Policy Discussion: "Normal"

[bigAl]

Re: the discusion on 'normal' roles:

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: Cop, Doc, Vigilante, Roleblocker, Mason, Traitor, Serial Killer.

Other (new or otherwise) roles can be included. However, there should be no more than 1-2 of these, and they should be based around the usual game mechanics: Killing, Protecting, Investigating, Voting.

That second paragraph is important. According to the current definition, there is nothing even preventing a mod to make up a new role or two and using if in a normal game. I would not consider it a normal game if it had new roles.

I don't have any objection to a bit of non-directly-mafia-related flavour in newbie games. I think that it makes them more interesting. If the mod includes a line in the PM that says something along the lines of "your role is functionally equivilant to a doctor in non themed games," even when their role name is a raspberry, and all the PM's are posted in one of the opening posts, it doesn't cause a noticeable amount of confusion.

[Skruffs]

For the record, Early Morning Mafia is a normal game. I reviewed the Normal Game rules and made sure that all the roles are standard by their definition.
It's still ongoing, and so I'd rather not post the roles here, or even how standard they are, but it was checked over by three or four people who's opinions I respect.

If I had known that mini normals are not supposed to have flavor, I wouldn't have given it flavor. As it stands, the game fits all the rules. The flavor is entirely my own, and none of the flavor roles should be used as a basis of the town's actions.

The setting of a normal game should be Mafia related. Even flavor text should not be based on any book, movie, song, time period, etc.

Clicking on the Mafia link leads to a page describing the concept of the game.
It does refer to flavor or even if the 'mafia' shold be based on traditional Italian Mafia games. That being said - if it had said that normal games should be italian mafia based - than I am sure they would be. The link instead describes the nature of the GAME of mafia, how it is played, etc.

My game falls completely within the boundaries of a normal mini game, and it was not intended to stray. It's a small game with normal roles and a standard day/night set up.

I'm not sure if it was picked out as 'themed' because of the name or because of something else, I'm just kind of startled that it would be derided like that, out of the blue.

[mith]

Er, "Mafia related", in that context, is clearly talking about the flavor, not the nature of the game. I don't even recall putting that link there, occasionally words on the wiki get linked inappropriately.

It was picked out because it does not fit my intentions with the definition. It seems blindingly obvious to me that a game with a setting of waking someone up has a non-Mafia theme, and I'm not sure how anyone could argue that it doesn't have a theme.

If it was an honest misunderstanding of that intention, fair enough. (Though I do find it hard to believe anyone read that and came up with your particular interpretation.)

[Skruffs]

There's a big distinction between MAfia the game - with a knowledged minority trying to fool an unknowledge majority, and mafia the flavor, is all I'm saying.
I love the site. I think that if the mini-normals should all be italian mafia flavored, then the board should be edited to suggest that they all have italian mafia falvoring instead.

There might be a lot of flavor associated with it but it's really just that - flavor. Getting Joe to 'wake up and go to work' is the same end result as 'town lives happily ever after ' - mission accompolished. MAfia don't want town to win, in either game. I just feel that it doesn't clearly say that it should be italian mafia flavored, and that leads people to think they can flavor it any way they want.

It wouldn't affect the game to strip all the flavor from the game and make it to simple roles and alignments.

I agree that normal minis should not be based more on flavor/role names than on scum hunting and behavior in the game. I just don't think it shold be assumed that Having flavor means the game is Based on it. In my case, it's not, anyways.

[Mr. Flay]

The wiki (and the modding posts at the top of the Queue) have said for months if not years that even the setting/flavor should be 'normal'. I have justed edited the wiki to clarify (mith you can check me), but that's been the case all along.

[Thestatusquo]

If it was the case in word, it certainly has not been the case in deed. I do not feel that skruffs felt he was doing anything wrong by posting his game. He asked all the right people to review it, and so far it's been great.

[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.

