mastina's Mini Normal Review the Third

[mastina]

I think the main danger here is that you create too many inno's, mastina. You have 3 roles that potentially churn them out, so it's pretty easy to run into a massclaim situation where the game is figured out by PoE mechanically.

The focus on the game was to be more investigative-PR heavy and less reliant on protection...while also preventing the town from getting hard innocents. A weak doctor doesn't know if their target was saved successfully; a loyal cop doesn't know what would cause a failed investigate.

Off the top of my head, I think scum needs a bit more here, but will mull it over.

I can make the roleblocker be full, but I was concerned that a full-roleblocker against a town filled with modifiers (weak doctor protecting scum being blocked prevents the weak doctor from investigating; weak doctor protecting town being blocked prevents the protect altogether; loyal cop already can't get results on mafia and roleblocking them creates a false guilty) would be TOO strong for the scum.

I also thought an alternative to non-consecutive would be 2x-roleblocker.
Basically the concern is that a full-roleblocker for the scum nullifies the town altogether.

If you think that a full-roleblocker would be balanced though, that's not a hard change for me to make.
(I do realize that creates a bit of a swingy setup where early RB lynch = near-guaranteed town win; RB not being lynched = scum have a huge advantage, which is one reason why I have it gated in the first place, to reduce the power it'd give them while still giving them an edge. However, I don't have an issue turning it from gated to full, even if that produces a slightly-more-swingy setup.)

[mastina]

*Not getting hard guilties. (Misspoke there, but should be obvious. Neapolitan gets hard innocents but not hard guilties; loyal cop gets hard innocents but not hard guilties; weak cop unless there's two deaths gets neither hard innocents nor hard guilties.)

[mastina]

The thing about that though, is that if the mafia fail to kill and/or block the town's roles with them also not eliminating enough of the innocent results...
...Then I'm honestly not sure I see that as a problem? That'd be bad mafia play and they'd be punished accordingly.

The town doesn't have hard guilties. Cop investigating scum, not definitive.
Neapolitan investigating scum, not definitive.
Weak doctor, not definitive.
Ascetic not instantly claiming, realistically possible. (It happened my last game.)
Neapolitan dieing while protected thanks to being Macho, possible.
Neapolitan investigating the cop or the weak doctor, possible.

There's just so many ways the town can do things

wrong

.
So if they do things RIGHT, then I don't think it's that much of an issue.

Which is why I again think: I can make the roleblocker full if that'd alleviate your concerns (I have no problem with that at all), but I really don't think the mafia actually NEED that extra strength to win.

[mastina]

I think the important question to ask would be: how likely are things to happen?

Yeah

, it is possible the scum get fucked over--the question is whether that is a high enough probability to warrant boosting their power.

My concern is that it

isn't

that likely, and thus, by boosting the scum power, things will swing the other way:
The likelihood of the scum stomping the town skyrockets; the likelihood of the town winning (yet alone in a landslide) plummets.

When the town's got a negative utility (who only has a 50% chance of claiming), every role of theirs is ambiguous to at least some extent, and they're up against a full roleblocker PAIRED WITH the scum's nightkill (giving the scum TWO ways of shutting down the town's roles per night), who can dispose of one of their roles with impunity (the Neapolitan is powerless to both kill and block)...

...Well, that's something I as a town player would complain about because I'd feel that it was unreasonable to expect the town to overcome. This, not even going into how scum can easily fakeclaim in the setup and probably get away with it. I'm just concerned that giving the scum a full roleblocker gives them too much control, too much leverage, over the result of the game.

They have the knowledge of what's real and what isn't. (Barring town fakeclaims.) They have the information of who each other are. They have the nightkill. They'd have the block. They'd basically have free reign over the game, especially if the town has the misfortune to out one or two of their PRs early.

That's a lot they have that the town has to overcome--and barring luck, my concern is they won't.

