Policy Discussion: "Normal"

[Yosarian2]

Honestly, I don't really see the problem in the way things are currently done, with some moderate amount of flavor being tolerated in New York and little Italy so long as it's not a full-blown "theme"; that's basically how it's been done for as long as I've been on this forum, and I've never seen a problem with it before.

Frankly, I wouldn't want to see something like "futuristic mafia", with basic roles, standard mafia rules, with no source material to look up and with flavor that in no way affects the day discussion in the "theme games" forum; if I sign up for a game in a themed forum, I would be kind of disapointed to see a regular mafia game like that with just a tiny amount of flavor that has no effect on game play in any way to be considered a "theme" game.

Also from the mafiawiki:

A game based on a movie, book, or some other source material. It's also an administrative category on MafiaScum, which includes both Theme Games and Experimental Games.

Norinel's rule of thumb for distinguishing whether or not a game falls into the administrative category is if anything has to be explained in advance besides the standard rules, it's themed. This isn't a perfect definition, as what has to be explained in advance is everything that is outside of the definition of Normal Game, so it sort of reduces to "A Theme Game is a game that does not follow the definition of a Normal Game." Lots of people like its simplicity, though.

A game like Futuristic mafia requires no source material, is not an experimental game, is not based on a movie or book, and nothing really needs to be explained beforehand, and I don't think it would fit in the theme game forum. I would tend to think that people who sign up becuase they would rather play theme then normal games probably would not really enjoy that type of "normal with a trace of flavor" game.

So basically, IMHO, if you decide to strictly enforce those rules, you would basically be completly eliminating mildly flavored games like that, which wouldn't have a place anywhere in the forum any more. If that's what you want to do, then fine, but I don't see any harm in mild flavor that dosn't effect the game being in normal games.

Personally, I'd suggest that a better definition of normal games would be "any game with normal rules, with an uninformed majority and one or two informed minorities, and where no outside research or knowlege should be needed to fake or evaluate role-claims". I think games with a mild flavor that dosn't effect the game at all should be normal games, and the rule about "normal roles always" is currently so vauge as to be mostly meaningless, and should probably just be dropped unless you want to define it more specificially.

[Yosarian2]

. One of the games you cited - Futuristic Mafia, is actually just an open setup of 7 townies, 1 cop, 1 doc, 3 scum. Nothing confusing at all. I can't see why that is a concern, but there you go.

And another, Ogre Village, seems to have a hider and an inventor, and I can't work out for the life of me how it got into 'Mini Normal.'

Hider and inventor aren't normal roles? They're both defined in the Wikki, I believe.

[Yosarian2]

Oh, duh. It just occurred to me that this:

A normal game does not have to have any other roles other than Mafia and Townies. If it includes other roles, they should mostly be considered standard, such as Cop, Doctor, Vigilante, Roleblocker, Mason, Traitor, Serial Killer.

Could be leading some people to think "Any Role that is on the Wiki is Standard." Granted, that doesn't excuse Early Morning and the like, but I'll try to be helpful instead of obstructionist and come up with my personal bright-line list:

Absolutely Normal:

Cop, Doctor, Vigilante, Roleblocker, Mason, Serial Killer (incl. Arsonist), Mafia, Townie, Godfather.

I'd argue with Traitor, as it involves a weird alignment rule. The old wiki even listed Godfather, but not Roleblocker, Vigilante or Traitor, under Basic Roles.

Almost Certainly Normal:

Non-Sane Cops (except Random), Less Effective Doctors (incl. Bodyguard), Traitor/Spy, Role Cops such as Gunsmith/Burglar/FBI Agent/Psychiatrist, Bomb/Army Veteran (variant Vigilante), Nurse, Deputy, Mayor/Governor/whatever-we-call-the-Stop-a-Lynch-role, Werewolves and the above role names that go with them.

Maybe Normal:

Tracker/Lassie/Watcher, Hider, Cowardly Reporter, Commuter, Post-Restricted Role, Siblings/Lovers, Traitor, Bulletproof Townie, Cult (sorry PJ), Miller.

Probably Not Normal:

Scum Mason, Neighborhood Watch, Retired Cop, Inventor, Jester, Actor/Fool/Priest/Vote-Modifying Roles, Survivor, TFPTSLBOOIA, Switch/Framer/Target Changing Roles.

