Worst role ideas?

[callforjudgement]

Arguably, the very worst role possible is

You win if you get modkilled in another game.

Why ruin your own game when you can ruin other people's too?

[callforjudgement]

You're a

Perfect

.

Once per night, you may choose 1 role. You are permanently immune to the actions of individuals with that role. Modifiers count, similar abilities don't. (If you choose vig you're immune to dayvig and compulsive, but not sk and cpr). You are also immune to the mafia kill by default.

You win with the Mafia, though you don't know who the members are.

What's wrong with it?

Almost certainly leads to a scum win; pick VT first and you probably become effectively unlynchable, depending on the setup. Then go SK if you think there is one or vig, and become bulletproof too over a couple of nights.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Contract Killer

.

The scum can choose you to send in their night kill (they have been informed of this); you will not be informed when this happens.

You win with the town.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Serial Miller

. You show as guilty to all investigations. You win when every other living player in the game has investigated you as scum, if you are still alive by then.

Sorry, the pun was too good to pass up…

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Jack Of All Trades

. You have infinitely many uses of each of the following abilities, but can use only one per night:
- a

Vigilante

ability that night-kills a player of your choice; or
- a

Paranoid Gun-Owning Compulsive Self CPR Doctor

ability that night-kills everyone who targets you, and also kills you unless you'd die for some other reason, in which case it prevents your death. (Using this one's known as "shooting yourself in the foot".)

Assuming I've calculated the role definition correctly, this one's actually been used. Not sure if it really qualifies as a "worst role" in terms of being bad for its owner, but would you really want to put it in one of your games? (I was also trying to make it as Normal as possible; PGO and the Self CPR modifiers are both ambiguously Normal, not being on either the allowed or disallowed lists, but everything else is fine.)

Come to think of it, what's the worst role possible using only explicitly Normal roles and modifiers? You could probably make something overpowered, along the lines of Bulletproof Innocent Child Doublevoter Vigilante, but I can't see a way to make a truly bad one.

[callforjudgement]

Negative night vigilante miller - may submit a kill on all nights that are negative numbers (days start at 1 and increment from there)
Macho Bulletproof - Nothing may protect him from being killed, including his own bulletproof (he has the armor, he just doesn't wear it)
Mafia Weak Doctor (town with vigilante) - may protect one player every night. Dies if he targets scum.

Those are pretty much VTs/Goons, though. Making the last compulsive would help slightly, but only slightly.

Here are some of mine:

• Compulsive Weak SK is quite a bad combo. (Partly because hitting town is generally bad for an SK to do in the early stages of the game.)
  
• Town Mason, in a mason group of 1. (Is not likely to be believed if they claim; will completely screw up setup analysis unless they claim before death. The role is not entirely useless, incidentally; the QT could be used to leave notes to a replacement, or possibly a Universal Backup if one exists in the setup.)
  
• Backup Miller. (Not as bad as a regular miller, on paper, but is more likely to mislead a cop because it's much less obvious when they should claim.)
  
• Mafia Innocent Child. (By my reading, this is explicitly normal. It's unclear whether the "Mafia-aligned versions" means they'd be confirmed as scum or town, but it's an awful role either way.)
  
• Compulsive Townie. (Explicitly normal, and by the definitions given, necessarily gets modkilled night 1. Probably the worst combo you can come up with; note that they're effectively a Jester, as they cannot win unless they're lynched on day 1.)

Also, I just noticed that Mafia Mason is both explicitly Normal and explicitly non-Normal. Perhaps that needs fixing…

[callforjudgement]

Also, I have no idea what you mean by compulsive townie or how that'd make sense.

I was just trying to follow the definitions on the wiki literally, in order to figure out what would technically be allowed in a Normal (if the approvals group were really crazily insane). Compulsive = use a night action or get modkilled/action randomized. Vanilla Townie = no night actions. If you can't use a night action, it can't be randomized, so you have to be modkilled or not.

You're a

Cotton Ball

.
Find the other cotton balls during the Day to win!

Assuming that all Cotton Balls have identical roles (which is an assumption the players would likely make, even if the mod didn't), optimal play there is just for all Cotton Balls to claim; they have no incentive not to do so.

[callforjudgement]

You're a

Cotton Ball

.
Find the other cotton balls during the Day to win!

Assuming that all Cotton Balls have identical roles (which is an assumption the players would likely make, even if the mod didn't), optimal play there is just for all Cotton Balls to claim; they have no incentive not to do so.

The role's terrible because claiming = suicide.
Which I forgot to put there.

They'll just breadcrumb really heavily (and obviously) instead, in either case. If the rules are going to punish people for claims, they won't claim, just find some other way around it. You'd need to add some sort of role that can give a disadvantage to the Cotton Balls if he realised what they were, and also had an incentive to do so, and also let the Cotton Balls know that it existed (or they'd just obliviously claim anyway).

[callforjudgement]

Lol that actually sounds fun for a bastard game. Would voting count as "posts" ?

The problem is that a cult that obvious has little chance of winning. (The cult leader is almost guaranteed to be lynched.)

[callforjudgement]

So basically the cult leader is a neutral survivor who must never recruit?

And who has an obnoxious post restriction, although I have no idea whether that helps or hinders a survivor. (Also, it's not quite the same victory condition as survivor; it's more similar to an SK's, although if tomorrow looks like it'll be cult leader + 2/3 townies, changing it to cult leader + cultist + 1/2 townies is a rather better situation.)

[callforjudgement]

huh guys, this thread is actually for fictional demented roles you don't have to try to balance them, it's just for fun

Hmm, I prefer roles that could actually be interesting in a real Bastard Mod game.

You are a

Bulletproof Magnetic L-1 Townie

. You are always at L-1. That's because the lynch threshhold is the number of votes on you, plus 1. Also, because you're magnetic, you cannot be unvoted. You are also immune to nightkills, except if you're endgamed. You win with the town.

I'm having serious trouble trying to figure out the best strategy on this one. (I suspect you have to start by RVSing yourself to reduce the chance that you end up losing to a series of scum-driven quicklynches; and you want to claim as quickly as possible (it's a trivially confirmable role), possibly leaving out the bulletproof bit. The time that day starts is also going to be somewhat relevant due to timezone issues.)

[callforjudgement]

If a player was always at L-1 then a single vote would hammer them. Or, actually, they could never be lynched because they would never be L-0.

You're thinking hated townie. Takes one less vote to hammer.

I'm not thinking hated townie at all. The role is indeed impossible to lynch, and impossible to NK (barring poison/strongman); that's why the endgame rule is there. And it makes life hell for everyone, by requiring votes on them to avoid quickhammers, whilst being impossible to unvote. (Neruz is right here). Ythan's statement about quicklynches is entirely right too; this is the worst roles thread, isn't it?

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Vote Magnet

. Any vote cast by anyone is applied instead to you. You win if you're the last player left alive.

That one's completely unwinnable, rather than just mostly unwinnable, without some sort of NK or endgaming ability, even if all the players in the game are cooperating to try to let you win.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Doomed Survivor

. You are aligned with town, and win when they do.

Your first post of the first day must be a quote of your role PM.

Optimal play there is to deliberately flake, and hope that someone gets quicklynched. (Then on day 2, probably you should fullclaim. In a bastard mod game, people might actually believe you.)

[callforjudgement]

A very likely replace-out is still strictly better than a guaranteed modkill, though. (Unless the game's using the BaM ruleset, where you're really in trouble.)

[callforjudgement]

Presumably has to be filtered to all the rules that it's theoretically possible to break. (Unless you count, say, pretending to claim scumbuddies as breaking the claiming-scumbuddies rule rather than the pretending-to-break-rules rule.)

You'd also probably have to draw a line at the sitewide rules too. We don't want people posting illegal material just because there's a rule against it.

[callforjudgement]

You are

callforjudgement

.

You win when you are unworthy of being called "Captain Obvious".

A Call for Judgement, in some games, is what happens when you try to figure out if a loophole in the rules exists or not, or ask for a clarification. (Sort-of like PMing the mod here on MS.)

