Bastard games - does anyone actually like them?

[Bicephalous Bob]

But I'm happy if everyone agrees ninja shouldn't be normal

[BROseidon]

Godfather is just a hard counter to a cop, the same way a doctor is a hard counter to mafia or a bulletproof is a hard counter to a vig.

I think you find GF to be bad design because it introduces a facet of the game you don't like, not because it's objectively bad design.

The core differences are:

1) Doc involves decision making that adds an element of skill to the game
2) Godfathers either do nothing or nearly-guarantee a win despite having done nothing.

[BROseidon]

Like, scum having whatever the opposite of a framer is is a better choice than having a Godfather from a design perspective.

[BROseidon]

(Also, doc is a check to the NK, not a counter. There's a broader design principle about checks being better than hard-counters explicitly because they allow for more counterplay and increase skill-ceilings)

[Iecerint]

If a Godfather flips, it makes innocent results on living players more reliable. So it has an effect even if it doesn't directly do something.

Godfathers being perceived to be in the meta weaken Cops, and they do it more reliably than millers, who force scum to gambit on a miller claim early to take advantage.

[BROseidon]

Godfather's don't really "weaken" cops in as much as they just punish correct decision making and make otherwise bad decisions circumstantially "correct."

[quadz08]

I mean, I think BROseidon's on the right track here- there's a reason I don't use full godfathers OR full cops in my games.

That said, calling it straight bad design 100% of the time seems incorrect. I'd go for "bad a majority of the time" or even "bad the great majority of the time" but not "all the time."


Also, on a similar note - I think full cops are bad game design because cop is a brokenass role whose only counter is godfather/framer/etc, which involve giving the cop incorrect results, which as BRO says, is kind of a shitty thing to do!

[quadz08]

I also generally ascribe to Hito's design philosophy which basically states that direct counters to roles are bad design (i.e. Cop/Godfather, Tracker/Ninja).

[BROseidon]

Also, on a similar note - I think full cops are bad game design because cop is a brokenass role whose only counter is godfather/framer/etc, which involve giving the cop incorrect results, which as BRO says, is kind of a shitty thing to do!

This is also true. I'd almost never use a full-shot cop in a game.

[Vi]

I think full cops are bad game design because cop is a brokenass role

I feel the butthurt coming from this post.

But puns aside, I don't disagree with where the conversation is now. Tailor (target player to make them return whatever you want them to return to Cop investigations) is a much better role than Godfather across the board. In addition, I agree that Cop is a relatively overpowered role by its nature. As a Theme mod I'd throw one more concern in - a full Cop is so strong that putting one in means that there's less relative power to go around for other players. Granted, that's not necessarily a design flaw if you're modding an Open or a Normal, but in a game where lots of players have roles Cop is king. Nonetheless, that's not to say that Cop and counters have no place in any setup.

Based on how it's interpreted I either don't necessarily agree with post 57 or I definitely don't agree with post 57. For the latter, if you're saying that Cop+Doc vs. Roleblocker has bad design in the case of the Roleblocker, I definitely disagree. On the former, I don't think it's necessarily the case that it's bad design to have a strong role and a role that can counter it. As mentioned before, one major reason Cop is overpowered is its

certainty

. Take that away by any amount and the role becomes considerably less powerful. Another example that I'm a fan of is the punisher role - having a role that the scum (or whoever) are looking for, and giving them a countermeasure that can only be used on that player. It's the same concept as Cop vs. Tailor, or even Cop+Doc vs. Roleblocker from the Doctor's point of view. I don't have a problem with this game-within-a-game.

Note that this all assumes good/considerate game design. Take a look at whoever's modding your game and draw your own conclusion.

And with all that said, I'm not sure I'd use a full Cop in a game personally - I'd either make it limited-shot or a flavor scout where flavor is generally but not necessarily correlated with alignment. Same design concept, but limited-shot cuts down a different issue with Cop (critical mass) and flavor scouting tells you straight up that your results aren't reliable. (In Mafia Behind the Maiden, I actually had a flavor investigator that was in practice a full Cop with no counter.)

[BROseidon]

Roleblocker is a check there, not a counter.

[BROseidon]

Check vs counter is a really important distinction to make.
Checks are good, counters are bad

[Untrod Tripod]

in your opinion

[Iecerint]

Godfather's don't really "weaken" cops in as much as they just punish correct decision making and make otherwise bad decisions circumstantially "correct."

That's only true if there's no general expectation of Godfathers being in the game.

If all players assume that a Godfather may be in the game (say 50% of games), it simply weakens Cops while also granting bonus knowledge if the Godfather is lynched and a disproportional incentive to help the Godfather avoid the lynch. This warps dayplay in interesting ways that are fun to reason through.

A role like a tailor would be more likely to cast doubt on results prior to their flip, since it's hard to imagine their becoming as ubiquitous as Godfather used to be.

[BROseidon]

Godfather's don't really "weaken" cops in as much as they just punish correct decision making and make otherwise bad decisions circumstantially "correct."

That's only true if there's no general expectation of Godfathers being in the game.