I've got to say that I strongly disagree with "scum mason" and "inventor" not being normal roles, especally scum mason. If masons are normal roles, then the town should NOT be able to rule out the POSSIBILITY of a scum mason being in a normal game. Not a common role, sure, but as soon as people claim mason, the town shouldn't be able to instatnly rule out the possibility of a scum mason just because the game happens to be in the Little Italy forum. Same for roles like "miller" and things like that; they're not common, certanly, but I think it's quite important for game balance purposes that it be commonly understood that such roles are at least POSSIBLE.

I suggest we drop the whole concept of "normal roles", at least as a rule, perhaps just make it a vauge reccomendation. Any limitations or list of possible roles tends to give the town information about what might be in a closed game, and I think that's probably not a good thing in general.

If i had to define "normal role", I'd probaby say "Any role that is commonly understood and mostly universal". That is, I would certanly consider a gunsmith or a scum mason to be a normal role, because if I see a death scene, and the mod says Fritzer (gunsmith, pro-town) or Mr. Flay(scum mason) or anything like that, I and everyone else will instantly know what the mod's talking about and will have a pretty good idea already of what those roles might mean or how their existance might affect the stratagy. I know what a gunsmith and a scum mason are, and if I see one or if I get the role I know what to do with it or about it, without the mod having to explain any more, which I would think would make it a "standard" role.

The other problem is that making a list of standard roles would limit the development of the game of mafia. For example, I recently created a "jailkeeper" role for an open role game, which both protects and roleblocks the target, and it's been used in at least one other game since then. It's a pretty simple role, pretty intuitive, and I think it had distint advantages over the more "normal" roles, like if there's a jailkeeper instead of a doc it makes questions like "when should the cop claim" a lot more interesting. But if we make a list now, then a role like that won't ever BECOME normal. And that's true for a lot of things; a lot of roles that are "normal" now were invented my a specific mod at a specific point in time, and they've added a lot to the game, I think. But if we don't allow mods to try out roles like that in "normal" otherwise basic mafia-themed games, those roles probably won't ever become normal.

[Yosarian2]

On the flip side of this discussion, Open Games are supposed to be Normal, but I definitely wouldn't call Vengeful "Normal", as the mechanics are rather weird. So we really need to get a grip on this...

Well, I think open games are supposed to have a normal

theme

, and to not be too "wierd", but many of them have unusual roles and such.

[Yosarian2]

(shrug) I still think that any list would be a bad idea, and that perhaps that rule should just be lost or at least softened. Perhaps just change it to "it is recommended that most or all of the roles in a normal game be commonly understood standardized roles", or something like that, rather then a hard-and-fast rule that's never really been enforced.

[Yosarian2]

edit: millers shouldn't know they're millers anyway. :/

That I strongly disagree with. A miller that knows he's a miller and can therefore perhaps try to somehow avoid getting cop investigated or whatever is a much more interesting role.

[Yosarian2]

(shrug) I still think that any list would be a bad idea, and that perhaps that rule should just be lost or at least softened. Perhaps just change it to "it is recommended that most or all of the roles in a normal game be commonly understood standardized roles", or something like that, rather then a hard-and-fast rule that's never really been enforced.

but then we're back to a circular situation, as what

is

commonly understood and standardised? if i claimed "angel" having come from a site where mafia usually features two groups, mafia and werewolves, i'd argue very strongly that angels

are

commonly understood and standardised. if i'd been playing for five years, i could easily consider fbi agent CUAS, but most recent players (i'd wager) wouldn't.

Well, if that's what we're going to do, then I wouldn't mind having a list of "normal" roles, but I still strongly disagree that there should be a hard rule about it.

disagree with this philosophy, which boils down to "you should have to question everything". if we have an understanding of what constitutes "standard roles", playing a game with standard roles only means we know what kind of bastard-modding (and scum masons are most definitely bastard-modding) is off limits. if we

don't

know what's off-limits, what's the point of putting any restrictions on what roles are available, and how do we know what "normal game" actually means?

Well, it's not so much that you should have to question everything, but I tend to think that totally eliminating even the possibility of scum masons tends to unbalance the mason role in most games. If the mod wants to TELL the masons that "you know with 100% confidence that your parters are all pro-town" then that's fine, but that shouldn't be the only option.

