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Post by Frank on Nov 4, 2009 14:48:35 GMT -5
TOTALS (20 players):
15 Town, including one potential PFK
4 Scum (possible recruitment)
1 Third-Party with No Alignment
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PRO-TOWN (Pro-Registration)
1. Iron Man (Anthony Stark): Starts game as confirmed Town. Sets and adjusts lynch threshold as long as he is alive via Night action (beginning Night 0). Cannot be recruited. No recruitment is possible at all while Stark is alive. If Stark dies, the power to set the threshold passes to She-Hulk. If She-Hulk dies or is recruited, the threshold is automatically set at one vote less than the number of votes required for a simple majority.
2. Penance (Robbie Baldwin): Doctor. Begins game with two protections, and is not limited to one protection per Night. May self-protect. If successful in a self-protection attempt, gains one additional protection. Also gains one additional protection for every FIVE votes on him that are active at the end of a game Day.
3. The Green Goblin (Norman Osborne): Inventor. Has a number of fun toys. Chooses which one to use or give out each Night. Caveat - cannot choose his own target. Target is chosen by an force whose identity and alignment are unknown to the Goblin. If his controller (Bishop) is killed, the Goblin may choose to become a third-party Serial Killer whose goal is to outlive every other player except one.
4. Bishop (Lucas Bishop): Chooses a target for the Goblin each Night. Knows the identity of the Goblin and his alignment.
5. Spider Man (Peter Parker): Tracker. Once per Night, can follow another player and determine who that player targeted and what he or she did. Will receive no result for passive powers. If targeted by any Night ability, Spider Sense allows him to evade this ability (whether it is positive or negative), but loses his Track for that Night (this latter ability functions only once per game). May choose to ignore Spider Sense to ensure tracking occurs.
6. Commander Maria Hill (No Alias): Once per game, may choose to either: (1) place a 72-hour (real-time) hold on a Day before a lynch may be executed; or (2) execute a lynch of the vote leader at any time, even if the required vote threshold has not been reached.
7. Deadpool (Wade Wilson): Will know if a recruitment attempt has been made, and if it is successful. Following a successful recruitment attempt, becomes a "recruit Cop," able to investigate players to determine whether their alignment has changed during the game (will also turn up positive reads on Bullseye and/or the Green Goblin, if the alignment of either has changed by the time of the investigation).
8. The Black Widow (Natasha Romanova): Alignment Cop. Can investigate one player on any Night following a Day in which she has at least two votes active on her at Dusk. If watched by Spider-Man when investigating, she will appear to be attempting a kill.
9. Lady Deathstrike (Yuriko Oyama): Vigilante. Each Night, has two options: (1) attempt a Night kill; or (2) target another player and watch them. If that player is attacked, Lady D will kill the attacker (the player in question will still die unless some other protective mechanism is in effect). Once she kills once by any means, can never kill again (even if recruited).
10. She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters): Politician - can cast an extra vote by PM to the moderator once per game. Also inherits Stark's ability to set the lynch threshold if he dies.
11. Justice (Vance Astrovik): Coroner: Once per Day and once per Night, investigates a dead player and learns the nature of that player's powers. On any Day or Night, may forego an investigation to record what he has learned to date; anything recorded is automatically revealed to the Town upon Justice's death.
12. Venom (Macdonald Gargan): May choose one target per game and permanently bond to him or her. If target is non-Scum, bond will take, revealing to target that Venom is also non-Scum. Thereafter, the two may choose one among them to be protected each Night and may talk at any time on a separate board, but if one dies, the other dies as well. If Venom chooses Scum as his initial target, Venom dies.
SCUM
1. Captain America: Godfather (turns up innocent if investigated by the Black Widow). Can protect any player, including self, from Night kills; ability is lost if triggered once. Finally, holds the ability to recruit another player - however, recruitment will be voluntary. Captain America will be given a chance to persuade the potential recruit to join the Scum.
NO ALIGNMENT
1. Bullseye (Name Unknown): Once per game, by Day or by Night, may execute one unblockable kill. Immediately assumes the alignment of the character he has killed. In the (unlikely) event that he kills The Goblin after the Goblin has become PFK, Bullseye becomes a Serial Killer with one Night kill per Night trying to be the last man standing (ie, he takes over the alignment of his victim no matter what it is). Loses if unaligned at death.
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Post by naf1138 on Nov 4, 2009 15:18:50 GMT -5
Well, obviously, Stark only prevents recruitment if there IS recruitment, but I like the idea, too. Like, Tony is a forceful personality, and as long as he's leading the way, no defection is possible. I don't think I'd make that public, but I'd tell Stark himself. I'd make setting the lynch threshold a Night action, basically, so Stark would do it and then I'd announce it in the opening color.
