Okay. I miscalculated. I thought there was a way for town to get a draw.
Night 4 Results
Cogito Ergo Sum the Town Miller was killed
Endgame
Day 5: No lynch
Night 6:
SpyreX the Townie is killed
Day 6:
Fate the Town Bulletproof is lynched
Night 7: Mafia restock
Day 7:
Darox the Townie is lynched
GreyICE the Mafia Bulletproof
LLamarble the Mafia Roleblocker
Thoughts:
1. The trackers were exactly the same. Lurconis took a somewhat vague statement I made and mistook what it actually meant. It was a fair mistake to make. That said, putting two of the same role that work slightly different is something that seems like it’d make sense as a way to have two of the same role, but I’d probably give some reason to believe I was doing that first as it’s kind of a bastard move without some warning. You don’t really want two roles confirming each other on the basis of they’re the only ones who know how a tracker would work in that situation or whatever, though.
2. So obviously this setup was super role heavy. The main reason for this is that I wanted to maximize the chance for conflicts to occur, the premise behind the game. I felt I could get away with this in part because of
Stoofer’s 3rd law, which is basically that at a certain point, more power roles end up doing more harm to town than good. I don’t know how much I believe that, but it is true that there is diminishing returns from each additional town role, especially when it comes to roles like trackers. The setup also created a lot more false readings, etc. than normally would happen. It made any action less certain. Additionally, night start serves to help scum a little (though with so many investigations, it’s not a HUGE help).
3. That said, if I had it to do over again, I would make two changes. First, I think the backup (who only had three cards: 2, 5, and 9) was overkill. I already had all this power in the game, I’m not sure that there was any purpose or need for a backup to remove swing – which is the best reason for a backup. Second, I would change some of the roles to work MORE with the mechanic. I think a tracker should have to beat WHATEVER it was supposed to track, for example, rather than just the night kill. The way it worked here meant that the conflict was really only with the nightkill, and that was too narrow a thing.
4. The mafia were given the fake claims of Watcher and Jailkeeper. Had town massclaimed D1 it would have given 4 investigative roles (cop, 2 trackers, watcher), 2 protective (doc+jk), 1 killing, 1 anti-town town role (miller), 1 or 2 BPs (I thought the Mafia BP might well fakeclaim as BP). Keeping in mind that in a 12p game of mafia (night start, remember) the town gets 3 mislynches, that’s still a fair proposition for scum.
5. The game certainly turned on a town error, but I think scum played tremendously. This is especially true of GreyICE who basically strong armed his way to victory in the final day. Town was in trouble at this point already, of course (Zang would have been hard to lynch), but it worked out well.
6. There were a few times where the mechanic came into play. The biggest was LLD’s Even Night Vig vs. the Roleblocker. The scum went all in on the roleblocker to block LLD.
7. I think I’d like to run the mechanic again, but with the changes above (though obviously different roles). I’d also make a few other changes: (a) I’d do an 18-22 player game (more roles but less of the chaos of this game); (b) I’d use the same number of cards; (c) I’d use quicker weeklong deadlines. I think the bigger game would suit it better. The more this game becomes about managing your cards for maximum effect, the better. With the game having only 13 players, it just doesn’t last long enough and the chance of dying at any time is large enough that spending all your cards quickly is the best bet in almost all situations. With more players and more played Days, it’d become more prudent to save some cards. One other thing I’d consider regarding that would be to allow double actions that work at half power, but that needs more thought.
8. A more minor story: I liked the idea of the Miller that actually had a chance of coming up innocent to the cop. It makes the role a LOT more interesting to me. I’m kind of off the regular miller, but yeah.
9. Anyway, I don’t know how you players felt about the game as I know it was crazy, but it was a blast to observe. Scum had some choice words about how town sided I made the game in their scum QT. I can’t entirely disagree, but I refer to points 2 and 4 in my defense. Yes, the game turned on a town error which was unfortunate, but I hope people still had fun and would like to try the game again.
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