The mechanic? Each mafioso is a desperado. At any time during the Day, a mafioso may submit a player's name + role title. If they correctly guess that player's role, it will be killed. If the mafioso guesses wrong, they will suicide. There is no limit to the amount of times a mafioso may kill during the day. If they keep guessing correctly, they will stay alive.
At night, there is a normal nightkill that mafia are free to use. Desperado kills can only be made during the Day.
- The possibility of scum being able to shoot correctly identified townies acts as a barrier against town-players massclaiming their roles, which makes this a game of hidden information. Many players have the ability to learn alignment-information about other players, but have to keep it to themselves at the risk of being shot.
- Cop/Psychologist has some false positives/negatives to deal with to prevent them from claiming a guilty and forcing a 1:1 trade with scum.
- Encryptor is the only role that has the dilemma of claiming its ability. Claiming D1 could be a viable strategy for the Encryptor, as scum may not want to sacrifice daytalk early in the game. So, this role has the potential of acting as an Innocent Child for the first 2-3 days (or for however long scum wishes to keep daytalk)
- With the existence of a potential PGO, some town roles may choose to not use their action. Town may even request that the PGO not activate itself until later in the game to remove the risk of losing multiple townies at night.
- Friendly Neighbour is also a role that might not use its role more than once as it risks revealing itself to the scumteam, giving them a free daykill.
- The mafia spy exists to give mafia information on where certain powers have been used. For example, choosing "Cop" on N3 will tell the mafia where the Cop has visited N1/N2/N3 - though it won't discover who the Cop is. This is useful to see things like who is confirmed to a Cop/Friendly Neighbour etc. and can help inform PR-hunting.
- For the purposes of Desperado-kills, the two town JOAT's need only be guessed as "JOAT's" for a successful kill. These are powerful roles, so I like the idea of them having better odds of being killed.
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Some things I'm still working out:
A game of chicken will likely occur when the town puts a player to E-1. If a mafioso at E-1 is highly likely to be executed, it
could
use its desperado kill on the chance it can get a free town death or two before it goes down. A lack of a desperado attempt at a player sitting at E-1 could imply that player is town. A counter to this for scum is to not shoot, which may see their wagon dissolve. The mafioso risks being hammered, though.So,
Should towns ask for a roleclaim when a player is at E-1? If a claim occurs and mafia shoots them, this creates a scenario where town are getting multiple targets executed by their choice during the Day before mafia can choose someone at Night. What is mafia's counter to this? Should mafia sometimes
not shoot
a town role that has claimed at E-1 in an attempt to frame them? If mafia is at E-1, should they claim a town role instead of going for a desperado kill (or a sequence of desperado kills)? Lets say mafia claims a role at E-1. Town cannot know this is a true claim or not without the townie having this role sacrificing themself. So, if town asks for a claim from a player at E-1, scum can always trade their life for any town role of their choice. Should a townsperson who has the role being fakeclaimed actually counterclaim or insta-hammer? Maybe? Probably depends on the gamestate. If townies shouldn't always counterclaim, it means that a townie who claims their role at E-1, allows for the possibility of scum not shooting them in attempt to frame them, perhaps causing someone to hammer and thus ending the day?
- Should a scum's suicide end the Day? I'm leaning towards yes, but need to think about it more.
- Should scum have the option of a town Day-Kill ending the Day? This is also a viable rule consideration to prevent town's from forcing scum to kill their top target, which can effectively turn the Day phase into a Double-Day if their first target is a mis-execute.
Are there other ways to break or game this setup?
Setup name is also uninspiring. Creative title suggestions also welcome;)