I find it a

very

appropriate name for the way I act.

Hmm, at that…

You are a

Rules Lawyer

. You instantly die if you misinterpret any element of the rules. You don't have a win condition, but you're allowed to exploit loopholes in an attempt to win anyway.

[callforjudgement]

Assuming you're going for a really bad rather than potentially viable bad role, don't you mean to change "day 3" to "day 4" there? Claim a guilty on someone you think is town day 2, and you'll probably survive to day 3 and get lynched then (you probably won't be lynched over the person you claimed on, nor NKed because the scum will assume you'll be lynched day 3). As written, the role is pretty much functionally equivalent to a lyncher who wins with town after lynching their target, and gets to choose their target; a bad role, but not nearly as bad as it could be.

[callforjudgement]

Not quite. D1 Jester is one way to win, and the other is Town Survivor who can't post. (In a bastard game, a player who's not posting at all and yet not being prodded may well survive until a town victory, I guess, although they'd risk a policy lynch the day before lylo, so town would have to win by quite a margin.)

EDIT: Just noticed the "until endgame", which means that it's actually Neutral Survivor, as you'd wake up in time for the scum to endgame you, which is not dying in your sleep.

[callforjudgement]

So, I've only ever dreamed about Mafia once. (Maybe I should play more.) But the dream had the most awesome role in ever.

Everyone else was constrained to obeying the rules of the game; town lynching only one person, staying at home at night unless their roles let them do something else, scum kill one player at night, etc. Everything was flavoured properly, as you'd expect from a good mod; there was plenty of flavour going on, but it fit the game actions.

Now, one player (me in the dream) was different. I knew that everyone else was constrained by the rules, and that I was in a Mafia game; but the rules didn't apply to me, I could roam freely around in the game's flavour. I didn't know my win condition, but that didn't really matter; I wasn't trying to win, just to survive and make a good life for myself. (So I guess I was closer to a survivor than anything else.)

In the actual dream, what happened was that there was a player who was a modified Cult Leader who could only cult one person at a time (the role has a name, but with the wiki down, I can't look it up; IIRC it's Mentor or something like that). And I managed to wrestle their mind-control pills off them (after a crazy game of bluffing that I can't remember all the details of) and force them to eat them themself, and ended up culting

them

. I can't remember how it ended, but I think we were in a pretty good shape after that; I think we went and commuted permanently (which you can, of course, do if you aren't constrained by the rules of the game), and the town won in our absence.

I think this is possibly the most awesome role ever; at least, it's

my

most awesome role ever IMO. Here it is in game form:

You are

breaking through the fourth wall from outside

. Most people just get to look at the flavour from outside, unable to influence it, constrained by their role. You aren't.

Day or night, you can take actions within the world described by the game's flavour. You can do anything that it would make logical sense for you to be able to do in the world described by the moderator's flavour, if it were real and you were a person there. At night, or if you could plausibly perform an action in secret, you may take an action by PMing the mod describing what you do. If it's daytime and everyone would plausibly know you're performing an action, you can perform an action by bolding it in the game thread instead. The moderator will decide what the effects of your actions would be, and what other players in the game world would do to respond to them.

Whatever actions you take, if they have an effect on the game world that would be visible to the player, will be described in the moderator's flavour. Additionally, your actions can override the game state if they would logically do that (for instance, if you find some way to kill someone, they will die in the game as well as in the flavour).

You win if you get a happy ending.

[callforjudgement]

@GreyICE: I like that role too. And it's not even a 100% bad idea to use it. (Using it on someone widely considered scum either saves half a mislynch, or confirms that they're actually scum.)

[callforjudgement]

Apart from the wincon, I like it.

[callforjudgement]

Maybe have it as scum then. It can't be town, because then the optimal stratagy would be to claim in your first post and ask to be lynched.

I agree, it has to be an anti-town role to work correctly. (Scum, Traitor, or giving it a kill and making it SK would all work.)

[callforjudgement]

I've actually been thinking about Survivor, somewhat. It's basically a weaker Traitor, who has to be alive to win and thus can't just use the normal tactic of calling a guilty on a random townie day 2. (Survivor is basically identical to Mafia for endgame purposes, except that they can also endgame with SK or Town in the rare event that they're the last scum standing.)

That said, a role which is effectively a doubly-nerfed Goon can't be much fun to play…

(Also, "No cults, lynchers, jesters or survivors" is quite a common mod promise in theme games; all are reasonably unpopular third-party wincons. The mod promise isn't made in normals because it doesn't have to be.)

[callforjudgement]

The role really isn't that ridiculous. Half of it (non-consecutive-night commuter) is normal; the other half (a sort of reverse bodyguard, I guess) isn't, but it wouldn't be out of place in a normal using the gray area rules. Admittedly, combining the two leads to something quite complex, but I wouldn't call it bad, nor ridiculous, nor bastard.

[callforjudgement]

Scum deadline setter or similar ability could kill it. (I've seen multiple offsite games where there was a known potential for a scum deadline setter via one mechanism or another; you wouldn't believe how quickly the first vote tended to go up after the start of day, it was often a matter of seconds.)

That said, the deadline setter role fits in here perfectly:

You are a

Mafia Deadline Setter

. Once per game, you may PM the moderator to change the deadline of the current day to a time in the future of your choice. Casting or attempting to change votes after deadline will not count. If you shorten the deadline, the game will use the common form of the plurality lynch rule, rather than majority lynch.

You win with your Mafia team, who are X Y and Z, and who you can talk to at night in your QT here. (No, you don't "win with the scum". Not if third parties are involved, at least.)

Also worth noting that I've put this as town in a setup offsite (where people wanted a role madness sort of game), and people have actually used it to shorten deadlines (a move which intuition would say is dubious at best). Also, been given it as town by another mod (offsite), and used it to win lylo (not that that's generally a good move unless there's a player other than yourself you're sure is town). In a meta remotely like mafiascum's, though, it definitely belongs in the worst roles thread.

[callforjudgement]

@Amrun: Yes, when the mod's online, which is probably going to be some time after it's already passed as there's no point in not setting it for a second after your post goes through.

Meanwhile, just thought of this:

You are a

1-Shot Day Vigilante

.

Once in the game, during the night, you can choose a game day that has already happened. That day will be wiped out from history as if nothing had happened on it, and the gamestate recalculated.

You win with the town.

[callforjudgement]

Stupid Townie is basically a weaker Traitor, by the looks of things. And one that gives them even more incentive to just fake a guilty day 2 than a regular Traitor…

[callforjudgement]

I've seen, in a theme game, a generically-scum traitor who could win with any of the scum groups (but not with the town), but they didn't know who their allies were. That doesn't count as a worst role; yours doesn't either. It is indeed somewhat bastard, but probably belongs to the best roles thread anyway.

[callforjudgement]

People typically arrange a code to get around the "can only vote" restriction, unless there's an additional restriction ("can only vote once per 24 hours" gets rid of most of the abuse, although in theory it's still slightly abusable).

[callforjudgement]

Basically, you get too much gray area if you attempt to use a subjectively-enforced post restriction to bar a breaking strategy. (It's been tried, it doesn't work; either people skirt the borderline and the strategy continues working, or a whole bunch of people get modkilled and the game is ruined.)

Objective post restrictions work fine for those breaking strategies that can be banned at all with them; alternatively, the better solution is to design the setup to punish people who attempt them (see War in the Palace, for instance).

[callforjudgement]

You are a

person who cares more about their meta than winning

. You must attempt to play like scum; if you do not, you will be modkilled. You win with the town.

[callforjudgement]

Neat, bad on two levels that contradict each other.


You are the

player left over when I realised I had no idea how this game is balanced

. I'll give you your win condition some time later, when I've figured out whether this game is townsided or scumsided, in order to help drag it back towards the middle. Until then, just try to stay alive, I guess?

[callforjudgement]

Town Recruiter is mindblowingly broken; if you recruit any Mafia members, their optimal play is to tell everyone who their former teammates were.

