The Pub: Off-topic chat for forum gamers

[Askthepizzaguy]

Greetings everyone.

I don't see a thread where people can talk casually about werewolf games / other forum games without cluttering up the more important and official "Werewolf Central" thread, which I feel should be more about when games are hosted, what their results were, and so on.

This thread is intended to be more relaxed, specifically about no particular single topic, chatting about werewolf or just chatting in general between werewolf players and hosts.

If a mod feels such a thread is superfluous or inappropriate, please feel free to lock, relocate, or delete.

I'd like to get the ball rolling with some general thoughts about werewolf games. (Hi, I'm Askthepizzaguy, and I'm kind of a chatterbox)



~~~~~~~~~~


What makes a good werewolf player?

I have noticed over the years that players seem to be under the mistaken impression that they need to win oodles of games and/or win as werewolf and/or lynch all the scums as villager and/or never lynch villagers as villager in order to be a decent player.

I think I touched on this a bit before my first game here on this forum.

Okay, let us imagine this ideal werewolf player. They only accuse the wolves as villager, they never accuse villagers as villager, and they always win as wolf. Somehow. They win 90 percent of the games they play. They've been playing for 10 years.

Now let us imagine they have no further redeeming or endearing qualities. They don't really converse with their fellow players, they have no sense of humor, they think little of everyone else's earnest efforts, and they take the game personally. They also drop from games for no reason without explanation.

Is this person a good werewolf player?

No.

They might be skilled, but they aren't a good player.

A good player, let us imagine him or her for a second. The ideal good werewolf player.

They are wrong sometimes and right sometimes. (That's pretty much everyone.)
They want to share the game experience with other players, and get involved by conversing with the rest of the players, on their team or not.
They have a sense of humor or can appreciate others' attempts at humor.
They don't take it personally if you're wrong about them, or lose the game for their team.
They sign up for games only if they truly intend to give it their best effort.
They notify game hosts when they need to drop, with a reason why, preferably.
They are at least aware of the vote tally when one has been posted, and aware of when the round ends, and try to make decisions that help their team.

And that's it.

They don't need to be particularly good at accusing anyone. They don't need to be accurate. They don't need to be a leader, or extremely talkative.

It is, at the last, a guessing game between friends, a casual experience. Some really put in the effort and try to find all the wolves themselves, but that is not a requirement.

If you show up and try, and you keep things in perspective, and you notify game hosts when you can't play anymore, and it's not an every game thing where you need to drop out, then you are a good player.

I'd rather play with 20 good players than one "skilled" player who has no other redeeming qualities.

So please, take that to heart.



And keep it in mind if I kinda suck out loud one game. LOL

[Askthepizzaguy]

New topic:

My upcoming game.

Should I do Toy Story or should I do Family Guy as the theme?

Any theme would generally just affect the flavor of the narration; the game itself I can pretty much design any way I like it. In case you're worried that you need to know much about either universe to find a game of mine playable, you don't.

For one, I prepare cover roles for my scumbags. Mass reveals would not break any game I design. So if you're scum, you come with an alibi pre-packaged, and you get a general idea what sort of template I use to design role PMs, so if you wanted to modify it any way you like and claim something of your own design, you could also do that plausibly. It's up to the players to find scums based on their own merits, not by exploiting the bad game design of the host, in my opinion.

Secondly, I try to avoid making everything obvious. Some hosts may take a lineup like Family Guy and decide that all members of the Griffin family must obviously be not only innocent, but the most powerful roles in the game. After all, the show is about them.

Stuff like that doesn't hold true in games I design. You cannot rely on the universe of the story to provide clues for you.

I once did a Star Fox-themed game, and the leader of the Andross cult was hidden within the Star Wolf team of neutrals, who had vigilante power. They were poised to recruit members into their cult, while also spying on the neutrals and knowing who they were likely going to kill that night.

