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Foolishness
United States3044 Posts
On April 23 2012 13:38 GreYMisT wrote:
I agree with GMarshal. I think that these guidelines need to be roughly followed, but that the balancing commitee needs to make the ultimate decisions.
The problem is is that leads to unpleasant debate that I have between the hosts of them arguing that their mechanic is normal and me arguing that it is not. And these arguments never get anywhere cause neither side will budge and I ultimately can't do anything without saying, "okay you're going to listen to me or else". And I want to avoid using that line as much as possible. There is way too much grey area to account for. I can't check every setup for every game without spending a ridiculous amount of time that I don't have.
Radfield has put in standards for the newbie games, there's no reason to not extend that to our normal games. Themed games can handle the rest.
On April 23 2012 13:39 Mr. Wiggles wrote:
What was the reasoning for removing bodyguards from the list of normal mechanics? I can see if there's some argument for why we should find other ways of doing things, like what Ace is saying, but I would consider them "normal" for TL mafia.
I would maybe argue sanities can have a place in normal games, but I don't think that's a huge loss, so I don't see a reason to. Same goes for things like weak medics and cops. I could see them in a normal game, but it's not like they have to be, depending on how we redefine 'normal'.
However, what was the reasoning for removing double lynches? I think they serve a role in adding an extra dynamic into the game, and another layer of discussion. They aren't overly complicated, and they open up more avenues of play for town and scum.
Next, what is your opinion on mafia variants of town roles? For example, mafia vigilantes, role cops, etc.
Last, what voting systems are considered normal? Only majority and plurality? Or would instant majority be considered normal as well?
Ace gave the reasoning why Bodyguards are a big headache. From a balance perspective they are not any better. Think of how good the Rockstar role is. Voting for Mayor is essentially giving someone that Rockstar role.
Double lynches add that nice dynamic, but all too frequently derail discussion. They also promote the "carpet bombing" style of lynching, where you just kill off all the offenders at once in the hopes (or knowing) you got at least one mafia dead. In a way a double lynch promotes the "lynch for information" since inflation decreases the value of each lynch, thus people won't think things through all the way.
Mafia variants on town roles is definitely something that we could add to the list if enough people agree. This was probably the thing on the list we are most lenient to changing. Personally I have nothing wrong with mafia vigi's or role cops, as they stop silly roleclaimers from thinking they are confirmed.
Majority and Plurality yes. I'm going to say no for instant majority unless people come in and say otherwise.
On April 23 2012 14:14 Kurumi wrote:
Since any pm mechanic is okay, would my mute mechanic from the last normal be ok?
Going to say no. Though it's never been tried outside your game (as far as I can remember). If you think it should be included give a detailed description of what you mean here so people know what you're talking about.
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Will there also be changes in the ratio of games? I know that there should always be one newbie game running and/or taking signups, but should we expect such normal comes running alongside themed games, or if there is only ever one non-newbie game running at a time, should we expect normal and themed games in roughly equal numbers?
If normal games are going to be standardized, I'd personally like to see more themed games, or maybe a higher number of smaller themed games running simultaneously, interspersed with larger normal games. I love what the hosts here do with setups, and I would hate to see that level of creative independence diminished.
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Foolishness
United States3044 Posts
On April 23 2012 14:48 MidnightGladius wrote:
Will there also be changes in the ratio of games? I know that there should always be one newbie game running and/or taking signups, but should we expect such normal comes running alongside themed games, or if there is only ever one non-newbie game running at a time, should we expect normal and themed games in roughly equal numbers?
If normal games are going to be standardized, I'd personally like to see more themed games, or maybe a higher number of smaller themed games running simultaneously, interspersed with larger normal games. I love what the hosts here do with setups, and I would hate to see that level of creative independence diminished.
This has to do with the setups, not so much the queue.
Probably going to keep the same strategy of altering back and forth. However, by seemingly popular demand, I think we're going to try to revert back to choices for games and see how that pans out. What I mean is that we will have multiple games up and taking signups at once, instead of just having once game taking signups and forcing players to either sign up for that game or just wait for the next one. I am going to start doing this right away; a few hosts have been really busy lately so we had to jumble the queue around a bit (hence why Kurumi's game is up right now).
