[SETUP] Salty Sailors, Spiteful Saboteurs, Sinking Ships

[Skygazer]

S.S.S.S.S.S.

Setup

9 Salty Sailors

/

3 Spiteful Saboteurs

OR

10 Salty Sailors

/

3 Spiteful Saboteurs

Mechanics

• This game is nightless.
  
• Spiteful Saboteurs
  are vengeful (when they are eliminated, they may kill a
  Salty Sailor
  of their choice).
  
• Eliminations are not determined by majority vote (at first)!! Instead, there is a popcorn mechanic:
  • At the start of each day, the
    Spiteful Saboteurs
    must select one player (of any alignment). The deadline for selection is one prod timer.
    
  • The selected player gets to publicly select another player using a HEAL (HEAL: ) tag. The player they select then gets to publicly select another player, and so on (kind of like the "popcorn reading" that some of us may have experienced in school).
    
  • The last person left that has not been selected is eliminated and flips. If they are a
    Spiteful Saboteur
    , they may vengekill a
    Salty Sailor
    .
    
  • The game reverts to a typical majority vote mechanic once it becomes possible for an elimination to end the game (ie: if there's only one
    Spiteful Saboteur
    left, or if the game is in ELO).

Flavor

The

Spiteful Saboteurs

are scuttling the ship, and the lifeboat can fit all but one player. The crew must decide who to leave behind. If a

Spiteful Saboteur

is selected, they push someone overboard out of spite. On the next phase, the

Spiteful Saboteurs

will start scuttling the lifeboat, and the lifeboat's lifeboat can once again fit all but one living player. This sequence of progressively smaller doomed lifeboats continues until the game is over.

EVs

Based on random chance, town would win around 38.7% of the time in the 12 player version and around 43.4% of the 13 player version. I'm not quite sure which is preferable (I'm leaning towards the 12 player version); nightless can be brutal for scum, but I think the elimination mechanic is probably more scum-sided than town-sided (although it would glean interesting info), and the vengekills allow for scum to remove at least two thorns in their side at some point.

Role Cards

Ahoy! You are a

Salty Sailor

.

You have no special powers. You win if every

Spiteful Saboteur

is eliminated.

Ahoy! You are a

Spiteful Saboteur

.

Your partners are [partners], and you may talk to them in this private topic at any time.

At the start of each day, if it isn't possible for the game to end with that day's elimination, your faction must select one player (of either alignment) to kick off the special elimination mechanic. You must do this within the first [prod timer length] hours of the day phase.

This game is nightless, but you may kill a

Salty Sailor

upon your elimination.

[usesPython]

Scum being able to guaranteed stay alive until ELO by selecting themselves and then healing their buddy if necessary is pretty brutal (or even worse, have the same scummy townie be selected the entire gama to frame them in ELO)

[usesPython]

Scum being able to guaranteed stay alive until ELO by selecting themselves and then healing their buddy if necessary is pretty brutal (or even worse, have the same scummy townie be selected the entire gama to frame them in ELO)

The implications of this also means that if scum successfully pocket someone they pretty much win on the spot since they can rely on that person to keep them alive while also keeping them alive with their heal.

This is probably really scumsided in practice

[Skygazer]

I wonder if that could be fixed by not letting scum select the same player twice, and not letting anyone popcorn the same player two phases in a row?

[Skygazer]

I guess it could also be a day-one-only mechanic

[usesPython]

I guess it could also be a day-one-only mechanic

I think the problem with this mechanic is that if it's less EV than majority voting then the optimal play is to leash heals and simulate majority voting which is a shame because it's really cool

[usesPython]

Maybe something like letting everyone heal two people and needing two heals to live through the day (e.g. HEAL: Flower, Skygazer,

Popcorn: Flower

)? Would lessen the impact of pocketing and mutual scum defense

[Skygazer]

my initial instinct is that i really love that mechanic