Here are the initial roles. I'm just going to describe them in simpler terms. You should be able to view general versions of all the roles in the Trash QT, if you are so inclined.
Axxle, cayvie and Tables were Black Market. They got to choose among 3 powers that were different each night. Rolecop investigations were supposed to show them as whatever they chose, but I screwed this up with Galzria when I reported Axxle as a Black Market instead of as a Spy. I don't think it made a huge difference.
All three BMs knew each other, but weren't sure of alignments. Originally they weren't going to know each other, but I accidentally CC'd them all instead of BCC. So I let them know each other and added a mini-game (if they all pick the same thing they all get +3VP, if only two pick the same thing, those two both lose -1VP). I added in a couple of mechanics that ultimately weakened the town -- particularly, Tables became IW-aligned (his existence unknown to Galz) and Axxle became "mostly Deck aligned" -- on a night when he had -5VP or worse, he would be allowed to
choose to become Curse-aligned Curse Axxle2 (forsaking his role). The Curse role had no powers whatsoever.
Captain_Frisk was Scrying Pool. This was one of the major Deck power roles, giving CF the option to be a Cop, Watcher/Tracker or Rolecop. The Cop option would give him +3VP if he found scum. This was probably too powerful. The Watcher/Tracker let him target two players instead of just one, and it came with guaranteed +1VP. The Rolecop option would give history. I think this was the strongest option, though CF never used it (as of this writing -- it is currently day 9).
If I were to rebalance this game, I would significantly nerf this role. Besides being very powerful, it is also very swingy. If scum had managed to take control of it, they could have used it to supreme effect.
CF played extremely well with this role, but I think it would have been possible to talk him down. The conspiracy theorist in me would not have dropped the possibility that CF was the last Curse-aligned player, and that the string of successful investigations and lynches was just an elaborate ruse to secure his place as an
investigation immune scum cop. In fact, this kind of epic bus was an early plan of the real Curse Faction. It was too bad that role madness kept them from ever initiating that grand scheme.
Robz888 was Festival. This was the other major Deck power role, but its effect was not so obvious since Robz was locked up in IW really early. The main aspect was not protective! Festival was the town's double-voter. Robz only used it Day 1, then he was in IW, and when he was freed he never used the double vote again (as of day 9). I believe that the curse Faction actually speculated that Robz was a double voter, but never acted on that suspicion. This was another swingy power.
shark_bait had another protective role,
Trader. The target's VP loss that night and the next day (excluding lynch) would be halved, and Trader would receive the other half as +VP. I think this was decently balanced, though it was never very influential.
yuma was Embargo and I think this was one of the more elegant roles I devised. The Embargo token would effect the day and the next night, which means anyone paying attention would always be aware of who was Embargoed. The hint was that the token would be displayed in the day start post and then again in the night start post. Embargo also had a small and unreliable investigative property in that it would give yuma +1VP if he Embargoed a Deck-aligned player. His initial Embargo on Axxle gave +0.5VP due to Axxle's mixed alignment.
Grujah was Young Witch, the daypuncher, and he got a little sucked in by the +VP he could have earned with his role, ultimately coming off super scummy and getting lynched for it
twice. The purpose of the role was to do some serious scumhunting and lead the charge against someone. If you successfully make a strong case and get lots of people to join your wagon, you get +VP. If you fail to lead the lynch, well, you still daypunched the person you thought was scummy. I think this role was fine as well.
timchen was Ambassador, which worked like a self-sustaining Vig. timchen thought it was rather weak, but I believe it is quite strong. Being able to healed oneself for 2VP is nice, and being able to dish out -2VP is good too. I think this was a fairly well balanced power.
Eevee was Secret Chamber, and this was almost certainly too powerful. Eevee was basically unstoppable at night. In retrospect, I should have made it susceptible to non-role attacks, i.e. the -VP inflicted by the Curse Faction in general. I should also have made it susceptible to Masquerade.