I have hidden scumbags in minor, tertiary characters, in secondary major characters, and among the main protagonists. I vary it up so that it is impossible to guess. That's my job as host. They might all be hidden among the minor characters one game, or all among the major characters another game, or split down the middle, or just randomly assorted, doing whatever is necessary to keep the game from being broken simply by playing "against the game host" and attempting to win the game based on using meta-knowledge from outside the game.

I can say this: A Toy Story themed game would do better with a large group of people, 25 players at least. I can use characters from all three movies and the game should be pretty interesting to narrate.

A Family Guy themed game would be more flexible, I could handle a smaller player base. For one, it's easier with Family Guy to, let's say, remove the Griffins from the story entirely and focus on joke-based narration filled with show references and humor, and highlight the popular secondary and minor characters instead. With Toy Story, it would kind of be ludicrous not to include the main characters, because all three movies focus almost solely on them.

Differences in narration would be, I'd most likely be trying to tell a story with Toy Story, whereas a Family Guy theme will go for jokes and jokes, and elaborate telling of no particular story that evolves based on what the players decide to do.

If you're interested, please feel free to weigh in on the topic.

[Penguinator]

I'm biased; I don't like Family Guy, so I don't approve of it for a game.

I'm also partial to games which tell a story versus games which are just gags.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I'm biased; I don't like Family Guy, so I don't approve of it for a game.

I'm also partial to games which tell a story versus games which are just gags.

As I will be interested in displaying my game-moderating chops to the widest possible assortment of players, I will be watching which way the wind blows very carefully.

If Family Guy isn't a popular theme, it probably won't be used, unless I get some kind of brilliant inspiration that would lead me to believe I could look you dead in the face and say 'sign up anyway, because the game itself will override your distaste for Family Guy'. Unless something like that happens, I'm quite certain the player base can convince me to do one or the other.

[Fortuna]

As with Penguinator, I'm rather unfond of Family Guy. Meanwhile, I adore Toy Story, and would much rather play a Toy Story game. Also, I'd be interested to play in a game you narrate - I like your playing style, and so I think it's plausible I'd like your narration style too - but I think I would probably avoid a Family Guy game even if the God of Werewolf were to manifest and run it.

[banjo1985]

First of all, nice idea for a thread. We haven't had the kind of activity level where this would have taken off for a while, but we may be near that point now.

I must unfortunately add my voice to the anti-Family Guy crowd, as I really dislike that show. Toy Story is a much better prospect in my biased eyes, but really you should go with whatever you're most comfortable running.

[Askthepizzaguy]

As with Penguinator, I'm rather unfond of Family Guy. Meanwhile, I adore Toy Story, and would much rather play a Toy Story game. Also, I'd be interested to play in a game you narrate - I like your playing style, and so I think it's plausible I'd like your narration style too - but I think I would probably avoid a Family Guy game even if the God of Werewolf were to manifest and run it.

Toy Story is pretty awesome. I watched all three movies back to back to back and saw plenty of opportunities for story telling, and thought of several clever mafia-game roles to accompany certain characters.

First of all, nice idea for a thread. We haven't had the kind of activity level where this would have taken off for a while, but we may be near that point now.

Right now your activity levels and player levels are higher than they are at three of the forums I frequent. Also, I've got plenty of established werewolf players who have already crossed into other forums to play the game, so the trend toward activity may increase.

One thing I do want to be careful to avoid is major cultural cross-contamination. I think it's a lot better for those of us more familiar with other places to assimilate to you, rather than vice-versa. Your board is how you like it, and a massive influx of players with vastly different experiences can change your playing experience. I want to avoid that as much as possible.

There's a lot of opportunity for general strategizing, post-game or between-game chit-chat, and discussions about what we like and dislike about werewolf, and I noticed that there really wasn't an appropriate thread dedicated to that.

Plus I have noticed that there are sort of dead zones in certain games where the posting is less frequent, so if I feel like gabbing, I have more options than spamming the games I'm in.

I must unfortunately add my voice to the anti-Family Guy crowd, as I really dislike that show. Toy Story is a much better prospect in my biased eyes, but really you should go with whatever you're most comfortable running.

