So, post-mortem time.
Overall, this went mostly well from my end of things. I mean, everybody had a good time so there's the real bar, but a few things didn't work out as well as I would've liked or I could've done differently. So we'll go over that too.
Just as a broad stroke deal, big start of game making/balance is scum count. Gotta account for how powerful you're making the scum/town, and if you're splitting the anti-townies into having a maf and an SK, but my rule of thumb is to stay between a quarter and a third. Better to aim low. There's some fuzziness to that rule, though. For example, we were slightly under a 25% here, but it was still easily the right call. 2/9 meant that the earliest Lylo could happen would be Day 3. That's good. At 3/9 scum? Day 2. That's bad. So 2 scum, 7 town was my framework, and you build from there.
Tirin, you are Tirin, the Violent Incumbent!
You are Anti-Town
Teal Rage: Your Nightkill will become stronger based on how many lynches are on you at the end of day. Minimum 1 Lynch to qualify.
-1 from Hammer: All Of The Above
-2 from Hammer: Your Kill Is Unblockable
-3 from Hammer: Your Kill is Undetectable
-4 from Hammer: You Appear Innocent to Inspections
If you wish, you can exchange a higher power for a lower one. And so long as you live, you will perform the mafia's nightkill.
When I said I had a lot of role ideas brainstormed, I wasn't kidding. That said, the Tirin role was always gonna be that once I came up with it (though I did a lot of workshopping), but I initially planned for it to be a Serial Killer role. If the game was big enough there'd be a Wolfy role that would be an SK-aligned traitor. Didn't get that big, though. Game warranted a 2 man mafia, and since I really liked this role I just slotted it in there. Worked well enough. Favorite part of this role is that, while it can get real damn powerful, it's pretty self-balancing. In order for the scum to get more powerful, they have to get closer to being lynched. Shame it was never really useful.
You are Jeroth, Everybody's Second Favorite Candidate!
You are Pro-Town.
Social Butterfly: As one of the more popular forumers, you know everybody and can get a good read on them. Every night, you can investigate a player in one of three different ways: 1) See Who They're Playing As. 2) See what (if any) role power they used that night. 3) See if they're Scum or Town.
-You can only use one of these powers per night, and cannot use it again until you have used all three.
Well, He Did Win After All: Because everybody likes you so much, it takes one more vote than usual to lynch you. Does not apply in Lylo situations.
The Jeroth role was a fun one too. The +1 vote to lynch thing was something I knew may blow up in town confusion at some point (I would've posted and told the town that hammer had not been reached yet), but the dude won the real election. Had to get some sort of bonus from it. One of my other ideas was for him to have the Survivor role, where his sole goal was to live to the end. If he did that he won the election, and everybody else lost.
But as for the role itself, Cop had a 1-shot of each investigation. Alignment Check, Flavor Check, and Role Check. After three nights they refresh, if the game managed to get that far via a no-lynch or kill failure, but it was functionally one of each. Role Check is fundamentally the most powerful, as it can bust a fakeclaim and (unless a game is designed for it, which this wasn't) it's a pretty decent alignment check. Sure, Roleblocker can go either way, and Maf/Vig confusion is fun, but it's a damn potent tool and so I really wasn't surprised that TC ignored it. Again, this game was
not built to be balanced with a Role Cop, so it being a one-off was important to game balance. If you want to use a Role Cop in full, then you'll need to kit out the game to account for it. I think the scumwiki has some notes on it, but basically you need
some ambiguity as to what alignment the role could refer to. Flavor Cop's power fluctuates with the game. If there's no real way to tell alignment from name, then it's only good for beating fakeclaims. If there's a clear good guy/bad guy split to be had, then flavor cop is second most powerful here as it beats fake claims and gives alignment. This game was something in the middle.
Flavored Role Madness games often get to a point of mass roleclaiming, and I knew I was declaring open season for one. I planned accordingly, with this being one of the checks in the town's favor.
Bob, you are TC, the Criminal Candidate!
You are Anti-Town
Renowned Bamboozler: As an infamous and unrepentant Bamboozler, you can bamboozle people at night and redirect somebody's night action to target somebody else! And they won't even know!