If all players assume that a Godfather may be in the game (say 50% of games), it simply weakens Cops while also granting bonus knowledge if the Godfather is lynched and a disproportional incentive to help the Godfather avoid the lynch. This warps dayplay in interesting ways that are fun to reason through.

A role like a tailor would be more likely to cast doubt on results prior to their flip, since it's hard to imagine their becoming as ubiquitous as Godfather used to be.

Not true.

Let's say you KNOW there's a godfather in a given game, a 13p game. Town mislynches on day 1. One N1 you, as the cop, investigate someone. NK flips a townie (no vig/SK shot), and you return an innocent result on the person. Should you doubt that innocent?

Well, given that you know there's a godfather in the game, there's 1 scum that would return an innocent, but there are also 8 townies that will return an innocent. You have a base chance of that person being town at 88.89%. That's AMAZING certainty to have on any player - my threshold to lynch is internally-deemed 33% chance of being scum, and I'll tunnel someone on a coin flip. The amount of scummy behavior that it would take for me to scumread that player is IMMENSE.

Now let's say that you're in 7p LyLo, and one of the people is a cop-cleared inno, and everyone knows there's a godfather in the game. That person has a 1/4 chance of being scum at base. This doesn't change if you're town or scum. Any other player has a 50% base chance from your POV (roughly. It's actually a bit higher but I'm too lazy to do the math). a 2/3 chance of being town is still REALLY good, and something that you should basically never lynch unless he's literally being the biggest scumbutt to ever scum.

Now that's with KNOWING there's a godfather. It gets progressively more brutal when you have to assume some % chance of there being a godfather.

[Iecerint]

If you're in 7p lylo, you should lose that game most of the time.

I would just assume innocent and hunt around it until GF flips or it's necessary.

/drunkpost Mmm delicious LITs

[AngryPidgeon]

Oh, we're talking about Godfathers again?

In my first game ever on site we mislynched a cop clear because someone was 110% sure that person was a Godfather.

So the paranoia of GFs DOES hinder cops.

GFs themselves gain value when investigated, which does punish the cop a little bit although I wouldnt't necessarily say that investigating mafia is a correct decision 100% of the time, to nitpick a bit.

--

All that said, I agree that full-cops are usually weak game design and Godfathers should be used with caution and are kind of an anti-fun role anyways. Much like ninjas and trackers.

I think most of my beef goes away when the setup is open, semi-open, or relevan roles are informed in some way so as not to end up getting blindsided entirely.

p-edit: also where the hell did you get that 1/3 number from, BRO? I think you mean 1/4th?

[BROseidon]

p-edit: also where the hell did you get that 1/3 number from, BRO? I think you mean 1/4th?

Yeah you're right. I fucked up counting :/

[BROseidon]

Fixed the original post.

[Iecerint]

I miss sanity modifications, so Godfathers are tame enough to be boring as far as I'm concerned.

[BROseidon]

Non-sane sanities are okay if it's explicitly stated that the sanity is unknown.

[ZZZX]

Non-sane sanities are okay if it's explicitly stated that the sanity is unknown.

this. it actually makes the person think deeper about possiblities and doesnt take any result for granted.

[mastin2]

(you don't see "Paranoid Gunsmith").

But you do see them talked about! (To be fair, not nearly as implausible as it sounds, if given the right circumstances.)

When the mod knows what he is doing, bastard games can be hilarious and very enjoyable, and in some cases even better than non-bastard ones. I for one love them.

^This. For instance, objectively speaking, many players enjoyed my game, when it was explicitly called a Bastard game. (It was also, in spite of its title, fairly well-rounded, just incredibly unpredictable.) Similarly, Drawn on Arrival was called "slightly Bastard", but was well-received too; I thoroughly enjoyed it on the player side that time. Those are just two I can list immediately off the top of my head. Both were enjoyed by all parties, who knew what they were getting into, and had a blast while fighting to win and having a fair chance to.

Also,

Bastard games work best when the bastardness is in the setup, not in the moderation style.

^This. My bastard games actually have as a rule that I will 100% tell the truth in the INITIAL PM, and as close to as 100% in any follow-through PMs.

I miss sanity modifications, so Godfathers are tame enough to be boring as far as I'm concerned.

Sanity modifications and tailors are two of my favorite tools! Sadly, I consider them to be elements that are seldom used for good reason; they take smart decision making to work well in a setup.

(Coincidentally, the easiest way to accomplish this is to call your game Bastard, tell the players it probably isn't balanced, and let them join at their own discretion with that knowledge. It's worked twice so far for me!)

[inte]

Bastard games work best when the bastardness is in the setup, not in the moderation style.

I liked Worst Role Mafia (the one I played in, IIRC the first), despite unquestionably being bastard. It was entirely possible to scumhunt, you could have a pretty good idea of how most of your actions would affect the game, and there weren't that many instances of people getting screwed over by things they couldn't possibly have known about (at one point, my faction was hurt by an unlucky result on a random role, but we managed to win anyway).

hey i played in that game!!!!!!!

i actually like bastard games with unique roles. i don't particularly cared for being lied to by the mod, tho

[theelkspeaks]

How do people feel about "Tilt" games or "Snowball" games; I sometimes think of them as offshoots of bastard games but with more expectation going in