Roles Discussion

[BNL]

What roles do you like and don't like? This is mainly from a design perspective, but also fun factor for these roles in open setups.

"Good" roles can be measured in terms of balance, swing, skilfulness, instilling good player discipline, etc.

[BNL]

Personally, I've begun disliking the Jailkeeper role. With one scum dead, it's like a super Cop, which can generate results every Night, but can prevent its own death if it gets a guilty, and it still can get a result after it claims.

On the other hand, it really sucks when more than 1 scum are alive, which makes the JK swingier than Cop.

Because of this, I think C2 is a worse setup than C1.

[mastina]

Personally, I've begun disliking the Jailkeeper role. With one scum dead, it's like a super Cop, which can generate results every Night, but can prevent its own death if it gets a guilty, and it still can get a result after it claims.

You're referring to a two-scum-sized-game I assume, here?

Because one scum dead in a mini doesn't magically make the jailkeeper uber-strong in a mini. It's actually one of THE most balanced, easily, readily, heavily used roles in Normals (and often as both alignments albeit more frequently town), in large part specifically because of that. It's still one of the strongest town roles around (up there with the likes of Watcher, Vig, Cop, and Doc), and it still frequently finds itself diminished with modifiers, but it's heavily used because it's easy to balance around.

Jailkeeper setups can be horrifically designed, but in general their use in mini normals is FAIRLY reasonable in creating a balanced, well-rounded, setup far more often than not. (Any poorly designed jk setups are usually the exception proving the rule.)

[popsofctown]

Doesn't a town roleblocker have the same problems, but worse? With Jailkeeper, at least going into a 4 man night, if they jail someone and there is no death, you don't know if A was roleblocked and kept from shooting or if B or C tried to shoot A. With roleblocker you know for sure A was kept from shooting.
Maybe you're just prioritizing the jailkeeper topic because it's ten times more common than town roleblocker.

Watcher is the worst role, doc is a brutal enough punishment for killing predictably, watcher is a bridge too far. Watcher is powerful enough that with a watcher in the setup the mafia should submit random or mostly random nightkills, and then it's not mafia anymore.

I'm skeptical that vig belongs in the same breath as watcher and cop for power, but in terms of incentives that pervert cool mafia dayplay, vig is one of the least harmful while still providing an interesting dynamic. The problem is that you have to have a larger player count to accommodate a vig. So it doesn't get you much farther if you are trying to accommodate the people who only want to roll VT in a third of their games, but I don't really think those people should be accommodated the way they are.

[Ramcius]

Doesn't a town roleblocker have the same problems, but worse? With Jailkeeper, at least going into a 4 man night, if they jail someone and there is no death, you don't know if A was roleblocked and kept from shooting or if B or C tried to shoot A. With roleblocker you know for sure A was kept from shooting.
Maybe you're just prioritizing the jailkeeper topic because it's ten times more common than town roleblocker.

Watcher is the worst role, doc is a brutal enough punishment for killing predictably, watcher is a bridge too far. Watcher is powerful enough that with a watcher in the setup the mafia should submit random or mostly random nightkills, and then it's not mafia anymore.

I'm skeptical that vig belongs in the same breath as watcher and cop for power, but in terms of incentives that pervert cool mafia dayplay, vig is one of the least harmful while still providing an interesting dynamic. The problem is that you have to have a larger player count to accommodate a vig. So it doesn't get you much farther if you are trying to accommodate the people who only want to roll VT in a third of their games, but I don't really think those people should be accommodated the way they are.

I have to wonder, what jk/rb is doing in F4? Either of those roles should be dead long ago before getting to F4. Yes, this can happen, but you shouldn't judge role by some scenario that is unlikely to happen

Watcher is fine role, but if you think that "Oh, I can't kill best town player N1, I have to find doc/watcher first" isn't mafia any more, then you're in minority

[popsofctown]

"find"ing the doc/watcher is not mafia. It's not the process of an uninformed majority rooting out an informed minority that is trying to prevent the same. Like this is definitional. Maybe if you did like a watcher neighborhood with a factional watch, where if any of them dies they lose the ability. That would be mafia. But the process of finding individuals that might give off slight survivor tells is very difficult and not all that interesting. Finding groups of informed players has many more psychological markers and more available strategic plays. So letting the mafia use their NK to interact with the game of mafia is far more interesting than forcing them to use their NK to play a PR hunting game. It's like playing a game of chess where all the pieces move like checkers until the center pawns die. Yeah I guess it's chess but why are you doing that.