[Skruffs]

I may have over reacted. Like I said , early morning is my first modded game, and when the Site-God comes down and picks it up and says "This is not good" you get defensive, fast.

Sorry if Iit seems overly hostile, please don't ban me from mscum. v.v

[superstring91]

The wiki (and the modding posts at the top of the Queue) have said for months if not years that even the setting/flavor should be 'normal'. I have justed edited the wiki to clarify (mith you can check me), but that's been the case all along.

i think this may be the best way to go, for a while at least. it includes flavor, and setting.

i think the only thing we need to add is a list of roles, because that seems to be a disputed topic right now.

[IH]

First off, Older doesn't mean more normal.

In that case, it doesn't matter to the gameplay. It could matter to the enjoyment value. That's the whole point, isn't it? If it didn't matter at all, why have the themes for open games? If you're going to argue that a little flavor adds something to the entertainment value, surely you have to accept that a little flavor could just as easily take away from the entertainment value. Eddie Izzard is great, but if you didn't know who he was, would you want to play in an Eddie Izzard themed game over a Mafia themed game, all other things being equal? (Ok, that's a bad example, you'd probably research Eddie Izzard, see how cool he is, and be all for playing in an Eddie Izzard game. So replace it with something you hate.)

No, what it is, is that most people (and by most I'd say at LEAST 4 out of 5, if not more) don't mind the flavor. If they like it, it adds to the experience. If they don't like it, then it doesn't really hurt them, as long as gameplay is unchanged.

I will also say that eliminating all flavor from mini normals, other than mafia/werewolf, would discourage a lot of people modding those types of games. They don't want to run it as a mini theme, because if you run a mini theme, it's not for flavor reasons (most of the time) it's for some kind of weird mechanic or differentness.

You're completely cutting out the middle man of, say, someone sitting around, and connecting roles and other generic things.

I like most of Brite's 58, she has highlighted some very nice points.

Are redirector's considered normal? I almost never see them on games here, but I see them in plenty of other games that are considered 'normal' especially on other sites and in scumchat

I could see including 'backdrop' (good word) thematic setting as okay in Normals so long as all the Roles and Role PMs are completely standard. The Mafia in Sicily is much like the Mafia in New York or Chicago, is much like the Russian Mob, is much like the Irish Mob, etc...

Well isn't that the same thing as flavored normal games though? They are all basic roles, the only thing that changes is the 'background'. It's still a town. It's still a mafia. Where is the line drawn, if we can just rephrase it and say it's ok?

[Thestatusquo]

Skruffs, I don't think defending a point is going to get you banned from MS.

[Mr Stoofer]

Ignore this...

[Mr Stoofer]

And this...

[Mr Stoofer]

As the person on this site who enforces the Normal Game definition on a regular basis, I should chip in with my thoughts.

I have always understood the principal rationale for enforcing the definition to be to make the games about real scumhunting and avoiding the use of the theme to find scum. As mith and Kelly have put it:

c. This doesn't apply to open/semi-open games, but adding flavor to a closed game, even if it's just surface element over a normal role, adds something extra to the gameplay (and no, adding something to the gameplay is not always a good thing). It adds role names - generally more confirmable than generic names. It adds a level of outguessing-the-mod ("Would the mod make X a Doc?"). It adds complexity to the fake-claim-game. And all of that is fine in some games; otherwise, we wouldn't have theme games at all. But it shouldn't be in all (or even most) of our games.

I'm saying it doesn't matter what flavor you give to a scum role; that won't break anything. But if you give flavor to town roles you run the risk that the town may be able to find scum just by scum's inability to make believable claims. In my opinion there should never be any risk of this happening in a "normal" game.

This is why my policy is much more relaxed in fully open games, where this sort of thing can't happen however highly flavoured the role PMs/deathscenese etc.

But even with mild flavour, if the role PMs aren't open then there will always be an element of trying to check claims against believability of their flavour - which whould be no part of a Normal Game.

