biancospino's Micro Normal Review, February 2023

[implosion]

Hi,
I'd like to run a Normal micro sometimes in the near future. I do need a backup/co-mod, which at the moment I still don't have.
Here's a setup I came up with which I'd like reviewed for Normalcy (hope that the Werewolf flavour is fine)

setup

Wolves

1

Werewolf weak multitasking compulsive FruitVendor compulsive Messenger

1

Werewolf Informed UniversalBackup

(there is a Psychologist. There is a Village Informed that knows that there is exactly one player who has a Miscellaneous role)

Village

1

Village Mason Informed

(there is exactly one player who has a Miscellaneous role)
1

Village Mason Inspector

1

Village JOAT (personal Reporter, SecurityGuard, lazy Psychologist)

1

Village lazy UniversalBackup

3

Villagers

Settings

• multitasking off by default
  
• daytalk on by default in all PTs

Public Info

• the setup is 7:2
  
• there are no Millers

Spoiler: ROLE PMS

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Werewolf weak multitasking compulsive FruitVendor compulsive Messenger

.

You know that the Wolves' faction is composed of you and XXX.

You have the following factional abilities:

• Wolf chat
  — you can talk with the other members of the Wolves' faction at any time [here]
  
• Wolf kill
  — each night, if no other member of the Wolves' faction use this ability, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will die.

You have the following nonfactional passive abilities:

• weak
  — whenever you successfully use an active ability targeting a player not aligned with the Village, you unavoidably die.
  
• multitasking
  — each phase, you may use any number of active abilities you are able to use that phase.

You have the following nonfactional active abilities:

• compulsive FruitVendor
  — each night, you
  must
  target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will receive a piece of fruit.
  
• compulsive Messenger
  — each night, you
  must
  target a living player and compose a message. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will receive from the moderator the message you composed.

You win when at least one member of the Wolves' faction is alive and all members of the Village's faction are dead, or when nothing can prevent the same.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role, plus two ordered lists of all players other than you and a default message, or by posting the same in the Wolves' PT.

(Note: if you will ever fail to submit your compulsive FruitVendor action, I will consider you to target with it the first living player of the first list. If you ever fail to submit your compulsive Messenger action, I will consider you to target with it the first living player on the second list, sending the default message. You can, at any time, change those lists or the default message by PMing both me and [comod] or by posting in the Wolves' PT.)

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Werewolf Informed UniversalBackup

.

You know that the Wolves' faction is composed of you and XXX.

You have the following factional abilities:

• Wolf chat
  — you can talk with the other members of the Wolves' faction at any time [here]
  
• Wolf kill
  — each night, if no other member of the Wolves' faction use this ability, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will die.

You have the following nonfactional passive abilities:

• Informed
  — you know that there is a Psychologist. You know that there is a Village Informed who knows that there is exactly one player who has a Miscellaneous role.
  (Note: Miscellaneous normal roles are Neighborizer, FriendlyNeighbor, Hider, FruitVendor, Visitor, Messenger, and Checker)
  
  
• UniversalBackup
  — whenever a non-Vanilla player aligned with you dies, you gain their rolename and all their nonfactional abilities, and you lose this ability.

You have no nonfactional active abilities.

You win when at least one member of the Wolves' faction is alive and all members of the Village's faction are dead, or when nothing can prevent the same.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role, or by posting the same in the Wolves' PT.

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Village Mason Informed

.

You have the following passive abilities:

• Informed
  — you know that there is exactly one player who has a Miscellaneous role.
  (Note: Miscellaneous normal roles are Neighborizer, FriendlyNeighbor, Hider, FruitVendor, Visitor, Messenger, and Checker)
  
  
• Mason
  — you know that YYY is a Mason and is aligned with the Village, and you can talk with them at any time [here].

You have no active abilities.

You win when at least one member of the Village's faction is alive and all members of the Wolves' faction are dead.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Village Mason Inspector

.

You have the following passive abilities:

• Mason
  — you know that YYY is a Mason and is aligned with the Village, and you can talk with them at any time [here].

You have the following active abilities:

• Inspector
  — each night, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will discover whether or not any player other than you targeted your target this night. If this action fails, you will get a "no result" PM.

