Best Role Ideas?

[Yosarian2]

You are a DNA TESTING COP.

Each night, you can either examine a murder scene to attempt to find DNA evidence of the killer, or you can attempt to get a DNA sample off a person in the town to see if it matches up with any of the murders you have a record of.

For example, if Seol dies night 1, then on night 2 you can investigate his body to get a DNA sample of his killer. Night 3, you can either investigate someone who's alive (and you will either get a result of "The killer of Seol" or "Not the killer of Seol"), or you can investigate the murder scene of someone who was killed on night 2.

You win with the town.

[Yosarian2]

You are

The town's autowin

Fixed.

[Yosarian2]

Yeah, DNA cop would be a role for a large game.

And yeah, I've seen that necrophiliac type role before...basically, it's a miller for trackers, heh.

Lol @ PJ: That would rock. I want that role.

"Hey, PJ, I know you're not playing in this mini, but I'm a mason with you anyway. So, you figure out who the scum is yet?"

[Yosarian2]

I can't tell if DNA Cop is more or less powerful than a regular Cop. I think that's a good thing.

Oh, it's a lot weaker. Especally since it can't find all the mafia members, only ones who have made a kill. Which also means the DNA cop can't really ever clear anyone of being in the mafia, so it dosn't generate confirmed innocents the way a regular cop does. Throw in the added confusion of a possible pro-town vig making some of those kills, and the fact that he won't get any results until at least day 3, the DNA cop is one of the weakest "sane and useful" investigative roles I've seen. At least, that was what I was aiming for.

Edit: Yeah, somestrangeflea, you could also tell the DNA cop that "person A and person B were murdered by the same killer"; that would fit from a flavor point of view, and would add another nice level of subtle information gathering. I like it.

[Yosarian2]

How far back can he go to retrieve DNA off a dead person?

Hmm. I had been thinking that you could only get DNA off of someone who died the night before.

Also is it me or is the best strat to get a lot of samples off of dead folk as the game progresses and hope you're alive end-game?

Well, if you sample a lot of people and then start investigating, then yes, your investigations are more effective, but you also get less of them. Also information earlier is more useful then information later, especally if you have to back up your claim. Besides, if you get the DNA sample of a murder on night 2, it dosn't do you any good if that same killer gets lynched later (especally since you won't ever know that).

Basically, I'm not sure; it's a judgement call.

[Yosarian2]

Sidekick

- When the game starts choose one of the following town power roles: (Cop, Doc, Vig, Role Blocker, etc)
At night you may check one target player and see if they are the town power role you have chosen to search for. You win with the town. Go lynch the scum!

Modnotes - To add dimension to the role you may add roles that aren't in the setup to the role choice list. You can also mess with its sanity if you wanted to turn this into a worst role. You can also add the condition that should the sidekick die, all players will learn what you chose to search for.

Should the user pick a role in the setup, the user can now effectivly help that player defend from lynches. Should they pick Cop and find a cop, they will know to look for bread crumbs from that player and to support their suspicions during the game.

You could make certain variants of this role like "Cop Finder" suspifically. Should the mafia then later on kill the "Cop Finder", they will now have depth to try and find the cop based on who the finder buddied up too. So esentially the cop finder would be almost a guard to a king. And should the finder have not found the cop or there isn't a cop in the setup, now the mafia will be sent on a bastardize chase for the cop.

I like it. It's an interesting information role that dosn't really affect the balance much but that you'd never want to claim.

[Yosarian2]

1. You are the

Mafia Bloodsucker

. Each night you may target a player to weaken them. During the following day, it will take two less votes to lynch them. They will heal during the night and return to their full strength by the following day.

2. You are the

Mafia Bloodsucker

. Each night you may target a player to weaken them. During the following day, it will take one less vote to lynch them. This effect is permanent {or: this effect is permanent while you are alive}. You may target a player more than once.

Problem is that either of those roles means mafia basically auto-wins in lynch or lose.

[Yosarian2]

You are the

Mafia Doctor.

Each Night, you may choose a target and they will be protected from being lynched on the next Day. You may not target yourself. You win when only Mafia members remain or nothing can prevent the same.

It would have to be balanced a bit.

What does "protected from being lynched" mean?

If the town gets to a lynch on the person, does the day end and the lynch fail, or does that guy just not get lynched, or does the mod announce "Elmo can not be lynched today!"?

If it's the second or the third, it's probably balancable. The first would probably be too strong.

[Yosarian2]

You

Have a loud whistle

The town watch you are a part of has asked you to keep an eye on the neighborhood, and has given you a loud whistle to blow when you see any criminal activity.

You may choose one person to watch. If you see anyone trying to break into that person's house, you blow your whistle, and the criminal is forced to either run away or, if he dosn't do that, you have a chance to see who he is.