The player experience is whats most important to me. I could tell a story that I'd like to hear, but if no one else wants to hear it, I won't have as much fun telling it.

If the players respond to what I'm doing, it gives me that much more incentive to give it my best at whatever I am doing. Besides, I also think Toy Story is a great theme, one I've wanted to do for a while.

[Lex-Kat]

I'm biased; I don't like Family Guy, so I don't approve of it for a game.

As with Penguinator, I'm rather unfond of Family Guy.

must unfortunately add my voice to the anti-Family Guy crowd, as I really dislike that show.

And here I thought I was alone in my dislike of that show. I do love Toy Story though. Even the third wasn't bad. Not great like the first two, but not bad.

[banjo1985]

Toy Story 3 makes my wife cry like a baby every time, fantastic movie, and probably the best of the three for me. I just find Family Guy infantile and unfunny, which is going to seem doubly odd given the next two words of this post:

South Park. I've been toying with a South Park WW game for a while, based on the recent Stick of Truth video game, if only because I keep on calling it Order of the Stick by accident. It lends itself to a WW game quite well, and has opportunities for shenanigans, but would obviously have to be severely toned down to meet board rules. Would watering the humour down to PG-13 levels dilute the theme of a potential game too much to bother with?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Toy Story 3 makes my wife cry like a baby every time, fantastic movie, and probably the best of the three for me. I just find Family Guy infantile and unfunny, which is going to seem doubly odd given the next two words of this post:

Toy Story 3 makes me cry every time. Not gonna lie. The hand holding scene always produces.

South Park. I've been toying with a South Park WW game for a while, based on the recent Stick of Truth video game, if only because I keep on calling it Order of the Stick by accident. It lends itself to a WW game quite well, and has opportunities for shenanigans, but would obviously have to be severely toned down to meet board rules. Would watering the humour down to PG-13 levels dilute the theme of a potential game too much to bother with?

I have played in and ran South Park based games.

I honestly feel my South Park games were the least fun out of almost all the games I've hosted.

Problems involve the way the humor doesn't translate as well into text- South Park is a lot of sight gags, pushing the envelope with regard to people's sensitivities, the audio component (reading a script is not the same as Trey Parker doing Randy Marsh's voice) and the timing of it all.

It's very difficult to translate that into text and keep the spirit of it alive.

Video games are better because you can preserve the visual and audio components and the timing involved, and not have to tone down the rating too much.

I don't want to discourage you at all, but keep in mind it will be difficult for your game to meet your vision for how a South Park based mafia game should be. I know from experience.

[Fortuna]

On an unrelated general strategy note, I've been thinking about my latest game of WW (Phantom of the Opera), in which I died day one as a mason. Now, I realize that some of you are still playing that game, so let's talk in generalities - given that, as a mason, you've got the beginnings of a wagon on you day 1, how do you react? If it depends, what on? Do you out your fellow masons, encourage your fellow masons to out themselves, declare yourself after the second point, keep mum until death with just a few breadcrumbs? Do tell, my friends. For all that attitude and sociability makes a large part of a good player, one can always look to improve one's play as well.

[Askthepizzaguy]

On an unrelated general strategy note, I've been thinking about my latest game of WW (Phantom of the Opera), in which I died day one as a mason. Now, I realize that some of you are still playing that game, so let's talk in generalities - given that, as a mason, you've got the beginnings of a wagon on you day 1, how do you react? If it depends, what on? Do you out your fellow masons, encourage your fellow masons to out themselves, declare yourself after the second point, keep mum until death with just a few breadcrumbs? Do tell, my friends. For all that attitude and sociability makes a large part of a good player, one can always look to improve one's play as well.

I have been mason in several games that are now completed and I can speak freely about those games.

I was even wagoned heavily Day One as mason.

I categorically refused to out any further masons. If village cannot take my mason claim at face value on Day One, with the entire rest of the game left to play, then they are not playing with a desire to keep their village powers alive, and that's not on me, that's on them.