[mastina]

in the first 2 nights, they have one roleblock, 2 kills. If they kill one of the 3 key pr's, you are still not safe from a game broken by massclaim. If they just block one, still have 5 potential innos in a 13p game. You are asking for scum to have a perfect game, or accept that your game could very well suck in the later stages as nobody has to scumhunt anymore.

And I just don't think it's asking the scum to play a perfect game. It's asking them to play a reasonably plausible game.

The scum, on D1, have 10/13 unknowns. For 3 nights, that's 3/10 chances just off of D1 stats alone to hit a PR.
A D1 mislynch on a VT makes it 3/9 chances to hit a PR.
A D2 mislynch on a VT makes it 3/8 chances to hit a PR.

The worst-case scenario of the roleblocker lynched (which making the RB full wouldn't fix anyway) still makes that 2/10 and then 2/9 chances.

And keep in mind there's multiple PRs to hit.

On N1, the mafia have one/two methods of hitting a PR.
If a VT mislynch,
-They have a 3/9 chance of blocking a PR. (One third.)
-They have a 3/9 chance of killing a PR. (One third.)
-Combined, they have a 6/9 chance of preventing a PR from getting a result.

If a Goon mislynch,
-They have a 3/10 chance of blocking a PR. (Still almost one-third.)
-They have a 3/10 chance of killing a PR.
-Combined, they have a 6/10 chance of preventing a PR from getting a result. (3/5ths. Still a majority.)

On N2, the mafia have one method of hitting a PR.
-If the mafia hit a PR with the nightkill after a D1 VT lynch, then...
*If a VT mislynch, they have a 2/8 chance of hitting a second PR. (One fourth.)
*If a Goon lynch, they have a 2/9 chance of hitting a second PR.
-If the mafia hit a VT with the nightkill after a D1 VT lynch, then...
*If a VT mislynch, they have a 3/7 chance of hitting a PR. (Almost half.)
*If a Goon lynch, they have a 3/8 chance of hitting a PR. (3/8ths.)
-If the mafia hit a PR with the nightkill after a D1 Goon lynch, then...
*If a VT mislynch (placing game at 2-6-2 relevant roles-irrelevant roles-mafia), they have a 2/6 chance of hitting a second PR. (One third.)
*If a second goon lynch (in which case the mafia's playing a terrible game?), they have a 2/7 chance of hitting a second PR.
-If the mafia hit a VT with the nightkill after a D1 Goon lynch then...
*If a VT mislynch (placing game at 3-6-2 relevant roles-irrelevant roles-mafia), they have a 3/6 chance of hitting a PR. (One half.)
*If a second goon lynch (in which case the mafia's playing a terrible game?), they have a 3/7 chance of hitting a PR.

Hitting a PR N2 prevents them from getting a result.

The total math there is if perfect (VT mislynch both days),
-6/9 (N1) + 2/8 (N2; hit a PR N1);
-6/9 (N1) + 3/7 (N2) as results. (I'm ignoring the very-realistic scenario of a PR lynch for the purposes of this math. Also ignoring the mafia PR being lynched since making the roleblocker full doesn't stop that math-wise.)

66% chance of stopping at least one PR N1 with a chance of stopping two. (I know I'm simplifying here a bit so I need to do it in more detail but for this post this'll have to do since my mind's too scatterbrained to crunch the absolute most in-depth version of these numbers.) 25% of stopping a second PR N2; 42% of stopping a PR N2 if the NK missed.
At least 16% chance of stopping two of the three PRs in the first two nights if a PR is killed N1. (The actual odds I believe are higher than this.)
At least 29% chance of stopping two of the three PRs in the first two nights if a PR isn't killed N1. (The odds may or may not be higher than this.)

That's assuming purely random play and not taking into account how the mafia won't be roleblocking their nightkill, how the ascetic if claimed is not a valid target for the block (and probably not kill either), and the mafia as the informed minority and possessing daychat will have an active ability to bounce off of buddies the ability to search for breadcrumbs. (Not to mention the obvious chance of town players claiming their role, which slants odds in the scum's favor significantly as they can kill OR block the doctor and can block the cop/neapolitan.) And I'm reasonably sure that's within the realms of normal math.

