Design & discussion

[Pedro]

Here's the link to the design sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rt-yQDF5oAwl5SV0af2lAeR_3oylBusXPSbnJj6xOQ8

Designer: @Natiko
Reviewers: @Flush , @Franconp

 

[Natiko]

I know I still need an order of operations. Going to wait to do that until we get past the point of whether the idea for the game is even valid and if it is how it needs to be balanced.

 

[Franconp]

Hi Natiko, it seems that I will reviewing a game of yours.... again.

I wouldn't even bother making the order of operations yet, we have a lot to work with.

Spoiler

JK.

The first thing that I thought is that Pedro said that this game had unusual mechanics and I don't see them. It looks pretty vanilla to me, ven the more problematic mechanic as the recruitment it's pretty mild as town doesn't have a cop. I'm missing something?

The second thing that I thought is that a 2 player scum team seems pretty small for a game this size. Even with the recruitment seems low.

How does the recruit mechanic works with the Acolyte? If a scum die and a blessed player is selected by RNG to become scum what would happen? Does scum lose their chance to recruit someone else?

 

[Natiko]

Nah, there are no ways for scum to miss a recruit. Basically when scum dies one of their ‘lives’ will be used up and I will RNG who gets possessed. I will exclude PRs and blessed players from the RNG roll. I do need to edit the scum notes to have it be PRs+blessed vanilla townies+1 or something. The idea is to not totally screw town by letting PRs get possessed unless there’s just not enough non-blessed vanillas to do a real roll. He also can’t self bless so there will be a viable candidate in him too if it comes to allowing PRs to get possessed. Perhaps I should cause all blessings to expire if he dies since technically if he died and only three blessed townies lived there would be no one to recruit.

As for the number, I originally gave them two recruits, but I was worried Town would do a bad job of hunting for a smaller pool of scum. Three overall sounds low but they have a lower chance of hitting scum in general this game.

 

[Flush]

Uhh huh. Interesting concept. Love the idea of the backup doc/bodyguard being way better than the original. First questions:

1. Do you plan to tell Scum or the thread how the possession mechanic works? Right now there is no hint to it other than your notes. If you don't write it in the chat there is no way I can imagine them ever figuring out what the Acolyt actually does.

2. Why is the last Scum NK immune? Just as a red herring or am I missing something? The only other role that can do NKs is the cannibal and I'd argue that's a net win for Sum (same number of Scum remaining but one Neutral less)

 

[Flush]

Btw, I was just re-reading Of Gods And Men, because I want to refine the core concept of the second installment and I came across that sentence I wrote in my post mortem: "If you can't find a role that does literally nothing in a game without your mechanic, doesn't break the game in half and doesn't seem completely out of place in a mafia game, you probably should rethink your core design"

You're definitely passing that test with the blessings. One could probably double down on it a bit more, but wayne. So on a barebones conceptual level, I have nothing to criticize :)

 

[Franconp]

To me the Acolyte role seems like a waste. It's not like the scum decide who to posses so I don't see the point of having blessed players when you control the ability. It's not like they lose their ability if they posses a blessed player.

It's not game breaking or out of place but it's mostly useless.

But I also don't think town is missing something. There are not many roles here and they seem pretty balanced. Maybe something that could screw with townie roles like a sleepwalker could be interesting.

 

[Natiko]

Uhh huh. Interesting concept. Love the idea of the backup doc/bodyguard being way better than the original. First questions:

1. Do you plan to tell Scum or the thread how the possession mechanic works? Right now there is no hint to it other than your notes. If you don't write it in the chat there is no way I can imagine them ever figuring out what the Acolyt actually does.

2. Why is the last Scum NK immune? Just as a red herring or am I missing something? The only other role that can do NKs is the cannibal and I'd argue that's a net win for Sum (same number of Scum remaining but one Neutral less)

1. I do not plan on telling the players too much about the mechanics. I was toying with the idea of when town lynched the first scum posting in red text something like “A spirit has been diminished.” If they puzzle it out that’s great for them but I’m not sure it needs to be made explicit in order for the game to work.