My mason pal survived the entire game, after I lynched, the village lynched a wolf Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, and Day 5.

Every single wolf had voted for me. They were trying to protect their Wolf Tracker, who can find town powers to murder. They voted for an outed mason and tried to get me to claim my partner, and paid a very dear price for their choice.

What helps wolves win is a mass outing of village powers early, with haphazard last-minute voting to move off of one village power, only for another to be outed.

Voting a mason, to get another mason to claim, followed by a "Chinese Fire Drill" (panicked last minute wagon onto a totally different candidate) can lead to dumb stuff like a doctor or seer being outed too.

I know outing 1 mason is bad, but outing an entire masonry and further village powers is unforgivable.

You CANNOT allow that to happen.

If day is half over, ask for one or two days benefit of the doubt. I do this randomly as a vanilla villager, no harm done, no claim.

If day is almost over, inform people you are a village power, do not lynch.

Outing as mason is bad, but if you do it, make sure it ends there. Never out further masons that early.

Let the wolves vote you after you claim mason. It's their necks the next day.

If villagers lynch you D1 after a mason claim, lol villagers.

[banjo1985]

I have played in and ran South Park based games.

I honestly feel my South Park games were the least fun out of almost all the games I've hosted.

Problems involve the way the humor doesn't translate as well into text- South Park is a lot of sight gags, pushing the envelope with regard to people's sensitivities, the audio component (reading a script is not the same as Trey Parker doing Randy Marsh's voice) and the timing of it all.

It's very difficult to translate that into text and keep the spirit of it alive.

Video games are better because you can preserve the visual and audio components and the timing involved, and not have to tone down the rating too much.

I don't want to discourage you at all, but keep in mind it will be difficult for your game to meet your vision for how a South Park based mafia game should be. I know from experience.

This is something akin to my thought process too, which is a shame. I could definitely get some mileage out of a Kenny role that's constantly lynched.

On an unrelated general strategy note, I've been thinking about my latest game of WW (Phantom of the Opera), in which I died day one as a mason. Now, I realize that some of you are still playing that game, so let's talk in generalities - given that, as a mason, you've got the beginnings of a wagon on you day 1, how do you react? If it depends, what on? Do you out your fellow masons, encourage your fellow masons to out themselves, declare yourself after the second point, keep mum until death with just a few breadcrumbs? Do tell, my friends. For all that attitude and sociability makes a large part of a good player, one can always look to improve one's play as well.

If it's a large wagon, claiming is definitely the thing to do - you go from definitely dead today to possibly dead in the night phase, which is an improvement. The village doesn't waste a lynch, and the wolves have to work to kill you, and contend with possible baner intervention.

A smaller bandwagon is more difficult to say in such absolute terms, but I would probably still claim to tip the balance. Your mason buddies don't need to corroborate it; they do so just by nobody contesting the claim. I can remember making a mason claim in my third ever game here to save myself from an early lynch, and I went on to play a pivotal role in a villager win - not saying that to show off, just to show that it's almost always worth doing. If you don't die in the night phase, and no-one contests you, there's an obvious opportunity for an instant villager network, too.

[Chessgeek]

I'm also partial to games which tell a story versus games which are just gags.

Says the creator of Inanimate WW

[Legato Endless]

I'll throw another vote toward the anti family guy bandwagon.

On an unrelated general strategy note, I've been thinking about my latest game of WW (Phantom of the Opera), in which I died day one as a mason. Now, I realize that some of you are still playing that game, so let's talk in generalities - given that, as a mason, you've got the beginnings of a wagon on you day 1, how do you react? If it depends, what on? Do you out your fellow masons, encourage your fellow masons to out themselves, declare yourself after the second point, keep mum until death with just a few breadcrumbs? Do tell, my friends. For all that attitude and sociability makes a large part of a good player, one can always look to improve one's play as well.

