Changes to Normal Games (update September 2022)

[DragonEater70]

Can anyone tell me what the typical Day length is on a Normal game?

Also am I the only person who hates mafia day-talk?

10-14 days.

Curious about anti day-talk arguments.

10-14 might actually be a bit high of an estimate, at least 7-days Days are not uncommon for minis.
To be a bit more quantitative, assuming that I've not messed up the count:

• Among all non-ongoing Mini Normals that ended in 2022 or later:
  • 10 had 10-days D1, and 7-days for other Days*
    
  • 6 had 7-days Days
    
  • 6 had 10-days Days
    
  • 4 had 10-days D1, and 8-days for other Days
    
  • 2 had 14-days D1, and 10-days for other Days
    
  • 2 had 14-days Days
  * one of those games actually also had 5-days Days in XLo. Curiously, another one of those games were the only one in this time period with 1-day Nights, instead of the far more common 2-days
  
  
  For those games as a whole, the D1 deadline was 238h24m on average, and the D2 deadline was 201h36m (around 8 days and a half) on average.
  
  
• Among all non-ongoing Large Normals that ended in 2021 or later (there are a lot less of those, so I've picked a larger time period):
  • 4 had 10-days Days
    
  • 2 had 11-days Days
    
  • 2 had 14-days D1, and 10-days for other Days
    
  • 1 game each had 7,12,13,14-days Days
    
  • 1 game had 10-days D1 and 8-days for other Days
    
  • 1 game had 12-days D1, then 10-days for the next days, and 8-days Days since when <=10 players remained
  For those games as a whole, the D1 deadline was ~270h52m on average (a bit over 11 days), and the D2 deadline was ~250h17m (around 10 days and a half) on average.

Damn you did some serious research. I applaud you.

[DragonEater70]

Normal proposals I've found here and weren't suggested by me that I think could be Normal, and my thoughts on them:

Vain - Possibly a good idea I think? We have both Loyal and Disloyal.
Publishing - Seemingly good idea, but only works for investigative roles and might work strangely for Checkers. I feel this doesn't detract heavily from Normals, however this would necessarily cause the moderator to post information in the game thread. Also note that Publishing Informed can exist!
X-Result - The generalization of a X-Shot modifier that only depletes on a specific type of investigation result. If the greylist comes back, this would easily be on the greylist.
Gutless - Somewhat interesting, but would make Doctor interesting. This was originally suggested by creating a wiki page and saying the modifier was Normal, however.

Here is a post with some other Normal proposals, though I'm thinking Cursed isn't normal.

Informant Role: Targets a player to make them informed of a detail of the setup. Basically the Mailman, but the message you send is predetermined by the Moderator and unknown to the player.
Charging Modifier: A further modifier to X-Shot. Charging makes it so you get charges back for events that occur in the game, such as a Cop that gets a charge every time a Town Power role is eliminated at day.
Skimmer Role: If the Skimmer visits the same target as the Doctor, the Skimmer gets protected as well.
Famous Modifier: The existence, but not alignment, of the full role of the player is announced by the moderator at the beginning of the game.
X-Result Modifier: A role that only consumes charges if the role receives a certain result, such as a Cop that's only allowed one guilty result before the role ceases to function. That would be created in a game read as "1-Guilty Cop".
Cursed Modifier: Your role will only work on other players who are also Cursed.
Obsessive Modifier: Opposite of Roaming Modifier, if you target a player you must continue to try to target that player every night until they die, at which point you're free to change.

Thaumaturge is a role I've invented and really should see discussion before being Normalized, though I consider a Thaumaturge to be a Neapolitan variant with its checkerboarded results seeming like they would make the role interesting especially if there are role claims.

I really want Vain to be normal, I always wanted to have something like a Vain Vigilante for instance.

[DragonEater70]

I dislike publishing as normal though

[DragonEater70]

Any consideration on these?

