Mini Normal 1985 No Spoilers (END)

[mastina]

How did this setup get passed...

You had a cop--the strongest town role available--and a rolecop, which in this game got a clear on the Miller (because mafia Millers are not a thing and are explicitly blacklisted) and a guilty on 1.5 scum roles (Encryptor is a scum role but has on some occasions been graylisted as a town role which makes sense since you can call the role Daytalk Enabler and have it be whitelisted as a town role; I talk about this more right here).

...But that's it. Two strong investigatives, zero other power. The miller can't be investigated by the cop and must be investigated by the rolecop to be verified.

Against that, you were facing a Roleblocker, capable of blocking said two investigatives and which could NOT be nightkilled. (This lack of being able to be nightkilled is vital, as it MASSIVELY boosts the power of the traitor.)
PLUS the scum had a nightkill capable of taking out said investigatives (and hey guess who they killed once said investigatives had claimed their results?), which they could use with impunity. No risk of protectives. No risk of failure.

This game diverged from the standard PR mold by quite a bit, via having essentially two much stronger roles + a net-zero role (neighborizer as town is net-neutral balance wise and is considered nothing) + a SECOND net-zero overall role (Miller overall balances out to have this effect) against a scumteam with one SUPER role which also had one SUPER nerf (being a traitor), plus the double-edged sword of their second role (Encryptor allowing for daytalk which is in fact +EV for the scumteam, but also as an assumed-guilty for the rolecop).

In short, both sides were simultaneously MORE powerful than the standard...
...And yet, LESS powerful than the standard as well. They had things which increased their power, but traded off for things which decreased their overall power rating and left them more vulnerable. (Miller + Neighborizer are technically roles, but again, they are considered as adding nothing to the town; traitor is an obvious nerf but with bulletproof as an obvious buff; encryptor giving an obvious edge to scum yet also being something almost assuredly going to be treated as a guilty.)

Given that, game was overall balanced--swingy, yes. Undeniably so. But that's always going to be the case when you diverge from the golden formula. This game might not have diverged from the formula in the TYPICAL way (

technically speaking

, it has 4 PRs vs. one scum PR which is close to the golden formula), but it still did, so swing was still inevitable. This was, however, more or less the setup Screenplay originally wanted to run. Aside from formatting of PM changes, the main difference between the initial setup and the final setup was adding the rolecop.

If a mod wants to run a setup and the setup is balanced, then it's not the job of the NRG to shut it down thanks to swing. And I'd even argue that in spite of how early the game could end in a town sweep, the game

wasn't

that extremely swingy. The town would need perfect play in order to crush the scum; the scum needed reasonably competent play (blocking/nightkilling investigatives) in order to crush the town. Neither happened (though the latter came closer to happening, thus the outcome of the game), and if either had, my stance would more or less be that if the scum/town let themselves get in that position, they probably deserved what was coming to them.

[mastina]

WTF
Why is the NRG so dumb

I mean.

You say this but I feel the need to instead ask why Normal Game players don't actually know the rules for Normal Games. A lot of games go wrong for the town because players seem to not pay attention to the rules, but it's the NRG's job to pay attention to the rules. (Admittedly, we

can

occasionally slip up, but when we do it is often so minor as to have gone completely unnoticed the entire game. This is obviously a VERY rare occurrence though because we typically have 3 individuals cross-checking all aspects of the setup such that often no detail is missed.)

The rules are even listed on the wiki, and we try to be as unambiguous and consistent in enforcing them as possible.

The NRG's methodology is not some mysterious process left unknown to the ages. We follow a set procedure where we have set models for what we do. My terminology for this isn't universal, but the concepts my terminology are meant to convey ARE. (For instance, other reviewers might not call the golden rule of balance by that name, where 3-4 town PRs vs. goons or maybe one moderate scum PR is the standard model...but while they might not call it by that name, they DO balance by that STANDARD anyway.)

Of course.

We're not perfect. We're flawed, and the system we create/follow is even more so. There's a lot of ambiguities that over the years we've had to clear up, and even after all of the things we've cleared up, still yet more remain. If you think something should be changed, then voice the opinion that it should be changed, and if the NRG and/or Nexus (mostly Nexus) thinks it's a good idea, then the change will be made. So things like "making the page more clear on what is, and is not, allowed" and "making it more readily known in more locations what the rules are", and so on and so forth, just suggest that, and while it might not get done immediately, if it's a good idea we can readily implement, we will do so.

Also, for what it's worth, RE: swing.
Games in the near-future may either be allowed to have more than they currently do, or far less than they currently do. It's

loosely

something we've discussed a little bit backstage. It depends on what we decide we will, or will not, implement/change/etc. Voicing your opinion can make a difference; if we consistently get players who think that more extreme levels of swing should not be acceptable, then chances are there will be changes which make more extreme levels of swing happen less often.

(Personally I'm ambivalent on the subject. On the one hand, allowing for greater swing allows for the mod to have more creative freedom, which I feel that they should be entitled to have and that the lifeblood of the Normal Queue relies on mods having it. On the other hand, you want your players to not consistently feel cheated, more or less.)

[mastina]

I guess mastina is right saying encryptor can be a greylist town role, there's no real word on whether roles other than mason in the explicit normal lists for one alignment can be greylist for the other

Actually, as it works: all roles listed in the town section are explicitly blacklisted from being mafia-aligned. Quite explicitly, 100% no graylist not allowed, full out ban on them.

The roles in the mafia section are where it's a little less clear.
Obviously, Goons/Traitors are mafia specific roles.

There have been town encryptors. (Which makes sense, since you can call a town encryptor a town daytalk-enabler and have it count as a whitelisted role; calling it an encryptor is just changing the name because they have literally identical effects.)

There has been talk backstage of allowing Ninja/Strongman as modifiers (what'd be necessary in order to allow a town role to have them), but this is at least currently not whitelisted; at best it'd be a graylist but I actually believe it'd be a blacklist? It's admittedly a little bit of a sketchy zone.

Basically, the town roles will NEVER be scum; the scum roles

could

in specific circumstances be town and may be headed to being more explicitly graylisted as such, and when you think about it, this isn't actually that surprising.

Town having a 'mafia role' is an unusual twist, sure, yeah, but it doesn't impact the game balance by much. It doesn't exactly break the game in favor of the town. (Though, strongman vig might, which is why I said that could be blacklisted, but it's again not quite clear.)
Mafia having a 'town role' is bastard modding. It explicitly breaks the game in favor of the scum.