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Fixing the normal game definition like this is bad for creative and reasonable setups. Foolishness is trying to make a rigid list in order to stop the headache of having to debate with hosts each time about whether a game is "normal" or not. While it certainly does seem that the player sentiment is that we should host more normal games, I still think people like variety. Variety takes many forms, and doesn't have to go to the extremes of a "themed" setup.
We know from polls and all that there is a demand for normal games. What we don't know is how people choose to define "normal". The current proposal offers a definition of normal and tries to solidify it. However, I think that the definition of "normal" has never been strictly defined in TL Mafia. Yet we still throw around the word as if it is defined. The problem is that it has a different meaning for many people. But the word can't be defined objectively, so it doesn't make sense to create objective boundaries for it.
The TL Mafia "normal" game is not a static collection of elements. On the contrary, the composition of these elements has changed many times over the course of TL Mafia history. Why is this the case? The answer is that the current 1-twist system actually works, and has allowed for variety, creativity, and experimentation. This has been a reasonable solution because it keeps games grounded in traditional roles while allowing hosts to experiment with 1 new idea. Sometimes, this idea has gained traction and has become more mainstream. Other times, it just dies off after 1 use. But by acknowledging the distinction, we keep allow games to evolve incrementally while keeping them rooted in the traditional mechanics.
The proposed system imposes a rigid structure that will stop this evolution and result in stale, boring setups. Many setups like Closed Casket, JubJub, and others are reasonable setups that would be disallowed under the proposed definition. Add in the fact that you're likely going to have to impose limits on how many of each role you can have (because I'm fairly certain Foolishness won't want a 15 vig game even though it only uses the roles listed here) and this makes even less sense.
The problem of creating a rigid system for normal games is that the line has to be drawn somewhere. If its drawn too close to the traditional roles, we lose out on a bunch of potentially interesting but reasonable setups. If we draw it too far out, hosts abuse the system and include a bunch of fringe roles while neglecting the traditional roles. In order to combat the second scenario, you could screen games like you do now. But if you do that, you introduce some form of arbitrary decision making that Foolishness wants to avoid. So in both cases, the outcome is distasteful for either hosts or players. In essence, the key difference between the current 1-twist system and the proposed system is that the proposed system weighs all roles equally in a binary fashion, i.e., they are either allowable, or not. On the other hand, the 1-twist system acknowledges a distinction between novel ideas and traditional roles and seeks to balance both.
In any case, if we are discussing what is a normal game, we might as well discuss what is a themed game. The key difference between normal and themed games is expectation. In normal games, you may be thrown a curve ball, but that curve ball is defined in an otherwise familiar environment. You know the interactions between the traditional roles, and you are trying to figure out how a new role integrates into that environment (even in a closed setup, you generally have an idea that the roles revolve around the traditional aspects of killing, information, protection, etc.). However, in the themed game, you expect that the game is going to be crazy. There are many new elements to consider, and you have no idea if the usual methods actually hold true. And since these games are more wild, you don't take the game as seriously. And that is the essential difference between normal and themed games. As long as we can ensure that normal games retain the traditional context, we can include a twist for variety.
Yes, there is an element of arbitrariness to what is considered an acceptable twist, but that is a price that needs to be paid in order to have variety. My suggestion is just to use the system we have now, with more transparency. Although people do post ideas in the thread, it seems as if the actual discussions occur in PMs, which means of course nothing ever gets done. As long as we get away from a jumbled up network of private communications and establish a system that allows for open discussion and flexible decision making, we can still handle the current system. This discussion was initiated because Foolishness doesn't want to deal with arguing with hosts about if a setup is "normal" or not. But really, the solution isn't to make a separate rule structure to deal with that issue. It makes more sense just to open up the discussion and stop taking the burden for running this whole place.
