours as the prod timer.
While won't have to prod players as much, it might make your game drag a little.

[TellTaleHeart]

I can get rid of the bulletproof, although the ambiguity in the newbie game was there due to the setup being semi-open

The bulletproof could claim if the jailkeeper thought he had a psuedo-guilty. I might if I were the BP in that situation.
I didn't mean to suggest to get rid of the bulletproof. I was simply stating that I thought the combination could bring down both powers a tad. As Cogito pointed out, there are other situations where there's enough of a benefit to make up for what I'm perceiving as reduced efficiency.

[TellTaleHeart]

1x Mafia JOAT (1-shot ninja, 1-shot tracker)
2x Mafia Goon

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
7x Vanilla Townies

I was a

little

afraid that the town didn't have enough power before but now I

really

am with this latest version of the setup.
While the watcher and jailkeeper are good specials, but the neighborizer doesn't add any net town power. A neighborizer claim will not deter town from lynching the slot nor does having a private topic give town an advantage they wouldn't otherwise have through normal gameplay (neglecting the exceedingly rare situations where the watcher gets neighborized and can claim his results in an all-town neighborhood without having to out himself in the game thread). I've used neighborizers of both alignments in several of my games now and I've never seen them have a perceptible impact on the outcome of the game.

And scum now not only have the ability to subvert the watcher but also find one of the specials with the tracker. -.-
My suggestion would be to split the scum JOAT abilities onto two separate players and then add a town rolecop (and maybe a miller).

[TellTaleHeart]

I think your perception of how powerful the watcher is might be a little off, or mine is @_@.

The watcher is definitely a powerful special because it gives a

huge payout

(caught scum) for a task that's not particularly demanding (guessing who the nightkill is going to be). But with the 1-shot ninja functionally sidelining the special for a night, it's far from a sure thing. Also, the fact that a 1-shot ninja might tip off the scum team to the presence of a watcher takes away the element of surprise.

Neighborizer barely adds anything, but if they recruit one of the other PR's and trust each other it can get powerful as well. Even more if both PR's.

In theory, yes, but I've never seen this happen in practice and I wouldn't count on it for the purposes of balancing a setup.

If you dislike the tracker due to power, i could scrap that and give scum a neighborizer as well. I just want to give them something more than just 1 PR that has a lot of chance to fail its use.

Depending on how experienced the player base is, they could see doubling up the roles as a guarantee that one of them has to be scum (role symmetry). Your scum neighborizer will likely

not

be all that happy with you post-game. >.>

[TellTaleHeart]

If you want to give scum a special you can't balk at giving your town serious firepower, hon.

The scum tracker isn't game-breakingly powerful. But every power you give to scum pushes that EV further toward the scum side. Since scum already start

far

ahead in the expected mountainous EV at the 10:3 ratio, so you need to even the odds with a powerful town to make it balanced.

[TellTaleHeart]

Now I feel like you swung too far the other way. x_x
The universal backup feels clunky and inelegant here. Specifically, scum potentially having to shoot two people to get the watcher role out of the game feels unfair. If I'm scum and I see a watcher flip, I'm not going to plan out the next night actions thinking there's a secret universal backup around the corner waiting to fuck me.

Suggestion #1

1x Mafia 1-shot Ninja
1x Mafia Goon
1x Mafia Goon

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
1x Town 1-shot Bulletproof
6x Vanilla Townies

This was your original setup minus the roleblocker. So this is what mastin suggested in her first post.
I still have a nagging feeling that this is scumsided, but it's not so much where I would veto it if Cogito and mastin approved.

Suggestion #2

1x Mafia 1-shot Ninja
1x Mafia Goon
1x Mafia Goon

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
1x Town Backup Jailkeeper
6x Vanilla Townies

This is your latest setup minus the bulletproof, the tracker, and restricting the backup to not include the watcher, which is what we're afraid of getting out of control.

Suggestion #3

1x Mafia Jack of all Trades (1-shot Ninja, 2-shot Tracker)
1x Mafia Goon
1x Mafia Goon

1x Town Watcher
1x Town Neighborizer
1x Town Jailkeeper
1x Town 1-shot Bulletproof
1x Town Rolecop
5x Vanilla Townies

This one's my pet setup and probably what I would go with if it were me running the game. I think the rolecop rounds the town out well without overshooting the power level. The only thing it can do is confirm role claims and force the scum JOAT to come up with bullshit powers if he gets investigated. The lack of a vig is going to point to the bulletproof being town, but that's really the only directly alignment-indicative information to be gleaned there.

[TellTaleHeart]

I didn't use the JOAT for number 1, I used the 1-shot ninja.

[TellTaleHeart]

I still think this is a scumsided setup, but I won't veto it if mastin and Cogito approve.

[TellTaleHeart]

I approve this.

[TellTaleHeart]

Thans for approving TellTale! I'm sorry it's not exactly what you wanted...

In the end, it's not about what I want. It's what you want.
(And what doesn't get you yelled at after the game. >.>)