Postgame
I've been meaning to share my thoughts for a while, but The Game was taking up most of my time. Rather than focus on individual play, I'm going to discuss the roles, any flaws or potential improvements, and how they were used. If you have anything to add, feel free to chime in!
As I mentioned in the OP, the biggest problem with all blue setups is that you can't take the numbers of a normal game, balanced around 6-8 blues and suddenly expect the balance to translate to having 20 blues. It's just unreasonable to expect a mafia team to overcome a setup where each player is an investigative role, a kp role, or a protection role, even if the mafia team has a role of their own. My goal was to take normal blue roles and nerf them to the point where everyone could still receive a role, without destroying the balance. Despite the mafia flawless victory, I still think the setup leaned slightly towards town. Even with all the nerfs, the town still had plenty of tools available that could have swung the game had they been used optimally.
You are Toadesstern! All glory to the Hypnotoad. As TL's favorite drama queen, you love being the center of attention. Once per cycle during the day, you may transfer target player's vote to yourself. The vote transfer will be announced in the thread. Once per game at night, you may have target player target you with any actions they are able to perform at night. If they are chosen to carry out a factional kp, the shot will be redirected to yourself. You win with town.
I like this role in the sense that it fits well with the personality of Toad, causing him to be center of attention. The vote redirection was situational, but could be used to increase the chances of your preferred lynch, by removing a vote from the alternate candidate. Vivax decided to use this role at perhaps the worst time by redirecting a vote to himself during the cycle where the lynch could could down to 2-4 votes due to the pardon. This is probably more a result of poor luck, than poor decision making, but I due feel that the use of the role was more for the sake of using it, rather than beneficial to town.
The secondary power was much more powerful, serving as a global martyr type role. Not only could he redirect a kp from one of mafia's confirmed targets to himself, he could use the role as an investigative role to determine if the target was carrying out a factional kp. While it wasn't a 100% check, I think it should have been used on day two or three.
You are Jackal58! Once per game at night, you may designate the following cycle to be your bowling night. You cannot be lynched or the target by any actions during the next day and night cycle. Any votes cast against you will not count. Your vote will not count. You win with town.
This role was essentially a single cycle vet. I think to be used optimally, the player should have made the mafia perceive the player as a threat, whether it be through scum hunting or a fake blue claim to draw a hit.
You are Plexa! As a TL admin, you've inherited powers based on famous teamliquid threads. Once per night you will be given a thread and a power based upon that thread. You win with town.
Each cycle is given a new single use ability based on TL threads.
1) You have received the power of the
Genie Thread! You may select the invention of your choice to be used tonight. Careful what you wish for!
2) You have received the power of the
Nada's Body Thread! You may post sexy images of the Tornado Terran. The
first two players to quote a post with Nada's image you may mason for
the rest of the cycle.
3) FakeSteve MSPaint Thread- One in every three posts must include an MS paint image during the following day cycle. Failure to do so will cause your vote to count for nothing.
4) girl blogs, target cant vote or action
5) monkeys, mass roleblock
This was one of my favorite roles in the sense that it was unique or interesting. I'm not sure if the thread ever learned about what the invention was, but here is what oats submitted. The genie nerf is in red:
The vengeful genie has granted your wish! You currently hold the magic marker.
Magic Marker.
Whoever has the Magic Marker, can PM the host and ask the host to post a 240 character message signed by the personalities name, at any time. However the host might get it wrong and has a 10% chance to post your real name so BE CAREFUL.
If you get voted for, the marker is passed to the person who voted for you first, after a delay of 12 hours. Each message will be randomly translated to the language of the hosts choice.
I was quite surprised to see oats come up with an invention that wasn't overpowered, as most inventions turn out to be. The actual use of the role was quite subpar. It was essentially used to lie about whether or not Caller's nukes were real. If your identity as Plexa had ever been revealed, you likely would have been mislynched.
The nada's body power could have been used to mason any individual of your choice with a quote request, but instead only a single target was chosen and I don't think much came out of the discussion.