You win when at least one member of the Village's faction is alive and all members of the Wolves' faction are dead.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Village Jack-of-all-Trades (personal Reporter, SecurityGuard, lazy Psychologist)

.

You have no passive abilities.

You have the following active abilities:

• one-shot personal Reporter
  — each night, but only once during the game, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will discover whether or not your target used a nonfactional active ability this night. If this action fails, you will get a "no result" PM. Once you use this ability, you lose this ability.
  
• one-shot SecurityGuard
  — each night, but only once during the game, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will discover which players other than you targeted them this night. Once you use this ability, you lose this ability.
  
• one-shot lazy Psychologist
  — each night, but only once during the game, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will discover whether or not you target is capable of killing but hasn't yet attempted to do so. If this action fails, you will get a "no result" PM. If there are less than two living players not aligned with the Village, your action will fail as if you were roleblocked. Once you use this ability, you lose this ability.

You win when at least one member of the Village's faction is alive and all members of the Wolves' faction are dead.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Village lazy UniversalBackup

.

You have the following passive abilities:

• lazy UniversalBackup
  — whenever a non-Vanilla player aligned with you dies, if there are at least two living players not aligned with the Village, you gain their rolename and all their nonfactional abilities, and you lose this ability.

You have no active abilities.

You win when at least one member of the Village's faction is alive and all members of the Wolves' faction are dead.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Villager

.

You have no passive abilities.

You have no active abilities.

You win when at least one member of the Village's faction is alive and all members of the Wolves' faction are dead.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Spoiler: RESULT PMS

Inspector positive/negative/no result:

You discover that someone other than you targeted XXX this night.

You discover that nobody other than you targeted XXX this night.

Your Inspector action failed, and you get no result.

Personal Reporter positive/negative

You discover that XXX used a nonfactional active ability this night.

You discover that XXX used no nonfactional active ability this night.

Visited by SecurityGuard, also visited by A,B,C

You received the following report from a SecurityGuard:

This night, you were visited by A,B,C.

Visited by SecurityGuard, not visited by anyone else

You received the following report from a SecurityGuard:

This night, you weren't visited by anyone else.

Psychologist positive/negative

You discover that XXX is capable of killing, but has not done so yet.

You discover that XXX is either incapable of killing, or has already done so.

Received fruit

A basket of fruit was left on your doorstep this night.

Received message

A Messenger delivered you the following message:

---MESSAGE---

UB becomes FV

You are now a

Werewolf Informed UniversalBackup (turned weak multitasking compulsive FruitVendor compulsive Messenger)

!

You no longer have the

UniversalBackup

passive ability.

You gained the following passive abilities:

• weak
  — whenever you successfully use an active ability targeting a player not aligned with the Village, you unavoidably die.
  
• multitasking
  — each phase, you may use any number of active abilities you are able to use that phase.

You gained the following active abilities:

• compulsive FruitVendor
  — each night, you
  must
  target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will receive a piece of fruit.
  
• compulsive Messenger
  — each night, you
  must
  target a living player and compose a message. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will receive from the moderator the message you composed.

(a similar thing for the lazy UB turning)
(If lazy UB bacomes JOAT, they may also get, in the same PM:

The

ABILITYNAME

ability has already been used, and can't be used again.

UB becomes Mason, message received by other Mason

XXX is now part of your Masonry. You know that they're aligned with the Village.

Many thanks

So, slight update about this, Alianna is my comod. I did /in in the Mayfair queue awaiting review.

[implosion]

Primary: T-Bone
Secondary: DkKoba

[biancospino]

Ego. Can Alianna have access to this?

[biancospino]

The concept here is that one wolf always being able to ping (up to) two players with two different Miscellaneous ability, combined with the Masonry knowing that there is exactly one of those roles roles, should be a massive confounding factor that the Wolves can actively fine-tune.
The Inspector and the JOAT serves as a way to possibly help figure out what's exactly happening, as they help confirm the veracity of such pings.

