What Makes a Good Third Party?

[MegAzumarill]

Third Party's are some of the rarest roles to get in mafia. And yet, they have a certain aura about them that always captivates me. Something about how they clash with the duality of town and mafia's opposing play. Due to the popularity of Collaborative Deck Rolelists (Ala Grand Idea) in this forum the creation of nonstandard third party roles is open to anyone but I haven't seen anywhere talk of what distinguishes good third party roles from bad. That is what this thread is for (as well as discussion on the merits of current third party roles)

The most basic concept of third parties is found on three fronts.

1. The third party opposes all other players (

Serial Killer

)
2. The third party does not oppose any living players (

Survivor

)
3. The third party hinders other players but is not completely opposed to them. (Non Game Ending

Jester

)

Most if not all third party roles fall into these categories. Those that don't are often just faction aligned players with additional restrictions (namely also needing to survive)

The criterion I try to use when I look at third party roles in general being good/bad is:

1. Is the role make someone change their playstyle from a vanilla townie?
2. Is the role interesting/fair to play against? This includes its ability to decide the game in a kingmaker vote.
3. If the third party were to claim that said third party, would town be able to let it win for no cost? (Assuming Town is able)
4. Is it enjoyable to play?

Spoiler: My Analysis of The above Roles

-------------------------------------

This is a quick personal analysis of the three above mentioned roles.



Serial Killer is probably the best of the mentioned third parties. It requires being more survivalistic than town. It can be the victim of a kingmaker decision but usually does not end up causing one. It can be hard to search for but not impossible. Obviously it can't claim Serial Killer except in very specific scenarios which usually lead to a serial killer loss anyway. It certainly can be enjoyable, although some may not find it so (but that is true of all alignments)

Survivor is the worst role because it fails the fourth rule. It isn't enjoyable to play. There is no incentive to scumhunt, townhunt, or do anything other than try to stay alive. It's goal is often to survive to Elo just to let Mafia win a day earlier.

Jester in general is a bad role because it punishes town for correctly voting a non town player. It fails check two or check three depending on the consequences of eliminating a Jester. It is possible to balance but difficult.

------------------------------------------

Anyone else's thoughts on third party roles in general or how they should be incorporated would be nice. What are your favorite third party roles to play/ or just in concept?

[MegAzumarill]

Survivor is the worst role because it fails the fourth rule. It isn't enjoyable to play. There is no incentive to scumhunt, townhunt, or do anything other than try to stay alive. It's goal is often to survive to Elo just to let Mafia win a day earlier.

I think this overlooks the survivor's interest in the game ending as soon as possible. Survivors usually townside even harder than most town do for that reason. It doesn't matter to town how long it takes to get to a town win. For a survivor the quickest win possible is a perfect town win.

Offsite I've played a few times as an SK with a survivor wincon rather than last player standing. I cannot stress enough how intent I was on a town win in those games. I was the best vig town ever had.

I would only switch to scum-siding when town had blown their chance and it had become a toss-up or worse from the town pov. And sometimes I wouldn't switch even then because once I commit to a side I'm pretty quixotic about sticking to it.

This reminds me of my monk partner in DOAR:XU viewtopic.php?f=3&t=87762. (Though not exactly the same it was a solo player with a factional kill that won by surviving and could and did joint win with town) It feels distinct from a regular survivor however.

The main problem with giving survivors power roles is that it can make the game swingy although the role is more interesting. Survivors often side scum (in my experience offsite) because limming scum makes you a likely nightkill target. The more oppurtunities to die balances with the likelihood. It's also the safest bet in Elo. Not knowing which way they will side make it hard to balance around it. Survivors also are notorious kingmakers and as such propose another balance problem.

Effectively power role survivors are hard to use for moderators, and vanilla are both bland.

In theory you could play survivor mostly town, but at that point it just is a VT that loses if it dies which is a huge downside.

[MegAzumarill]

Agreed that roles like condemner can be boring.
The only way to enjoy those roles is to actively play suboptimal.
Otherwise the goal can be reached by just claiming a guilty on the target D2.

[MegAzumarill]

At that point it's town in all but name that loses if it dies (Although the bulletproof part helps with that)

[MegAzumarill]

It feels like you dismissed the points in the OP to make basically the same points you just dismissed.

[MegAzumarill]

But that does mean we are in agreement