You win with the town.

(Combined doc/watcher variant; if someone tries to kill a person you're protecting, he will be PM'd a choice; EITHER he runs away, in which case the kill fails, OR he goes ahead and kills anyway, in which case the kill succeeds but you find who the killer is. Either way, it's the killer's choice if he would rather be prevented from killing or identified.)

[Yosarian2]

You

Have a loud whistle

The town watch you are a part of has asked you to keep an eye on the neighborhood, and has given you a loud whistle to blow when you see any criminal activity.

You may choose one person to watch. If you see anyone trying to break into that person's house, you blow your whistle, and the criminal is forced to either run away or, if he dosn't do that, you have a chance to see who he is.

You win with the town.

(Combined doc/watcher variant; if someone tries to kill a person you're protecting, he will be PM'd a choice; EITHER he runs away, in which case the kill fails, OR he goes ahead and kills anyway, in which case the kill succeeds but you find who the killer is. Either way, it's the killer's choice if he would rather be prevented from killing or identified.)

Would this apply to non killing roles like roleblockers and cops?

Nope, just kills.

It's basically designed to be a slightly weaker doc variant, that helps prevent the kind of broken "cop claims, doc protects, town wins" stuff by giving a scum the option to kill the cop in that case anyway, but at a high price.

[Yosarian2]

Actually, I had a neat idea for a different way to balance a cult.

One basic problem with cults is that, cool as it is to figure out that someone's alignment has changed, it's basically useless since town dosn't even want to lynch a cult recruit until the recruiter is dead. A normal cult, all that matters really is how good the cult recruiter is, and that's not a good role design.

So, I came with this alternate design.

You are a

suicide-cult leader

Each night, if you choose, you may recruit someone else to join your cult. If at any point anything happens to you, one of your recruits will become the new cult leader (in the order they were recrited in.)

However, if at any point 3 members of your cult die for any reason, then, as per the ancient prophecy, all members of your cult will commit suicide.

You may talk with the members of your cult at night, and they may talk to each other at night. You win when everyone left in the game is in the cult, or nothing can prevent the same.

It's got some neat features to it. The cult loses if 3 of it's members get lynched, which kind of balances them with a 3 member mafia. Also, there's an interesting choice to make; the more people you recruit, the more power you have to influince the lynch, but the higher risk of getting nightkilled as well.

There's also the potential for a really awesome end-game scenerio where the majority of the people in the game are cult, but now that majority-cult has to hunt down and lynch the vig before he kills 3 of them. Sort of one of those creepy paranoia movies where the body snatchers have taken over almost everyone else in the town and they're now openly hunting you down with spotlights and mindless wandering mobs while you try to run, hide, and fight back when you can.

[Yosarian2]

I came with this alternate design.

You are a

suicide-cult leader

Each night, if you choose, you may recruit someone else to join your cult. If at any point anything happens to you, one of your recruits will become the new cult leader (in the order they were recrited in.)

However, if at any point 3 members of your cult die for any reason, then, as per the ancient prophecy, all members of your cult will commit suicide.

You may talk with the members of your cult at night, and they may talk to each other at night. You win when everyone left in the game is in the cult, or nothing can prevent the same.

BRILLIANT!!!

Do I have your permission to try to design an open setup with this role?


(Open setup because Cults have no place in a closed setup).

edit: imo of course. I guess it could work.

Sure. And yeah, that role is designed for at least a semi-open setup.

[Yosarian2]

Mask man: Journal keeper isn't a bad role. It's interesting.

Forcefield, though, seems kind of random; it's pretty much random if a scum happens to try to kill a pro-town power role who happens to be targeting you; there's no real stratagy or thinking involved, on anyone's part, and the end result would be "a scum, who correctly figured out the identity of the town cop and tries to kill him, fails to do so out of just pure bad luck". Greater forcefield is the same thing, but significantly worse, since instead of a kill on a power role randomly failing, you have a kill on a power role randomly failing and a scum randomly dying at the same time. Just adds randomness to the game, making the game less skill based.

Same goes for "overprotective robot". Paranoid gun owner is a decent role, because there is some stratagy involved (how do you get the scum to target you, but not town, ect.) This, though, just seems random, unless you can somehow manipulate the scum into targeting the guy you're protecting, and I can't see how you would do that.

Self destructive robot has promise, but it should NOT say

If you are targeted by three or more separate people during a single night, your parser will overload and you will explode. The explosion will kill you and everyone that targeted you that night.

If you want it so it dies when 3 people target it at the same time, that's interesting and cool, but having it so it dies and so do all 3 people targeting it would very likely just end the game, or at least wipe out every power role the town has, in a single semi-random event. I would just remove the "and everyone that targeted you that night" line, and then the role is pretty cool.

