Good Roles & Bad Roles [for hosts]

[Overswarm]

Cops are generally the worst role in all of mafia. It's essentially anti-mafia. I like the "guaranteed information" roles, but the stronger the role the more specific it needs to be. If you can determine someone's alignment then there's two paths you can follow:

1. You can trust the cop results implicitly
2. You can't trust the cops results at all

If it's #2, it's due to the possibility of insanity cop, random cop, naive cop, miller, godfather. All of those are mediocre. There are places for them in some setups but they have to be designed around it.

If it's #1, then the role needs something holding it back. Gau was my favorite cop of all time (from FF6 mafia) because that player had to choose either to vote, and thus influence the day phase, or not vote, and get an investigation. At the same time it's a huge blinking light saying "I'm not voting" which puts pressure on him from town to do so (ruining his NA) or make him claim (making him a target for mafia). It's balanced in that the player who rolls Gau gets to choose how he plays and as the game goes on (and cop ability gets stronger/more precise) Gau will need to use his vote more often.

7 people left in game, 4 to lynch? With two mafia that means you need 4/5 townies to vote which means every townie other than Gau... and if this occurs then you don't really need the cop in the first place because you just found mafia. So as the cop result gets stronger the ability to use it gets harder!

Love the Gau role.

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

That's hysterical.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Cult is a very centralizing role and best used in open or semi-open set-ups. If the presence of the Cult is known and you build the setup around it [Cult + Comparison Cop is great] it can make for a pretty good game. As crazy as it sounds I think Cult is actually easier to balance than the Cop.

There are specific roles that are stupid by themselves but can actually work if their presence is known via open or semi-open setup. Contract Hitman is such a role and I may actually give it a try in the future.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

Contract Hitman is such a role and I may actually give it a try in the future.

Just don't send your setup to marshy

 

[Shun Goku Satsu Rake]

I've always thought that for something like Tracker or Cop that good NA choices should be rewarded. Maybe instead of a cop getting constant results, he has to not only choose someone to cop, but predict their alignment, or get "good results" (I.e a guilty). if he gets it right or gets that result, more cops, if he's wrong, he has to give up the cop the next night. That feels like it'd be pseudo balanced (weaker adrenaline cop in a sense) and it forces the cop to actually play the game and not just faceroll the keyboard and get lucky with NA's

 

[Fandangox]

You mean like giving up the cop role for the remainder of the game, or just the next night?
Cause if you are giving it up for just the following night if you guess alignment wrong, you might as well always guess town when making a read, that way if your ability stops working the following night you know you've hit scum, and your ability is still not permanently blocked out.

I think Overswarm's Gau cop story sounds more balanced.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

I've always thought that for something like Tracker or Cop that good NA choices should be rewarded. Maybe instead of a cop getting constant results, he has to not only choose someone to cop, but predict their alignment, or get "good results" (I.e a guilty). if he gets it right or gets that result, more cops, if he's wrong, he has to give up the cop the next night. That feels like it'd be pseudo balanced (weaker adrenaline cop in a sense) and it forces the cop to actually play the game and not just faceroll the keyboard and get lucky with NA's

This has been my stance on the vig recently. I hate MP2 Mafia with a passion but the adrenaline (day)vig that Gorf created was a fantastic idea as a balancing act to the vig. You give that role three shots and he can completely win or lose a game for town on his own just by making good or bad shots. Giving him a restriction saying he gets more shots if he hits the right people rewards him for having good reads while also preventing him from shooting three townies in a row and throwing the game just for him (by himself) being wrong.

That said, don't think it works for the cop as much because where the vig can also choose to use his one shot to lose a problematic slot like an inactive, the cop should be using his role to look into the dangerous slots that town struggles to read. He, like the vig, clearly shouldn't have unlimited or unchecked shots, but unlike the vig, it's silly to punish him for risking his shot on the question marks that he should be looking into.

 

[Shun Goku Satsu Rake]

You mean like giving up the cop role for the remainder of the game, or just the next night?
Cause if you are giving it up for just the following night if you guess alignment wrong, you might as well always guess town when making a read, that way if your ability stops working the following night you know you've hit scum, and your ability is still not permanently blocked out.

I think Overswarm's Gau cop story sounds more balanced.

just the next night.

 

[Shun Goku Satsu Rake]

This has been my stance on the vig recently. I hate MP2 Mafia with a passion but the adrenaline (day)vig that Gorf created was a fantastic idea as a balancing act to the vig. You give that role three shots and he can completely win or lose a game for town on his own just by making good or bad shots. Giving him a restriction saying he gets more shots if he hits the right people rewards him for having good reads while also preventing him from shooting three townies in a row and throwing the game just for him (by himself) being wrong.