Mafia Recruiter is basically equivalent to a cult with an NK.

[callforjudgement]

I don't think so. You can have roles that are entirely usable, but still bad. (Especially if you're planning to run a game with them.)

Here are some power roles that are mostly, but not entirely, useless, for instance:

You are a

Reflexive Day Vigilante

. You may kill a player during the day by posting

Daykill:

player

in thread; this will reset the vote count. You may only target yourself.

You win with the town.

You are an

Inept Day Vigilante

. You may attempt to kill a player once each the day by posting

Daykill:

player

in thread; the attempt will always fail, but this will nonetheless reset the vote count.

(works as either alignment)

[callforjudgement]

And everyone else loses?

No. Officially, the game is "Abandoned," but the heretic wins. I guess the backup mod could take over if there is one.

I've always thought that the best response to a moderator lynch is for the mod to stop posting, and the backup mod to take over…

[callforjudgement]

You are a

1-Shot Exact-Hour Day VIgilante

. Once in the game, during the day phase, you may post "

Kill:

playername

" in the thread. If this post is made within the second immediately following the change from one hour to the next, that player dies; otherwise, nothing happens and you waste the shot. You win with the town.

I seem to be making a lot of dayvig variants recently. Also, I noticed when writing this that the interface I'm using (or any of the others?) doesn't actually show seconds, but meh, I'll post it anyway, just because it's impossible to mod correctly doesn't stop it being worst.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Designated Replacement

. You have a voice and a vote, but you're just biding your time until someone else flakes out and there's nobody else easily available to replace them, at which point the mod will make you replace them (you gain knowledge of their past game actions, and their role and alignment, as usual when replacing someone). If you die, you lose the ability to post in the thread and to vote until you replace someone, but you can still be called on as a replacement. If the game somehow ends without you being needed to replace someone (let's face it, it isn't going to happen), you neither win nor lose.

The wording could be better, but I hope the concept is clear. Could also work with a town or third party default win condition, although I don't think that would work as well. (Cannot be groupscum for obvious reasons.)

You are a

Constant Vigilante

. Each night, if you are alive and, during the previous game day, someone (not necessarily you, and not necessarily the same person each time) posted "CONSTANT VIGILANCE" in the game thread at least every four hours, all night actions by Tigers that night will fail and you may kill one player that night by PMing the mod.

You win with the (

could put any wincon here, really

)

Works even if there aren't any Tigers in the game, of course. Works better if they are. (Also, we need more roles relying on mass town coordination. Probably not more roles forcing people to be online at weird times of day, but meh.)

[callforjudgement]

I've seen a role like that (that targeted specific players) in an offsite game, which also allowed mostly unlimited PMing between players overnight as long as a copy was sent to the mod.

But then, it also had sixteen factions, so it's not really a good example of a normalish setup…

Meanwhile, to avoid double-posting:

You are

not a dayvig

. You must post something that appears to be an attempt to kill another player during the day, every day you are alive. You win if someone actually falls for it.

[callforjudgement]

What constitutes falling for it?

Someone actually believing it worked.

Hm...you have to win Day 1, then. Doing it once, and failing, will make future success impossible. Moreover, you'll be playing the rest of the game knowing full well that no, you will not win.

I think I agree with this assessment. (I have seen actual dayvigs fake dayvig by screwing up the syntax, though, so maybe you'd get one more chance.)

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Day PGO

. Whenever anyone votes for you, or otherwise targets you during the day (e.g. with a dayvig shot), they die. (This does not necessarily block the ability they were trying to use, although votes from dead players aren't counted.)

You win with the town. (

Obviously.

)

This… isn't as horrifically bad as I thought it would be, as long as they claim quickly enough on D1. (And it allows townies who are about to be lynched the opportunity to suicide to avoid going to night phase.)

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Girl Cop

. At night, you can investigate a player with "Female" in the gender field of their profile, to determine whether they are town or not.

You win with the (

town or third party, probably more interesting as town

).

This one's pretty awful in a number of ways, although it needs a better name. (Especially as if it's claimed, the pro-town reaction is to start persuading all the males in the game to lie about their gender across the site so that they are viable scan targets. And the blatant gender discrimination before that.)

Optional modnote: Has a 50/50 chance of working on Vi.

[callforjudgement]

The reason doing it with a cop-style ability is rather worse than that, is that not changing your gender to female becomes a scumtell, as soon as the role is claimed. (Also, because it could lead to hilarious requests to change gender without explanation earlier in the game.) A Governor ability isn't the sort of thing it's scummy to dodge the target of.

[callforjudgement]

Then it wouldn't be nearly as Worst…

[callforjudgement]

You are an

Unmemorable Townie

. You're part of the game, but everyone keeps forgetting you exist. As such, you don't count as alive for the purpose of calculating win conditions, and will not be prodded or replaced no matter how long you go without posting. Also, your vote won't appear on vote counts (but luckily, the mod always double-checks before a lynch, so it still counts for the purpose of lynching people).

You win with the town.

Could also work as groupscum, I guess. It's mostly just a slightly stronger and considerably more bastard treestump.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Wise Crowd

.

Once during the game, you may decide that another player is a Village Idiot, and WotC them out of the game. This causes them to retroactively not have signed up.

You win with the town.

[callforjudgement]

Needs to be "are killed or replaced out" to avoid people with that role just replacing out of their other games. Still pretty Worst, of course.

[callforjudgement]

I've been planning to use that as a cult factional ability (minus the bastard flip). It seems to fix the balance problems with cults quite neatly.

[callforjudgement]

The last few players would get endgamed. (You could make it must-lynch in order to be sure, though.)

Also, in a cult game, most people will try to win as town rather than as cult, although there are always exceptions.

[callforjudgement]

Cults and mafia in the same game are asking for trouble, unless the mafia are uncultable.

[callforjudgement]

I think it means that you flip with that player's role.

[callforjudgement]

That reminds me of the cop who always finds scum.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

PEdit Vig

. The first time each day that you make five posts in a row, each of which is preceded by a post by the same player, that player dies. (That is, they post then you post immediately after, for five of your posts, with none of your posts in between.)

You win with the (

town or third party wincon

).

[callforjudgement]

We should create a whole setup out of those post-timing roles, then ship it off to the open setup discussion thread and have fun watching people try to get their heads around it enough to break it :)

[callforjudgement]

Perhaps, but only if we can balance the setup out first.

Come to think of it, it might be more fun in a marathon; the lack of a pedit sensor would make things hilariously awkward to time properly. That means we have just a few hours for the rest of the setup…

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Vote Nullifier

. Any votes in posts immediately before yours, except for hammers, don't count.

You are a

Spam Filter

. Each night, you may, if you choose, kill the player with the most posts in the game so far. (You may choose not to kill if you'd prefer.)

You are a

Lurker Lyncher

. If you're voting for the player with the smallest amount of posts in the game, your vote counts double.

You are an

Indecisive Third-Party

. You win with the player who posted immediately before your most recent post.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Mafia Discussion Neighborizer

.

At night, you can target a player to gain a QT with them, but only if they posted immediately before or immediately after you in some Mafia Discussion topic, at some point before this game began.

[callforjudgement]

There's going to be a huge amount of mod influence in when they choose to lock the thread.

You are a

Discussion Stifler

. At any time, you can lock the thread, to stop other people posting. (If you do this when no player has been hammered, the mod will just unlock it again when he/she notices.) However, you have to trick one of the list mods (or Mr. Flay, I guess; mith doesn't count) into giving you modding powers to the forum first.

[callforjudgement]

Setup Reviewer might work if it was guaranteed to be an anti-town role, rather than random role.

[callforjudgement]

They wouldn't actually have to be a real person at all. You could just use an alt of the mod.

[callforjudgement]

Really excessively Worst roles make for unfun games. I'm trying to seed the thread with playable ideas to make it viable to run a Worst Roles Mafia 3 eventually.

[callforjudgement]

How about taking 13 roles from unrelated Theme games that don't rely on wonky mechanics and tossing them in to the same game with no warning?