The third power I wish we had modified. Forcing a post restriction on a player isn't fun if the player is not interested in participating. I think it would have worked better if the fake steve ms paint post was required only when voting for a player.
You are Caller! As an Infamous host, your antics have made their way into TL legend. At the start of the game, you may choose 4 players. You may choose to give each of these players either a NUKE, or a FAKE NUKE. The players will recieve a notification that they may fire a nuke before the halfway mark of a day by typing ##NUKE in the thread, at which point a notification by the host will confirm the shot. Both FAKE NUKEs and NUKES will elicit the same notification. NUKES do not actually kill players. Instead they unleash a storm of KEBAB on their target. The target of the KEBAB, and anyone visiting them, will be roleblocked for that night becuase they must take time to REMOVE KEBAB. A person may not be KEBABed twice in a game. You win with the town
GreYMisT came up with this role and I think slOosh used it to great effect. He was able to use the knowledge of the nuke targets without the consequence of the players actually dying. I think upon receiving the nuke, a couple of individuals may have gotten themselves in trouble by firing too quickly without thinking things over.
You are RebirthOfLegend! As an outlet for your rage, you've become a bus driver, running over anyone who gets in your way. Once per game at night, you may bus yourself with target player. Careful not to break physics! You win with town.
Probably one of the roles with the strongest potential to swing the game one way or another. BC could have protected himself, confirmed himself, killed off a mafia player, and lowered the mafia kp all on night one when he bussed himself with Ver. The roleblock on BC was probably the most significant night action of the entire game. Funny enough, the quote we sent in with the role pm had RoL raging about how a roleblock on a self-busdriver was impossible. Since it wasn't clarified in the role pm, which action would resolve first, we had to go back to one of the older games where a complete action resolution sequence was listed to determine that the roleblock should resolve first.
You are Foolishness! After months of slaving away at maintain the active games thread, you've inherited the ability to queue players. Once per night, you may select target player. Their night actions, excluding non-role mafia kp, will not resolve until the following cycle. Since you have imposed a limit on the number of players in the queue at one time, you may not use your power on consecutive nights. In addition, you are immune to medic protections. You win with town.
This was more of an experimental role so I was interested to see if there were any good situational uses for it. Perhaps it could have been used as a roleblock hunter or to delay the resolution of a suspected anti-town player. The only time it was used this game was when Personality Foolishness queued actual Foolishness.
Prom deserves a medal for keeping up with the limericks. Each post must have taken forever.
You are wherebugsgo, Jack of all mafia trades! Unfortunately for you, you seem to have rolled town. Once per cycle, you must submit one of the following actions. You cannot select the same action twice. The following cycle you will receive a reward for your scummy ways based on your selection. 1) Frame target player to return the role and alignment of your choice. 2) Silence target player from posting in the thread for the first 24 hours of the day cycle. 3) Cover target player's alignment from being revealed during an alignment check or death through night hit. 4) Roleblock target player. 5) Pardon target player during the day cycle. The player with the second most votes will be lyched. You win with town.
Hidden:
1) Frame -> role cop
2) Silence -> Mason first 24 hours
3) Cover -> Godfather
4) Roleblock -> Jail
5) Pardon -> Unlynchable for 1 cycle
The goal of this role was to reward a player for minimizling the damage done by the anti-town powers and finding town applications for the their use. I really think the mafia powers weren't as harsh as it may seem. The frame and cover are single target and by targeting a player that is unlikely to get checked, it is extremely unlike that it would have ever impacted the game. In the unlikely event that it framed or covered player was targeted, a simple role claim would negate the result of the check. Silence is probably the most anti-town role, but it only lasted 24 hours and I'd be tempted to have used it on several people just to reduce the spam and nonsense. Roleblock has plenty of town applications and the pardon allows you to essentially control one of the lynches, assuming your preference is second in the voting. Jail and role cop in partciular were two of the strongest town rewards.
Kurumi, I think you took one of the top three strongest roles in the game and wrecked the start of the game, and I mean this is the nicest way possible. There was absolutely no reason to lynch you simply because you had this role. There was absolutely no indication that you were a mole and jumping on a lynch destroyed the thread day one and put yamato in a position that he was never able to overcome after shooting you.