The Phoenix Wright role is cool, and kind of funny. If this is a role for general use, I'd probably just call it "lawyer" instead, but otherwise I like it. Just understand that you're adding a pro-town dude who can instantly confirm his own role here, which is very powerful in and of itself; avoid putting anyone else who can easily confirm themselves into the same game.

[Yosarian2]

You are a

Sane Cop

. This is a broken role that instantly gets accurate results at night without having to scumhunt. As such you are not in this game or any game of actual challenge. You win when the browns win the superbowl. Good luck

Meh, sane cop isn't a broken role, at all. In fact, the way we usually balance a game (12 people, 3 of them scum) dosn't really work unless the town has a sane cop or else something equivalent power-wise; that's part of the reason scum have been winning a majority of mini-theme games lately.

[Yosarian2]

The problem with sane cop isn't that it's broken, it's that it's boring. It removes thought process from the game.

Eh, only if the sane cop has a chance to investigate a lot of people, or all the scum. If, as is normal, he only gets to investigate 2 or 3 people, and one is scum, then from the large perspective, what the town has are some solid facts to work from to figure out who the rest of the scum are, but not enough to win with, especially since the cop will generally die after he claims.

Now, if you have a cop and a doc in the same game, that can remove the thought process.

[Yosarian2]

We actually just had a game with a role like that, the "fiddler" in Warewolves of Miller Hollow.

viewtopic.php?t=11168&start=0

Each night, he could target two people and make them start "dancing", and if everyone in the game was dancing, he wins.

The big difference was, people knew when they were dancing, and I think that makes it a much better role then the hypnotist. Because of that, people know it's going on, and can figure out how much time the town has to find the fiddler before everyone but him loses, and town can also use who he's targeted, and which nights he's been able to target, and such to figure out who he is.

I think that's much better; it's not really fair to have a role where all of a sudden everyone else in the game just loses with no warning and no way of knowing it was going to happen. So yeah, I think people should know when they become "hypnotised", although it shouldn't change their win condition or anything else.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention; in that game, not only did the "dancers" know they were dancing, they knew exactly who else in the game was dancing. They didn't know who the fiddler was, though, and they lost if the fiddler won.

[Yosarian2]

Sorry, comming to the hypnotist late.

If a survivor is hypnotised, would they still count their win con if the hypnotist wins?

Answer: Never ever use a survivor, ever, for any reason, under any circumstances.

(real answer: I would imagine, sure. But still, don't use survivors.)

Would there be someone who is immune and would know of the attempt?

Um...you could make a role who was immune, either spicifically fiddler-immune or else generally immune to night actions. Adding that he would "know of the attempt" seems like overkill to me, but, no reason why a role like that couldn't be designed, if the mod really thought it was in the best interests of game balance.

Could the hypnotist order an immediate kill. Player A hypnotises Player B who goes to kill player C but doesn't know he did it. Could lead to some fun and games in player B was tracked or player C watched

That dosn't really sound like the role we're talking about. Why add a killing ability? Seems like you're taking a already rather complicated and potentially confusing role and adding unnecessary complexity.

Could the hypnotist fail?

Sure. No reason he couldn't be roleblocked, or hit an untargatable townie, or get redirected, or target someone who was going to die that night.

[Yosarian2]

I don't know if this one has been suggested yet, kind of limited use but might be interesting in a game with no-lynch at deadline:

You are a

determined townie

: you're just like a regular townie except that, if any day would end in a no lynch for any reason, you are lynched instead.

I really like this role except the only problem is the person knows she will not last long, to make up for that situation, could you give her some sort of power (even weak) as an incentive? Like a 1-shot roleblock/doc upon death?

I just feel that if I got this role, I wouldn't feel very invested in the game. With some way I can affect (even slightly) after my death, I'd definitely be more into the game.

Eh, intentional no-lynch isn't that common, though. If there's an endgame situation where town is thinking about no-lynch, you might have to claim, but other then that, the main difference of that role is that you are going to need to push even harder then usual to avoid unintentional no-lynch (that is, deadline hits without a lynch majority.)

In fact, that'd be a tempting role to include in a game with short deadlines and a requirement that town get an actual majority to lynch each day. Just another reason to force the town to get it's act together each day...

[Yosarian2]

Coast Guard

You are a

Coast Guard

. Your goal as part of the Town is to eliminate all of the Mafia.

• During the night, you may swim out into sea, and guard the waters. Any inspections, investigations, watches, or tracks will fail for that night.
  
• You may only coast guard 3 times over the course of the game.

Why would anyone ever use this?

Um. I guess if there's a mafia cop alive and no town cops still alive, it'd be useful, if you knew that. I donno, maybe some kind of open setup?