There's got to be a way to make a Theme Soup viable.

This is pretty much what the series of games that give players roles they've had before (or, in the most recent version, that have been in games they've moderated) is about; its nature pretty much forces all the roles to be from different themes. I forget the name, sadly.

[callforjudgement]

How about taking 13 roles from unrelated Theme games that don't rely on wonky mechanics and tossing them in to the same game with no warning?

There's got to be a way to make a Theme Soup viable.

Oh, and at that:

You are a

Role Repeater

. Each night (including night 0/confirmations), you may choose a role you've previously had in a completed game on mafiascum.net. You gain all that role's abilities, apart from win condition and any factional abilities, for the rest of that night (although you can't do anything night 0 with the role unless it was usable night 0 at the time), and all of the following day. You cannot choose the same role twice.

[callforjudgement]

Gah, I'm reasonably sure at this point that there's something up with the site that's randomly causing me to re-quote things I've quoted in the recent past.

[callforjudgement]

I want to make a "random fictional characters" theme now. Roles would be characters from completely unrelated fictional products. Movies, books, video games, comics, theatre, folk stories, poems, operas, board games, religious texts...

This is pretty close to Vi's

default

theme when he/she doesn't have something else in mind. The characters are typically linked by a common factor entirely unrelated to the continuities they're from.

Also, every Upick ever.

[callforjudgement]

Unless you're banning self-targeting (that wording for the role doesn't), they should just self-target every night.

Meanwhile, here's one to give izak nightmares:

You are a

Secret Neighbourizer

. Nobody knows you're playing; not even the mod knew until you sent him a PM with your night action. Each night, you may PM the mod with the name of a player, and you will get a QT to talk to them, day and night. You don't have a vote, and you don't count as alive for the purpose of other player's win conditions. You

can

be lynched or nightkilled, but all this does is stop you taking night actions and posting in the QT. Also, votes for you count, but they don't show up in the vote count.

[callforjudgement]

What's the win condition on that one? It sounds like a role I'd love to play.

Win with the town, I was planning. (Alternatively, win with the first person you neighbourize.)

[callforjudgement]

Saw this win condition in an offsite game, and thought it would be perfect for the thread, but had to wait for the game to end first:

You are an

Antisocial Survivor

.

You die if you lose. If at any point you are alive but the game would end if you were dead, you win and everyone else loses.

It doesn't have quite the same problems that regular Survivor has, but it has plenty of its own.

[callforjudgement]

It's backwards, I'd meant the usual survivor "You lose if you die" and wasn't thinking straight.

[callforjudgement]

It's intended to trigger with an antisocial survivor win if it's just town + survivor, or scum=town + survivor. (This treats the antisocial survivor as blocking other player's win conditions, which he does, really.) Any situation which would be endgame if the antisocial survivor wasn't there.

[callforjudgement]

In the game in question, it was open, and the player with that role had managed to accumulate a couple of nightkills (don't ask), and NKed themself with a janitored flip.

It caused chaos as people tried to figure out wtf had happened. Probably wasn't the best of moves, though…

[callforjudgement]

There was an "Imprecise Multi-Tracker" in Paranoia Mafia, which is basically a Buckshot Rolecop translated to being a Tracker instead. (They were scum, and not allowed to investigate their buddies; same restriction needs to be placed on a scum Buckshot Rolecop for what I hope are obvious reasons.)

[callforjudgement]

How do you stop someone reading the main game thread?

[callforjudgement]

It's pretty hard to do even if you're trying. (How do you odd-day ISO someone, for instance?)

[callforjudgement]

You are

The guy town was right about

. If you are lynched, you win if town lose. Otherwise, you win with the town.

You are

The guy town was wrong about

. If you are lynched, you win with the town. Otherwise, you win if town lose.

[callforjudgement]

If the father converts the child, does that make the child autowin? Or does the child convert to the father's

old

faction? (Also, can the father win with their old faction?)

[callforjudgement]

It's a slightly stronger Weak Cop, really.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Mafia Kill Flavourer

.

Each night, submit to the mod the following information:

• The flavour you want for the kill performed by your faction
  
• The flavour you want for any kills performed by other anti-town factions
  
• The flavour you want for any kills performed by town-aligned players
  
• The flavour you want for any deaths for other reasons (e.g. Weak Cops who scan an anti-town player)

Any deaths will be given the kill flavours you specify, and you can change them from night to night. If you fail to send in a list, or are dead, all overnight deaths will be flavoured with the generic "died".

[callforjudgement]

It's pretty bastard, especially as they can use the same small set of flavours and keep swapping them around between teams.

[callforjudgement]

I don't see how town can possibly win after a vote enabler dies, unless they have a vig (probably multiple vigs). And it would make day phases kind-of bland…

[callforjudgement]

Needs to be BP, really. Apart from that, it's great.

[callforjudgement]

Hmm, that inspired me to think of the following much simpler role:

You are an

Endgamer

. You win if town loses and player XXXX, who you know to be town, is endgamed (alive at the point at which town lose). (You don't have to be alive at the time yourself.)

Pretty hard to win, I imagine, given that it's a traitor with a condition making it rather harder to win.

[callforjudgement]

Nope; you don't have any control over the kill, so you have to stop them being NKed by your buddies (who you can't communicate with) too.

[callforjudgement]

I'm not sure if mith can hide the "edited by mith" footnote on a post when he edits it. Given the circumstances, though, I don't think he would. (And thus all the alleged mith redactions above are fake.)

Axxle: works "better" if Runaway Loop (with an adjusted number) is one of the roles in the subgame. Obviously.

[callforjudgement]

Is that just SK without a kill? Pretty Worst, anyway.

[callforjudgement]

Maybe an all-lyncher game would be fun as a marathon, with their targets going in a circle...

I've seen a mostly-all-lyncher game done offsite (there was also a 2-person scumgroup; the players were aware of it, but originally thought it was a single SK, because that was kind-of heavily implied in the rules, deliberately of course). It also allowed players to PM each other during the night phase (as long as the mod was copied in). The players were arranged in two circles rather than one; after seeing the way it turned out, I think circles of 3 or 5 would probably work best.

Oh, and any kill would work, not just lynches, and there were a lot of daykills and nightkills and the like floating around…

[callforjudgement]

The version where you don't end up suiciding on targeting a townie is better than a VT. If there's someone who you think will inevitably be lynched tomorrow, best to dynamite them; if they're actually town, you've saved half a mislynch, if they're scum the gamestate stays the same and you're better off for knowing for sure that they're scum.

With the suicide upon targeting a townie, it becomes substantially worse, but I still have the feeling it isn't 100% useless.

[callforjudgement]

@Toon Fighter: saulres' role is basically a track miller who can't claim.

[callforjudgement]

Nah, it's pretty evil even as is due to the chance that the weak player got killed rather than died due to their weakness.

For bonus points, design a setup with a highly variable number of nightkills (50% vig, even-day SK, multiple-of-3 day fourth party…)

[callforjudgement]

Not sure whether this belongs here or in Best, but I'm a Worst junkie, so:

You are a

townie who is never wrong

. If you would hammer a townie, instead you lose your vote for the day.

(Secret Worstness: if there's an even number of players, the resulting recalculation of the lynch threshold will cause the townie to die anyway. And it's also useless in lylo.)

[callforjudgement]

It's still impossible to scumhunt, because the scum don't know that they're scum, so the game will essentially be decided at random.

[callforjudgement]

That doesn't make it any more or less random; with no scumhunting, it's essentially random whether the cop hits scum or not.

Traitors knowing they are traitors would definitely help, although that'd kind-of ruin the point of the setup.

Also, it doesn't meet the site's definition of Mafia in either case (there's no informed minority).

[callforjudgement]

Voteless (insert alignment here), except at 3p lylo (where another player can hammer with your vote before you have time to unvote).

EDIT: Huh, that's actually pretty balanced for a negative utility role.

[callforjudgement]

VI is considerably easier if there's a vig in the game; if you're scummy enough to hit L-1, then you become a likely vig target.

