JacksonVirgo's Mini Normal Review, October 2020

[mastina]

Greetings this is an ego post since I’m at work

^
Would like to say that eyeballing this setup, it's quirky, but might be close to balanced, but will need to recheck later this weekend.

[mastina]

We talk and try to balance it.

In terms of this game: it's quirky to the point of risking being a themed game (the nrg's meant to balance things, but also has to judge Normalcy of making sure a Normal game fits within the guidelines expected of a Normal game, and this setup being heavily Doctor-centric risks skewing the line), but in my opinion, it's still passable as Normal, albeit a quirky Normal. (This, rather than the balance of the setup, though, is actually what I most want a second opinion on from Ircher, since I am aware that I am usually at the edge of the line in allowing things many reviewers would deem better for a theme game.)

In terms of balance, my gut reaction is slightly scumsided, but not strongly so. The scum have most of the information about the setup, knowing there's two town doctors and that there's a doctor enabler (they don't directly know the latter, but it is easily inferred by their enabler-finder), and the majority of the town's power is the two doctors who can be disabled, and might counterclaim each other, and might make the gunsmith suspicious of them due to mafia doctors being a common gunsmith false innocent (a fear which is in fact justified due to the mafia doctor).

These all give scum a very very very strong advantage.
But on the

other

hand, two town doctors if the scum don't kill the enabler allows for an infinite-heal loop and also gives incredibly strong kill-denial, as well as allowing for follow-the-cop in protecting the gunsmith and the rolecop. The rolecop in this game also is good at getting guilties and innocents, able to catch a mafia doctor who fails to claim that they are a doctor, able to clear the macho doctor enabler because scum are 99.99999% likely to not have a macho modifier, able to infer that the gunsmith is town from their odd/even synergy, and is able to infer that the enabler-finder is a scum role fairly easily (not to mention that the Informed goon is a guilty if the player hasn't claimed Informed since Informed town usually claim their info D1), if given even partial setup information.

However, these advantages rely on the town gaining and interpreting information correctly fairly early, which they are unlikely to do.

Basically, if the town play this well, it's hard for them to lose because scum have very little counterplay, but if the town doesn't play well and/or the scum do play well, then the scum can easily circumvent a vast majority of the town's power.

I'd call the game incredibly swingy off of that, and probably in the 55-57.5:42.5-45% scum:town range--not perfectly balanced, and very swingy, but passable as-is as a setup if you're okay with that.

But before giving this a /pass, I do want to hear from my secondary reviewer Ircher here for a second opinion on this.

[mastina]

Hmm, thinking about it:
A slight buff to the town would be swapping the even/odd on the investigatives.
An even-night investigative is likely to only get 1-2 investigations in; an odd-night investigative is likely to get 2-3 investigations in.

The gunsmith here getting more investigations helps the town a little (because there's still two guilties, albeit one false innocent and one false guilty), and the rolecop being later in gives the rolecop an extra day/night of roleclaims to better use the info come D3. (Basically, a rolecop is more likely to get better mileage from their role after there's more setup info available, and there will be more setup information available D3 than there would be on D2.)

That'd probably take it to the 52-55:45-48 scum:town range. Still swingy as fuck, but almost dead on the mark in terms of balance in my opinion.

But again, wanna hear Ircher's thoughts there.

[mastina]

That's the current edited setup, would it be better if the Maf doctor is removed and informed result is changed accordingly.

That'd both buff the gunsmith, making the setup less scumsided, and make the game be further from the "almost a theme" mark. So I'd say it'd be better, yes.

[mastina]

I need to see the role PMs, but the setup is good to me, yes.

[mastina]

Just need the result PMs from the gunsmith, rolecop, and enabler-finder now.

[mastina]

Even though it's not possible given the setup, can I see the "no result" pms?
Also, can I see what you plan to put in the "your target is an [x]", exactly?

Small things, but necessary to make sure there's no errors.

[mastina]

I think Informed Vanilla is fine--it'd be that or just "Informed", but both are technically accurate I think.
You also need the macho doctor, odd-night gunsmith, and enabler-finder results for the rolecop.

[mastina]

/pass!