On another note, if we do try to make a list and strictly follow and enforce it (which I still think is a bad idea), minor variations on standard roles should be fine in a normal game. That is, if vig is fine, then one-shot vig, can-kill-on-odd-numbered-nights vig, ect, should also be fine. If Godfather is on the list, then "Godfather-that is immune to cop investigations", "Godfather that is immune to nightkills", "Godfather that is immune to both cop investigations and nightkills", "Godfather that does not know if he is investigation/nightkill immue or not", ect, should all be fine. If vig is on the list of normal roles and miller is on the list of normal roles, then a miller-vig should also be an acceptable normal role.

I tend to think there's a lot of flexability in what kinds of roles can be in a game and still have it be a normal game, and I don't think we should lose that.

[Yosarian2]

By the way, I agree with superstring. Flavor is fine in role PM's. There's no sense in trying to require mafia games to be univerally as bland as possible.

[Yosarian2]

Agreed. Perhaps that's been the rule all along, but those rules haven't been followed, at all, for years, by basically anyone. If you want to go back to those rules, understand that that would be a really major change in how mafia games are and have been played here.

[Yosarian2]

Yeah, I don't really like the idea of trying to "simplify" or de-flavor-ise the normal forum just on the theory that some hypothetical newbie might not come to the site if some games are flavored. If some people are seriously annoyed that there aren't more "pure" mafia flavored games here, that's one thing, but I see no reason to think that newbies would think differently. I mean, newbie games and open games are all mafia flavored now, so it's not like a newbie won't ever see a mafia flavored game.

[Yosarian2]

Anyway, if we wanted to really make a list of all the "normal" roles (and again, I would suggest that the list be only a reccomendation for most of the roles in the game, not a hard-and-fast limitation) it would be quite a long list, and would have to keep in mind the common variations of those roles, because, for example, a mafia godfather who can't be nightkilled is actually quite a different role then a mafia godfather who can't be investigated. Hmm, let's see..


Anti-town roles:
Mafia
Mafia godfather
Variation 1: Can't be nightkilled
Variation 2: Shows up innocent to investation
Variation 3: Can't be nightkilled and shows up innocent to investation
Variation 4: Just sends in nightkill, no special abilities
Variation 5-8: Same as 1-4, but Godfather does not know which one he is.
Mafia roleblocker
Mafia scum mason
Mafia doc
Mafia role cop
Mafia spy/traitor
Mafia redirector (?)
Mafia Assassin (?)

Werewolves, with all roles above being possible

SK
Variation 1: Can't be nightkilled
Variation 2: Shows up innocent to investation
Variation 3: Both
Variation 4: Standard, no extra protections
Variation 5: Arsonist


Cult leader: too many variations to list; the main (although not only) variables are (dies when target mafia/not); (every night/every other night/limited number of shots); (whole cult dies if cult leader dies/not); (New cult leader nominated if leader dies/not)

Neutral roles:
Lyncher
Survivor (?)
Jester (?)
Siblings/twins

Pro-town roles:
Townie
Vengeful Townie (Might as well include this so vengeful mafia is still legal, heh)
Cop; variations are:
Insane cop
Naive cop
Paranoid cop
Backup cop
Deputy
Role cop
Gunsmith
Tracker
Night watchman
FBI agent (?)
One-shot cop
Cowardly Reporter

Doctor:
Variation 1: Standard; can't protect self, can protect others
Variation 2: Can protect self, can not protect same person two days in a row.
Variation 3 (AKA Quack): does nothing, completly ineffective
Variation 4: Insane doctor
One-shot doctor
Back-up doc/Nurse
Bodyguard
Variation 1: Bodyguard dies, target lives
Variation 2: Bodyguard lives, target lives, scum dies
And other variations with any combination in between
Psychologist (?)
Archangel (?)
Jailkeeper

Duel back-up (becomes either cop or doc based on which one dies first)

Roleblocker
Redirector

Vig
One-shot vig
Limited # of shots vig
Odd/even night vigs
Dayvig
Mad bomber
Army Veteren
Must kill every night vig (?)

Double voter
Mayor
Inventor (several variations) (?)