Speaking as an involved player, I think you should have claimed quickly and fairly early. Phantom is a small game, which means losing a Mason hurts much more if the typical ratios are used. Furthermore, Day 1 was fairly sluggish and uneventful. With three different bandwagons and only needing 2 votes to move a wagon into contention, there's wasn't much wiggle room. With the sedate participation, the longer one waited the greater the risk grew.

I assumed you weren't a power role based upon your initial cool acceptance of what was happening.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I will admit to being surprised Family Guy is a total non-starter.

Hmmm.... might need to come up with an alternate theme to compete with the Toy Story one.

[Penguinator]

Says the creator of Inanimate WW

And Monty, as well. Honestly, Center was a good mix of amusement and story, so that's one I would consider my favorite. I haven't hit that level again since.

I personally consider the Medieval series my main series, but I've also spent a long time working with it behind the scenes.

Also: I dislike Family Guy, but South Park is even worse.

[Alarra]

I don't really play many WW games anymore. Only Classic, really, and only really because I have to keep up my streak as the only person that has been in every classic. I would, however, possibly play in your game if it were Toy Story themed. I'm rather interested in how you might run things, and I do love Toy Story.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I don't really play many WW games anymore. Only Classic, really, and only really because I have to keep up my streak as the only person that has been in every classic. I would, however, possibly play in your game if it were Toy Story themed. I'm rather interested in how you might run things, and I do love Toy Story.

I am still thinking hard on how I'd run this game. Mainly, since the theme seems to have already been decided by unanimous decision, the problem now is how "vanilla" to make the game versus how.... erm... "strawberry".

In general, I prefer more basic, vanilla setups, mostly vanilla roles- I feel the core of werewolf is the uninformed majority versus an informed minority. What tends to happen in games where the villagers have a lot of night actions, particularly ones where their night actions are visible, or able to be spotted or interacted with by other village roles, is you can develop complex networks of "occupying" people at night. In other words, Player X is known to at the very least not have been murdering on N3, because, let's say, they blocked Player Y from performing his/her action, while the murder took place against someone else. The more hard data that proves players were busy doing something, the better village tends to do. Even if the action itself is basically useless.

In a very large game setup I played in, ordinary villagers were, for example, allowed to band together to perform actions together. It would take like 4 vanilla villagers to perform a nightkill attempt. Now, even if the attempt was unsuccessful, there would be a visible number of people involved. If all 4 people showed up, that lends itself to the idea that all 4 villagers were too occupied doing that to have been off elsewhere murdering people. It actually allowed such a game to be solved by brute force / spreadsheet. The detectives were actually less valuable than the villagers who could prove they were too busy doing X to have been doing mafia-related nightkills.

As such, I am always wary of any game setup where the village has oodles of night actions, on general principle.

However, keeping those things in mind, there are certainly ways to make a game with a bunch of village powers workable.

Usually it involves beefing up the wolf team's numbers, and/or giving them additional powers which help serve as either alibi material, or helps them counter villager powers. Even in the case of a claimfest, it's tough to tell which powers are village and which aren't.

I have also gone out of my way to give the wolves powers which are almost never wolf powers, such as doctors and even in one memorable instance, I gave the only wolf in a game the power to resurrect dead players that she had killed, to make her appear to be the town's most powerful and important role, so the idea should always remain the same: You don't know, based on someone's claimed character, based on the story itself, or based on someone's claimed game role, what alignment they are to any degree of absolute certainty.

What that allows is that, even if the game is far less vanilla and a lot more strawberry, players still have to rely on guesswork, taking shots into the unknown, taking risks. Complacent brute force methods typically shouldn't work in any game I run.

If that appeals to you, then you definitely should join.

At the core, this game is about taking shots in the dark, and guessing. The more we hold on to that concept, the better the game.

[Duck999]

Or you could go with the least simple way, and give everyone power roles along with a number of neutrals that changes depending on the number of players. The create mass chaos! Wait! It has been done before. I think it is called Cat Fight...