There are a couple main things I'm a bit afraid about. For one thing, the Miscellaneous wolf can possibly play kinda like a multitasking FV, which I'm not sure if it isn't broken with multitasking off by default; for another, I put in a lazy UB for the town since I feared losing the Inspector/JOAT very early would be very bad for town, however I'm not sure if having an UB that can potentially become a Mason is too swingy. If those are serious problems, maybe having multitasking on by default and/or axing the lazy UB and making the Inspector a Voyeur would help?

[DkKoba]

hi

[DkKoba]

I'm not sure if theres any specific guidelines on terminology but using Mafia as the term for the primary group scum faction is the most used here and best to avoid player confusion(and potential genuine townslips that otherwise wouldn't exist) over Werewolf, as people may think that indicates a 3rd party - I'm going to look at the roles now.

[DkKoba]

Ok so for a 9p I see theres a lot of power here - I'll need a more in depth look - but the town power looks *way* too strong for a 9p especially where mafia tend to need to essentially counterclaim town PRs in order to win if they hit a VT n1

2 masons = 2 clears
The joat I need to double check what those roles do as they are new
And the UB IMO has to go 100% of the time if not the masons

I'll let Tbone give his thoughts before I add more since he is the primary

[DkKoba]

Giving a brief explanation on what you were going for with the setup can help us guide which direction we can take the setup in - i.e. what roles you'd like to retain here and what not

[biancospino]

Eh, I can change the flavor to Mafia if that's a problem.

The main thing here are the scum miscellanea role and the town Informed. The concept is to have a borderline negutility Informed, with the scums having a way of producing a gamestate that may appear to violate the information given.
Conceptually, if the FV and Messenger target claim to have received fruit/a message (or if any of them is a Mason), then the Informed would see that something is not right, possibly casting doubts on the veracity of both the fruit/message ping claims.
This is intended to be purely a confounding factor, and the Inspector serves as a mechanism to possibly get a confirmation on the likely truthness on such pings and so to alleviate the confusion.

Other than that, the scum UB is there because otherwise if the scum FV/messenger dies very early, like D1, then the setup basically deteriorates to Masons with additional TPRs and completely loses the concept.

The JOAT and/or the town UB are not particularly too important in my general idea of the setup, and may be changed in pretty much any direction needed, thou I like the concept of having a general theme of investigatives mostly caring about actions and here the concept is that both the personal Reporter and the SG are pretty useful to track down the origin of the fruit/message pings; the Psychologist I've thrown in mostly just so that there may be a potential for a strong guilty at all in the game, thou I'm not too enthusiastic about it and I believe it's gated enough to be pretty useless anyway given the scum knows and can play around it.

The lazy UB is there mainly because losing very early either action investigative looks to me it would be pretty bad for town, as then the game risks becoming just confusing without many tools to get confirmed insights as to what is going on; and it's lazy to gate it, since I though someone becoming a Mason in a late gamestate with only one scum would become borderline unwinnable for the scum for no real fault of theirs. That said I am really afraid that 2 mason + an UB that can become one is too many confirms (and the SG can very easily confirm their role too, which is pretty towny-looking); so it is the one I am less attached to. Unless peraphs we change the Masons to Neighbours, thou that would significantly alter the core idea; I would not necessarily dislike it per se, but it would hamper the chance of the informed knowledge going around and being cross-referenced with some action-investigation which I want to happen at some point

[biancospino]

Also, multitasking is off even if having it on would mechanically change nothing to make so that the confounding factor is more effective at doing its job, howerer I do worry a little that the strategy of, say, always vending to NK target and mailing someone else may be too strong a way to "prove" that the mailman can't be doing the NK; this only really works if the scum UB is the first of the two to die for obvious reasons, but maybe it's still broken, idk. I rekon the problem can be resolved just by making multitasking on by default, thou idk how much this would tip the balance toward town, and maybe giving scum a credible "town messenger" (or FV) fakeclaim may be needed.
Or the Inspector could maybe be made a Voyeur so that to be able to catch that?

[DkKoba]

Sorry waiting on tbone

[biancospino]

Uh, should I maybe send him a nudge, just in case he may have missed/forgot about this?

[T-Bone]

My bad I should have ego posted

[T-Bone]

So a couple of things.

First, Werewolf/Villager is normal flavor so you can keep it if you want.

Second, you need to rewrite the Lazy modifiers in both roles that it appears in so that it matches the language that should be in the role. I would double check the language of any other role/modifier with the Wiki too just in case.