You are Radfield. As a former fantasy proleague winner, you channel the power of your fancy icon to recive extra votes! Once per cycle, you will be given three Starcraft matches to predict the outcome of. For each correct predition you make, your vote will secretly count as 0-3 votes. The vote count will reflect your extra votes in totals, but will not reveal how many votes you are responisble for. If you fail to submit your picks by the deadline, your vote will count for nothing. You win with town.
This role was revived from Insane Mafia 2. The timing of things worked out pretty horrible as the game began days after the GSL finals and proleague, so iamp was left predicting mostly show matches and even a Dota match when we were especially desperate. He only got 1-2 votes out of it each cycle, so he never reached the triple vote. The part I liked least about this was that he didn't know how many votes he would have until the matches were completed. I probably should have made the predictions a night cycle action so he would know what he was working with going into the day cycle. The role also could have used a buff I think as it was a tad on the weak side.
You are Bumatlarge! At least, that is what the unknowing citizens of Liquidia refer to you as. Only you know your true identity as the crime fighting hero, the Batman! Once per night cycle you can select one of the following night abilitites. Each power may only be used once.1) You may hide in the bushes of target player and learn the identies of any player that visits them at night. 2) You may borrow a bulletproof piercing RPG from Police Commisioner Gorden and fire it at the target of your choice. 3) As the Hero of Gotham, you may captivate the heart and souls of the town by telling them a story of your adventures. If you are leading the vote count at the end of the cycle, you will be pardoned. You must submit this action during the first 24 hours of the day cycle. You win with town.
This role nearly missed the cut, but I couldn't have a Personality game without bumatlarge. On reflection, I regret putting the second power that lies to a player. If a player believes he has a kp, it can impact the whole way he plays and punish them when they learn it failed. People who didn't follow the RPG game with bum wouldn't be able to make the connection that forgot to use it. bum's story telling allowing him to survive a lynch was a reference to PYP3. It happened to work out nicely for Foolishness, but obviously it would have been better if it never was needed. The 1-shot watcher, the Meapak role, and the VE role were the only hard investigative roles I included in the game. It had really dangerous synergy with the VisceraEyes role since it would net a free mafia after the roleblock. In fact, there were plenty of easy opportunities for the watcher to net a mafia check and I think it is too powerful for the setup.
You are GMarshal! As a paragon of justice on Teamliquid, you have a hatred for those who would oppose the rules. But you have a softer side, mostly for ponies. Once per game, you can prove to the thread that Friendship truely is magic by forcing 2 players to share the votes on them (this must be submitted the night before). This means everyone voting for player A will also be voting for player B, and vice versa. If one player is lynched this way, the other will be too. You also must set an example to the thread, and punish those who post images or Gifs. Once per game, you may quote a player who has posted an image or gif and type ##Temp Ban. This ban will cause their vote to not count and render them uncounsious, roleblocking them for the remainder of the cycle. You win with town.
The GMarshal role had the power to link two players together to serve as a double lynch if pulled off correctly. I really think that nuke waited too long to use this role. Day three seemed like the best time to activate it and by the time it was actually used, the game was over.
You are VisceraEyes! I'm sorry, someone had be to him. You are compelled to claim at times that players never thought possible. During the day, you may claim publicly that you are any basic role. (Pairity cop, Medic, Tracker, Watcher, Jailer) and reveal your target. You will become this role for the following night targeting that player. You may not use this power to become the same role more than once. If you are roleblocked, your "shot" will be refunded. You win with town.
I think this was one of the more powerful roles, even though marv seems to have disagreed. While the mafia team is able to work around the claims or commit a roleblock, it limits their options, whether it be night hits or roleblocking a different threat. The parity cop choice was solid and the only reason it didn't net a mafia lynch was the fear of a framer. In a regular theme game, this role would have been considered weaker, but in comparison, I think it had plenty of useful applications.