[Askthepizzaguy]

Or you could go with the least simple way, and give everyone power roles along with a number of neutrals that changes depending on the number of players. The create mass chaos! Wait! It has been done before. I think it is called Cat Fight...

Then it starts drifting away from mafia/werewolf and becomes a "faction" game.

Games with a lot of different factions besides town/scum, or games with recruitment/cults/alignment shifts are mafia-like games, but I believe they are different enough at their core to be considered different games.

They start with the same basic premise but alter the rules enough to where the game is different.

Sort of like checkers versus a game of checkers where the objective is to force your opponent to capture all your pieces or stalemate you on your turn. The underlying mechanics are the same but the game itself becomes radically different in terms of flavor and strategy.

[Penguinator]

I prefer to run games without villagers for the simple fact that there are plenty of people who don't care to play villager and end up playing villager a lot.

If I can come up with new powers and try them out, all the better.

I've also used a few tricks, like you said, of "standard wolf/town powers." I've had both town and wolf voiders, vortexers, and disguisers, as well as some other interesting things. (One I'd never use, though - wolf day-baner. )

[Askthepizzaguy]

I prefer to run games without villagers for the simple fact that there are plenty of people who don't care to play villager and end up playing villager a lot.

If I can come up with new powers and try them out, all the better.

I've also used a few tricks, like you said, of "standard wolf/town powers." I've had both town and wolf voiders, vortexers, and disguisers, as well as some other interesting things. (One I'd never use, though - wolf day-baner. )

Day baners do feel completely broken.

I pulled off an insane victory in a game where the village had crazy numbers of extremely powerful village roles, and half our wolf team got wiped out in the first couple rounds, and then correctly guessed (A) what order to kill off the village powers to avoid bombs, roleblockers, doctors, and so forth, and (B) who the village was going to lynch next and correctly stopping 4 lynches IN A ROW.

Yes, I was awesome, but the game was broken. The town literally couldn't kill us off even though they chose the lynch correctly round after round after round. Without a vigilante, they lost outright purely due to correct guesswork on the scum's part.

I will not include roles that stop lynches, and that includes roles you have to lynch twice, or redirect the lynch onto another person, or stop the lynch entirely. Village always needs to be able to choose who dies.

I will allow for the possibility of double-voters which can choose to activate or not activate their powers, but I may not even include them in the game. That's about as far as I go with messing with the tally or the lynch.

If you were to ever include a Day Baner, these are the rules which stop it from breaking the game:

1) You cannot Day Bane the same person twice in a row. A second lynch in a row will always succeed.

2) Village must have a nightkilling role and a doctor role, so that they also have a chance to fire at the wolves from behind the security of a protective wall.

Even so, it is something I'd advise against except in a huge game. And even so, bleh.

[Count Dingdong]

I have not seen Family Guy, but I have seen the first Toy Story. So... I'd lean toward Toy Story, as it seems everyone else has.

On an unrelated general strategy note, I've been thinking about my latest game of WW (Phantom of the Opera), in which I died day one as a mason. Now, I realize that some of you are still playing that game, so let's talk in generalities - given that, as a mason, you've got the beginnings of a wagon on you day 1, how do you react? If it depends, what on? Do you out your fellow masons, encourage your fellow masons to out themselves, declare yourself after the second point, keep mum until death with just a few breadcrumbs? Do tell, my friends. For all that attitude and sociability makes a large part of a good player, one can always look to improve one's play as well.

Other people have talked about this, but I figured I could share a bit as well. The basic answer is to claim. None of the other masons should claim, unless some wolf is counter-claiming, and maybe not even then; a one-for-one trade is good, and having the wolf lynched first is best. There is only one instance that I know of in which a villager counter-claimed a mason claim, which is just anti-town play and should reasonably never happen. If a mason is being wagoned Day 1, it's better to claim and freak out than to try and subtly manipulate the lynch. If it's close, and if you think you can do it without claiming, that may be best. If you are unsure whether you can move the lynch away from the mason, that mason needs to claim. Otherwise, the act of protecting someone implies you all are connected, which leads people to think you're wolves. If that misunderstanding is bound to happen (e.g. the mason was acting suspiciously), a claim is guaranteed. In your case, the wagons were close enough that I feel masons could and should have adjusted that. However, it seemed to me that the first day was very slow and inactive; maybe I'm off on that. A claim should be given at least 12-24 hours before the end of day in order to allow people to react to it. Late-day claims can work, but you have to hope that people will see them, and that's completely up to schedules and time zones...