I'm trying to work out whether it's wiser to claim it or not. The main problem is, town has no obvious incentive to help you win, and both town and scum could plausibly fakeclaim it, so you'd be quite likely to not be believed on top of that.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

1-shot Townie

. You have no special abilities; but if you

did

, you'd only be able to use them once.

[callforjudgement]

Nah, they just end up with no win condition at all, "fourth party" as I called it in the Worst Roles Mafia game. So in order to win, they have to carefully time their shot of Townie to happen at the moment that they die, or the moment that the town wins.

[callforjudgement]

"fourth party" as I called it in the Worst Roles Mafia game

...you did?

Definitely did somewhere in the game, but it may have been in a QT rather than in the main game chat. (I was referring to Oversoul, who was actually town, just the mod didn't tell anyone, including Oversoul.)

[callforjudgement]

What happens if a jester miller is NKed?

[callforjudgement]

Then the ironic thing is that it actually

is

a jester, as he needs to be lynched to win, just with a random chance of losing anyway.

[callforjudgement]

Being able to act after loss is actually potentially powerful, so long as you tell people in advance and the actions have an effect on the game.

Imagine a Survivor with a vengekill they can use from any sort of death, and any length of time after death. "If I'm lynched, I'll wait for someone to become obvtown and kill them. If I'm nightkilled by scum, I'll save the town by aiming at scum if town have just lost a 2:1 lylo by lynching the wrong person. I have no motive to go back on this offer/threat after I'm dead, because I'll have lost either way and may as well take revenge; and making this offer/threat now gives me the best chance at surviving and not having to use it."

A similar offer can be used by the town for lynching non-BP SKs in open setups. (Too risky to try it in a closed setup.)

[callforjudgement]

Clearly you need to aim the PGOiser role at a reflexive CPR doctor.

[callforjudgement]

That's the normal interpretation of the modifier. (Think PGO = reflexive vigilante.)

As far as I can tell, a reflexive CPR doctor who is also a PGO completely cancels themselves out, except if a macho player targets them.

[callforjudgement]

Doesn't that have exactly the same problems as a regular lightning rod, but only some of the time?

I guess it's pretty powerful for town if there's a doctor, and they figure out who the reflexive lightning rod is in time (to self-protect while drawing every other action, thus leading to a no-kill night). Unless there's also an SK. Probably best if the lightning rod claims day 2 if there was a 1-kill or no-kill night the previous night.

[callforjudgement]

izak: that already exists, normally called "reflector" or "mirror" something along those lines. (I think I was once a Mirror Survivor in a xylbot game.)

[callforjudgement]

I've seen "2 Mafia, and two circles of lynchers, each pair of whom have a separate neighbourhood" done offsite. (Oh, and the rules were written to heavily imply that there was a single SK rather than two scum, and a single lyncher cycle.)

You can probably imagine what happened, so I don't need to explain.

[callforjudgement]

Bulletproof Miller Vig and Unjester, respectively. (The "Miller Vig" thing is something of a meme by now…)

[callforjudgement]

"Bulletproof" is the usual name for "immune to NKs"…

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Reverse JOAT

.

Every night, you can target a player. That player will be given the choice of making you immune to kills for the night, learning your alignment, killing you, or roleblocking you.

If they roleblock you, this causes a time paradox that causes everybody to lose.

(Probably works best as town, btw.)

[callforjudgement]

Insane Psychiatrist is one of the worst roles ever, well done.

It'd even work in a vaguely balanced fashion in typical bastard games, because they tend to be very low on VTs.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Sniper Vigilante

. Each night, you can choose a player. They will die in a game they're playing other than this one.

[callforjudgement]

@saulres: I love the way you left the win condition off that role. If it was a mistake, well, it

should

be deliberate.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Mountain

.

You're rather self-centered. So you're upset that this isn't a mountainous game. (How do you know it isn't a mountainous game? Because you aren't a VT, and you aren't a goon. Because you're a mountain.) In fact, you refuse to acknowledge that the game isn't mountainous. So you have your own personal gamestate in which no night actions happen but the Mafia NK. (The mod will tell you every morning who's still alive from your point of view.)

If you're lynched, nothing will happen, as the town attempt to figure out how to fit a tens-of-thousands-of-feet-tall mountain into a ten-or-so-foot-tall gallows. Come to think of it, f you're shot, nothing will happen. Because you're a mountain. Likewise, if you're stabbed, nothing will happen. You can be pecked to death by birds, but it takes millions of years. In fact, you're effectively immune to pretty much anything short of nuclear explosions. Except drowning. (Why are you vulnerable to drowning? Because mountains can't swim. Duh!)

You have no powers but your voice and your vote. (OK, I know

technically

, under the laws of most countries, mountains aren't allowed to vote. But if a mountain walked into a polling station, would

you

try to stop it?) Well, anyone who visits you has a chance of getting lost. Mountains are kind-of big. (Except Trackers. They're used to that sort of thing.)

Finally, as everyone knows, belief can move mountains. So if anyone in another game accidentally votes for you when they mean someone else entirely, you have to leave this game and attempt to replace into that one. Oh, and you win if you fullclaim and anyone actually believes you. (Who's alive from your point of view.)

I would say good luck. But whoever heard of a mountain being

lucky

?

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Self Innocent Child

. At any point in the game you may request the mod to send you another role PM confirming that you are, in fact, pro-town. This information cannot be shared with the town, but if you're anxious about alignment-changing bastard games, this role is great.

(Mod note: although the win condition will always be the actual pro-town one, the rest of the role PM changes.)

[callforjudgement]

Reverse framer is Lawyer.

A Tailor is someone with both Framer and Lawyer abilities.

[callforjudgement]

I know I put limited-playercount jesters in face-to-face games for a while; I don't think there were any wins. (The rule was that they had to get lynched with 6 or fewer players remaining as town, or 4 or fewer as scum.)

[callforjudgement]

It's theoretically winnable if the mod allows you to endgame your own scumbuddy. (Most mods don't, but I'm not sure whether that's through choice or just because they didn't think of it. Although come to think of it, it'd kind of make Usurper pointless.)

EDIT: You are a

Mafia Endgame Jester

. You win if you are endgamed.

[callforjudgement]

Mehdi: no, it's not a Kingmaker, it's a King. A Kingmaker is someone who makes other players into Kings (and is traditionally guaranteed to be town).

[callforjudgement]

I wouldn't call it a King. You could simply refrain from voting except for hammer votes. Of course, if it lands in the hand of a VI, it'll probably become a game of trying to quicklynch him at the beginning of every Day before he has time to post.

I've actually wanted to come up with a good "role which screws up the town until they manage to lynch them before they get to post" for a while.

What about this one:

You are a

Mafia Sunsinker

. Whenever you post, the day instantly ends as a no-lynch.

Shouldn't take long for town to figure it, but whether they can get the quicklynch in fast enough is another matter.

[callforjudgement]

@saulres: Wow, that's pretty awful indeed; I don't think it can be resolved without dayvig or modkill. (Unless you consider lynches to happen before the end of the day.)

[callforjudgement]

You are an

Excessively Literal Miller

.

Any investigative role who investigates you will be told that you are aligned with the Mafia, rather than receiving a correct result. This includes Insane Cops, Rolecops, Trackers, Watchers, and even Coroners; basically, any role that is even the slightest bit investigative. Regardless of whether that result is anywhere near the sort of result they were expecting to get.

You win with the town.

[callforjudgement]

it should be able to evolve!

...have you ever tried to evolve a Magikarp?

I evolved one the day before yesterday, during a shopping trip. (It seems that in Pokémon Conquest, Pokémon level up slightly by doing things with their trainers, even if it's just shopping or whatever.) Beats trying to level it up in battle. (Although admittedly Magikarp isn't useless there; it can't actually

attack

, but it can run around opening treasure boxes in order to spare the rest of your team for doing the fighting.)