2. That’s a good question. May have been a remnant from before I made it to where the cannibal wouldn’t penalize scum.

Btw, I was just re-reading Of Gods And Men, because I want to refine the core concept of the second installment and I came across that sentence I wrote in my post mortem: "If you can't find a role that does literally nothing in a game without your mechanic, doesn't break the game in half and doesn't seem completely out of place in a mafia game, you probably should rethink your core design"

You're definitely passing that test with the blessings. One could probably double down on it a bit more, but wayne. So on a barebones conceptual level, I have nothing to criticize :)

Glad to hear I’m on the right track at least! If you have any suggestions that you think could improve the game beyond just balance feel free to share any.

To me the Acolyte role seems like a waste. It's not like the scum decide who to posses so I don't see the point of having blessed players when you control the ability. It's not like they lose their ability if they posses a blessed player.

It's not game breaking or out of place but it's mostly useless.

But I also don't think town is missing something. There are not many roles here and they seem pretty balanced. Maybe something that could screw with townie roles like a sleepwalker could be interesting.

Yeah, I tried to keep it so that the game wouldn’t be terribly swingy based on PR actions. They can obviously have an impact with a tracker and a doctor, but they all have downsides. I could see adding in a sleepwalker though, that could be interesting.

As far as Acolyte specifically goes it’s more a role that exists as a red herring. Town could derive useful information from it if he lives and has living blessed players alive the night after the first scum lynch. He could also do nothing useful for town - but it won’t harm them at least.


To both of you - do you think the extra kill every other day for scum is fine? If we wanted to push to four scum lives total I’d probably drop it from the game. It’s part of why I put them at three as well.

 

[Flush]

To me the Acolyte role seems like a waste. It's not like the scum decide who to posses so I don't see the point of having blessed players when you control the ability. It's not like they lose their ability if they posses a blessed player.

It's not game breaking or out of place but it's mostly useless.

But I also don't think town is missing something. There are not many roles here and they seem pretty balanced. Maybe something that could screw with townie roles like a sleepwalker could be interesting.

With the amount of information given to town according to the current plan, yes, it is a role similar to Vanilla Townie in terms of power level. However, I strongly disagree with the notion of it being "a waste". If you want to add additional roles (e.g. sleepwalker) you barely make a balance difference by replacing a Vanilla compared to replacing the Acolyte. And the Acolyte is one of those "beautiful" roles that fit perfectly into a mechanical concept.

 

[Natiko]

Oh I wasn’t toying with the idea of replacing the Acolyte. I was considering modifying one of the vanilla roles to be a sleepwalker.

 

[Flush]

1. I do not plan on telling the players too much about the mechanics. I was toying with the idea of when town lynched the first scum posting in red text something like “A spirit has been diminished.” If they puzzle it out that’s great for them but I’m not sure it needs to be made explicit in order for the game to work.

2. That’s a good question. May have been a remnant from before I made it to where the cannibal wouldn’t penalize scum.


Glad to hear I’m on the right track at least! If you have any suggestions that you think could improve the game beyond just balance feel free to share any.


Yeah, I tried to keep it so that the game wouldn’t be terribly swingy based on PR actions. They can obviously have an impact with a tracker and a doctor, but they all have downsides. I could see adding in a sleepwalker though, that could be interesting.

As far as Acolyte specifically goes it’s more a role that exists as a red herring. Town could derive useful information from it if he lives and has living blessed players alive the night after the first scum lynch. He could also do nothing useful for town - but it won’t harm them at least.


To both of you - do you think the extra kill every other day for scum is fine? If we wanted to push to four scum lives total I’d probably drop it from the game. It’s part of why I put them at three as well.

Ok, your call. I'm not a fan of people not knowing what's going on unless it's part of your vision that people in the know can lie about it or you want to steer certain the actions of roles in a certain direction. If done excessively I personally even find it very frustrating. Most recent example would be Monopoly: Just tell the players publicly that there are roles that target tokens, roles that target board spaces and roles that target players. Anyway, giving them more info would also greatly upgrade the Acolyte since you then have up to three people who can't be the new Scum. As I said, I highly doubt Town figures that out on their own.