Or you could go with the least simple way, and give everyone power roles along with a number of neutrals that changes depending on the number of players. The create mass chaos! Wait! It has been done before. I think it is called Cat Fight...

No. Cat Fight is broken. I have spoken to banjo in great depth how the game is unbalanced due to the setup of powers. Until I see all the powers, I cannot tell what an adequate fix would be, but I can tell you that the setup as is is unbalanced. I don't care about giving anything away from this post; the game is near enough over anyway.

If you want a game with all power roles, you can look at Careless (my set of games) or Typical (and I think others of Pengi's games, since he likes all-PR games). Of course, Typical isn't over, so I have no clue how actually balanced it is. Still, that's a game mostly for fun, and I'm definitely having a whole lot of fun playing. As for Careless, that's a whole mess of chaos, and it's meant to be. It's a faction game with recruitment, and there's both inherent balance and imbalance in the setup. I could talk about the balance of the second game if you guys want, though the specifics of the third game are still under lock and key, as I'm probably submitting the thread tomorrow or soon after.

If you were to ever include a Day Baner, these are the rules which stop it from breaking the game:

1) You cannot Day Bane the same person twice in a row. A second lynch in a row will always succeed.

2) Village must have a nightkilling role and a doctor role, so that they also have a chance to fire at the wolves from behind the security of a protective wall.

Even so, it is something I'd advise against except in a huge game. And even so, bleh.

In my experience, Day Baner is a Town role. Just like a standard Baner, it is problematic if it can protect the same person, including itself, back to back. That's the version of Baner that I loathe and yet always seem to get in irl play... Anyway, if you get rid of one of those, it is not as big of a problem: make the Day Baner unable to protect themselves, or make them unable to protect the same person twice in a row. Strictly speaking, a team with a Day Baner has to be against a team with a Night Kill. Likewise, any team with a Night Kill should reasonably be against a team with potential protection from the Night Kill (bane, second lives, etc). Basically, to balance a game, there should be a counter to every role; this is why alphas, disguisers, and fools exist as well.

An example of a role which is extremely powerful as a secret role (how it was used) but not nearly as powerful if known is the Know-It-All from Werewolves of Wildespell. Simply put, it learns the targets of each action each night, but not who made the action. In a sense, it's a souped-up Watcher. Since wolves didn't know the role existed, anyone scried by the Devil is essentially cleared town. If the wolves had known about the role, the player has to decide if the Devil is scrying a wolf to provide cover. Even then, it's a powerful role, just less so.

Balance in games is difficult, but it's a topic that interests me a lot. The more power roles there are in a game, the more difficult it is to balance, generally. Even in games without power roles, the proportion of wolves is often up for debate. With a larger number of wolves, town can make few mislynches, but there is a higher likelihood of killing a wolf and getting information by analyzing the group. With a smaller number of wolves, town has more freedom with mislynches, but good wolves can make themselves difficult to find.

[banjo1985]

Day baners who are paying attention, and survive until late game are vicious, whichever side they're on. I tend to only use them in silly games such as Cat Fight and Fatbelly, where they're not likely to have as much effect.

So, not South Park then. That's a relief, it was more of a passing whim than anything else.

