Policy Discussion: "Normal"

[MeMe]

Erm.. you're missing my point. I agree with the current definitions because they are the easiest to make

clearly

defined. My point is that if we try to change the current definitions, we'll end up with all sorts of problems. Basically, Mith caught the general point of my post....

Indeed I did. Sorry about that.

[Thok]

This is a really bad time to be having this discussion for me, when my mafia I spent ages preparing is 8/12 full and now apparently, I have to redo everything in a couple of days.

Now I'm gonna go cry.

For what it's worth, you can keep your current mafia in storage for when you are eligible for the mini theme list.

[HurriKaty]

This is a really bad time to be having this discussion for me, when my mafia I spent ages preparing is 8/12 full and now apparently, I have to redo everything in a couple of days.

Now I'm gonna go cry.

For what it's worth, you can keep your current mafia in storage for when you are eligible for the mini theme list.

I plan on it, but thats not the current issue. The curren issue is what the heck I"m gonna do for my mafia thats due to start in mere days.

[MeMe]

You should be able to take the basic structure of the game and just strip it of flavor, no?

[Shanba]

I'd just like to say I enjoyed having flavour in my first newbie game. If I had thought that all games would be mafia vs town I reckon it would have put me off the site to start with. But that's jsut me.

[IH]

Now, years ago, when we first split the mini queue in two, I disagreed with mith over what "theme" means. I thought that as long as the mechanics were straightforward and it wasn't based on source material (movie, book, etc) , it could be run as "normal." Basically, I'd categorize "Vegetable" and "School" mafia as normal because you don't need research those -- everyone is already familiar with the concepts.

This was what I thought as generally normal. Mechanics being normal, and research into the flavor won't give anything away. Essentially a normal mafia game with just a little bit of pizaz into the day/night/lynch/votecounts.

[The Fonz]

. 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.'

[Patrick]

Yes, ogre village and early morning mafia are clearly not normals.

[Mr. Flay]

I was a major offender on the "Themed Newbies", so I suppose I should chime in here. I always avoided the "confirmable unique townie" problem, but I ran games based on The 300, High School, WWII, Romans, Dylan Thomas, Doctor Doom, Eddie Izzard, Rock-n-Roll, Sheep & Wolves, and Lovers. So oops.

That being said

, I never

once

had a player come to me confused on what their role did, except on things like Doctor-self-protecting and sanity that any game could fall ill of. So I have a hard time crediting the "OMG won't someone please think of the newbies!" argument; I always included the "real" name of the role, and made sure people understood it was just flavor to make the game seem interesting. I side with MeMe-once-upon-a-time in this, that "flavor" is different from complexity. And given the popularity of "Are You a Werewolf?", I'd strongly argue that Werewolf/Werewolf-Mafia games are normal too, barring other mutation factors.

BUT, I try to follow the rules once I knew for sure that flavor was not kosher in The Road to Rome. And if

Sus. in Sicily

is a problem, then our problem is MUCH bigger than we thought, because I specifically ran that by the New York List Mod before I started it, to make sure it was in fact Normal. I made that game in about 6 hours; I can crank out flavor and/or game setups all day long if needed.

Myself? I still don't see that "Theme" games and "Mafia Mutations" should necessarily be in the same forum. Many Mafia Mutations are Theme Games, but not all Theme Games are Mafia Mutations, etc... maybe we need another forum. I do agree that enforcing the current "Normal" definition should be painless and straightforward. Games that are in the wrong Queue should be moved, and delayed if need be to make the Queue wait fair/penalize repeat offenders. With all of the above said, I don't understand why people would find the current rule so hard to follow.

If we did split them, I think Theme Games (those based on a particular source material) should have slightly less stringent modding requirements than Mafia Mutations. But I'm not sure how to define the difference so that people get in the right Queue...

[superstring91]

as far as i can see, this discussion is about drawing the line between normal, and theme. and about drawing the line between theme and flavour. i believe that some flavor is required, because flavor heightens the enjoyment. i don't think that flavor should carry over to all the names, and abillities of characters, as this would create a theme.

i also think drawing the line is important for new mods. they need to know what they can and can't include in their games. i am in the process of creating a mini normal game, [1 mafia GF, 2 mafia, 1 SK, 1 doc, 1 cop, 6 town] and all of the characters are normal, except the SK, who is an invading frenchman. should that go in the theme section? or is it still a normal?

so, i guess i'll leave with this question:

How much flavour till it's a theme?

[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.

[superstring91]

. 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.

so now we need to define normal roles too? man, this is getting kinda crazy

[IH]

Hider and inventor are fairly normal roles.... especially hider.

Also, doesn't the mini normal say that new roles may be used, as long as it stays within normal mafia role standards?

[CoG888]

Perhaps we could split the minis into 3 categories

Normal Mafia - As the current rule suggests
Flavored Mafia - A normal game with plenty of flavor, but standard game mechanics and roles
Themed Mafia - Game bassed around a specific theme

[The Fonz]

Hider and inventor are fairly normal roles.... especially hider.

Also, doesn't the mini normal say that new roles may be used, as long as it stays within normal mafia role standards?

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.