I think your biggest issue lies with the scum team. You attach a ton of modifiers and abilities to one role. You are basing the whole game on whether that player lives or dies. I know the other role is a back up but you will immediately confirm that player as scum if the other player flips first. Your Informed Mason is told exactly one person has the Misc. role. And then that scum role flips. Now the back-up has to compulsively use the role themselves.

I would do two things to fix these issues. First, split up all the abilities you want scum to have between both players. Your goal is for scum to be able to send misinformation, let both players do so. I would also remove the Informed townie (or change what they are informed about).

[biancospino]

The concept here is that the existence of two pingers would be bizarre, and the Informed had that function. What if, I split the Mailman/vend actions, drop the compulsive and the weak that would do very little anyway, and have both Wolves be able to do either things, but not both

VILLAGE
1 Mason Informed [all miscellaneous roles are identical]
1 Mason Inspector (or maybe Voyeur?)
1 JOAT (personal Reporter, SG, lazy Psy)
4 VTs

WOLVES
2 Informed JOAT(Mailman, Mailman, FV, FV)
[there is a Psy. There is an Informed Mason who knows...]

[T-Bone]

Can you write out what that informed would look like? The one thing I wanna avoid is scum confirming a player just because their partner flips.

[biancospino]

Sure, just give me a couple minutes

[biancospino]

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Village Mason Informed

.

You have the following passive abilities:

• Informed
  — you know that all players who can perform a Miscellaneous action have the same role, but not necessarily the same alignment.
  (Note: Miscellaneous actions are those of Neighborizer, FriendlyNeighbor, Hider, FruitVendor, Visitor, Messenger, and Checker)
  
  
• Mason
  — you know that YYY is a Mason and is aligned with the Village, and you can talk with them at any time [here].

You have no active abilities.

You win when at least one member of the Village's faction is alive and all members of the Wolves' faction are dead.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with the a summary of your role.

[biancospino]

Oh, and there's a typo in the /confirm line of course...

[T-Bone]

Okay that looks much better. I'd say just re-write the Werewolf PMs, and re-write the Lazy modifiers and we'll see how that looks.

[biancospino]

Ok, give me 20' or so. The lazy UB I was thinking on just axeing?

[biancospino]

Spoiler: ROLE PMS

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Werewolf Informed Jack-of-All-Trades (FruitVendor, FruitVendor, Messenger, Messenger)

.

You know that the Wolves' faction is composed of you and XXX.

You have the following factional abilities:

• Wolf chat
  — you can talk with the other members of the Wolves' faction at any time [here]
  
• Wolf kill
  — each night, if no other member of the Wolves' faction use this ability, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will die.

You have the following nonfactional passive abilities:

• Informed
  — you know that there is a Psychologist.

You have the following nonfactional active abilities, but you may only use one of them each night:

• two-shots FruitVendor
  — each night, but only twice during the game, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will receive a piece of fruit.
  
• two-shots Messenger
  — each night, but only twice during the game, you may target a living player and compose a message. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will receive from the moderator the message you composed.

You win when at least one member of the Wolves' faction is alive and all members of the Village's faction are dead, or when nothing can prevent the same.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with ta summary of your role, or by posting the same in the Wolves' PT.

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Werewolf Informed Jack-of-All-Trades (FruitVendor, FruitVendor, Messenger, Messenger)

.

You know that the Wolves' faction is composed of you and XXX.

You have the following factional abilities:

• Wolf chat
  — you can talk with the other members of the Wolves' faction at any time [here]
  
• Wolf kill
  — each night, if no other member of the Wolves' faction use this ability, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will die.

You have the following nonfactional passive abilities:

• Informed
  — you know that there is a Town Informed who received the following information:
  "All players who can perform a Miscellaneous action have the same role, but not necessarily the same alignment."

You have the following nonfactional active abilities, but you may only use one of them each night:

• two-shots FruitVendor
  — each night, but only twice during the game, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will receive a piece of fruit.
  
• two-shots Messenger
  — each night, but only twice during the game, you may target a living player and compose a message. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will receive from the moderator the message you composed.