What happens if he dies is an open question. I had thought about having it pass from him to Reed Richards (sort of mirroring the hierarchy of the Pro-Registration group in the Civil War comics), but it becomes problematic in that unless it passes to a pro-Town person each time, it could break the game. For instance, if it ever passes to Scum, they could simply set the lynch threshold higher than it would be possible to achieve without their cooperation, refuse to cooperate, and freeze the game eternally. The same problem exists if the lynch requirement fades.
I guess the simplest option is to have the default become "simple majority" in case of Tony's death. This allows Tony to set the threshold higher in order to avoid speed lynches early but once he's dead, gives the Scum the power to speed lynch under the right circumstances. Does that work?
No, I don't think he should be un-Night-kill-able. The reason I said he can't self-protect is that I was worried he'd just claim Day One and get everyone to vote the living daylights out of him, thus allowing him to protect half the Town every Night. That'd be game breaking, I think. Maybe we give the Scum a one-shot Daykill or something, to avoid this, and allow him to self-protect at will? Or something?
One of Goblin's toys could be a device that allows the user to communicate with the Goblin, or that allows the Goblin to communicate with the user. If they're savvy, Goblin could drop a hint that Reed should target himself Night One, then use the communicator. Since Reed knows Goblin is Town, he'd do it. Of course, Goblin would have to trust his controller in order to do this, which he might not do since I'd be deliberately vague about whether his controller is on his side or not.
Well, there are a few options: 1) Goblin becomes vanilla - boring and unsupported by color; 2) Goblin gains the ability to control his own actions - this is probably the most logical approach from a color standpoint. Reed is controlling Goblin using nanites; with Reed gone, the "collar" on Goblin is gone. A few problems with this, though: if Goblin remains Town, this set-up would mean that Reed's death is basically a positive for Town, since it makes Goblin much more effective. We could turn Goblin into a PFK upon Reed's death, though. That could be VERY interesting. Actually, what do you think of that? If Reed dies and Goblin is alive, Goblin gains free use of his toys, but becomes a win-stealing PFK with a standard Serial Killer wincon.
Hmmm. I have only two hard-and-fast rules for this design: no post restrictions and absolutely no percentages or chances of failure. I don't want to ever generate a random number (other than randomizing roles... and I might not even want to do that). So that would eliminate the failure rate as a possibility. Since it's a small game, a lot of extra kills might be weird. One strange option would be to give her a Day kill that supersedes the lynch if she uses it. So if Lady D decides to kill, it means no Lynch for the Town. Using this power would be sort of anti-Town in a lot of situations. Crap, it would also make Lady D unlynchable. More thought needed here.
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I'll add another couple roles later tonight or tomorrow morning, but let me know what you think of my responses above.
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Post by Frank on Nov 4, 2009 19:38:14 GMT -5
CRAP! I accidentally just modified your post instead of adding my own! Sorry about that. I'm an idjit.
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Post by naf1138 on Nov 5, 2009 11:43:04 GMT -5
CRAP! I accidentally just modified your post instead of adding my own! Sorry about that. I'm an idjit. No worries. I know what I said. I don't think I'd make that public, but I'd tell Stark himself. I'd make setting the lynch threshold a Night action, basically, so Stark would do it and then I'd announce it in the opening color. What happens if he dies is an open question. I had thought about having it pass from him to Reed Richards (sort of mirroring the hierarchy of the Pro-Registration group in the Civil War comics), but it becomes problematic in that unless it passes to a pro-Town person each time, it could break the game. For instance, if it ever passes to Scum, they could simply set the lynch threshold higher than it would be possible to achieve without their cooperation, refuse to cooperate, and freeze the game eternally. The same problem exists if the lynch requirement fades. I guess the simplest option is to have the default become "simple majority" in case of Tony's death. This allows Tony to set the threshold higher in order to avoid speed lynches early but once he's dead, gives the Scum the power to speed lynch under the right circumstances. Does that work? I like it. My initial reaction is to say that if Stark dies the lynch should become one vote shy of majority, because that is more likely to have a real impact on the game than switching to simple majority would...but that could make things very hard for town in endgame and might boarder on unfair. So I think simple majority is probably best. He gains protects if he either gets votes or is attacked? How does that work if he is killable? I understand your concern about getting people to vote the living daylights out of him, I think that the solution to that is making sure that the number of votes he has to gain each Day is sufficiently high that scum could throw in an extra vote or two on a Day where the lynch threshold is low and "whoops, I didn't mean to just hammer the doctor!" Perfect. That's brilliant. I think that's great too. I think that Reed should probably know about this but that Goblin should not. What do you think? Too much of a lose lose all the way around if Reed dies? How about we give her a handful of one shots. A one shot Day kill, a one shot Night kill and a one shot protect (includes self protect), but she only gets to use 2 of the three powers. So she can either kill twice, or protect once and kill once. You could also layer on that if she protects and is sucessful she injures the attacker. Actually, I almost like the protect aspect best. Give her a protect, but make it a weak protect. She isn't a doc, she's a bodyguard. If a person is attacked with a killing power the attacker (and the target?) leave the situation alive but injured. The injury shows up in the color and both lose their vote for the Day? Too complicated? Yeah, probably too complicated, but I think something like that is probably right. Maybe just reflect the attack on the attacker and have that show in the opening color. If she protects an attack from the same person twice they die on the second time? |
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Post by Frank on Nov 5, 2009 15:26:25 GMT -5
OK, I've modified the role descriptions above according to our discussions, and added two additional Town roles and Bullseye, the no-alignment character we discussed. I like Commander Hill, because she has the ability to foil any single Scum attempt to game the system in either direction (for example, if the lynch threshold gets set too high to allow for a lynch because the Scum won't cooperate, Commander Hill can make it happen anyway. If the Scum try a speed lynch, Commander Hill can stop it). A badly played Commander Hill might try to prevent her own lynch if she's in trouble.