I'd actually say traitor is non-standard, but the rest of them should suffice. Any role that has a combination of abilities, or things like hiders, gunsmiths, mayors, etc, strike me as theme-type roles.

[IH]

Then no one would run a normal mini Cog.

Fonz, I promise that those are fairly normal roles.

Especially Gunsmiths and hiders.

Mayors I would say are theme-ier.

[The Fonz]

Well, you just have a more liberal definition of what is considered 'normal' then.

It happens.

[Thestatusquo]

No. It's not a matter of definition, it's a matter of fact. A normal role is a role that is used in mafia frequently, and does not require any significant rule changing mechanic to work. If you find anything wrong with that as a definition, then let me know.

There is nothing about hiders or gunsmiths that makes them any different from cops and doctors in terms of both ease to understand, and commonality. The only difference is that maybe they're not THE most common roles, but they're still common, and since you give us no brightline as to evaluate what is common ENOUGH, you have no offense there anyway.

[superstring91]

Perhaps we could split the minis into 3 categories

Normal Mafia - As the current rule suggests
Flavored Mafia - A normal game with plenty of flavor, but standard game mechanics and roles
Themed Mafia - Game bassed around a specific theme

the way im seeing the forum divided right now is this:
Games with similar mechanics stay in one spot.
Games with different mechanics go away from the afformentioned "similar" games.

MS can be likened to a supermarket:
the market is MS
the food items are the games

toaster strudels and poptarts are two different pasteries, but are both in the same area. however, doughnuts[also pastries] are in a completely different area.

so, you see, similar things in one area. different things in another.

i believe that game mechanics should determine where a game goes.
then we get to the question: what about games that are definitely themed[like on a book or movie] but have normal mechanics?

my answer to this is that games with a theme that goes beyond flavour go in the theme area.

to differentiate between theme and flavour, simple guidelines could be setup, as questions mods should ask themselves to determine where their game should go. like:

1. does my game have standard roles?
2. does my game have any special mechanics?
3. does my game have an underlying theme that will come into play often?
4. how often will my flavor[or theme] come into play?

these questions of course should be refined, but i think something like this will help clear the air, especially for newer mods

[Thok]

No. It's not a matter of definition, it's a matter of fact. A normal role is a role that is used in mafia frequently, and does not require any significant rule changing mechanic to work. If you find anything wrong with that as a definition, then let me know.

There is nothing about hiders or gunsmiths that makes them any different from cops and doctors in terms of both ease to understand, and commonality. The only difference is that maybe they're not THE most common roles, but they're still common, and since you give us no brightline as to evaluate what is common ENOUGH, you have no offense there anyway.

I'd say hider is closer to a normal role than gunsmith (and there are probably others who think the opposite way.) Gunsmith is a weird variant cop. Using it properly takes a lot of thought (and requires knowing things like that it's normal for a cop to have a gun, or that somebody stabbing people with a knife need not have a gun; it clearly uses flavor.)

In comparison, a hider doesn't require any thought about the setup to use.

There also the "If I only told you that mafia was scum versus townies, what roles would you be likely to add next" test. Cop/doctor/vig/masons/SK are reasonably obvious ideas to add by themselves. Hider isn't an obvious role to add, but one could add it without adding anything else. Gunsmith makes sense to add only after you created things like SK's and cops, and then only if you are thinking "How can I make a cop different from usual?"

[Fircoal]

I think the normal guidelines are fine. Most games should be around a town trying to lynch mafia. But what I what I don't know what to do about is the no odd roles thing. When I mod games on another forum, I use many non-townie roles, but I have no flavour, it's just a town. What catergory does that fall under?

[Thestatusquo]

Thok, you're begging the question. Actually, a lot of them.

What roles are allowed, and what roles are not? What is too counter-intuitive or too setup changing to be allowed in? After all, after the big 4-5 roles, it's all subjective anyway. It seems kind of strange to try to make that an objective rule.

Furthermore, and role warps the setup, even if just a little bit for balancing. Adding a cop when there is a doc is usually invitation for bad news, so on and so forth.

And finally, Just because gunsmiths require a tad bit of knowledge about mafia in general, that does not mean one has to declare them not normal. Again, what is the brightline here? To have a RB, or a vig, one would have to assume that players know the risk of using their actions every night, they have to determine whether the SK is likely to have perks or not. It isn't as cut and dry as you make it seem.

[mith]

Well, I hope everyone sees that there is some difficulty in splitting the lists, anyway. Everyone has a different line.

More later, I've got to get some work done.

[Thok]

Thok, you're begging the question. Actually, a lot of them.

What roles are allowed, and what roles are not? What is too counter-intuitive or too setup changing to be allowed in? After all, after the big 4-5 roles, it's all subjective anyway. It seems kind of strange to try to make that an objective rule.

Oh, I know I'm begging the question. But I wanted to give some thoughts on why certain roles might not be considered normal/what sort of things we are looking for in a normal role.

Just for some historical perspective; of the three of mayor, hider, gunsmith, mayor is the only role listed on the Princeton site. I believe (and somebody should doublecheck with DP) that gunsmith was introduced in GL 24, specifically as a balance to the scum mason that was also introduced in GL 24. I don't know the origin of hider.