Self-protecting:
Unkillable
Bulletproof vest (usually one-shot)
Commuter
Hider
Paranoid gun owner

Mason
Variation 1: standerd
Variation 2: told they are all pro-town, so they know there's no chance of a scum mason

Miller (Note that this can be combined with any other pro-town role; miller vig, miller cop, ect)

Post restricted (too many variation to mention)


And there's probably some I'm forgetting. I put a ? next to those that might not be normal, IMHO, but if we were going to have a list it would have to be at least this long, unless we're trying to dumb down normal games to try and make it easier for newbies, which would be a shame I think.

[Yosarian2]

So the question is, does a game that's mechanically normal, and has no real theme with recognisable character names or out-of-game-information, but has some non-mafia flavor, better fit in the normal forums or in the theme forums?

I'd tend to think it makes more sense in the normal forums, as the game would run much more like a normal game then a theme game, and it'd make more sense to use the "normal games" modding requirements rather then the "theme games" modding requirements consdering the relitive simplicity of the game. I guess we could make a new sub-forum for lightly flavored normal games, but why?

[Yosarian2]

a theme is:
a game that may require background information,

and

game mechanic is changed. ie: simpsons, most published works, timebomb.

Well, and/or. If it requires research/uses specific character names from a specific source, then it's a theme, even if it uses all standard mafia rules and normal mafia roles fit to characters from that theme, because that alone adds a different element to the game.

[Yosarian2]

i think our major problem in this discussion is the definition of flavor.
the way i see flavor is:
a theme, if you will, that does not change gameplay at all, but adds setting, and enjoyment to the game. ie: sicilian, werewolf, lobsters.

I'm scum in a game about Lobsters. How do I claim cop?

If the answer is anything more complicated than "I am a Lobster Cop, no flavor" then I think the lobster setting has changed the gameplay.

Except that can also happen in normal mafia-themed games just as easily. "I'm a cop. I'm a New York city beat cop, one of the few who hasn't sold out, and I'm trying to find out who the mafia are." Unless we're going to eliminate all mafia-related flavor as well, which would kill a lot of the fun of the game.

So long as the introductory mod post has enough information so the scum can fake claims without a problem ("The year: 1929. The City: New York. The mafia are taking over. Kill them all." and perhaps an example of the basic townie PM), and so long as the mod avoids giving away unneeded information in role PM's, I don't see a problem there.

[Yosarian2]

"I'm a cop. I'm a New York city beat cop, one of the few who hasn't sold out, and I'm trying to find out who the mafia are."

That doesn't fit my vision of normalcy I'm afraid.

My point though is as Thok posts, the definition is problematic even with superstring's simple scenario.

So...wait. You think that normal games shouldn't have any flavor at all, not even basic mafia-related flavor? That sounds boring.

Anyway, that's not the current rule; what mith said when setting the rules for what's a normal flavor in open role games, he said that "all flavor should be mafia based".

[Yosarian2]

I am going to Necro this thread, because I think it ought to be talked about more. My first venture into moddery is coming up and I am frankly unsure because I think it's fine, it has flavour, but I don't want the powers that be coming down on my head for it. I think that I will only ever mod a mini normal this once, purely because I hate being restricted as this does.

If you want, PM me the set-up, and I can give you a feel of if there's too much flavour.

(Note that anything other than "You are a Cop. Investigate someone at night and get a result of Innocent or Guilty. You win with the Town" is probably too much, since it makes it much harder to fake if you need more than just the rolename.)

edit:

That wasn't too clear, I don't think. Basically, someone wanting to fake a claim of Cop should be able to post "I claim Cop". Nothing else should be needed to claim, really.

I believe the rule is still that any flavor must be mafia related, not that there must be no flavor. That is, if you want to have flavor about how you're a member of the Gambino crime familiy or whatever, that's fine.

[Yosarian2]

I'll agree with OGML here; the rules, as currently stated, do say that mafia themed flavor in normal mafia games is fine, and that's certanly the way I've always interpreted it.

For example, this was the open game I modded (note that open games have to follow the same rules as other normal mafia games):

viewtopic.php?t=4229&start=0

Note that I created a fairly detailed mafia-themed flavor to fit the mechanics described in this game.

I also don't think there's anything wrong with mod "flavor" text occasioanlly containing or at least hinting at valid information, like I did in ths game, so long as you do it within certain boundries. But I suppose that's another conversation...