Spider Man might be a little too vanilla. What do you think?
Bullseye is fairly straightforward. I worry that, since he will become essentially vanilla if he kills Town and becomes Town, he will be strongly inclined to target Scum - and since the Scum will all have powers of their own, this means Bullseye will incline toward anti-Scum. Should Bullseye get a special ability based on his assumed alignment?
Regarding Lady Deathstrike: I think there are some cool ideas here. We could just make her a deathtrap - she chooses one player, herself included, and anyone who targets that player gets killed by Lady D. Then we could add a one-shot Day kill that she can use only in a situation where she has votes on her. Or something. Let's get the rest of the Pro-Town side arranged and balanced, and then fill in Lady D at the end.
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I have a few more role ideas, but not enough for 13 Town. Do you have any funky or interesting role ideas that you've been wanting to try out? I'm sure we could make almost anything fit the color of at least one pro-registration superhero.
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Post by Frank on Nov 6, 2009 12:01:49 GMT -5
Added Deadpool. The color will involve the idea that Deadpool has always been very meta-, and aware that he is in a comic book. I think he'll be aware that he's in a Mafia game, and thus attuned to the mechanics.
However, we could give this power to another player and give Deadpool something even more fun, if we can think of something suitably meta.
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Post by sachertorte on Nov 6, 2009 12:04:01 GMT -5
I don't see anything glaringly unbalanced so far, but with each additional role, there will be interactions that could be quite powerful.
For Bullseye, I'm having an internal debate about the playability. On one side I see bullseye playing neutral for as long as possible, then killing to join the team that is winning, but having to kill someone on the winning side to do so, thus injecting a form of dynamic balancing into the game. On the other hand, I'm not sure I like the idea of 'punishing' the winning side. Though I guess since bullseye joins the killed side, it isn't really that much of a punishment.
I think you should be clear that if bullseye dies before picking a side, he LOSES. That will at least put some pressure on picking a side earlier, rather than later. Also, if you don't make bullseye lose if unaligned, then you will have to figure something else out for alignment, which seems overly complicated to me.
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Post by Frank on Nov 6, 2009 12:06:24 GMT -5
Oh, Bullseye DEFINITELY loses if he doesn't pick a side before he dies. I will make that crystal clear in his role PM.
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Post by sachertorte on Nov 6, 2009 12:12:19 GMT -5
I'm liking the role more and more. It's a game of chicken. Bullseye benefits from staying neutral for as long as possible so he can choose the side that is winning, but risks losing complete if he himself gets killed.
I like it.
Are you going to have an investigator role? How will bullseye be investigated?
I see the most pro-Town way for bullseye to be played is he kills an unknown who is likely to be Town. One of those 'need to be certain' situations. I can also see him killing a claimed detective simply to confirm him and become Town (i.e. Nightkill to look like scum/blend with the anticipated scum kill).
If Bullseye and scum target the same player, what will happen to Bullseye?
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Post by Frank on Nov 6, 2009 12:21:48 GMT -5
1. My plan has been to leave out any kind of alignment Cop. I don't like them, I don't like the way they overwhelm the game. To be a tiny bit of a bastard, though, I am seriously considering giving an alignment Cop false identity to the Scum. Would that be going too far?
2. I think Bullseye's kill will trump everything else. In the comics, he's incredibly fast and accurate, so basically the way it will play is that his action, if he uses it, will happen first at any given resolution timepoint. Thus his ability can penetrate Doctor protection, can't be redirected or role-blocked (supposing we choose to have role-blocking in there somewhere), etc. If he and another killer target the same victim, Bullseye's kill happens first and his alignment switch takes effect. If Bullseye kills and IS killed on the same turn, he will not lose, because his kill, and the resultant alignment establishment, happen prior to his death.
I do think that anyone watching Bullseye or his target will see the kill, though. Maybe not. Thoughts?