You win when at least one member of the Wolves' faction is alive and all members of the Village's faction are dead, or when nothing can prevent the same.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with ta summary of your role, or by posting the same in the Wolves' PT.

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Village Mason Informed

.

You have the following passive abilities:

• Informed
  — you know that all players who can perform a Miscellaneous action have the same role, but not necessarily the same alignment.
  (Note: Miscellaneous normal roles are Neighborizer, FriendlyNeighbor, Hider, FruitVendor, Visitor, Messenger, and Checker)
  
  
• Mason
  — you know that YYY is a Mason and is aligned with the Village, and you can talk with them at any time [here].

You have no active abilities.

You win when at least one member of the Village's faction is alive and all members of the Wolves' faction are dead.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Village Mason Inspector

.

You have the following passive abilities:

• Mason
  — you know that YYY is a Mason and is aligned with the Village, and you can talk with them at any time [here].

You have the following active abilities:

• Inspector
  — each night, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will discover whether or not any player other than you targeted your target this night. If this action fails, you will get a "no result" PM.

You win when at least one member of the Village's faction is alive and all members of the Wolves' faction are dead.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Village Jack-of-all-Trades (personal Reporter, SecurityGuard, lazy Psychologist)

.

You have no passive abilities.

You have the following active abilities, but you may only use one of them each night:

• one-shot personal Reporter
  — each night, but only once during the game, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will discover whether or not your target used a nonfactional active ability this night. If this action fails, you will get a "no result" PM.
  
• one-shot SecurityGuard
  — each night, but only once during the game, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, your target will discover which players other than you targeted them this night.
  
• one-shot lazy Psychologist
  — each night, but only once during the game, if at least two anti-Village players were alive at the start of the night, you may target a living player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will discover whether or not you target has an unused active killing ability. If this action fails, you will get a "no result" PM.

You win when at least one member of the Village's faction is alive and all members of the Wolves' faction are dead.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Villager

.

You have no passive abilities.

You have no active abilities.

You win when at least one member of the Village's faction is alive and all members of the Wolves' faction are dead.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Spoiler: RESULT PMS

Inspector positive/negative/no result:

You discover that someone other than you targeted XXX this night.

You discover that nobody other than you targeted XXX this night.

Your Inspector action failed, and you get no result.

Personal Reporter positive/negative

You discover that XXX used a nonfactional active ability this night.

You discover that XXX used no nonfactional active ability this night.

Visited by SecurityGuard, also visited by A,B,C

You received the following report from a SecurityGuard:

This night, you were visited by A,B,C.

Visited by SecurityGuard, not visited by anyone else

You received the following report from a SecurityGuard:

This night, you weren't visited by anyone else.

Psychologist positive/negative

You discover that XXX is capable of killing, but has not done so yet.

You discover that XXX is either incapable of killing, or has already done so.

Received fruit

A basket of fruit was left on your doorstep this night.

Received message

A Messenger delivered you the following message:

---MESSAGE---

[biancospino]

Sorry, there is a slight mistake in the Mason Informed PM. Here's a rectified version

Welcome to Game!

You are a

Village Mason Informed

.

You have the following passive abilities:

• Informed
  — you know that all players who can perform a Miscellaneous action have the same role, but not necessarily the same alignment.
  (Note: Miscellaneous actions are those of Neighborizer, FriendlyNeighbor, Hider, FruitVendor, Visitor, Messenger, and Checker)
  
  
• Mason
  — you know that YYY is a Mason and is aligned with the Village, and you can talk with them at any time [here].

You have no active abilities.

You win when at least one member of the Village's faction is alive and all members of the Wolves' faction are dead.

The game thread is located [here].
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

[T-Bone]

Looks fine to me. Koba?

[DkKoba]

Looks alright- leans townsided but not too much.
May warrant a complex setup label? Not sure if that would give too much info for a 9p
Just gonna float the idea.

Even with theoretical situation where only VTs fall before limlo theres an out in arguing a cc, although in most cases I see that getting to 3 way.
Should the JOAT even have an investigative as part of it?

The counter argument is that mafia are reasonably expected to find 1 PR in a setup where its 3/6 night 1 to hit one

I say it's a pass with the suggestion to consider a complex tag