Umlaut's Mini Normal Review, May 2021

[Isis]

It's the kind of red herring that's never harmful

[Something_Smart]

Rolestopper lets the town kill the joat if the joat is flat good at mafia.and getting docced.

?

[Something_Smart]

Make the neighborizer a combined neighborizer strongmanfinder? That's fun

Not a bad fix, though I think informed neighborizer (there is a mafia encryptor) is probably a more straightforward way to accomplish the same thing.

[Isis]

Rolestopper lets the town kill the joat if the joat is flat good at mafia.and getting docced.

?

The classic "inversion of the words scum and town" logic error.

Rolestopper lets the mafia guarantee a successful kill on a JOAT who is also solving without determining who the doctor is

[Isis]

Make the neighborizer a combined neighborizer strongmanfinder? That's fun

Not a bad fix, though I think informed neighborizer (there is a mafia encryptor) is probably a more straightforward way to accomplish the same thing.

Where is your sense of whimsy and love of magick

[Something_Smart]

See if that were the only error then I would have probably figured it out but rolestopper also stops kills so that still isn't correct

[Something_Smart]

Where is your sense of whimsy and love of magick

I think there's a lot of fun design to be done without deliberately deceiving the players, considering this is the queue to which people come to avoid curveballs.

[Isis]

Ohh

Yeah I've used personal Rolestopper like twice now and reprogrammed my brain

Roleblocker is fine then whatever that was definitely the less important change (the more important change was that I think I telegraphed watchers are pretty bullshit)

[Isis]

Where is your sense of whimsy and love of magick

I think there's a lot of fun design to be done without deliberately deceiving the players, considering this is the queue to which people come to avoid curveballs.

X amount of curveballs is necessary, my mindset is that I've recently read complaints from TM about PP's (essentially normal) setup being easily guessable

If some amount of curveballs are desirable, ones that don't change optimal PR play at all but make the setup harder to guess are very desirable

[Umlaut]

So the point of the Strongman-Finder is that they're motivated to target scum, and that way if they actually do hit the Encryptor it's not pure dumb luck? I like that.

Okay, so where we're at now is

• 1x Mafia Encryptor
  
• 1x Mafia Multitasking Roleblocker
  
• 1x Mafia Goon
  
• 1x Town Combined Neighborizer Strongman-Finder
  (should this still be Roaming? I lost track of whether we were changing that)
  
  
• 1x Town Jack-of-All-Trades (1-Shot Cop, 1-Shot Gunsmith, 1-Shot Follower, 1-Shot Vigilante)
  
• 1x Town Loyal Doctor
  
• 7x Townie

is this right?

[Isis]

It doesn't really matter if it's roaming because once they think they can find scum they will roam anyway

However that might be false if I don't understand the interaction between roleblocks and roaming properly

[Isis]

I think that looks right

I doubt S_S has run out of opinions about the prudence of Don Quixote Strongman finders

[Umlaut]

However that might be false if I don't understand the interaction between roleblocks and roaming properly

If the Roaming Neighborizer is blocked one night, they don't get another chance to neighborize whoever they were targeting that night

[Something_Smart]

It doesn't really matter if it's roaming because once they think they can find scum they will roam anyway

However that might be false if I don't understand the interaction between roleblocks and roaming properly

If they try to target X and they are roleblocked, they're still forbidden from targeting X again.

Roaming doesn't seem necessary to me, and the role name is already quite long.

[Something_Smart]

It doesn't really matter if it's roaming because once they think they can find scum they will roam anyway

However that might be false if I don't understand the interaction between roleblocks and roaming properly

If they try to target X and they are roleblocked, they're still forbidden from targeting X again.

Roaming doesn't seem necessary to me, and the role name is already quite long.

[Something_Smart]

Why is the site like this

Why is that even a thing that can happen

[Isis]

Why is the site like this

Why is that even a thing that can happen

[Isis]

Why is the site like this

Why is that even a thing that can happen

[Isis]

We are getting roaming for complexity cost it's good to trim some of the defensible-but-not-essential elements that are adding the last few bits of complexity

[Isis]

*gutting

[Umlaut]

Do we still think this is scumsided? I know you said you like scumsided, Isis, but I'd prefer to have it balanced and I'm fine throwing in another minor town PR for that purpose.

[Isis]

this isn't actually that conservative, it's 3 power roles that can get some kind of guilty or innocent and the setup spec should be pretty strong even with the red herring. It's not that much more red tinged than where most people would land. I think.

S_S can serve as an opinion he's a lot more generous to town than me I think

[Something_Smart]

Another worry is that a doc save is pretty huge swing. It effectively clears the doc and the target, and it has a good chance to gain town an extra execution (if the JOAT got their vig shot out).

I'm wondering if removing the vig shot and adding a 2-shot commuter would make things even worse for town. It probably would, though I think it would cut down on swing significantly. I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to mitigate that swing.

[Isis]

the clearing the doc part isn't really swing when part of calling this "balanced" is predicated on the loyal doctor speccing town more often than it doesn't, so actually demonstrating loyal just kind of locks in expected advantage.

It is strong for a doctor to get an extra elimination but the alternative is doctors that don't actually do all that much because they die, then their clear dies, then the game's on evens and there's no extra elim.

It's some amount of swing but it's a relentless pursuit of ideals beyond what I would want to go for, not every setup can be A Normal Roguelike (maybe you will tell me that is high swing too, idk)

I think this is pretty fine, the main post game criticism I remember from games I reviewed recently is frustrating with protectives so I don't want to turn a vig pacifist really.

[Something_Smart]

It would probably be better if there were another way to block a kill. Umlaut's 2-shot commuter isn't a terrible idea, or maybe just a 1-shot bulletproof. That way at least we can balance around the extra execution being likely instead of being uncertain.