Lets discuss this weird idea I have.

[SleepyKrew]

I think Busy or Popular could work as a name for that modifier.

[BROseidon]

The problem is that there just shouldn't be a cop in the game because cop is a role you should never use.

[LicketyQuickety]

The problem is that there just shouldn't be a cop in the game because cop is a role you should never use.

If you're going to make a claim like that you're going to have to explain some things. I think I get it though, at least part of it. Why should Town have a utility that mafia is born with... or something like that.

[Ythan]

Probably just that they make the game less fun.

[The Bulge]

I don't think I've ever put a Cop in one of my setups. There are just so many more interesting investigatives you could use instead. Cops have so little potential for interaction with other roles.

I think I

may

have a Tracker/Fruit Vendor combo in almost every game I've designed this past year?

[pieguyn]

I never understood why as far as I know on this site there is no modifier that makes a doctor unable to target the same person two nights in a row.

because nobody has given that modifier a fancy name. I'm sure I've seen it somewhere in additional notes to a role though.

Subject: FF7 Mafia (Game Over)

15. Radja was

Tseng,

Aligned with

The Planet [Town Non-Consecutive-Target Doctor],

lynched Day 7.

it's been done before ~

[BROseidon]

Probably just that they make the game less fun.

Cops are a low-skill cap super binary role. There is no counterplay to getting investigated, and picking the wrong target as a cop is still an exceptionally good result.

[PokerFace]

Probably just that they make the game less fun.

Cops are a low-skill cap super binary role

.

There is no counterplay to getting investigated, and

picking the wrong target as a cop is still an exceptionally good result

.

I agree with BROseidon king of the BROcean. Getting a lot of innocents is often better than getting 1 guilty

When I renamed unconfirmed masons as neighbors, they started showing up in greater numbers everywhere. I am not sure I'n proud of that anymore.

Seeing this doctor show up everywhere is something I would be proud of though since normal doc is another fairly simple role

[chamber]

Cops have plenty of counterplay options, and more importantly, we play with a highly scumsided base setup so the town PRs need limited counterplay.

The mafia have the nightkill. It's an extremely strong tool. The mafia should be forced to do more with it than just kill the most competent town player.
When cops saw heavy use there was a whole culture of rules built around them, millers, insane cops, paranoid cops, which made defending a guilty verdict possible in some situations.
Cops should ideally be targeting people they have trouble reading, to maximize the information gain, so if you were well town read in game you can minimize the chance you are investigated.
You can play so that if you are discovered by a role your play doesn't automatically indicate things about the rest of the town.

[BROseidon]

When cops saw heavy use there was a whole culture of rules built around them, millers, insane cops, paranoid cops, which made defending a guilty verdict possible in some situations.

These are all really, really shitty ways to gate cop power.

Like, the fact that godfather is a normal role is an absolute design travesty, because it doesn't actually change substantially how you should respond to an innocent, it just randomly fucks you over x% of the time. Millers at least don't cause an auto-loss if investigated (and they can claim).

Cop sanity is terrible for pretty obvious reasons (non-opaque mechanics are bad). If you are explicitly told that sanity is not guaranteed, that's fine.

The fact that we use a highly scumsided base setup doesnt mean we should compensate for that with shitty design. There are plenty, PLENTY of town roles that have far more counterplay and can help balance the scales (fuck, watcher isn't that much weaker than cop but is a 10x better role from a design perspective). Masons and x-shot mason recruiters are horribly, horribly underused on ms (mason is, imo, the best PR in the game from a design perspective). There are even unexplored PRs that are super interesting (What Quadz calls a cheese grater and what I call a misdirector hasn't been explored at all, for instance). There are plenty, PLENTY of ways to avoid using a cop that are all more interesting from a gameplay perspective.

Also x-shot exists.

[chamber]

If you are explicitly told that sanity is not guaranteed, that's fine.

There wasn't an assumption of sanity in 2005.

(I also think watcher is perhaps the worst designed role that still sees any use)

[BROseidon]

Cop is far, far worse than watcher.

And assumption vs. explicitly told are two very different things. Assumptions being necessary for good game design is bad.

[chamber]

Watcher has the exact same issue that godfathers and framers have. It punishes making the optimal play, and is hidden from the one making the play choice.

[BROseidon]

That's fair, but there are sometimes ways you can actually play around a watcher (i.e., two people go to a target)

[ika]

That's fair, but there are sometimes ways you can actually play around a watcher (i.e., two people go to a target)

And the times that happens is like near never

[Sajin]

That's fair, but there are sometimes ways you can actually play around a watcher (i.e., two people go to a target)

And the times that happens is like near never

It happens in complex theme games. I still remember being mafia where the majority of roles in the game could detect and effectively "watch" ALL actions at night (it detected their locations from and to not the direct person so there was some obfuscation available).

@Chamber: Watcher as a mechanic is powerful and it does distort optimal play. In a well designed setup it complements play made by both sides (such as in hunterxhunter mafia where the mafia were told about the existence of a tracker/watcher combo and that role was told the mafia knew about him and vice versa).

You are right there is a ton of roles that exist purely to counter a particular play pattern: (Investigation immune, miller, framer, ascetic, watcher/tracker. unlynchable, daykill, supersaint and more). However, suspecting it and playing around it then become the challenge. If there is a multitude of these roles in the game it creates interesting dynamics. A Scum re-director that gets caught by a watcher is interesting play. This is no more or less powerful than if the redirector makes a watcher think he saw something that did not occur.

So to get back to the original topic, cop+doctor is fine.....if the scum have appropriate countermeasures. A framer, a roleblocker, a daykill, a strongman, a redirector...all of these roles can break the combo. It does create a game that is more nightplay focused usually, but that was probably going to be the case already with a cop and doctor. You can't say whether a setup is balanced by only looking at two roles.

[ika]

It happens in complex theme games.

i was refering about a basic game. I mean if your having rolemadness where everybody (or even a majority) has a targeting power, then i would agure otherwise but in standard practice and where i belive bro is taking his stance. Its not really a thing.

I mean outside of that argumentative perspective, any pr is only as powerful as user. So i mean you can have a cop in there but if they act stupid scummy and get lycnhed day 1, its moot point.

[BROseidon]

i was refering about a basic game. I mean if your having rolemadness where everybody (or even a majority) has a targeting power, then i would agure otherwise but in standard practice and where i belive bro is taking his stance. Its not really a thing.

I wouldn't use a watcher in a game smaller than 15 people, unless it's severely gated (1-shot, delayed, etc). It concentrates power too much for a 13p game. Even in 15p I'd be hesitant to use one.

[BROseidon]

I'm a huge believer in distributing power to reduce swing.

[Felissan]

The card version of Werewolf actually uses a non-consecutive-target version of the Doc that can choose to target itself. I don't think I've ever seen a single Follow the Cop in the few dozens games I've played.