I'm down to run another iteration of Advent Children next on the schedule, which I still definitely plan to do. But, I've been thinking about a slightly more esoteric approach to WW games that I'd like to experiment with at some point. This seems like an ideal place to air them and see what folks think of it:

Multiple Location WW (loosely based on Freshmeat's World Espionage): Runs like fairly normal WW game, with close to standard roles, villager vs wolves, possibly with a third faction, neutral or evil. Players start off in one of four (three? five?) in-game locations, and can travel to a different location during the night phase. This would be specified in the end of night narration, and any player travelling would be unable to use any night action they may have. Masons start off knowing where each other are, as do the wolves (not certain on this yet, might start them off blind), but other than that, players will begin the game only knowing where they themselves are. Day phases are a vote for a lynch as normal, but votes from anyone in the same location count double. Night actions such as banes, scries, and kills only work on players in the same location. Wolves would each get a kill vote, which would only count if they voted for someone in the same location. Both teams would have one or more roles who can identify where a player is located, and there'd probably be a wolf and villager role who could move between locations without being identified in narrations. This would probably require a smaller wolf team than normal, unless starting off blind, as they would have a strong advantage early game. End game, when they're down to fewer wolves than locations, well, I think the balance might slip too far the other way?

Weirdly, this would fit in really well thematically with Advent Children, if I went back to FF8 and used the three Gardens, plus maybe Deling City and/or Esthar as the locations. I think that would possibly give me an aneurism though, AC is challenging enough to run as it is.

- - - Updated - - -

No. Cat Fight is broken. I have spoken to banjo in great depth how the game is unbalanced due to the setup of powers. Until I see all the powers, I cannot tell what an adequate fix would be, but I can tell you that the setup as is is unbalanced. I don't care about giving anything away from this post; the game is near enough over anyway.

*swordsaged*

Agreed. It's an experiment with an all role game, and it hasn't worked. Fatbelly IV, my only other all role game, was unbalanced in extreme favour of the villagers, and the wolves still won.

I'd rather save your time to be honest, I have no intention of running Cat Fight again. I'll be sticking to more sensible games in future, well, sensible thematically anyway.

[Duck999]

I have a very important question. In my sig, I have a link to WW related stuff. Should I leave it with just what roles I have played, or do people think I should change it to what games I have played, what role I was, what day/night I died and If I won or lost?

[Askthepizzaguy]

@ Duck999: I have signature lines disabled, so I don't have an opinion.


Okay guys and gals, I have designed 90 percent of the roles in the upcoming Toy Story game.

Here's the deal: I'm going to need 30 players, minimum.

There are too many good roles that I just do not have the heart, I can't cut them from the game.

So what I'd like is for everyone to bribe convince their friends to come play, assuming they are capable of voting once every 3-day (72 hour) Day period and also send in any applicable Night (48 hour) actions, which can be sent in in advance during the Day if you'd like.

The length of Day and Night is meant to accommodate players who have been having trouble staying active or being able to vote in recent games. But, if players sign up, they should still make a reasonable assessment that they will be able to play, and be willing to continue play until the game is over.

Also, if I come up well short of my goal for players, I may invite some people that already know me from my native site to fill ranks, or to act as replacements in case someone goes inactive.

Unlike a vanilla game or a Classic game, the balance of the game can be thrown off due to inactivity.

With a vanilla or Classic game, you just give the village a few extra villagers and that helps offset losses due to inactivity. In this game, there are too many unique roles or roles with powers for me to ensure proper game balance if several people go inactive. Some roles are so essential that I simply cannot have them go inactive, otherwise the roles that they offset on the opposing team become too powerful.

So maintaining player activity is critical in this game.

Is this do-able?

[Legato Endless]

Considering past experience, I don't think the inactivity can be completely avoided. Especially with a larger game, where people will subconsciously feel less responsible if they quit. You might have to make peace with a few losses swinging things out of alignment, or design something less fragile. (I realized the latter is not easy)

[Lex-Kat]

In my opinion, no. Even the best narrators, keeping to a good schedule and with a good balanced game, have a couple ALs. I suggest loosening the reigns a little, allow for 1 or 2 ALs that won't be fixable with AL Replacements.

[Penguinator]

I mean, Typical I've resorted to, "Okay, who's getting autolynched and has a pretty superfluous role?"