[callforjudgement]

So, umm, I dream about Mafia sometimes. And a couple of nights ago, I dreamt that izakthegoomba had fakeclaimed the following role:

You are an

Observer

. At the start of the game, you are a hydra, and play in a single slot. At any point, you may start posting from your own accounts; at that point, you become two players and two slots, and can no longer use the hydra account (which will disappear from the game).

No win condition, obviously, because it's based on a fakeclaim rather than an actual role. And as usual in my Mafia dreams, the role name doesn't make any sense. The role itself is quite interesting, though.

In the dream, incidentally, nobody believed Izak because a) he had earlier claimed Cop, and b) we were playing in an Open. (The dream wasn't quite clear on whether the role existed in the Open setup or not, but it was clear that it didn't exist also combined with Cop.) Izak was at L-1, and I was off the wagon, and I was launching into a huge angry tirade about how the claim didn't make any sense at all and how I intended to hammer, when I woke up, so I didn't get to see how it ended. (All I remember about other people's reactions was that Hoopla thought the whole situation was hilarious, but she wasn't a player in the game; she may have been the mod.)

EDIT: Oh, and izak, if I ever have a followup dream and discover you actually weren't scum, I'll be furious.

[callforjudgement]

Why the hell would I claim that as scum?

My personal theory is that you were caught anyway so you decided to go for the "too scummy to be scum" angle.

Actually, claiming a ridiculous and obviously impossible role when caught is up on the wiki as a gambit somewhere, so it can't be a completely unheard-of strategy.

[callforjudgement]

Oh right, just realised one other reason why it's obviously a fakeclaim: c) izak isn't actually a hydra.

[callforjudgement]

Fwiw, I think I figured out the optimal play for the player-who-doesn't-know-their-wincon role. You should claim, then help town.

The reasoning goes as follows: you want to survive, because this helps you no matter what your wincon. Also, you probably are town, just for balance reasons. Town shouldn't want to kill you except very near the end of the game; not knowing your wincon, you're unlikely to participate in quickhammers, and you can't coordinate with the scum, and can't really help them in any way any once you've claimed that you don't know your alignment. Scum, on the other hand, probably shouldn't kill you just on the offchance you're sided with them, and help them win a day earlier as a result. Helping town reduces the risk that they policy lynch you; also, it's more fun.

If you have a night action (and also don't know what it does), point it at people who look scummy. That way, it's no great loss if it does something bad to them, and will probably has no effect if it does something good to them (unless you block a vig shot, in which case you'll at least learn what it does if the vig claims); and it's more likely to be useful if you're an investigative role.

[callforjudgement]

Probably should put the base role behind some I've seen here…

You are a

Voluntarily Suicidal Townie

. At any point in the game, you may commit suicide, which causes you to die. (Unlike being modkilled, you still keep your win condition.) You win with the town.

I've also seen this used as a night ability, rather than any-time ability. The role is a slight positive, but not by much; the main time you'd want to trigger it would be if you were about to be lynched.

[callforjudgement]

You are

(insert player's name here)

, Destroyer of Setups.

Here is the list of every role that exists in the setup, and how many (but not which) players have it:

(

insert list of roles; this needs to include a rolecop (of any alignment), incidentally, because it wouldn't be properly Worst without a way for the existence of this role becoming known

)

Once in the game (at night, and only if you're still alive), you can PM me a list of every role in the setup (apart from your own), and what you think the optimal play for the person with each role is for the rest of the game, based on the information that they have. (I won't tell you other player's night results, but you can include conditionals based on them in your suggestions.) Also calculate the probability of each faction winning.

If the plan that any other player actually follows is better than the one you suggested (in any objective sense), you lose regardless of anything else. Otherwise, if a player loses, but would have won if they followed your plan, you win

and everyone else loses

.

It's reasonably Worst as is, but the wincon creates something very similar to a paradox (because optimal play for the other players includes bargaining with the Destroyer of Setups, and you get a sort-of combinatorial explosion as a result, and possibly end up with any play being objectively wrong),

For best results, place in a role madness game with moderate amounts of public setup knowledge (i.e. not fully closed, but not fully open either).

[callforjudgement]

So basically it fits the Worst Roles thread perfectly.

I try my best.

(The explanations of the implications are for casual viewers of this thread who might see past them otherwise. Myself, I'm a Worst Roles

connoisseur

. When I'm writing a bad role, I try my best to make it truly bad, and yet possible to place in a real (bastard mod) game.)

[callforjudgement]

Self watching is relatively weak; you're mostly trying to catch kills, and catching yourself being killed is pointless because you won't be able to report your results to the town. (If you're also bulletproof, it's another matter.)

[callforjudgement]

It's reasonably well known that 10:2 sucks as a setup (because it's no fun to play from either side; and I suspect that 8:2 is actually

more

townsided, = town should always start by policy lynching).

An "inadvertent 10:2" is going to suck just as much.

[callforjudgement]

Simpler version of Toon Fighter's (which plays a bit differently and is easier to win with):

You are a

Delayed Action Governor

. Each night, you may predict the following day's lynch (except you can't predict it to be yourself). If you're correct, there will instead be a no-lynch that day. You win if there are at least two no-lynches in the game.

Not totally Worst, but still pretty awkward to use, especially because the town will hate you if they discover you're responsible for governing scummy players. (Alternative method of playing: somehow convince the town that no-lynching is absolutely necessary on some day in order to avoid unspecified bad things happening; in a bastard mod game, you might get away with it.)

[callforjudgement]

The whole watcher watcher thing needs generalising.

You are a

Role Reflector

. Each night, you may target a player. If that player has a night action, you will use that player's night action on that player.

(Would work with any alignment, but is probably overpowered as town, because it's basically a vig who doesn't work on most townies, with some extra upside, like protecting doctors. Probably it shouldn't work on factional kills.)

[callforjudgement]

Yeah, it's mindbogglingly OP as town, but pretty balanced as groupscum, and quite interesting as SK.

[callforjudgement]

"Talking about your post restriction results in a modkill" is actually very easy to telegraph.

The simplest method is to, whenever anyone asks you about your post restriction, explicitly and obviously talk about something completely unrelated. You'll get at least one person figuring it out just from that.

[callforjudgement]

God's Eye, as written, shows up in the vote count and is a legal target for actions.

As such, the game would likely be broken if it also contained a town neighbourizer; if you're in a bastard game and see someone completely unable to communicate (but who isn't being replaced for some reason), they're probably the #1 most obvious neighbourization target.

[callforjudgement]

Hmm.

A town neighbourizer that changes the alignment of all players it neighbourizes to scum, keeping their role?

Now that's a pretty bad role, just in the abstract!

(Well, assuming they're naive. If they're knowing, it's just a role that would never be used, or policy lynch itself if compulsive. Or self-target if they could, but they probably couldn't.)

[callforjudgement]

You know Fate's going to claim a power role regardless of what his role actually is. (Not always, but a surprisingly large proportion of the time.)

[callforjudgement]

You are an

Obstacle

.

You only really exist to get in the way of town's behaviour. Really, they'd all be better off if you got out of the way and they could get on with focusing on the scum rather than wondering about your alignment.

You win if half the living players publicly say in thread that they'd like to give you a win. (You cannot offer to give yourself a win.) You lose if you die before this happens, or the game ends before this happens. While you're alive, you count as anti-town for the purpose of other players' win conditions.

Probably quite easy to win with. (There are various ways to make it harder, by making the town having to give up something to give the Obstacle a win, or by making the action that gives the Obstacle a win something unclear, like posting a particular word in the thread that has no obvious relation to the game.) Also allows for the possibility of a nobody-wins endgame if you're left with just one townie and one obstacle.

[callforjudgement]

by making the town having to give up something to give the Obstacle a win

If they have to give up a lynch...

…then the role's equivalent to a Jester.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Naive Miller

. You investigate as scum, but all investigations on you are naive and so incorrectly reveal you as town. You win with the town.

(Discussion: No, this isn't 100% equivalent to VT, and it could be a nasty shock for a player who assumes it is. Although it would be if it were somehow allowed into a Normal, it has bad interactions with at least one common Theme role.)