I don't think Sensor is Normal. Its reliance on wagons feels way too abNormal to me.

Vote-Activated also doesn't feel Normal to me. A reason that Supersaint isn't Normal is that it makes vote order relevant, and Vote-Activated makes vote order relevant.

Agreed

[DragonEater70]

Btw what is grey list?

[DragonEater70]

Considering T-Bone's 1156 I'm leaning on the latter.

[DragonEater70]

I'm pretty sure passive roles are roles. Activated is a modifier that turns a passive role into an active role, and Loyal is limited to active roles so Loyal Ascetic likely isn't Normal.

I'm pretty sure passive roles are a subset of roles. A passive role is a role with an ability that works without player input. An example of a passive role is Bulletproof.

Speaking of passive roles, here are the Normal passive roles that are currently miscategorized as modifiers on the Normal Game page:

Ascetic
Bulletproof
Informed
Macho
Neighbor (though Neighbor is also listed as a role)

I still say that Traitor is a passive role and not an alignment. A Traitor giving a "traitor" result to Role Cops is an effect of Traitor being a role. Also, a Mafia Traitor is still a Mafioso, which makes Traitor a role and not an alignment.

pedit: the roles I want the most are bulwark and thaumaturge

That's basically what Something Smart was saying, that they are roles but categorized as modifiers.

[DragonEater70]

Seconded on Nurse

[DragonEater70]

I think implosion explained somewhere (or maybe it was someone else, not sure) that Normal is supposed to represent what is considered MAFIA, rather than a variation of the game.

So for instance Secret Hitler and The Resistance are both extreme examples of non-normalcy, because they alter the game dynamics too much. A less extreme example would be role madness, or a game where the mod kills the scummiest town player whenever Tommy Edman makes a homerun. Since they alter the basic flow of the game, they aren't Normal.

[DragonEater70]

I think there are a bunch of roles which are very popular but alter the game too much (such as cult or even a publishing cop) so they can't be classed as Normal.

[DragonEater70]

I think implosion explained somewhere (or maybe it was someone else, not sure) that Normal is supposed to represent what is considered MAFIA, rather than a variation of the game.

source

Ummm I will try to find this

[DragonEater70]

First of all:

This page describes what is considered to be "Normal" on mafiascum.net.

These guidelines are intended to enforce common expectations of games, such that all games called "Normal" are reasonably balanced and not deviant from what one would reasonably expect in a standard game of Mafia.

Second, I couldn't find implo saying this directly, but I think these quotes kinda convey this message:

-Normals provide an option for players who want to play closed setups where they can reasonably expect what kinds of things to see and won't typically be wildly surprised. They also provide closed games with a reasonable expectation of balance.
-They provide new players a kind of game with the kinds of mechanics that they might expect to see in any game on the site, acclimating them to what is "normal" for MS, rather than mechanics that might be more peculiar to a single game

Though I think the first quote covers it pretty well.

[DragonEater70]

I don't recall the last time a multiball game was ran as a mini theme but I think it would be rare to see one.

Around April, the game was called Conception and was 2:2:9

[DragonEater70]

You asked for the last one.

Also, I haven't played in any other multiball so I wouldn't know

[DragonEater70]

It's a bad idea to remove multiball from Large normal games, period. You notice this site isn't nearly as busy as it was back in 2013; you remove multiball from Large Normals and you're putting another nail in the coffin.

Soon I'll be modding a Large Normal that is multiball. These types of games aren't as uncommon as you think they are.

they can always be run in the theme queue, look how long T3's took to fill.

I believe a site-wide mass-ping by mod staff for Larges that have been in queue for over two months would help. I mass-pinged multiple times to get that Large filled.

When I ran my 50-player game years ago I took advantage of mass-pings and had over five players as pre-replacements.

I agree that pings are useful, but when you say mod staff do you mean like listmods? Because I thonk they shouldn't be pinging anyone, it should be done by the players or the game mod. IMO.