If a VT lynch D1 and a Goon lynch D2:
-6/9 (N1) + 2/9 (N2; hit a PR N1);
-6/9 (N1) + 3/8 (N2) as results.
At least 14%; At least 25%. Same caveats as above, same assumptions as above.

If a Goon lynch D1 and a VT lynch D2:
-6/10 (N1) + 2/6 (N2; hit a PR N1);
-6/10 (N1) + 3/6 (N2) as results.
At least 20% of hitting TWO of the three PRs that are a threat; At least 30% of hitting at least one. Same caveats as above, same assumptions as above. (I may need to crunch the full math numbers on this one in particular since this would imply that mafia's chances of winning actually vastly improve upon a D1 goon lynch...though in hindsight I can kinda buy that anyway since that matches what my personal experience has been anyway.)

Those are all the combinations in which the mafia don't play a terrible game. (Mafia lynches both D1 and D2; mafia losing their PR D1 or D2 with them not using it N1.)


Admittedly: this is the math from the mafia point of view.
Not the town point of view.
And not the combined point of view.
And as I mentioned already, not going into all of the combinations which can happen with their odds and numbers properly interacting. (I'm beginning to understand why you can get a degree and make a living off of just pure simple math. )
But while I'm sure math nerds/statisticians may cry a little at my shortcuts/math failures here, it doesn't need to be exactly precise numbers-wise to convey the general point.

If the mafia are lynched two days in a row, they played a bad game.
If the mafia failed to stop any of the three power roles two days in a row, they played a bad game.
If the mafia failed to stop any of the roles N1, they played a sub-optimal (borderline-bad) game in of itself. (This is slightly more excusable than the other two, but still.)

When you also take into account how the town can't get hard guilties (short of the weak doctor death WITH a second nightkill, which by the way places the game on evens with no way to get off of them unless the doctor previously stopped a kill), the mafia have a lot of freedom in movement. They can't be caught. They have some soft-guilties on them, sure. Neapolitan, and No Result. But these aren't hard guilties, because it can be reasonably expected for the No Result to be a roleblock (especially with a roleblocker actually on the fucking mafia roster); it can be reasonably expected of a mastina game to have a duplicate ascetic (albeit unlikely); it can be reasonably expected of a mastina game to have a rolestopper as EITHER alignment; it can be reasonable for it to be a jailkeeper; it can be reasonable for it to be a commuter; it can be reasonable for me to use my non-standard role on a Hider. All of these are things I can and mostly already HAVE done.

And all the mafia player has to do to dodge the Neapolitan result is claim a non-vanilla role. Literally any role, at all, whatsoever. They have no way of being caught in a fakeclaim unless they fakeclaim VT. I don't think you're properly weighing the amount of strength impunity to freely claim whatever the fuck they want to gives the scumteam. (Admittedly it is often poorly utilized, but it's still something they have as an option.)

Yes

, there is the risk of an innocent build-up. The weak doctor's innocents however are indefinite. The cop/neapolitan may get hard innocents, but overlapping targets (especially with the nightkill) can and will lessen their numbers. Yes, there is the theoretical risk of getting three innocents N1, and three more N2. Theoretically.

But I just don't think it's going to be a likely scenario. I think that the town's natural lack of advantages, and the mafia's natural advantages, will serve to even further enhance the stats against a town lockdown, and make it so that even as-is the mafia have a strong ability to remove the town's few strengths from them.

Again. I can compromise: I can make the mafia's non-consecutive roleblocker be a full-roleblocker if that would make you happy. (I still hold that'd make the game go from even to landslide scum victory, but I'm not omniscient nor am I perfect so I'm willing to take the gamble on me being wrong and you being right there.)

But the mafia don't need a second PR here. That'd push things from "mafia have a reasonably tough game, but winnable by both" to "mafia are just going to fucking dominate no matter what".

