Inexperienced Religious Figure (Idle Thoughts)

[Frank]

Welcome to the game; you are the Inexperienced Religious Figure

ALIGNMENT: Town
GENERIC: Investigator
WIN CONDITION: All Scum and malicious third-parties (if any) have been vanquished.

BACKGROUND:

You have come here fresh out of religious training, young and idealistic and bursting with faith in a denominationally-nonspecific higher being. Some years ago, your mentor, an Older Religious Figure Having a Crisis of Faith, came to this cabin to do battle with the last set of monstrous Demons to plague central Michigan; the last you ever heard from him was the letter he left you informing you of his decision to go.

Well, if the Demons have returned, you have total confidence in your ability to pick up the sword left behind by your former teacher, and stand against the dark tide that is coming. Let monsters come what may: you will face them with unshakable sense of purpose, iron will, and tremendous physical bravery. They will cower at your coming.

Oh, and if you touch a Demon, you'll die.

Good luck!

POWERS:
1. The power of a denominationally-nonspecific higher being flows through you. Once per Night, you may lay your hands upon another player, and allow this power to flow into them. If they are not a Deadite from the bowels of Hell, nothing at all will happen.

If they are a Deadite of any variety, they will be permanently and divinely marked with a heavenly sign upon their brow, visible to all, indicating that the player you touch is a Deadite. Unfortunately, in leaving the sign, you will be consumed by the heavenly flames that etch this sign, and die. No Deadite is immune to this ability. We offer no assurances that all your enemies are, in fact, Deadites.

[sachertorte]

I've been having problems with this role, but I haven't been able to articulate why. Here are my points against this role as written, one nitpicky, one somewhat substantive.

(1) "heavenly sign upon their brow" does not adequately convey proper communication that this target needs to be lynched. If anything the sign should be the sign of the devil, otherwise it could be construed as a confirmed town.

(2) This role, as written, has too strong an anti-Town component. The two effects (dead Town Power role and marked scum) is a net negative for the town. Town LOSES a player (half a mislynch), all they gain is a positive ID, which is worth less than half a mislynch in my opinion. While Town will be able to act on that information, they still have to use a lynch to do so. At best it is an even exchange, BUT! the dead Townie comes first.
Imagine a situation near endgame where Town is at or near lynch or lose. It is possible for the Religious Figure to target correctly, die, and because he targeted correctly, lose the game. I have trouble with this. Either both the Religious Figure and scum should live, or both should die. Having the Townie die and the scum live is too pro-scum.

[Frank]

Sept 27, 2010 9:31:19 GMT -5 sachertorte said:

I've been having problems with this role, but I haven't been able to articulate why. Here are my points against this role as written, one nitpicky, one somewhat substantive.

(1) "heavenly sign upon their brow" does not adequately convey proper communication that this target needs to be lynched. If anything the sign should be the sign of the devil, otherwise it could be construed as a confirmed town.

(2) This role, as written, has too strong an anti-Town component. The two effects (dead Town Power role and marked scum) is a net negative for the town. Town LOSES a player (half a mislynch), all they gain is a positive ID, which is worth less than half a mislynch in my opinion. While Town will be able to act on that information, they still have to use a lynch to do so. At best it is an even exchange, BUT! the dead Townie comes first.
Imagine a situation near endgame where Town is at or near lynch or lose. It is possible for the Religious Figure to target correctly, die, and because he targeted correctly, lose the game. I have trouble with this. Either both the Religious Figure and scum should live, or both should die. Having the Townie die and the scum live is too pro-scum.

I see what you're saying, but I disagree with it, I think. Ultimately, the point of this role should be to avoid targeting Scum if at all possible. It's the extreme case of the meme that says that the goal of the investigator is to confirm Town, not necessarily to find Scum. Well, here's an investigator that is pretty good at confirming Town, but it can find only a single Scum, and at a high cost, at that.

It would be a crappy role with which to saddle the Town if it were the only investigative role, but given that Town has multiple other abilities and powers that are investigative in nature, I don't think it's all that bad.

I guess I could be convinced to compromise as follows:

If the Figure touches a Demon, (s)he will lose his/her powers entirely. Thus the Figure can only ever find one Scum, but doesn't actually die if (s)he does. What think?

[sachertorte]

I see what you are saying, but what you describe is a very cumbersome way to play the role. My reading of the role was that the role is a one-time find scum role. The fact that the role can find Town is remarkably cumbersome. The role simply cannot convey this information without claiming, and if the role does not claim, then he/she runs the constant risk of investigating scum and instantly dying. To play the way you describe, the role must claim on Day Two. Maybe that is what you want, but I'm not sure.

I think losing the power is sufficient 'penalty' for finding scum. It is just that at lynch or lose, finding scum gives scum the win, which seems backwards to me. Death is a rather severe penalty.
Perhaps I am over-thinking it. I suppose if the game were balanced so that the insta-death of the Religious Figure was factored in as a given, then perhaps it is not so unbalanced. In other words, if Town is given an extra half mislynch due to the expected demise of the Religious Figure, then it would remain balanced... possibly an unsatisfactory end to the game, but balanced.