I should clarify it's still mafia. Nightless mafia is still mafia, so night mafia with random NKs is of course still mafia. I meant to indicate the -nightphase- is essentially not mafia. The nightkill is totally co-opted by the PR hunting minigame instead of the majority/informed minority game. If the gold shop in a moba game that you visited while dead was changed from selecting which items were strategically best in the specific matchups with the heroes you were playing, to instead, spend all your gold, then try to guess which player on the other team is closer to getting to the next rated play tier and is the most nervous about making it, and if you guess right you get a random powerful item, otherwise you get a random average item, I would similarly say that the shop was previously MOBA gameplay but is now not MOBA gameplay.

[Ramcius]

"find"ing the doc/watcher is not mafia. It's not the process of an uninformed majority rooting out an informed minority that is trying to prevent the same. Like this is definitional. Maybe if you did like a watcher neighborhood with a factional watch, where if any of them dies they lose the ability. That would be mafia. But the process of finding individuals that might give off slight survivor tells is very difficult and not all that interesting. Finding groups of informed players has many more psychological markers and more available strategic plays. So letting the mafia use their NK to interact with the game of mafia is far more interesting than forcing them to use their NK to play a PR hunting game. It's like playing a game of chess where all the pieces move like checkers until the center pawns die. Yeah I guess it's chess but why are you doing that.

I should clarify it's still mafia. Nightless mafia is still mafia, so night mafia with random NKs is of course still mafia. I meant to indicate the -nightphase- is essentially not mafia. The nightkill is totally co-opted by the PR hunting minigame instead of the majority/informed minority game. If the gold shop in a moba game that you visited while dead was changed from selecting which items were strategically best in the specific matchups with the heroes you were playing, to instead, spend all your gold, then try to guess which player on the other team is closer to getting to the next rated play tier and is the most nervous about making it, and if you guess right you get a random powerful item, otherwise you get a random average item, I would similarly say that the shop was previously MOBA gameplay but is now not MOBA gameplay.

Well, it's exactly like chess - you can't just take strongest piece from the board head on. Sorry, but I'm not a fan of MOBAs, so I don't understand your reference.

Who says you to use NK for PR hunting? Scum usually get some sort of investigative, also forcing PRs claim or VTs claim to lessen potential PRs pool is a part of mafia. You like less complicated mountainous of close to mountainous setups and that's fine, but not everyone has same opinion as you

[WilliamMcGuire]

I like the Doctor's one the best. He can save people or himself. It depends on the version of mafia)

[RadiantCowbells]

So letting the mafia use their NK to interact with the game of mafia is far more interesting than forcing them to use their NK to play a PR hunting game. It's like playing a game of chess where all the pieces move like checkers until the center pawns die. Yeah I guess it's chess but why are you doing that.

if you don't force scum to not exclusively target good / game specifically successful players then town will almost always lose.

play nightless if you don't want PRs.

[Carl Tuckerson]

I like power roles for their ability to generate flashpoints of discussion, but I dislike when they hose mafia without any significant counterplay, and I dislike solutions to this problem that mess with the information being presented.
For example, I like the cop because it creates information that provides for interesting gameplay, but I dislike that a normal cop without any roles interfering with it just outs a mafia no questions asked, and I dislike that most counters to the cop involve roles that turn up the wrong information (godfather, framer, lawyer) or modifiers to the cop that turn up the wrong information (insane cop).
I think the Neapolitan is a nice variation since it turns up useful information without outright telling you that someone is mafia. The mafia that's been checked at least has the ability to counter by claiming a power role and trying to draw out a counterclaim.
But even better in my opinion is the tracker, because the mafia always have counterplay to a tracker--they choose who kills so they choose who is vulnerable to being tracked, and there even exist roles that can be tracked to a dead townie.
I like the watcher conceptually but I worry that there are situations where it turns up too much information in one action, mainly in larger games.
Vigilantes are awesome. I guess they don't put them in newbie games because they're ripe for all kinds of feel-bad misuse, but I would strongly prefer to see a vigilante. They're like cops, but because the target dies, people are a lot less willing to go against the grain to shoot someone who they suspect against the general consensus of the town, and you don't get to keep confirmed townies around.

I generally dislike the doctor in games without a limited-use strongman, because the mafia depend on their nightkill to sculpt the town, and one guy getting to sit around for days because the mafia can't find the doctor sucks.

Jailers probably break some of my rules above but I love the role anyway for its flexibility. It's a very elegant design. I think contemplating it as a cop variant is looking at it the wrong way--it's a Swiss army knife. I don't think the fact that it becomes a super cop when one mafia is left is a big knock against it outside of two-mafia games, because town already had to do the lion's share of the work in most cases without it having that functionality. I do agree that it's not good that it becomes so strong in that situation, but I think it plays so well in other situations that I like having it despite that downside.