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The mute mechanic was pretty easy : everyone can pm unless they have a trait "mute" which lets them receive and read pms , but not write them. Some roles could become muted or mute depending on actions. The example from last game is roleblocker , who muted in addition to roleblock. The two bullet vigilante would lose his role and become muted upon a townie hit. There was no way for players to tell if someone is mute or not, because these people weren't confirmed by host in any way. This let scum to fake such condition(they could also be mute). If I remember correctly I banned ciphers in this game to prevent people from working around being muted. Muted mafia could contact their partners.
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United States2186 Posts
We must fight the mighty forces of bureaucracy, lest it take us over! Comrades Foolishness and Qatol have already fallen. We must not let their sacrifice be in vain! We shall challenge the might of the evil bureacracy in my upcoming game,Bureaucracy Mafia: The Town Strikes back!
I agree with gmarshal here. If people aren't satisfied with decisions to deny certain aspects of a game, they can bring it out to everyone. I also dislike the amount of closed doors negotiating and preference for quiet and easy solutions over hammered out, open, and satisfactory ones. That's what spawn monstrosities like this thread.
People want to keep playing mafia games because every game is unique in its own way, but if all normal games are almost virtual clones of each other, it will gradually strip the fun out of it; both for hosting and playing. Over time through experimentation we've figured out lots of interesting ideas to enhance play and give people chances to create new plots ingame. Removing that possibility for the future so everybody can feel content is silly and regressive.
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I think it's fine. Some people may just want to play a standard game of Mafia where the game is exclusively played based on thread analysis rather than convoluted blues and set-up guessing.
I think we should change the queue though to perhaps give one of the Normal game slots to a Themed game.
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Personally I'm fine with normal games being allowed one or two small twists. However, recently there has been a gaping hole where the normals should be. Even some of the games that are labeled normal have more than one or two twists, and sometimes these twists are major.
Basically the problem I have with the current system is that too many themed games are being hosted. I actually don't think that the expected answer to the question "what is a normal game?" is off by any means currently. I just think not enough normals are being hosted in comparison to themed games.
For example, if you looked at the queue a couple days ago, you'd have seen two normals there, and like 6 or 7 themed games. That's a huge discrepancy especially when the polls I ran about a month ago showed that normals and themed games were being demanded almost completely evenly.
EDIT: And this is a host problem, IMO, not necessarily a queue or definition problem. Hosts just don't like making normal setups for whatever reason, be it that they may be "boring" or whatever.
If that's the case then the solution might lie along the lines of what we did with newbie games.
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This shouldn't surprise anyone, but I'm against this.
My game essentially caused this thread, but we can't talk about my game until its over. So I have nothing to say other than i'm against this.
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Here is what I'd say is a normal game,
NO over the top special roles(0.5 kp, blah blah)
Easy roles to understand
No funky mechanics (Gmarshals "delay" mechanic is acceptable as its just no kill one night then 2 kp the next night.
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I know I'm not a host or anything. Not sure if this is the place to state this but;
I think there should be a rule against voting for yourself.
At least in Normal games and Newbie games. Why? Cause in these types of games where there is no village idiot. It is completely playing against your wincon. Even if its scum vs scum, you should be able to find ways to sway on keeping which scum you want alive, rather than voting for yourself. Same with Vanilla vs Blue, you should be able to sway people with logic, rather than push it over the edge for voting yourself.
Also it always pisses me off when people do it. I see that in the rules right now it specifically says You can vote for yourself. I would like an explanation for why this is allowed?
Maybe I should post this in TL Mafia OP. But this place seems to be discussion for Normals and Newbies basically.
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
On April 23 2012 14:20 Foolishness wrote:
Mafia variants on town roles is definitely something that we could add to the list if enough people agree. This was probably the thing on the list we are most lenient to changing. Personally I have nothing wrong with mafia vigi's or role cops, as they stop silly roleclaimers from thinking they are confirmed.
I definitely agree with this. I don't see why a mafia rolecop or vigi wouldn't be considered 'normal'. Everyone understands it, it's kinda cool.
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I know I haven't been here long enough to know about all the variety the gamehosts come up with, but it seems like casting games in such a strict mold will cause many games to be rather similar. A game like GoT mafia is a "normal" game imho: it had a completely normal mafia faction and a normal town faction. The only weird mechanic was the Littlefinger role. This falls in the 1-twist definition of normal, but using this definition is not included.