I think a different, stricter policy should apply to Newbie Games. I completely agree with this:

d. Minor, but I feel that new players learn better in a more "standard" environment. In part, because it avoids the confusion thing in (b) but also because it gives everyone common ground for discussion. If a player's first experiences are as Townies, Mafia, Cop, Doc, it will be easier for them to discuss those roles, and they have a solid foundation for handling more complicated things in future games. I don't think that foundation would be as solid for someone whose first few roles were "Hotdog", "The Color Green", and "Jellyfish".

I can vividly recall being in a "flavoured" Newbie Game, in which I had trouble working out what my role was (eventually I decided that I must be a Townie) - and that was when I was very IC. I strongly support a strict rule that Newbie games should be as simple and mafia flavoured as possible.

[Mr Stoofer]

Should we have standard Role PMs for all Newbie Games?

[Mr. Flay]

FOS: Skruffs

, overly defensive.

Hey, mith, I had a thought last night. What about re-opening Sicily for "Normal" games and Normal Open games, making New York for "games based on Themes/Flavor but otherwise Normal", and Theme Park for Mafia Mutations/those with serious rule/mechanical changes?

Not sure about minis, I don't often want to run a mini that has vastly changed game mechanics, and most who do could probably run them as smaller games in the Theme Park (which might need a rename, if "themes' are in New York...hmmm).

Just a half-baked idea, don't shoot me.

::edit::

We could also have just two forums, but three waiting lists (four, really, counting Open Games).

[mith]

I've been giving a bit of thought to reorganizing the forums again, yeah. Still thinking on it.

(I do want to avoid too many forums and too many waiting lists, though.)

[Skruffs]

A whole new forum seems off - maybe just adding that mini-normals aren't allowed to contain role names would get rid of a lot of the discussion, I think.

In all of my PMs I put a name and then the role and then an alignment. So "The Color Green" knows they are actually a one-shot vig, "Hot dog" knows they are a townie, and "IH" knows they are scum.

[Thestatusquo]

Yeah, a new forum isn't enough. I think a whole new website is necessary.

[IH]

What about subforums? I assume that this type of forum can have them....

I was thinking of this for the mini games.

Keep Little italy, but open up a subforum inside of Little Italy, for Closed Mini Flavoreds. Have the same requirements and signups as a mini regular, but with the freedom of flavor being closed (with the person noting when they get in to mod whether it's flavored or not).

This way nothing in the flow of things is really interrupted, except we now have a place for the middle ground games which so many run, without really changing things up.

[superstring91]

What about subforums? I assume that this type of forum can have them....

I was thinking of this for the mini games.

Keep Little italy, but open up a subforum inside of Little Italy, for Closed Mini Flavoreds. Have the same requirements and signups as a mini regular, but with the freedom of flavor being closed (with the person noting when they get in to mod whether it's flavored or not).

This way nothing in the flow of things is really interrupted, except we now have a place for the middle ground games which so many run, without really changing things up.

would the modding requirements [ie: simple tenure and 1 game played, 2 games modded...] change? or could you choose between a flavored mini, and a "regular" mini as your first mod game?

edit: and, once again, where do you draw the line between flavor, and regular? is it a matter of role names? or setting? what?

[IH]

I dunno, but I'd say a normal mafia game should take less played game experience than a flavored one.

Like say... IC status to run a flavored mini.

[superstring91]

so are we defining "regular" mini as
choose from list of roles
no flavor at all.
?

if flavor is just role names, i dont think IC status should be required to run a flavored mini.

[IH]

I think it's role names and flavor in a closed setup, because it adds in that extra thing of outguessing the mod.

[Thestatusquo]

I think this whole discussion, as you could probably have guessed from my last comment is preposterous. If it ain't broke, then don't fucking fix it. There is nothing at all wrong with the way games are set up/ divided now. The rules should just be changed to reflect what has been going on for EVER, and that should be that. I think an overwelming majority of people on this site would favor the term 'normal' allowing flavor. We should just do that, and all this will disapear.