Galzria was Ironworks-aligned Ironworks, and I believe his faction is fairly well understood at this point. I had not anticipated such an early revolt by Robz (I figured it would have been a bit longer before it happened). The IW became a much bigger distraction than ever intended. The intention was that Galz would obtain his majority and then die with a win. The recruits would have been freed at that point. Galz's death let Tables assume "power" of a sort, in that he still needed to be killed to finish off the IW for good.
By the way, Galz didn't die from lynch because he was made stronger with each recruit. Each instance of damage he received was divided by the size of the IW at that time, to a minimum of -1VP.
The Curse Faction was Insomniac, Dsell, Voltgloss and Lekkit. Their initial roles were Masquerade, Mountebank, Possession and Noble Brigand, respectively.Masquerade lets you target up to 3 others (including the dead) and rotates roles among the targets. This was meant to be a major source of Role Madness, and also a major reason why the game wasn't balanced. It could easily have shifted strong roles to one side. Mountebank was very simple and worked fine. Not too powerful, not too weak. Possession was a delayed rolecop+cop with the fun side effect of inflicting custom post restrictions. I should not have made it quite so strong an investigative tool -- it left the Cursers unwilling to part with it. Noble Brigand was a +VP stealer that would inflict -1VP if there was nothing to steal OR if the target was a Curser. This made NB stronger if not used by a Curse member. For example, jo's use of it on Axxle (night
stole the +VP Axxle would have received from Robz and killed him with -1VP to boot. Lekkit also had innate investigation immunity.
The Cursers had some really great plans at the start, but they got swept away by the madness of Grujah and timchen, and then the Ironworks. They spent too much time setting up a grand scheme that never got off the ground (if they had successfully started the epic bus, the game might have had a very different result). Possession was used on each other a few times to try to throw off trackers, but that insurance was not really needed.
One clever thing they did was keep Masquerade within their ranks. I hadn't expected that and was kind of worried that they would break the game by systematically seizing the strongest roles. Unfortunately for them, the Ironworks fiasco had them thinking that IW was a major power role (Galz convinced everyone that he could in fact use the powers he acquired). The end result was that Lekkit got stuck with a crippled Ironworks power.
They missed the two power roles for various reasons. Robz got locked up by IW so his double voting was never made known (and that was also partially obfuscated by an early BM power that also gave double voting, and which was chosen by all three BMs). CF only seemed to be a tracker at the start, so they weren't so concerned with him either. For a while, they thought I was trolling them by making Lekkit immune to cop investigation!
Though it seems like the Curse Faction was crushed decisively, I actually think the game was much closer than that. A few slightly altered decisions and it would have been a very different story.
jotheonah was the Almighty Trash Pile. This was the "Serial Killer" of the game. He was immune to quite a few things -- IW did not stop him from using his powers, and Masquerade couldn't touch him (though it could touch his "restless dead").
Each night he could choose two of the powers in the Trash. I think jotheonah was too Deckish during the day, outing Insomniac and later reminding everyone (most importantly, reminding CF) that Ins had claimed to help Volt. During the night, jo was not quite devious enough. I think he should have stolen CF's power with Masquerade when he had the chance, since jo was not investigation immune. Rather, investigating him would turn up curious results (not giving an alignment, showing his use of two powers.) And of course, Festival would have been invaluable to him.
Luckily, the people who accused him flipped scum, giving him a bit of credit. By the time people realized what he was, he had gained enough powers to be nearly unstoppable. Night 9, all the Cursers were dead and jo gained the ability to distribute (through them) -14VP! That’s actually quite huge. And then the Black Market wrapped around and he managed to get Lighthouse, making him immune to lynch. The Jester came up after that, giving him yet another free day.
At the end, Eevee made a costly mistake when there could have been a no-death night. With that, the town could still have lynched jo. But alas, it was not to be.
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Topic: Role Madness Mafia I GAME OVER, everyone wins sort of! (Read 231662 times)