You are Palmar! As the undesputed leader of every game ever, you have a lot of charisma and have developed your own flock of sheep. During the day, you may PM the hosts the name of a player who voted for the same target as you last cycle. This target will be forced to also vote with you for this cycle. You may not use this power on the same player for consecutive days. You win with town.
A standard politician with a twist. This was one of the weaker roles, but it could have been strong if the game had lasted to late game. The biggest problem with the mechanic is that mafia assumes it is an anti-town role if not claimed, which could get you in trouble later on.
You are jcarlsoniv! As TL's resident LoL adict, you've played so much Viktor that you've convinced yourself you actually are the Machine Herald. Once per night, you may activate one of the following powers. Each power may only be used once: 1) Upgrade Hex Core. Select Augment: Power, Augment:Gravity, or Augment:
Death to receive a bonus to one of your other abilities.
2) Power transfer, Viktor targets a player generating a shield, protecting him from 1 kp generated by the target player for that night cycle. *Augment: Power bonus - Select two players*
3) Gravity Field, if target player does not act at night, they are roleblocked the following night. *Augment: Gravity bonus - Any non-factional kp night actions are reflected back at them, rather than roleblocked*
4) Death Ray - Animation is buggy, kills Kavdragon instead. Augment Death bonus: Nope, still no patch. Kills Kavdragon instead.
5) Chaos Storm: Target three players. Any actions targeting one of these players will randomly resolve targeting one of the selected players.
I didn't like this role in the sense that there is too much going on here. This looks like something you would find in a PTP game and lacks the elegance of a simple, but interesting role. My favorite part was the nerfed vet ability, where you would be protected if you correctly identified your killed. I might implement this ability in a game in the future. The chaos storm had the potential to really mess with night actions, but didn't have too much of an impact this game.
You are prplhz! After being lynched 12 times, we've decided to give you a little help! Once per cycle, during the day you may submit one of the following one-shot abilities: 1) Loose Noose: Three votes will be subtracted from your final vote count. 2) Extend Cycle: You may extend the lynch deadline by 2 hours. 3) Unlimited votes: empowered by the spirit of prplhz in steamship mafia, you may now vote for as many targets as you please. You win with town.
The only reason prplhz has been lynched so many times is because he's played so many games :p
This had to be the weakest role in the game so I want to thank VE for being a good sport. The unlimited votes ability is entertaining, even if it is next to useless in a game where only one player can get lynched. The goal of the role was to provide the player with several mechanics dealing with the lynch, but the role was just too underpowered.
You are Mr. Wiggles! After years of training in the Canadian wilderness, you've harnessed your abilities to see into the future. Well, maybe not, but I'm sure a bunch of people would be pretty impressed if you were. Each night cycle you may submit the name of a player, if that player dies during the night, you will be protected from a single kp the following cycle. After two correct guesses, you will exhaust your psychic abilities and will no longer receive protection. Bonus points if you post a MS paint image predicting a players cause of death. You win with town.
This is another role that I'm happy with how it turned out. This is the veteran alternative to a medic or watcher, rewarding the player for predicting who will be targeted with a night kill. s&b showed his talent with his ms paint predictions, but unfortunately came up with a prediction the same cycle that he was shot.
You are Meapak_Ziphh! Once per game, you may pm the hosts the name of a player. If they are town, their alignment will be revealed publicly in the thread. Two hours later, you will shoot them and be publicly revealed as the killer. Otherwise, you receive their alignment via pm. You win with town.
Going into the game, I knew the Meapak role had to potential to make a big impact on the game, one way or another. I liked that it allowed me to include at least one alignment check role in the game, while still punishing the player to limit the power of the role. I think kurumi was actually a reasonable target, considering how he was playing, but the biggest fault of yamato was that he failed to explain the mechanics of the role until it was too late. If he had been more transparent and revealed that kurumi would die if he was town, I think town wouldn't have been so suspicious of him the entire game.