[callforjudgement]

Ooh, I just thought of a really horrifically bad role!

You are a

List-mod-dependent Cheater

. Halfway through day 1, you must PM another player in the game with game-related information, although you must not claim any details of this role or that it's legal for you to PM other players. The mod of this game will mysteriously go offline at this time, and as such be unable to lock the thread to respond to the likely allegations of cheating. What this ability does, therefore, depends on who eventually ends up locking the thread until the mod of this game gets back:

singersigner

: All players apart from VTs, Cops, Doctors, Jailkeepers, Mafia Goons, and Mafia Rolecops die.

Hoopla

: The entire setup will be publicly published, although not which player has which role.

Papa Zito

: I will go and attempt to get this game reviewed for normalcy and balance. The thread won't be re-opened until the review has failed spectacularly.

hasdgfas

: Each player's role will be replaced by a role functionally identical to their current role, but with different flavour.

farside22

: I'll add an extra three VTs and a Mafia Goon into the game from outside.

Llamafluff

: This game goes full-on Bastard Mod. I mean, more than it is already.

If the thread ends up getting locked by

mith

,

Mr. Flay

, or

Kison

, you get modkilled, because, you know, they aren't list mods.

You win with the town.

[callforjudgement]

Yeah but if you were identified as scum, it'd give away one of your buddies every day (when all other players voted for them), until eventually you were alone and could be lynched.

So basically, it's a disadvantage. It'd pretty much identical to vengeful-style godfather (or "secretary" as I insist on calling it), just takes rather longer to sort out.

[callforjudgement]

In general, if you have a "you must do X" role, the best way to signal that to the other players is to do X as often as you can, as obnoxiously as you can.

[callforjudgement]

Again, optimal play with drama queen is to vote yourself, claim scum, unvote, claim town, preferably all in the same post. People would figure it out quickly from that. (Or just claim, if claiming wasn't banned.)

[callforjudgement]

You are the

soul voter

Every time you change your vote, the person you were voting before dies. If you hammer someone, you die and count as the lynch for the day. If you spend more than 48h without voting someone, you die and count as the lynch of the day. You win with town.

Broken. You can kill the whole of the rest of the playerlist in the same post and get a town victory that way.

[callforjudgement]

The role already exists (

King

), and has even been used on occasion.

It

is

a good role, though.

[callforjudgement]

@izak: I like that variant, because cooperation between the other players could allow them to place their vote. Might still be a lylo liability, though.

[callforjudgement]

I like xtopherusD's role. The VT flip prevents you using the usual cop-claim method of winning as lyncher. (People might be wondering who caused the death, I guess. Could you perhaps frame the target as a day SK, or the like?)

[callforjudgement]

Pacifist Cult Leader is brilliant, partly because it can reasonably easily lead to every single player in the game winning simultaneously.

[callforjudgement]

@funkybike1: It would, cops normally have no reason to investigate innocent children. I guess if they had sanity doubts, they might, but they probably still wouldn't in a bastard game because it'd give yet more layers of bastard to try to unravel. (And this thread's roles are unlikely to be used in non-bastard games.)

@Timeater: that sounds really broken, but actually, possibly it isn't. You'd confirm a bunch of townies and maybe one scum to start off with, but scum would get wise after a bit.

[callforjudgement]

Hmm, I guess. Being confirmed town the town would probably believe them.

Modnote: Is actually a PGO

[callforjudgement]

You are a

DoomYoshi Vig

.

Each night, you may kill another player. However, if you shoot N1, you will be modkilled.

You win with the town.

[callforjudgement]

Should be "7 consecutive posts by other players", or that part of the wincon is really easy to fulfil.

[callforjudgement]

@Leafsnail: I'd love to know how that one works out in practice, because it fits heavily in with my intense analysis of 1:1:1 endgames.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Mafia Goon

. Your partners are XX, YY, and you can talk to them in this quicktopic. You have a factional kill that kills one player each night and can be used by one member of your faction.

Please /confirm in thread with a paraphrase of your role.

[callforjudgement]

You are the

COMPULSIVE CULT RECRUITER

Every night you must recruit one player into the cult. They share a PM with you and win with the cult.

You win with the town.

Haha, and the topic goes full circle.

(For people who don't know: this topic was created in response to a game full of Worst roles, before the concept of Worst roles had really become popularised; the game predated the topic. Compulsive Town Cult Recruiter was one of the roles in that game.)

[callforjudgement]

Haha, roles like that are established enough that it actually has a standard name (even though I don't think that particular variant's been used in the past): "Suicidal Mime".

[callforjudgement]

You don't know the identity of the doctor; you get your own name as the track result.

You

do

know you were targeted, though.

[callforjudgement]

You are an

Insane Watcher

.

Each night, choose a player. The mod will tell you the name of a player who didn't target them that night.

[callforjudgement]

You are an

Insane Watcher

.

Each night, choose a player. The mod will tell you the name of a player who didn't target them that night.

Hmm. In the event that it's a 4-1 Day, town mislynch and it goes into Night at 3-1, the Player A (Insane Watcher) targets Player B (Town Villager), and so does Player C (Mafia Goon), then the Insane Watcher will be given either Player B or Player D by the mod, at a 50% chance for each. That gives the Insane Watcher a 50% chance of clearing Player D going into LYLO; which is quite handy.

Yeah, it's a role that's intentionally not useless, but still pretty weak.

It actually gives you confirmed townies in other situations when there's only one scum left, if you correctly predict the nightkill. As such, it's sort of the opposite of a sane watcher, giving you confirmed town if you predict the kill, rather than confirmed scum. With multiple scum left, it's a lot worse.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

play-by-play announcer

. You have the ability to edit all posts in game but no knowledge of the setup. Anytime someone posts, you must replace the content of their post with a one-line summary of what their content was.

You win with the town.

I love this concept. For best results, place in a game with Mastin. (And me, perhaps.)

[callforjudgement]

Actually, one idea I had for a bastard game was to have two co-moderators, one of who was actively trying to help town, the other of who was actively trying to help scum, but with neither of them allowed to break any rules. (So no giving away players' alignments.)

[callforjudgement]

You are

Impressionable

At the end of the first day, you will become the role that the majority of players think you are. If only alignment is specified, I will give you whatever role I feel like from that faction.

This? Is awesome.

[callforjudgement]

If you claimed

that

, I imagine that most people would think you were an SK :)

[callforjudgement]

Counteracting my "Weak makes anything strong" in postgame analysis…

You are a

Weak Suicidal Townie

.

Each night you may target a player. If you target scum, you die.
You automatically die night 1.

(For making it a little less Worst, change the suicidal to night 2. Then it's actually useful, and has no reason not to claim on day 2.)

[callforjudgement]

That role is actually awesome, IMO. If more than a little swingy.

[callforjudgement]

Persuade a strongman to target you.

(Marginally easier than the Jester.)

[callforjudgement]

@Leafsnail: Huh, that role isn't obviously broken. Good setup design triumphs over easily abusable post restrictions!

I guess the best method of playing is to lurk for a while, preferably breadcrumbing the scum members in a way that won't be noticed until your flip leads people to look for clues, in case you get lynched. Eventually, scum are likely to one-shot kill the wrong person.

Alternatively, arrange to get nightkilled, but that could be quite awkward.

[callforjudgement]

Risks an autoloss if there's an actual cop and they counterclaim you. It shouldn't take the scum long to put two and two together then.

OTOH, waiting for an actual cop to claim and counterclaiming them could work pretty well.

[callforjudgement]

Scum can force you to lose in twilight if you try that.

I guess you could make sure the mod was online first.

[callforjudgement]

The scum X-kill is specifically marked as working in twilight. I assumed that included twilight for the person you were killing, although I guess it can be read only as twilight for the person making the kill.

[callforjudgement]

Yeah, the difference lies in what the scum are told, more than anything else.

[callforjudgement]

The worst thing about the above role is, I thought I was in Open Setup Discussion and thought "hmm, that seems interesting, but how many town?".