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Post by sachertorte on Nov 6, 2009 14:13:42 GMT -5
Not having a Town detective is a dangerous situation. To some extent Town needs to be willing to kill a claimed detective, especially when all indicators point to his being scum. Like in Cecilvania when you claimed cop and Town was so overwhelmingly unwilling to lynch you. I still can't understand it, but that's how these people play.
At least in that situation, scum didn't know that there wasn't a cop. Even so, I would say that in the Cecilvania case, the all vanilla nature was very-Anti town. sure all parties were kept in the dark, but the deceit actively hurt town and helped scum. The opening is there for scum to take and it isn't really a risk for scum at all to false claim... especially when the alternative is a near certain lynch.
To intentionally tell scum that there is no Cop? Not a good idea. Very very bad indeed.
The problem with scum false claiming cop in a No-Cop game is that it is terribly unbalancing. If you don't have a Town Cop, Town needs to have a way of figuring that information out: either explicitly state there is no Cop or have a Town power know that there is no cop, or a town power that can investigate the existence of a power. The last one is the weakest counter for Town and I'm not sure it is adequate. I fear a game where scum claims Cop, and town is given no reason not to believe him. It would be a terribly boring game.
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Post by naf1138 on Nov 6, 2009 14:58:33 GMT -5
Regarding Lady Deathstrike: I think there are some cool ideas here. We could just make her a deathtrap - she chooses one player, herself included, and anyone who targets that player gets killed by Lady D. Then we could add a one-shot Day kill that she can use only in a situation where she has votes on her. Or something. Let's get the rest of the Pro-Town side arranged and balanced, and then fill in Lady D at the end. I like this best so far. I say make her a deathtrap doc, and then give her the ability to vig a player as she gets lynched or a daykill that activates only if she is the vote leader for more than 24 real time hours (consecutive). ------- I am sure I do. I need to pour through all the aborted games I have been working on to see what I have hanging around unused. |
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Post by naf1138 on Nov 6, 2009 15:00:45 GMT -5
Spider Man might be a little too vanilla. What do you think? I don't think so. Not everything can be fancy, and Spidey is going to have people gunning for him anyway. I like the role as is, but I am worried that town is becoming too hard to kill. I don't know if that is good or bad yet, but it's something to keep an eye on. Lack of death means game stagnation in addition to making it very hard on scum. |
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Post by naf1138 on Nov 6, 2009 15:03:57 GMT -5
I will give my thoughts on the cop angle in a different post but for now: 2. I think Bullseye's kill will trump everything else. In the comics, he's incredibly fast and accurate, so basically the way it will play is that his action, if he uses it, will happen first at any given resolution timepoint. Thus his ability can penetrate Doctor protection, can't be redirected or role-blocked (supposing we choose to have role-blocking in there somewhere), etc. If he and another killer target the same victim, Bullseye's kill happens first and his alignment switch takes effect. If Bullseye kills and IS killed on the same turn, he will not lose, because his kill, and the resultant alignment establishment, happen prior to his death. I do think that anyone watching Bullseye or his target will see the kill, though. Maybe not. Thoughts? I think all of the above is perfect, and is the way the role works best. He should be trackable, otherwise it takes the danger out of his role. Did we decide that he becomes vanilla if he kills either town or scum, or does he get to keep his vig powers? |
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Post by naf1138 on Nov 6, 2009 15:07:05 GMT -5
Not having a Town detective is a dangerous situation. To some extent Town needs to be willing to kill a claimed detective, especially when all indicators point to his being scum. Like in Cecilvania when you claimed cop and Town was so overwhelmingly unwilling to lynch you. I still can't understand it, but that's how these people play. At least in that situation, scum didn't know that there wasn't a cop. Even so, I would say that in the Cecilvania case, the all vanilla nature was very-Anti town. sure all parties were kept in the dark, but the deceit actively hurt town and helped scum. The opening is there for scum to take and it isn't really a risk for scum at all to false claim... especially when the alternative is a near certain lynch. To intentionally tell scum that there is no Cop? Not a good idea. Very very bad indeed. The problem with scum false claiming cop in a No-Cop game is that it is terribly unbalancing. If you don't have a Town Cop, Town needs to have a way of figuring that information out: either explicitly state there is no Cop or have a Town power know that there is no cop, or a town power that can investigate the existence of a power. The last one is the weakest counter for Town and I'm not sure it is adequate. I fear a game where scum claims Cop, and town is given no reason not to believe him. It would be a terribly boring game. Agreed. I don't think you can not have an alignment cop AND give the scum that cover. It won't work. I think it's a bad idea to not have some form of alignment detector in the game full stop, but I think it is possible. Still I would rather see a severely weakened alignment detector than none at all. Trackers/watchers/name cops can only do so much, and town is really set adrift if there isn't a cop of some type. |
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