You are Kenpachi! As always, you are vanilla town and plan to unleash the vanilla virus upon everyone in the game. You have a 1 shot cycle long roleblock to unleash upon a player. Whoever that player would have visited that night will gain the vanilla virus the next night, and so on. If at any point the player with the vanilla virus is double roleblocked or does not attempted to action on another player, You will regain your ability to target someone with the vanilla virus. You win with town.
Originally, we were going to have Kenpachi start off as vanilla town and whoever shot or hammered Kenpachi would lose their role and gain Kenpachi's vanilla virus role so it continued to spread. We reworked it to its current state after deciding that it was too harsh to a mafia team that could potentially lose their roleblocker or one of their other roles. It also isn't very fun for a bunch of players to start off blue and then suddenly become vanilla. Stutters never used his role until the game was over, so we never got to see what impact the roleblock chain would have, but I do think it could have had a situational use to identify night action targets.
You are syllogism! As a player that almost always rolls town, you've inherited the ability to impact the game even after death. Upon death by lynch, you may place a vote the following cycle, but may not post in the thread. Upon death by day or night hit, you may post in the thread and vote during the following cycle. You win with town.
I decided to include a tree stump variation, which has been really rare lately. I wanted to reward the player more if they were shot, rather than lynched. In past games, tree stumps have lost motivation to post after dying, but I think supersoft did a great job to try to keep up town morale and continue to lead the lynch.
You are Sandroba! You don't believe anyone is town except for your buddy, syllogism. At any night, you may decide that a player is both syllogism and town, and become a bodyguard for that player. The daypost will announce that "Sandroba is now body-guarding syllogism." Your target will also appear as "Syllogism" to all Role Name checks. If your target were to ever die, you will die in his place. If your target dies by lynch, you will both die. You will be told all actions that happen to your target player, but not who performed them. You win with town.
It was pretty funny the way the role happened to resolve with dandel activing his syllo role at the same time the real syllo was shot. Marv was a decent target to protect based on his investigative role. I don't recall the sequence of events, but role claiming your protection on marv probably wasn't a very good idea since it let the mafia team work around your protection.
You are iGrok, and you use quotation marks around the word "balance"! On Night 1, you may select 3 players. These 3 players will be told they have just joined a "Sleeper Cell, which is directed by a cell leader, who knows all of their names. They will also be told that each night they may vote to shoot one player in the game. The sleeper Cell only has one bullet, and will only fire if all of the cell members vote to kill the same player. As the cell leader, you may send a 30 character PM to one of your cell members with each day/night post. This PM may not contain the names of the other cell members. You may not participate in the vote to shoot.
The iGrok role was one of my favorite since it allowed the mafia team to manipulate town players into shooting a town target. There was a lot of risk to this role, considering you're essentially handing the town player a vig shot and it certainly could have backfired. Selecting Stutters was a good choice and in the end, things worked out great with Foolishness getting shot. With no one else having an idea what the sleeper cell was, Stutters probably should have been less trusting of the anonymous voice that was directing his shot.
The most hilarious use of this role was when the mafia team decided to use their sleeper cell mason to inform Ver that he was mafia.
You are Liquid'Sheth, Grandmaster Zerg! As a minion of the swarm, you have several abilities at your disposal, but none of them are as important as spreading creep! Once per game you may use a creep tumor to spread creep on a target player. This player will become Infested. Whoever an infested player visits will also become Infested. If no infested players exist in the game, you get your creep tumor back. Each night you will recieve a list of players who are infested. Infested players' votes will not count on you, however they will be cured of infestation if they end the cycle voting for you.
With the Sheth role, I took the role I created for the previous Themed Game Mafia and made a mafia variation. The intention was to give the mafia team an idea of how night actions were being used, while preparing a bus late game on a player that would be difficult to lynch after the infection had spread. Not using the night action night one hurt, since it was something that would have likely grown exponentially.
I'm still not sure why Ver decided not to read his role pm. If you're town, your applying a handicap to yourself by not using your role. If you're mafia, then you're limiting your ability to work as a team and push mafia objectives. You could argue that not knowing the mafia team would allow you to not leave any connections behind when you flip, but I don't think this is an optimal strategy. DP did a great job subbing on for Ver, especially since he had a parity check on him. At one point austin speculated that this role could be included in the game, which was a bit silly, but nobody picked up on it since DP never flipped.
