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On January 04 2014 18:48 Blazinghand wrote: It's not QUITE as strong as Innocent Child in the sense that it can be counter claimed. It's more vulnerable to "shitty play" than an Innocent Child is which is good imo
also since they're not aware of each other you can have 3 boxers in a setup without breaking it lol
I agree. I really like the role.
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Without Named VT's there would never have been a Tommy the Fireman.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
The original role description:
BoxeR (Named VT): You are a blue with no powers. Still, you are the legendary BoxeR, so you can of course roleclaim. However, this is GSL Open Season 1, and so you don't know if you're Lim Yo Hwan or Lee Jung Hoon. There might both be in this game, or it might be just you and HopeTorture, or you and NesTea. Find and destroy the cheesers.
the joke of course being the fact that mkp played under the handle BoxeR between october 2010 and january 2011
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One idea which occurs to me is that it might be worth thinking about "secondary" standard setups designed around the possibility for an uncommon role like Tracker, Watcher, Masons, etc. similar to how the GSL setup is based around the Named VT.
It's probably impossible to fit every possible "normal" role into a single setup, and even if it were I don't think it would be a good idea. Too many combinations to think about them all.
Even if just as a mental exercise to consider how, for example, a Tracker combined with role X can impact balance, I think this would be worthwhile. It would at least be a guideline for people wanting to use these roles in future.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
That sounds like an interesting idea.
tracker and watcher are pretty different, even if they use the visiting mechanic.
tracker: it's in many ways a weaker version of cop in a game with delivered kp. pretty much detects scum or blue and based on where the action went you can reason what they were.
watcher: kind of like a doctor. Causes scum to shoot sub-optimal targets (ie not go straight for the towniest guy) if they know it exists, except the penalty is information rather than lack of an NK.
i'm not as familiar with masons
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Watcher is kind of an OP role, especially in games with games with delivered KP as it confirms killing/non-killing role if seen someone being visited. Cops are already kinda OP in mini games (or like in any games, i think that's why parity cops are used more often) and watcher is in a way like a cop.
Trackers in games imo go well with vigilantes, veterans, masons and nosy neighbours etc. I think the problem with watchers is you would need to give mafia some chances of fakeclaiming or add mafia vigilante(s) as well, but especially in smaller games it becomes too roled and complicated.
Therefore i don't really think using watchers in small games is a smart idea. Trackers however would be interesting in games balanced with vigis, vets, and masons - over usual games with cops, docs, JK's etc.
EDIT: Actually with trackers you could add blacksmith(?), a person who gives out a bulletproof vest for someone for the next night (pick a person on N1 -> the person gets a BP-vest for N2), it would be like a nerfed doc as you should pick a target the night before.
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I don't think named VT is a normal role on TL, but supposing we include it (or self-aware miller) I'd be wary of including more than one or two max of those roles in a game at any rate. It's one of those roles that exists solely to be claimed, and I think it's much more powerful than you'd think.
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Named_Townie
Mafia claiming a named VT (or self-aware miller) is way too risky.
Also, in all of the setups you provided, certain townies know enough about the setup such that they can punish scum fakeclaims. It's true that any given blue will not know what the other blues are, but the counts matter.
Town gains a huge advantage if a GF flips too, since they then know exactly how many claims to expect, and they know that any PC results are guaranteed to be correct.
Since there can't be two cops, scum should never claim cop, because it makes a 1 for 1 trade incredibly likely. I as scum would never do that. You can only claim named VT as GF, and if you make it policy for named VTs to claim at the beginning of the game (which it should be) then no scum can claim that either. Since it is almost never in the interest of town to claim doctor, scum can't claim that either.
I don't think fake claim opportunities really exist in that setup except as really huge gambits in already shitty situations.
e: watcher is OP as fuck and doesn't even deserve a mention in roles to include.
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Do fake claim opportunities really need to exist? It's kind of hard to fake claim in c9++ also.
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On January 04 2014 20:02 DarthPunk wrote: Do fake claim opportunities really need to exist? It's kind of hard to fake claim in c9++ also. I personally do not like games without fake claim opportunities. Roles like named VT are okay but you have to give mafia some leeway to handle situations in multiple ways, i don't find it really fun if you have only one correct way to do some things as mafia (f.ex. to fakeclaim/counter-claim or try to snipe something? etc.)
Imo it's better if people have multiple approaches they are able to take and weigh the probabilities of success and use their judgement to determine the best course of action instead of making the game go some certain way where there is like "only one right way to play" for mafia in certain situations.
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At the same time, though, I don't think fakeclaims should be too easy or safe.
EDIT: I think that fakeclaims tend to be more viable, useful and appropriate in larger games where balance is less razor-sharp and an extra role here or there is not as noticeable.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On January 04 2014 19:52 wherebugsgo wrote: Town gains a huge advantage if a GF flips too, since they then know exactly how many claims to expect, and they know that any PC results are guaranteed to be correct.
GF flip is bad, but it can always be bad for scum anyways. The pcop issue is more of a problem in the 13 player setup because he'll have more checks, but it's the "check one person per night" pcop not the "check two people per night" pcop.
Also a GF flip tells town nothing about how many claims to expect, only about what kinds. A, D, E, and H all have a GF. All a GF flip tells town is that there is either both a cop AND a doctor, or only BoxeRs. In theory there could be 0, 1, 2, or 3 BoxeRs if the only flip so far is a GF.
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A few thoughts regarding trackers:
If a single mafia player can deliver KP and use their power, which is tracked? Being tracked to two places at once practically confirms them as mafia, and there's arguments against tracking only one. The most elegant solution is to enforce that a mafia cannot use their power and deliver KP, which may have ramifications for balance.
Do mafia require some kind of tracker-obfuscating ability? The three I can think of are:
- Godfather-analogue; cannot be tracked, or is tracked to wherever he chooses. Mafia would always choose to deliver KP through this guy, making the tracker power kind of pointless.
- Framer-analogue; makes a player look like they visited a specific other player. Seems pretty powerful, just keep framing people so that they visit your KP target.
- Weaker framer-analogue; makes a player look like they visited some other player, but the framer doesn't get to choose who. This has the most appeal to me though I haven't thought it through balance-wise.
Obviously Nosy Neighbour functions as the Miller-analogue.
And agreed, watcher is pretty OP.
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Watchers and trackers only really work well in big games IMO.
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If a single mafia player can deliver KP and use their power, which is tracked? Usually all the actions are tracked. That's where it comes tricky for mafia. Use their power role to get basically outed if tracked versus risk multiple mafia members to be seen visiting people.
I don't see any problem with this. It adds another element to the game
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On January 04 2014 20:37 DarthPunk wrote: Watchers and trackers only really work well in big games IMO. Hmm... I'm inclined to agree with you, actually.
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I would be interested in playing in a game (in case someone wants to experiment) with the following roles (0+ of every role):
Town: - tracker - 1-shot vigilante - blacksmith - nosy neighbour - vanilla town
Mafia: - roleblocker (rb's not notified) - 1-shot framer (chooses 2 players -> the first player shows up visiting the second one) - goon
All flips flip alignment only.
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Im interested in these minis. Would host, would play.
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I think we should play test blazinghand's setup in the next normal mini.
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What's Blazinghand's setup? EDIT: The GSL / British Empire setup ?
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On January 04 2014 22:17 raynpelikoneet wrote: What's Blazinghand's setup? EDIT: The GSL / British Empire setup ? The one he just posted.
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