Let's Beef Up Bodyguard!

[Infinity 324]

I would also like to add that scum kill specific towniest for a reason; having a strong and possibly accurate voice in the town for an extra day is another upside to the doctor; however, that upside also applies to a bodyguard.

[House]

I would also like to add that scum kill specific towniest for a reason; having a strong and possibly accurate voice in the town for an extra day is another upside to the doctor; however, that upside also applies to a bodyguard.

Not when that bodyguard IS the strongest and most accurate voice.

Why should they throw themselves in front of the bullet to save a weaker player?

[Infinity 324]

That player is generally the stronger and/or more accurate player if it's the one getting shot by scum.

The case where the bodyguard is the strongest and/or most accurate and gets shot by scum is just like when the cop is naturally having a good game; it's unlucky and there's not much you can do.

[Antihero]

i think infinity's point is that (assuming scum are making optimal kills) scum aiming at someone else means they're doing better in terms of reads and day play than the bodyguard is

pedit: lolninjad

[callforjudgement]

Tell me cfj, where is the gain for a bodyguard to protect a suspected PR that winds up flipping vanilla?

The bodyguard ends up confirmed as town, and town don't lose anything in the process. Note that if the bodyguard protects someone, they don't end up flipping

at all

! Additionally, this increases the chance that the scum will try to kill the suspected PR again the following night (they see their kill didn't work, they see a dead bodyguard, it's not going to take them much effort to work out what happened and thus they know the kill won't be stopped again). Congratulations, the scum spent two nights killing a VT.

Or worse yet, scum crossfire?

In that case the protection is bad for the town, but a Doctor protection on the same target could well have been even worse (saving scum and denying the town information at the same time). However, in multiball (which is rare), odd/even considerations are less important than in a two-faction game because stray kills are more likely. (I should note, however, that 1:1:1 is often considered a town win – at least, there's no known strategy for scum that even guarantees a draw – whereas 2:1:1 is a three-faction draw when played optimally. So parity considerations still exist, but in a rather different form.)

Bodyguard is a trash PR because the player is sacrificing CONFIRMED town for MAYBE town PR.

Bodyguard is an excellent PR because the town is sacrificing an unconfirmed player (the bodyguard themself) for a player that scum wanted to kill (who is therefore unlikely to be mislynched). Why are you assuming that the bodyguard is confirmed? (If the bodyguard

is

confirmed, then I agree it's probably best for them to not use their ability. But that usually isn't the case.)

[House]

i think infinity's point is that (assuming scum are making optimal kills) scum aiming at someone else means they're doing better in terms of reads and day play than the bodyguard is

pedit: lolninjad

Or they're just an outed PR.

If that outed PR has been a worthless lump, it's stupid to die for them when the Bodyguard is getting more results.

[House]

Note that if the bodyguard protects someone, they don't end up flipping at all!

Doesn't change the fact the bodyguard wasted their life on vanilla/scum.

[House]

Why are you assuming that the bodyguard is confirmed?

Every player is always confirmed to themselves (outside of bastard games, perhaps).

You're looking at this from a design standpoint. I'm talking about a player standpoint.

Why should a player, that knows they're town, be willing to die for another player that MIGHT be town?

Doesn't sound optimal to me without some additional utility to the role to make it worthwhile.

[House]

I mean, you can throw the damned role in as many games as you want, but it's a waste of a slot if it's not going be utilized.

[callforjudgement]

You're going to have to tell me what a "bodyguard result" is. It's not an investigative role, nor can I see a way to use it as one: the only information you get is that someone wasn't nightkilled, and that is information that is nearly always utterly obvious anyway.

PEDIT: What you're missing here is: a townie's life is not important, except inasmuch as it prevents scum from winning the game. If, as town, you have an opportunity to die and flip in a game without bringing scum closer to their win condition, you should normally take it; it gives town more information (the fact that you were town), which both helps them trust your reads and reduces the chance that you get mislynched, and the only downside is that you can't give public opinions on what happens in the rest of the game. (This reasoning doesn't apply if you're confirmed or if you have a power role which has better uses.)

You can't reason from the point of view that the Bodyguard is always the best player in the game, confirmed, and has perfect reads. That's not usually going to be the case. If roles could be balanced like that, Innocent Child would be useless.

re-PEDIT: You're saying that the Bodyguard should be selfish, and increase the chances that they personally can solve the game via denying the rest of town information they could use to solve the game? That's just bad strategy. (Besides, the reasoning isn't even necessarily correct: flipping town is a good way to prove that you aren't scum, and thus makes your reads more trustworthy, increasing the chance that town listen to your reads.)

[callforjudgement]

Put it this way. Suppose you're a VT, you post a few fairly accurate reads in thread, and then you get nightkilled. Would you consider that a failure on your part?

[House]

If, as town, you have an opportunity to die and flip in a game without bringing scum closer to their win condition, you should normally take it; it gives town more information (the fact that you were town), which both helps them trust your reads and reduces the chance that you get mislynched, and the only downside is that you can't give public opinions on what happens in the rest of the game.

That's all null and void when the Bodyguard is already widely townread and sheeped.

[callforjudgement]

Why are you assuming that the Bodyguard is widely townread and sheeped?

I can't see any reason why you'd assume that to be the case. It's definitely not going to be the case for every player, and there's a decent chance that it'll be one of the weaker players who rolls the Bodyguard?