Just a bog standard witch role here. I do love me some targeting fuckery roles. Keep in mind that these roles are intrinsically anti-town. Like, even if you toss a pro-town alignment on them, the confusion they cause is usually not in the town's favor. And that's because the role's mere
existence casts doubt on all investigations. It's why I needed a tracker in the game; a tracker (and watcher) are soft checks on a witch's power. It also poses a threat to townies who roleclaim. Oh, you claimed Vig? Thanks for the free second night kill. Doctor, you say? Why we'll gladly take protection from any SK's or other killing roles out there while being sure our targets won't have a heal awaiting them. I love the potential for havoc this role can bring, but you gotta be careful with the balance. Singularly powerful roles can be a doozy. Of course, maf only got one night of use out of it, but funny enough it still saved the nightkill for them.
Aside from the things I listed in the prior post, one of the TC ideas that I left out, but kinda wish I didn't, was to not have Blooky in the game. The TC role would then know that Blooky wasn't playing, and that she would be available as a fake claim instead of Tirin, Dunsparce, Wilger, or whoever the maf pairing was. Decided against it, as I figured I had enough tricks in here already, but I still kinda wish I found a way.
It would've been decently powerful. When you're maf and the claims start flying, you'll eventually find yourself having to make a choice. Either fake a counter-claim, or claim a new role, with both being pretty risky. The first is obviously so. Locks in the day phase as a 1v1 between you and the other person, you have to be seemingly quick on the draw to be believable, and even if you survive the day you'll be proven scum to the town. Or there's three cops in the game and the GM is a bastard. Meanwhile, if you're making up a new role, then at the end of the day the town just has to look around and figure out which is the least believable/most obscure character claimed. Mafia can't fake claim a prominent character because presumably that character will already be a role, and at that point you're just back in scenario 1. While, in this case, Blooky could conceivably be a scumpartner, overall the concept gives a huge hand to the mafia by giving one of them a "safe" roleclaim.
Dunsparce, you are Coolpool, the Unwilling Candidate!
You are Pro-Town.
I'm Not Running!: Despite your best efforts, there is a write-in campaign supporting you and nothing you're doing is stopping it. While you also want the bad guys to go down, you really want to get eliminated so people stop trying to vote for you.
One of the ways to balance a game towards maf without directly empowering them is to fuck with the day phase. This is something I did a fair bit with, and a jester was definitely one of those things. Obviously, this didn't work as intended. The intention was for Dunsparce to get himself offed, preferably ended by him lynching himself for the hammer, and then SURPRISE! Coolpool can't get out of the election no matter how much he wants and is deathless. Not getting to do that is 100% biggest disappointment of this entire game. For shame, Dunsparce. For shame. Also, shame on Tirin for
almost killing Dunsparce on the final night but swapping to Andy.
Seriously, when the RNG spat Dunsparce out, I figured that it this was a shoo-in. NOPE. Guess not. While mentioning the RNG, I'll cop to the fact that (while this did not happen), I was prepared to press my thumb on the scales with this role. It's a Jester. I wasn't gonna let Bob get it (unfun way to have to play your first game), and I wasn't gonna give it to Ro (practice for the competition). Both of these are reasonable, and if either of them got it I would've just RNG'd to see who they swapped with.
The deathless bit is the only reason I gave it a pro-town designation, because otherwise the issues are obvious. Typically a pro-town Jester is an oxymoron, as the idea of getting yourself lynched is detrimental to the town by wasting a day phase for them. It's a shitty role anyhow, unless you attach a "go out with a bang" fun bit to it after the jester gets lynched. Then the jester can get some sort of schadenfreude out of the deal.
An alternative for Coolpool was to reframe the game. He'd be the pro-town mafia, and all the other roles would be filthy lesser candidates. Never figured out exactly how I'd portray that, but it would've been fun to watch the town figure it out. Would even beat the massclaim issue, because who would ever think that
Coolpool was the mafia?
Jeroth, you are Walrus, the Saved Lunatic.
You are Pro-Town
Walrus The Great And Powerful: As the (purely self-proclaimed) hero of the forums, you're ready to strike into action and save the day! You will replace the first power-role to die because you are Walrus and you can do anything.
Secret Triggered Mechanic: In efforts to protect your target, you shutter them in their homes and stop them from getting out.
So, remember how you all were confused about who was doing the roleblocking? Jeroth. Jeroth was doing the roleblocking. Although, to be fair, he didn't realize it either.