[DragonEater70]

What exactly makes it non-Normal?

I feel like most of my suggestions get shot down with little rationale behind it. What kind of bounds should I work within when trying to think up new Normal roles/modifiers?

It feels like a special mechanic that is interesting but hard to balance and potentially unfun, is what I would say makes this non-normal.

[DragonEater70]

I think people know those games are there but the larger the playerlist the harder it is to fill a game. I don't recommend normals or themes go above 20 frankly.

Well there goes my plan for a 27p Large Normal

Just kidding I will mod it anyway cause it's such a good setup.

[DragonEater70]

RN I think you may be happier doing what Flavor Leaf did with Booneytoons and make your own "spicy Normal" variant with your own ruleset thats run in the theme queue. that way A) we can see how it plays out and B) you can run the games you want to

some of what you suggest would never be accepted into normalcy and it'd be better to find realistic solutions to what you'd like at this point.

The "make a PR stop working at X point" is definitely already legal, we can create language that makes it more compressed like "N1-N3", but changing the role itself is probably unfeasible as say a rolecop investigated said role on day 1 and then a vanilla cop investigated on night 4. the results would be contradictory in a pretty eh way.

Nth

[DragonEater70]

Oh, I found the quote I was referring to:

By nature they have swing; by nature, we'd like normal games to have as little swing as possible.

It's kind of a different game from mafia; we'd like normal games to be very clearly games of mafia in the most normal sense possible.

It's absolutely possible to do multiball well, but it breaks the expectations of the normal queue, especially given how site meta has shifted over the years.

[DragonEater70]

I think implosion explained somewhere (or maybe it was someone else, not sure) that Normal is supposed to represent what is considered MAFIA, rather than a variation of the game.

source

Here you go.

[DragonEater70]

Forum mafia with week-long deadlines is not the right setting for a 25-player social deduction game - the right setting for that, depending on what kind of game you want, could be anything from two rooms and a boom to blood on the clocktower to a good old-fashioned in person mafia game around a campfire.

Well said.
(though I think there might be a place for something like that in themes).

(I've been in Japan for the past couple weeks, but I'm flying back tomorrow and am still around the site, so if anyone wants to know anything about why normal games are

currently

the way they are I'm happy to answer!)

Well, I am interested to ask why redirectors aren't normal.

what if you let mafia have multiple kills if they have membership above X number and banned multiball from normals

I think he just explained why he doesn't want superlarge Normals, so idk about multikills, but I guess banning multiball isn't a horrible option (thought I think at least SKs should be an option? Or maybe not, maybe they should only exist in themes).

[DragonEater70]

Another example would be Datisi's large themes.
(If my memory isn't messed up.)

pretty much, yeah. other than an occasional doublevoter or "if you target a hood you join the hood" role, my large themes are mostly just Spicy Normals, role-wise.

I'd like to see a Large Normal with individual players earning $$$ each Night to buy actions or information, but I don't want to make a whole honking complicated Themed game

oh hey this premise kinda sounds like my theme games.


while i love all kinds of spectrums, i don't think shoving a 3rd category in here would be helpful. the kinds of games that can be run in the theme queue are *already* a spectrum. like, if you want to run this game, you don't have to make it "more complicated" to have it run in the theme queue. look at fakegod's theme games, those are usually much simpler than your average normal.

like... what's with this aversion to modding a theme game? you don't have to make is super complicated.

My plan was to run a mini Normal and then a Large Normal to shake off the rust of game-modding, and then get into modding Large Themed games.

What I like are truly complicated games but I don't particularly want to do so through power but with information, which is why I like Informed statuses, Neighborhoods, various factions, etc. Like a very intricate, detail-oriented game with lots of subtlety.

Then can I interest you in running a theme game together? I very much enjoy modding these kinds of games and I have some ideas that could make it a great theme game.

[DragonEater70]

Well if Nurse agrees then I would love for you to review it.