Also, the loss of framers and sanities means DT checks are 100% reliable, which seems quite boring (basically all the town has to do is decide whether the DT claim is believable or not).
@mementoss: why not allow players to "martyr" themselves? It seems like a perfectly good mechanic. Townies' wincon is not to "not die", it's to "kill mafia". If the lynch is between two people and one is convinced the other is town and a better player, he should be able to vote for himself. I don't LIKE that style of playing, but forbidding it seems like it's going too far.
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The part about DTs is false. Even if you eliminated framers and sanities there are still millers and godfathers.
However I don't agree that framers aren't normal (quite frankly they're barely different from and arguably better than godfathers)
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United States22154 Posts
On April 23 2012 17:45 iGrok wrote:
This shouldn't surprise anyone, but I'm against this.
My game essentially caused this thread, but we can't talk about my game until its over. So I have nothing to say other than i'm against this.
Hate to tell you, but your game didn't exactly cause this thread, the "unnormal" normal game issue has been an ongoing issue.
Anyway, more arguing when your game finishes if you so desire :-P
On April 23 2012 17:26 wherebugsgo wrote:
Personally I'm fine with normal games being allowed one or two small twists. However, recently there has been a gaping hole where the normals should be. Even some of the games that are labeled normal have more than one or two twists, and sometimes these twists are major.
Basically the problem I have with the current system is that too many themed games are being hosted. I actually don't think that the expected answer to the question "what is a normal game?" is off by any means currently. I just think not enough normals are being hosted in comparison to themed games.
For example, if you looked at the queue a couple days ago, you'd have seen two normals there, and like 6 or 7 themed games. That's a huge discrepancy especially when the polls I ran about a month ago showed that normals and themed games were being demanded almost completely evenly.
EDIT: And this is a host problem, IMO, not necessarily a queue or definition problem. Hosts just don't like making normal setups for whatever reason, be it that they may be "boring" or whatever.
If that's the case then the solution might lie along the lines of what we did with newbie games.
The thing is, Normal Games are being hosted at the same rate as themes, even if we have fewer hosts, we just cycle them, the real issue is when a game that sells itself as normal is really not, and makes players play with uncomfortable mechanics or not at all. (E.G. Zona's Steamship)
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On April 23 2012 17:45 iGrok wrote:
This shouldn't surprise anyone, but I'm against this.
My game essentially caused this thread, but we can't talk about my game until its over. So I have nothing to say other than i'm against this.
I probably misread it but outside of Death Miller your game is what I would consider normal.
On April 23 2012 20:58 Mementoss wrote:
I know I'm not a host or anything. Not sure if this is the place to state this but;
I think there should be a rule against voting for yourself.
At least in Normal games and Newbie games. Why? Cause in these types of games where there is no village idiot. It is completely playing against your wincon. Even if its scum vs scum, you should be able to find ways to sway on keeping which scum you want alive, rather than voting for yourself. Same with Vanilla vs Blue, you should be able to sway people with logic, rather than push it over the edge for voting yourself.
Also it always pisses me off when people do it. I see that in the rules right now it specifically says You can vote for yourself. I would like an explanation for why this is allowed?
Maybe I should post this in TL Mafia OP. But this place seems to be discussion for Normals and Newbies basically.
It is somewhat playing against your win con, but sometimes players get frustrated and just want to kill themselves (in Majority Lynch) and this works. Roles like that shitty Mad Hatter also get stronger if they can lynch themselves. When Scum know they are clearly going to be lynched, they just self vote and get killed to stop all discussion.
Of course since we can't lock threads, everyone still talks during the after lynch phase in the thread. So this doesn't always work out so well 
Speaking of Mad Hatters they should only blow other players up by getting lynched. Placing bombs and self detonating, or dying by NK and still killing a bunch of people is ridiculous.
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On April 23 2012 22:10 Ace wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2012 17:45 iGrok wrote:
This shouldn't surprise anyone, but I'm against this.