[mastina]

*Made a typo at the beginning there. For 2 nights, not for 3 nights.

The game has three key PRs.
Yet each of those key PRs, and this is the crucial part, are already gated. The key PRs are already weakened. They already have built-in weaknesses. The Neapolitan if claiming is dead: no doctor protection. That, plus it doesn't get hard guilties. The weak doctor if claiming is useless: blocked or killed, whichever the mafia team fancies. The loyal cop can't get hard guilties.

All of these make things much harder for the town to actually use their roles. There's no synergy between the doctor and the neapolitan. There's synergy between the doctor and the cop, and some synergy between the neapolitan and the cop, but these combos can be shattered easily by any mafia interference. Killing the doctor; blocking the investigatives; blocking the doctor; killing the Neapolitan for free. Alternatively, if the town doesn't believe all three PR claims (and given all have an investigative aspect to them, they may not), the town might very well lynch, saaaaay, the loyal cop, the strongest of their three. (Weak doctor-macho Neapolitan have an obvious connection to one another, whereas loyal cop...doesn't.)

This also doesn't factor in how if the mafia make the right results, and/or the town make the wrong results, you can end up with fake guilties: the neapolitan investigating the loyal cop. The loyal cop investigating a town player and being roleblocked, creating a pseudo-guilty on town. A doctor having poorly breadcrumbed (it can happen) and targeting scum, yet falsely leaving the impression of having targeted town.

When you factor in all these restrictions on the town, and you throw into the mix a roleblock and the scum's nightkill, PLUS the scum being the informed minority, then it's not at all unreasonable to expect the town to perform sub-optimally and an average scumteam to perform well.

Yes

, a strong town will dominate this game.

Yes

, a weak scumteam will lose this game.

But I feel like an average town against an average scum, in this setup, is a fair even match, with approximately equal chances for both sides to win or lose.

[mastina]

It'd give them a slight boost, which I personally think would be more than enough, which is why I'm willing to make that compromise.

[mastina]

Welcome to Mini Normal *Number*,

Playername

.
You are a

Mafia Goon

.
Your partners are

X

(

Goon

), and

Y

(

Roleblocker

).
You may talk in this private topic at any time.

During the night, you may select a player to kill. You must specify who is performing the kill.

You win when you control 50% of the living and nothing can prevent this.

The game thread is here.
Please confirm your role via PM.

Good luck and have fun!

Welcome to Mini Normal *Number*,

Playername

.
You are a

Mafia Nonconsecutive Roleblocker

.
Your partners are

X

and

Y

, both

Goons

.
You may talk in this private topic at any time.

During the night, you may target a player. Any night action they will perform will fail.

Should you choose to, during the night, you may select a player to kill. You must specify who is performing the kill.

You win when you control 50% of the living and nothing can prevent this.

The game thread is here.
Please confirm your role via PM.

Good luck and have fun!

Updated roles; the rest are the same.

[mastina]

Welcome to Mini Normal *Number*,

Playername

.
You are a

Mafia Goon

.
Your partners are

X

(

Goon

), and

Y

(

Roleblocker

).
You may talk in this private topic at any time.

During the night, you may select a player to kill. You must specify who is performing the kill.

You win when you control 50% of the living and nothing can prevent this.

The game thread is here.
Please confirm your role via PM.

Good luck and have fun!

Welcome to Mini Normal *Number*,

Playername

.
You are a

Mafia Roleblocker

.
Your partners are

X

and

Y

, both

Goons

.
You may talk in this private topic at any time.

During the night, you may target a player. Any night action they will perform will fail.

Should you choose to, during the night, you may select a player to kill. You must specify who is performing the kill.

You win when you control 50% of the living and nothing can prevent this.

The game thread is here.
Please confirm your role via PM.

Good luck and have fun!

[mastina]

I am.

[mastina]

Mod PT
Game Thread

[mastina]

The game has now concluded

; this private topic may now be released.