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Named Townie

.

You're just a vanilla townie, really. But you have a different name.

Note: for use in a closed setup

[callforjudgement]

The role only really works if you tell Mastin it exists.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

1-shot Mafia Briber

.

Once in the game, night or day, you can cause a player who is not a member of your faction to immediately win the game.

(Other standard scum rules go here.)

[callforjudgement]

But wouldn't it give away your status as Scum anyway? Like, let's say there's somebody who is deadset to lynch you. When you realise that, you use your power. There's got to be some WIFOM-addict that questions the one player who was pressuring for your lynch randomly leaving the game as suspicious, therefore voting you after you've used your power. That and the one player who is now confirmed Town will now have his or her posts look more legitimate, giving away critical information to the Town.

Possibly the best argument for why it's amazingly broken is to consider what happens if it's used in lylo. Even disregarding that, it has balance problems. (As should really be expected of a role in this thread…)

[callforjudgement]

In one of the ASoIaF games, zoraster got a confirmed-scum treestump-from-the-start-of-the-game role. (Unsurprisingly, he spent most of his time trolling the thread. It's optimal play in that situation.)

[callforjudgement]

I didn't have it to hand, but it's here.

[callforjudgement]

You are the

INHIBITOR Version 2.0

If one faction would win while you are still alive, everyone loses.

You win if you survive to endgame.

I posted this earlier, after seeing it used offsite. (Except that it had a kill!)

If it's known the role exists, it makes games really interesting (it tends to reduce swing, because factions become reluctant to finish each other off). I'd seriously advise against using it secretly, though.

[callforjudgement]

The problem is that it plays backwards for town. Even if they're good at identifying cult, they'd need to somehow figure out that they could only win by lynching each other (or no-lynching), and avoiding lynching cult at all costs, which is backwards from what town would normally expect they had to do.

[callforjudgement]

Oh, and a role idea I just had (wow, I've not been here for so long that I was seriously trying to remember if double-posting was allowed):

You are an

Almost Inaudible Townie

.

You cannot post or vote in the thread. However, you can PM the mod a message; they will send it to the town at the next votecount via changing the thread's title. You can also vote via this mechanism.

You win with the town.

[callforjudgement]

Doesn't the fruit vendoriser end up dying to the PGO, all the townies become fruit vendors, and then the PGO has used up their shot so the townies don't die on them the next night?

[callforjudgement]

That Kibitzer role would be better with no win or lose condition. "You can't win, nor can you lose unless you're modkilled. You're just sort-of there."

[callforjudgement]

I still stick by my definition (for the purposes of this thread, at least) of "compulsive" as "dies if they don't use a night action", partly because it makes Compulsive VT such a nicely awful role.

[callforjudgement]

You don't have to know when you'll die if you make every post a palindrome by itself, and then add every post you made at the end, going backwards. That insures you'll always be safe, whenever you die. So in effect it's only a minor inconvenience that leads to massive quote trees. Annoying, yes, but it's not particularly bad.

Each post has to be at least twice the length of the last one in order to do that, though:

Post 1: abba
Post 2: cddcabba
Post 3: effeabbacddcabba
Post 4: ghhgabbacddcabbaeffeabbaccabba

and so on. You'll hit post length limits pretty quickly.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Mod Restrictor

.

Each night, you may submit a post restriction to the mod. The mod must obey that post restriction through the following day.


(I wasn't thinking about Varsoon's role in the previous post when I posted that, but in retrospect, they go quite well together.)

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Deadline Jester

.

You win if a day goes to deadline.

(Probably more interesting if using plurality deadlines.)

[callforjudgement]

This one isn't all that Worst at all, really, but it's a bit of a logistical nightmare, which may make it qualify, causes time paradoxes if you put two in a game, which definitely makes it qualify, and possibly overpowered. Also awesome enough that I had to post it anyway.


You are a

Clairvoyant Mafia Tracker

.

You have your voice, vote, factional communication, and factional night kill. You win with the scum.

Each night, you may investigate one player to see who they target. The investigation results are conceptually available to your faction during the night phase, rather than the morning as normal. Specifically, the investigation results will be posted in the QT in the morning, because you could have communicated it to your teammates before the night ended; and you and your teammates may submit actions that are conditional on your investigation results.

[callforjudgement]

You are a

Fake Innocent Child

.

At the start of the game, the mod will confirm you as town. This is actually nothing to do with your role, though, as you aren't actually an Innocent Child, and as such the mod statement about your alignment cannot be trusted.

You win with the town.

[callforjudgement]

That Felon role is pretty weak throughout much of the game, but becomes overpowered later (especially the night before lylo).

It's also overpowered if you know who the JK is; you use the Felon shot and NK the JK on the same night.

This is tempered somewhat by the fact that the JK should, in most situations, be targeting scum anyway, so perhaps it's best just not to use the rule at all. (What happens if you're jailkept the night you try to use it, btw? It doesn't really make sense for you to kill yourself, but it also doesn't make sense for the JK to block the action.)

[callforjudgement]

One common reason to misjudge a setup balance is to assume that a JK role will be used as a Doctor. It can be used like that, but mostly only on VTs, and Doctor-protecting a VT rarely gains the town very much (unless you pull it off twice in a game). On the other hand, the Roleblocking side of it is around as strong as (maybe a little worse than) a Tracker, which is not a weak role at all. So JKs should normally aim for scum, especially if there's only one left.

EDIT: Oh, and I missed the "how would you balance this role" point. If you wanted something not awful (i.e. not the sort of thing that people come to the threads for), make the role discover all JK targets when they turn themselves in (in addition to gaining JK protection and becoming unable to use other abilities that night), and tell the JK that their ability seemed to affect more people than it should, but not why (they'll most likely assume they hit someone that a Hider was hiding behind). That role is definitely useful, in that it gains you information about what the town is doing that can help you work out what happened overnight, and protects you from vig kills, but it's much more marginal.

[callforjudgement]

There's no NK if the scum you jailed is the scum who tried to perform it. In any game which could potentially have a JK (which is pretty much every game ever, apart from some Opens), the mod asks scum to volunteer one member to actually perform the kill. That particular scum member can be tracked to the kill, and jailing/roleblocking them stops the kill. Tracking or roleblocking other scum will have no effect.

A side effect of this is that Town Trackers/Roleblockers/JKs become much more powerful when there's only one scum left, because the scum can no longer work around them by sending someone unlikely to be targeted to perform the kill.

[callforjudgement]

How does that differ in play from an actual Innocent Child?

Well, clearly, because you're town, you should inform townies that the mod's announcement is unreliable, and should not be relied on.

(Alternative answer: it doesn't.)

[callforjudgement]

I was thinking about that, but who rolecops an Innocent Child? That's arguably even more pointless than copping them.

[callforjudgement]

I was trying to make a role that fundamentally didn't work as designed, and I think I succeeded.

[callforjudgement]

That's interesting without the modnote. Using the ability will mean that you get townies dying faster, but runs the risk of dying yourself. You can always get an SK you created yourself lynched if necessary (you might have to fake a guilty, such as via "tracking them to a kill"), so you can get rid of them again when the ability's run out. I wouldn't suggest using that night action often, but once or (at a stretch) twice might make sense.

[callforjudgement]

If your target gets a kill they night they convert, target someone N1 so there are multiple deaths right off the bat, and that opens the possibilities for multiple fakeclaims.

If they don't, I'd still consider targeting someone the first night and not submitting a Mafia kill, depending on the size of the game. to create more confusion.

Oh, I was assuming that your scumteam didn't have a kill of its own, and could only kill via recruiting SKs for the purpose. Not sure why I was assuming that, but it probably makes the role more interesting.

Would only work in a closed game, though.

[callforjudgement]

You made me check. Somehow, I'm far from surprised that I'm the second, and Izak (who modded at least one of the Worst Roles Mafias) is #1.

[callforjudgement]

Welcome to Excessively Complicated Role Mafia!

You are a

Doomsayer

. You win if, and only if, there is a moderation mistake made during the game.