As for what else you could do with the Spirit mechanic: With the current information policy I think you're fine. If you want to open up more, I could imagine e.g. some Soul Channeler, that - as an analogue to the evil spirits - builds a bridge from player A to player B, so that if A dies that night their soul (and therefore potential PR abilities) transfer to player B. If A is Scum, they're treated as if they were Vanilla for that ability.

And for your last question: Do you aim for mid or mainseason? For midseason I don't think it's a problem at all. Main season probably also is fine. It's more a question of balancing it out, since you're totally right: The kill always benefits Scum since the Neutral would just become Scum if they were to be negative for Scum.

 

[Franconp]

To both of you - do you think the extra kill every other day for scum is fine? If we wanted to push to four scum lives total I’d probably drop it from the game. It’s part of why I put them at three as well.

Let's see which is the worst outcome to town:

D1 starts with 19 townies, 2 scum, 1 neutral
D1 lynch town: 18, 2, 1
N1 scum kill lovers, cannibal kill town: 15, 2, 1
D2 scum day kill town and town lynch: 13, 2, 1
N2 scum kill town: 12, 2, 1
D3 town lynch: 11, 2, 1
N3 scum kill town, cannibal kill town: 9, 2, 1
D4 scum day kill town and town lynch: 7, 2, 1
N4 scum kill town: 6, 2, 1
D5 town lynch: 5, 2, 1
N5 scum kill town and cannibal kill town: 3, 2
D6 town lynch: Scum wins.

Town has 6 phases until they lose. To such a small scum team vs a big town team I don't think it's that bad. They have plenty of time to turn the game around even when a double kill every other day and every other night.

Is scum allowed to use the day kill D1? I'm not to fond of that idea, not because it's gamebreaking but because they could kill a player as soon as the game started and that would be really shitty to that player. He signed up for a game and being unable to play at least a phase is really not fun.

With the amount of information given to town according to the current plan, yes, it is a role similar to Vanilla Townie in terms of power level. However, I strongly disagree with the notion of it being "a waste". If you want to add additional roles (e.g. sleepwalker) you barely make a balance difference by replacing a Vanilla compared to replacing the Acolyte. And the Acolyte is one of those "beautiful" roles that fit perfectly into a mechanical concept.

I say it's a waste because it does nothing. It doesn't prevent a possession or affect the game in any significative way. I'm not against using the role I just think it doesn't do much.

 

[Flush]

Oh I wasn’t toying with the idea of replacing the Acolyte. I was considering modifying one of the vanilla roles to be a sleepwalker.

Yeah, that's what I figured. I just wanted to voice my disagreement with the term "waste".

 

[Flush]

Woah, hold your horses. Scum has a DEDICATED day kill every other night? I completely overlooked that. Now things are getting interesting. Let me think about that for a moment.

 

[Flush]

Let's see which is the worst outcome to town:

D1 starts with 19 townies, 2 scum, 1 neutral
D1 lynch town: 18, 2, 1
N1 scum kill lovers, cannibal kill town: 15, 2, 1
D2 scum day kill town and town lynch: 13, 2, 1
N2 scum kill town: 12, 2, 1
D3 town lynch: 11, 2, 1
N3 scum kill town, cannibal kill town: 9, 2, 1
D4 scum day kill town and town lynch: 7, 2, 1
N4 scum kill town: 6, 2, 1
D5 town lynch: 5, 2, 1
N5 scum kill town and cannibal kill town: 3, 2
D6 town lynch: Scum wins.

Town has 6 phases until they lose. To such a small scum team vs a big town team I don't think it's that bad. They have plenty of time to turn the game around even when a double kill every other day and every other night.

Is scum allowed to use the day kill D1? I'm not to fond of that idea, not because it's gamebreaking but because they could kill a player as soon as the game started and that would be really shitty to that player. He signed up for a game and being unable to play at least a phase is really not fun.

You're forgetting that a Scum lynch possesses another player. So, if everything goes according to your scenario, except they lynch Scum D6, they'd still be 2-2. So really, they only have 5 days, because going into the sixth they've already lost. Still should be fine, though. I can live with that.

I also agree that you maybe should forbid day killing on D1.