Even if this is an indirect way of boasting "I'm always widely townread and always sheeped, therefore mods shouldn't use Bodyguard because I have no use for it", you'd certainly find it useful if it went to someone else on your faction who could use it to confirm themself while saving you from a nightkill.

[House]

You're saying that the Bodyguard should be selfish, and increase the chances that they personally can solve the game via denying the rest of town information they could use to solve the game?

Not selfish insomuch as protecting confirmed town over maybe possibly town.

That bodyguard KNOWS they'll flip green. He/she can't say the same about their target.

[Infinity 324]

I think doctor is better when it can save twice, in the case of a claimed PR and when the game starts in evens. Otherwise I agree with cfj that a random townie dying is good for the town.

What do you think about this analysis, cfj

[Infinity 324]

You're saying that the Bodyguard should be selfish, and increase the chances that they personally can solve the game via denying the rest of town information they could use to solve the game?

Not selfish insomuch as protecting confirmed town over maybe possibly town.

That bodyguard KNOWS they'll flip green. He/she can't say the same about their target.

If bodyguard successfully protects and its not multiball, then their target is pretty much guaranteed to be town.

[House]

You're saying that the Bodyguard should be selfish, and increase the chances that they personally can solve the game via denying the rest of town information they could use to solve the game?

Not selfish insomuch as protecting confirmed town over maybe possibly town.

That bodyguard KNOWS they'll flip green. He/she can't say the same about their target.

If bodyguard successfully protects and its not multiball, then their target is pretty much guaranteed to be town.

Not like the bodyguard can say, "HEY I PROTECTED SO AND SO!"

And if they telegraph their target, do you really think scum will shoot there?

[Infinity 324]

You're saying that the Bodyguard should be selfish, and increase the chances that they personally can solve the game via denying the rest of town information they could use to solve the game?

Not selfish insomuch as protecting confirmed town over maybe possibly town.

That bodyguard KNOWS they'll flip green. He/she can't say the same about their target.

If bodyguard successfully protects and its not multiball, then their target is pretty much guaranteed to be town.

Not like the bodyguard can say, "HEY I PROTECTED SO AND SO!"

And if they telegraph their target, do you really think scum will shoot there?

So what? They did their job, and kept a probably valuable townie alive.

[House]

You're saying that the Bodyguard should be selfish, and increase the chances that they personally can solve the game via denying the rest of town information they could use to solve the game?

Not selfish insomuch as protecting confirmed town over maybe possibly town.

That bodyguard KNOWS they'll flip green. He/she can't say the same about their target.

If bodyguard successfully protects and its not multiball, then their target is pretty much guaranteed to be town.

Not like the bodyguard can say, "HEY I PROTECTED SO AND SO!"

And if they telegraph their target, do you really think scum will shoot there?

So what? They did their job, and kept a probably valuable townie alive.

Which completely discounts any actual game solving contribution the bodyguard themself has to offer based on, "they kept some other townie alive".

Yeah sure. Right on.

[callforjudgement]

That bodyguard KNOWS they'll flip green. He/she can't say the same about their target.

It's very unlikely that the target will both a) be scum, and b) actually be targeted for a kill. So if you protect scum by mistake, it's unlikely to make a difference. The mere fact that someone is a) looking widely like town, and at the same time b) targeted for a nightkill, makes it very very likely that they actually are town. A vig isn't going to shoot someone who's a likely Doctor protection unless they're hugely misplaying things (and when reviewing setups, I normally ignore the possibility that a Vig and Doctor pick the same target, or that a Vig and scumteam pick the same kill target, because if that happens one player has massively screwed up and their faction will get appropriately punished as a result).

Your reasoning makes a little more sense in multiball, but the vast majority of games aren't multiball.

I think doctor is better when it can save twice, in the case of a claimed PR and when the game starts in evens. Otherwise I agree with cfj that a random townie dying is good for the town.

I broadly agree with this statement. (I'd make it a little more precise: "when two kills can be prevented" as different players can stop the kills, and "when a PR is claimed and would benefit from more than one night of protection". Also, you need to clarify that it's the death of a random townie

in place of

the player that scum were trying to kill that's useful!)

[callforjudgement]

Hmm, House, what do you think of this role?

Town Confuser

Each night, you may choose a player. If that player is Mafia-aligned and submits a nightkill on a town-aligned player, the nightkill will be redirected onto a random town-aligned player (and can still be prevented as normal). Once this ability has successfully redirected a kill, all future uses of it will automatically fail.

I'd argue that this role is a) clearly a net positive for the town (scum could have chosen to shoot any townie anyway, thus it can't produce an outcome that scum couldn't produce anyway, but makes it harder for the scum to choose a target), and b) clearly weaker than a Town Bodyguard, because it can redirect onto any townie, whereas the Bodyguard redirects onto the Bodyguard themself (who's effectively vanilla after their one successful redirection).

[House]

It's a heavily restricted and modified (inverted) Nexus, which sucks.

[callforjudgement]

I don't think Nexus (EDIT: a variant that works on kills too; the default Nexus doesn't) sucks for the person who has it. (It does somewhat suck from a setup design point of view, but mostly because it screws with other players who might want to target it.)

My point, though, is that it clearly shows that Bodyguard is a useful role.

[callforjudgement]

(Also, you misspelled my name in your sig.)

[House]

I mean, if I'm gonna eat a bullet in place of another townie, at least make me a lightning rod to make it interesting.