This is one of the real curveballs I decided to throw in. If this was vanilla the town would be too powerful, so this being hidden mitigates that by introducing confusion. In retrospect, perhaps I could've made the mechanic reveal itself upon death (though again, not letting the player know while alive), but I think it works either way. Just makes it a bit less harmful if the town can be told about it mid-game. Worth saying that the Role Cop would also come in handy here, as it'd recognize the Roleblocking. Funny enough, this almost stopped the first nightkill. Jeroth chose to "protect" Tirin, and thus blocked the nightkill... until they had Bob redirect him into himself. Would've been fun to see where that wound up. The town would've been spared Ro's death, but it would give some suggestion that Tirin was innocent. Also stopped TC from confirming that Tirin had the Tirin role, but I don't think that would've helped much.
This is definite bastardry here. So be careful if you're gonna play with hidden mechanics like this in your game. But seriously, it's the
Walrus role. Did you really think I wouldn't fuck with it? Come on.
Anatron, you are Zircom, the Fuck Dunsparce Candidate
You are Pro-Town.
Seriously, Fuck Dunsparce: While you do want those asshole anti-townies to stop, you really want Dunsparce to die too. So you're gonna try to get rid of that bastard.
I'm Not Kidding, Fuck Dunsparce: You're so dedicated to wanting to eliminate Dunsparce, that once in the entire game you can try and kill somebody. Hopefully it's Dunsparce.
Ah, and here's the doozy. If I had to go back and re-make this game, this would be the role I change. I love the idea of the Lyncher. Adds a fun dynamic to the day by giving somebody a target they have to kill... the problem is I don't recall it ever working that great. Finding the right way to crack it is just hard.
First issue is getting them to figure out what player they're going for. Kinda tough. Not giving them the player name outright is one way, and the player has to figure out who their target is via hints and roleclaims... or hope they die on their own. This is what I went for, anticipating some real roleclaiming going on, and I feel eh about that choice. Other way is to tell them outright who it is. This is easily the most disruptive, and also gives the town pseudo-investigatory info by having one identity confirmed. The third way, which is probably what I'd try instead, is giving the lyncher the ability to investigate each night, but the only question is "is this person Dunsparce or not". Still pseudo-investigating, but less powerful. Can work well with a Role Cop game.
Oh, and then there's the 1-shot kill. The intent behind that was to give the lyncher an opportunity to kill their target if it was clear that lynching them during the day wasn't an option. I decided from the beginning that the shot would only work on the Dunsparce role... though I was probably gonna give it a 50/50 shot on Dunsparce the player. He was deathless, so it wouldn't be a big deal. While this worked against the town in this case (Anatron tried to kill Tirin), it also could work in
favor of the town by stopping him from killing somebody else. Keeping this a secret is something I may not do on a retry of the game, but ultimately I decided to do that 1) because I can't really tell him "I'll give you a 50/50 on Dunsparce if you shoot him", and 2) I decided I wanted that off chance of confusion. There being a doctor, a possible "backup", and a witch in the game could've helped cover that, but it still would've provoked some daytime confusion.
If I did this role again, I'd probably try the nightly investigation, and if the game balance permitted an auto-kill attempt (protect-able by a doctor) if the lyncher found their quarry.
Also,
@Anatronman when you asked if you could use it as a Daykill, I probably would've let it happen if you gunned down Dunsparce because jesus fuck did I want that Coolpool deathless reveal.
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So there you have it. Yeah, there was a bit of bastardry in the game, but it was intentional. If you look at the big picture, you see that power-wise the game has a townie tilt without it. My goal was to balance this with daytime confusion. You have a jester, a lyncher, a witch, and a false backup. Tirin's powerups also could've tossed in some puzzles if they were used. The flavor meant that there were several scum-compatable characters to deal with roleclaiming, plus the inclusion of a Shadow role eased things for fakeclaims (such as Wolfy or Rondait) by having another non-candidate role to either compete with or validate. Not only does this balance the game, but it also promotes daytime activity, something damn important. Gives you people stuff to talk about.
I built this game to have victory hinge on the day phase, as mafia games
should.
This game was set up so that the town could win so long as they were able to sift through the chaos (which they did), and the mafia could win if they could turn that confusion to their advantage (like make the town lynch the cop for some reason). It's a tough balance, but I'm damn happy with how it worked out.