In post 70, callforjudgement wrote:(And even if there is a vig, something has gone very wrong if you Bodyguard the vig target.)
if your reads are so balls that you jump in front of a vig kill on scum, your very presence in the game is neg utility and getting rid of you is still a victory for town
in that case, the vig and/or the bodyguard is/are grossly incompetent
the problem in these scenarios that you punctuate with "bodyguard is worthless" is not the role itself. it's the failure to use the role properly. you could make the same argument for a lot of roles.
The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.
People do hero vig shots all the time. It's "grossly incompetent" when they hit town, but when they hit scum they get praised for it. The only difference here is the accuracy of the shooter's reads.
That said, I'm of the philosophy a vig should only be shooting low-content players and a bodyguard should basically never protect them, so from an idealistic point of view it should never happen.
My main disagreement with zMuffinMan is that I assume that the lynch pool is normally fairly large and contains most of the players in the game. This may be because I normally play smaller games. Apart from that, I agree with most of his points.
Also, the optimal way to play vig is to predict who will be lynched the next day and vig them. A protective role should basically never aim at a likely lynch the next day (because they aren't a likely nightkill, barring situations in which the player looks scummy as the result of a very unlikely claim which would be devastating to scum if it were true). Thus protecting a vig kill is a clear indicator that somebody screwed up. Admittedly, it's probably the vig rather than the protective.
Right. I never really played smaller games so I'm only really thinking about it from the perspective of a larger game where any somewhat strong player who rolls bodyguard as town will likely end up dead before endgame and town probably gains close to nothing from strong-player-who-is-a-bodyguard dying N1 if they are unsure whether said player was directly killed or died protecting someone.
I'm a huge fan of slight modifications to roles, but, you've got to not overdo it. Balance can probably be better established by altering the setup / role composition rather than applying too many tweaks to roles. It can become a messy slippery slope, and moderators should strive for simplicity wherever it can be used to achieve the same thing as something more complex, even in the most complex of setups.
You want to beef up bodyguard? Maybe just give the game 2 bodyguards? Have roles with day-kill abilities? Allow the BG to target a player Day or Night and let them stop vig. shots / other DKs.
In post 80, drealmerz7 wrote:You want to beef up bodyguard? Maybe just give the game 2 bodyguards? Have roles with day-kill abilities? Allow the BG to target a player Day or Night and let them stop vig. shots / other DKs.
None of that makes a bodyguard actually want to use their role if they wouldn't under current mechanics.
My tweaks give players incentive to actively put their necks on the line.
Well, and I think it's been said (if not directly), if a player is BG and doesn't use their role, I don't think they understand the role or game to a degree?
It's a team game. A bodyguard puts themself on the line for someone they think is more useful than they are (pretty much anyone that isn't playing a worse town game than you are / that you aren't scum-reading in any light.) If you can't find motivation there, then I think you're selfish and anti-town, or misunderstand the role.
I think it is a BG's job to play heavy-town. Never be a NK target (for town or scum), and lay out tons of reads and hope to die a good death.
Bodyguard is fine. If you don't have a good target just no target. Trading bodyguard for VT isn't really worth it anyways.
Maybe if you're getting heavily scumread yourself or have strong reason to think someone's a PR before they actually claimed... but otherwise what's the problem waiting out earlygame?
You are (possibly) devaluing the individual player by simply dismissing the VT player as worthless simply based on their role. A strong VT player playing a good game can be dangerous to scum and a great idea for a BG to guard (and scum to kill if they have no other leads), especially considering you probably don't know they are VT. At that point it's simply up to the BG to judge if their individual play-skill currently/potentially in that game outweighs their considered target and decide to guard or not.
I don't think I'd hold it against a guard for not using their ability, but, I think it's a bit silly too. If there's a guard in the game, there's likely a stronger PR, and I'd be spending a good amount of time trying to decide who is likely to have a PR.
Speaking of which, do people breadcrumb around here much?
I personally like the version of BG that kills the person that tried to kill their target, both players die.
However, that seems too game breaking, so my suggestion is that we buff bodyguard by revealing who he targeted if he died. This still allows for some wifom i.e. maybe the person is a clear or maybe mafia directly targeted the BG, but good players should be able to deduce what they need from the information and how the game played out.
In post 89, ironstove wrote:I personally like the version of BG that kills the person that tried to kill their target, both players die.
However, that seems too game breaking, so my suggestion is that we buff bodyguard by revealing who he targeted if he died. This still allows for some wifom i.e. maybe the person is a clear or maybe mafia directly targeted the BG, but good players should be able to deduce what they need from the information and how the game played out.
Yeah unless some egomaniac like House has the role.
<Embrace The Void>
“A flipped coin doesn't always land heads or tails. Sometimes it may never land at all...”
that's when a player becomes a PL because they are a town liability as town and it's pro-town to kill the townie no matter the read cause you know they're going to fuck with stuff
and then it stops happening because they change or they go away because they get that you don't like to play with them
The main issue with the Bodyguard role is what give it its appeal over a Doctor: and it is that it feels bad for who plays the Bodyguard.
To give town solid, mod-confirmed information (the Bodyguard's town flip), the Bodyguard sacrifices himself. As in, he ends his contribution to the game. As much as it's good to protect a PR (which you're not even sure you're doing), dying is a pretty big gut punch that often leaves the Bodyguard wishing they could do more for the town.
Yea, I agree bodyguard is basically an inferior doc, but you never find doc and bodyguard to be in the same game, bodyguard is kind of equivalent to something like a goon cop, like what does goon cop offer over a role like normal cop or role cop? Nothing, which is why they're not in games together.
Now you know which role I wish we could see more of? Gladiator. I wish we had multi-shot gladiators in the game, it would be so legit.