I'm really confused why the town decided to be so lenient with Ver. It's one thing to ignore a player that is inactive, but its another thing to ignore a player who claims to not know his own alignment.
You are Marvellosity, TL's finest errotic flavor text writer! Once per night, you may submit to the host a message that will be sent to target player. If it contains a piece of errotic flavor text, they will be so creeped out, that they won't leave their house at night. You win with mafia.
Mafia needed a roleblocker, so there isn't really much to say about this one. Hiro did a disturbingly good job with the flavor text and may have a future in the field.
You are kitaman27! Congrats. You're already a winner. However, to make things more interesting, you can achieve a double win by winning with mafia. Once per night, you may querey the TL mafia database to learn about a player, but only if you know what you are looking for. Once per night you may submit a player name and a role name, if you correctly match a player to their role, you will recieve their role pm. You win with mafia.
Like I mentioned earlier, I didn't want the town to be too punished by role claims since it conflicted with the personality role playing theme, but I still wanted the mafia team to have some way to combat a mass claim. The mafia team missed on their first role check, but other than that it was used fine.
You are GreYMisT! As the host of some of the craziest themed game in the history of TL Mafia, you have created some pretty insane roles, making life difficult for yourslef. Once per game at night, you may choose your Co-Host. You will be masoned with your cohost for the rest of the game. Once per game, you may choose to let your coshot resolve a night cycle by himself, and kill him. Because you are away, you cannot be traced to this kill, however, everyone will know that GreYMisT's cohost has died. Once per game, you may reverse the flips for the upcoming day or night post. All town players will flip as mafia and all third party and mafia players will flip as town. 12 hours later, the actual flips will be revealed. You win with mafia.
Mafia needed to have at least one kp of their own to combat the other 20 blue roles, so we included it with the GreYMisT role. The death miller ability was obviously a callback to the first Personality game. I was worried that some players would be upset with the role, but it only lasted 12 hours and I wanted the mafia team to have a tool to waste a period of discussion. It was pretty silly that people continued to think Corazon was mafia even after the flip was corrected. I had multiple individuals pming me multiple times to confirm the first post was incorrect and the second was correct, but there were still nonbelievers.
I think the town really dropped the ball with deciding not to mass claim at Lylo. There was absolutely no attempt to figure out who was responsible for the roleblock, the reversed flip, or the plexa messages. The mafia team never was put in a position where they had to fake claim and lie about a power that they didn't have any proof of having.
You are Chezinu! You are the valiant leader of the Brown and shall purify the town of the treacherous blues. Once per cycle, you will be given a power to interact and direct your allies. Their identities, however, will not be revealed. In addition, you may survive one night hit. You win when the Brown outnumber all other players.
Allies are actually non-existant. Chezinu is just crazy. True win condition is surviving until the end of the game.
1) Declaration of War - Allows a cryptic message or video to to put into the day post
2) Rally Cry - PM is sent to all other members with your identity and instructions for them to follow
3) Green and Red make Brown - Is informed (falsly) that a random town and scum have joined their cause and is given to random clues to point to their identities.
4) Strengtheing the Cause - May select a member to invite to join the Brown . You are not informed if they accept or reject your invitation. (invitation is never sent out and is always rejected)
5) A Moment of Sanity - Learns actual win condition
This role was removed from the setup at least five different times, but it always managed to sneak itself back in for the entertainment value. I asked bugs before the game if he wanted a trolly chezinu role or a more serious chezinu role and he selected the troll role. It's too bad that bugs never made it past day one, but I was really worried that if he put in too much effort, he would be upset upon learning that he was crazy.
I think bugs did a great job with the chezinu role playing, but probably could have done a better job looking town or trying to stay alive on day one.
EPT
We feared your reads (rightly so) and didn't think you'd get protection. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Xt4izeC.jpg)
. The death miller in particular was way better designed this time around!