 

[Franconp]

D6 town lynch: Scum wins.

This is wrong. Scum can day kill as soon as the day starts. Even then I think it's not that bad.

 

[Franconp]

You're forgetting that a Scum lynch possesses another player. So, if everything goes according to your scenario, except they lynch Scum D6, they'd still be 2-2. So really, they only have 5 days, because going into the sixth they've already lost. Still should be fine, though. I can live with that.

You are right. So if town plays badly D5 would be the last day. The earlies that the cannibal can win is N5 so he would be able to win even if town screw up badly.

 

[Natiko]

I would like to keep the possession bit non-explicit but am open to making the acolyte role a little more clear. What if I add text saying the holy water “does not protect body, but it does protect mind” or some such?

Also I agree, I’ll not allow the day kill D1.

I don’t have any preference when it runs. Whatever the overlords decide.

 

[Franconp]

Roy send me a PM today about the progress of the game and I rechecked and it seems ok.

@Natiko do you have some doubts about something or are planning to change a role or something?

 

[Natiko]

I’m going to update the sheet when I have time with some of the changes we talked about in here, order of operations, and also am considering changing the Acolyte role a bit - just not sure how. I toyed with the idea of making it 3-shot and unlimited time but that PRs would no longer default to safe from possession.

 

[Natiko]

Okay - made my last revisions barring more feedback from you all. I also added the order of operations.

Change List:

• Acolyte blessing now lasts two nights instead of three
• Acolyte role PM now states holy water protects a player’s spirit
• One vanilla town made a sleepwalker
• Limitation on possessing PRs changes from PRs+1 to PRs+3 to not be too limiting to scum
• Day kill for scum not allowed on day 1
• Added notes saying a scum death will show their original role PM instead of their scum one
• If it took a life from scum red text will be posted saying “The Spirits have diminished”
• The two starting scum will be vanilla town for the purpose of their flips

Couple wrap up questions I want thoughts on:

• Should the lovers be eligible to be possessed? Since once one of them is they would either be yanked from the chat which will be really obvious or they’d still be in the chat with a town player and then the game trends towards bastard maybe?
• I won’t be counting the lovers or sleepwalker as PRs (for the purpose of possession) since they don’t have actions. Any disagreement there?

@Franconp @Flush

 

[Franconp]

Okay - made my last revisions barring more feedback from you all. I also added the order of operations.

Change List:

• Acolyte blessing now lasts two nights instead of three
• Acolyte role PM now states holy water protects a player’s spirit
• One vanilla town made a sleepwalker
• Limitation on possessing PRs changes from PRs+1 to PRs+3 to not be too limiting to scum
• Day kill for scum not allowed on day 1
• Added notes saying a scum death will show their original role PM instead of their scum one
• If it took a life from scum red text will be posted saying “The Spirits have diminished”
• The two starting scum will be vanilla town for the purpose of their flips

The last point makes the game bastard as town won't get a scum flip. I'm not sure if you will need to tell the players that the game is bastard before it starts, but leaning to tell them. If you don't mind that I'm ok with it. It's an interesting idea and works well with the flavour.

All the other points and the order of operatios too.

Couple wrap up questions I want thoughts on:

• Should the lovers be eligible to be possessed? Since once one of them is they would either be yanked from the chat which will be really obvious or they’d still be in the chat with a town player and then the game trends towards bastard maybe?

The game is already bastard so there are no problems there. The problem I see is that if one of them become possessed if the game reach mylo town can lose even if they target the scum lover (3town 2 scum. They lynch scum lover, both of them die, 2vs1 during the night phase, scum kills and win the game). It would be much easier if lovers can't be possessed.

If you decide to make them eligible to be possesed keep the chat. A scum and town lovers chat should be fun.

• I won’t be counting the lovers or sleepwalker as PRs (for the purpose of possession) since they don’t have actions. Any disagreement there?

It's ok with the sleepwalker.

 

[Natiko]

So you think Lovers should count as a PR? I suppose I’m okay with that if you feel that’s best.

I don’t have too much concern with the scenario you outlined about scum possessing a lover, mainly because the every other day kill will likely make it so that situation is very unlikely in the long run.