My game essentially caused this thread, but we can't talk about my game until its over. So I have nothing to say other than i'm against this. I probably misread it but outside of Death Miller your game is what I would consider normal. Show nested quote +On April 23 2012 20:58 Mementoss wrote:
I know I'm not a host or anything. Not sure if this is the place to state this but;
I think there should be a rule against voting for yourself.
At least in Normal games and Newbie games. Why? Cause in these types of games where there is no village idiot. It is completely playing against your wincon. Even if its scum vs scum, you should be able to find ways to sway on keeping which scum you want alive, rather than voting for yourself. Same with Vanilla vs Blue, you should be able to sway people with logic, rather than push it over the edge for voting yourself.
Also it always pisses me off when people do it. I see that in the rules right now it specifically says You can vote for yourself. I would like an explanation for why this is allowed?
Maybe I should post this in TL Mafia OP. But this place seems to be discussion for Normals and Newbies basically. It is somewhat playing against your win con, but sometimes players get frustrated and just want to kill themselves (in Majority Lynch) and this works. Roles like that shitty Mad Hatter also get stronger if they can lynch themselves. When Scum know they are clearly going to be lynched, they just self vote and get killed to stop all discussion. Of course since we can't lock threads, everyone still talks during the after lynch phase in the thread. So this doesn't always work out so well Speaking of Mad Hatters they should only blow other players up by getting lynched. Placing bombs and self detonating, or dying by NK and still killing a bunch of people is ridiculous.
So basically a Village Idiot who kills people and doesn't win?
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so call me old fashioned but i think that a mad hatter shouldn't be included in normal setups. I think normal games should be basic straight up games based minimally around power roles. Leave those games to the themes IMO
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Also as an addendum I think many hosts have gotten away from Normals where there are very few power roles and a lot of Vanilla Town. With lots of Vanilla, few PRs and the chance of Mafia killing anyone they need to with 1 KP and few protective roles the skill of the players usually has to be high for the game to be enjoyable.
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On April 23 2012 22:48 Ace wrote:
Also as an addendum I think many hosts have gotten away from Normals where there are very few power roles and a lot of Vanilla Town. With lots of Vanilla, few PRs and the chance of Mafia killing anyone they need to with 1 KP and few protective roles the skill of the players usually has to be high for the game to be enjoyable.
You and I both think DMs are normal, but you'd be surprised just how much backroom arguing there was.
Re: Low PR #s: Ive got 3/16 (not giving anything away here). The solution is clearly have me host all the games because my setups are best :p.
I had to completely ignore two seasoned vets on the balance team to run my game. Thats not a decision I made lightly. Ultimately though, I decided what was best, cleared it with Foolishness, and ran it. As long as behavior doesn't ruin and at least 4-5 players play competently, it should be a very good game by current standards (but thats a topic for another thread).
That being said, I don't really care. I think its bad to have strict rules. I also think its bad that a host can just overrule the balance team. I don't have a solution to the issue or a way to unify the problems. What I do know (and this may sound a little egotistical but whatever) is that my games consistently are very highly regarded (aside from one bastard game) and its ridiculous that I had to fight to run a normal game.
Eh, fuck it. Its spilling out, may as well post the whole thing.
This os my last game for the forseeable future, hence my not caring. There's a lot of reasons why, but basically i'm sick of the godawful play on TL. Its so bad I asked foolishness to let me run a 25 man all townie game, where I kill off whoever was the most BM at night. Modern TL towns have changed strategies from hunting scum to provoking everyone and looking for any slips. I don't mind if 1-2 players play protagonist, they get the game going. But its a community-wide mindset now. 90% of players act this way. New players pick up the bad habits. Games essentially turn into who can shit on the other guy the loudest, and actual scumhunting gets ignored.
Now, there are a couple players who don't follow this trend. But from a hosting perspective, its not worth the time and effort (and I put more time and effort into hosting than most players playing the game) to host a terrible game. So this is my last one.
To LIII players: consider this your last warning. I'm going to start enforcing no warning instant modkill for bad behavior. You've already had several warnings. My patience is GONE. Shape up.
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EPT![[image loading]](/staff/Ver/misc/bureaucrat.jpg)