That said, don't think it works for the cop as much because where the vig can also choose to use his one shot to lose a problematic slot like an inactive, the cop should be using his role to look into the dangerous slots that town struggles to read. He, like the vig, clearly shouldn't have unlimited or unchecked shots, but unlike the vig, it's silly to punish him for risking his shot on the question marks that he should be looking into.

hmm that is true.

I've never felt as a vig though like Inactives were the best use of my time, so it's possible my bias there influenced me. Personally i'd much rather flip the coin to hit a scummer and come up short than shoot an inactive who may be able to prove useful.

As an aside, I don't understand what sanity being unconfirmed does besides **** with the cop. Is it supposed to be a hit to it without sitting a rb or godfather on it ?

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

It's supposed to cause paranoia, yes. I don't like varying sanities as a result but then there's a reason I don't generally use cops as my informatives.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Gave the OP another update:

* Instead of calling roles "good" or "bad" I categorize them by how hard they are to balance now
* I used colors to show what alignments make sense for a role [though there's prolly more than the OP shows]
* A lot of roles have been added, popular ones and ones I consider underrated
* Explanations on some roles have been added
* More roles will be added in the future
* The OP reflects my experience-based opinions - anything can be up for debate if you feel something should be different!

 

[#HBC | marshy]

* Instead of calling roles "good" or "bad" I categorize them by how hard they are to balance now

why? a role can be balanced but still whack as ****. i liked the idea of discouraging ****** to use ****ty ones

i think godfather should be put in virtually always good

#datintolerance

 

[Overswarm]

Godfather is a dumb role.

"Hurr durr, I made it so that if the cop can be trusted, he actually can't be trusted but town won't know"

Literally the pinnacle of bad design.

You literally have to design around godfather roles so that town can inevitably discover (or already know) there is a godfather role, otherwise the game becomes "ignore the cop completely" or "follow the cop all game and end up with a bunch of townies and absolutely no way of knowing if the cop was redirected, roleblocked, or displaced in some other way at any point in the game so we just kind of ended up here with no way of knowing this is the case and oh by the way when this happens the game is likely over because cops rarely have the ability to discover everyone especially when he investigates the godfather early, announces it, and THEN mafia kills him and that guy is cleared the entire game unless town guesses with no reason to that there is a godfather which defeats the entire point of the cop role in the first place why even put it into the game."

 

[~ Gheb ~]

The point of this thread is to help hosts design their games in a fair and balanced fashion.

 

[Overswarm]

If that's your goal then you should probably make a new thread, because no role works in a vacuum.

I had Delita, literally an omnipotent role, in a game and he wasn't broken! The role in any other game would have been totally broken, but it fit in FFTactics.

I had a wise townie in RPG mafia that simply had information for town that they could confirm, I had a role in a game that made people permanently have a vote on them, I had a role that required a player to vote in every post.

Roles don't work in a vacuum, they work in conjunction with both the player number and other roles.

If you want to keep this simple and helpful, do this:

Cop
-Stronger with less players or a higher scum to town ratio

A cop simply investigates a role at Night and get a "guilty" or "not guilty" result, sometimes a "town", "mafia", or "indie" result.

Variants include using the ability every other night, receiving only "guilty" or "not guilty" results, only being able to use the ability as the result of an ingame action (voting or not voting, being on a town or mafia lynch, being hammer vote, etc.), or getting less information such as a role name. Sometimes cops can only search for one role, such as Mario being able to investigate to determine if someone is Bowser.

Cops become stronger when they have less guessing to do, so they become more powerful when paired with other investigative roles such as watchers or trackers. Masons/Neighborhoods also increase the cop strength as they can privately give their results to someone else without claiming in-thread.

Cops also greatly increase the strength of doctors and vigilantes, as it guarantees they protect/kill the correct people if they trust the cop. Many setups can be broken if a doctor can protect a cop indefinitely after a cop claims, as the mafia have to kill the doctor prior to killing the cop.

Cops become weaker when attention is drawn to them, such as with a voting restriction or ability restriction, or with a larger pool to choose from and is most weakened when paired with roles such as Lightning Rods or Jailers or Paranoid Gun Owners. Cultists, recruiters, roleblockers, and bus drivers are common mafia roles that weaken cops. Cops can also be harshly punished by roles such as Millers or Godfathers, but this are typically poor ways of balancing a cops ability and help to center the game around the cop ability in a negative fashion.

Cops greatly decrease the strength of Mafia's day-game in general, but also decrease the strength of any role that is meant to incriminate a townie. As the cop can confirm/deny the alignment, most incrimination can be temporarily be put on hold until the Night Phase.


Role
Stronger in greater or smaller numbers

What the role does

Possible variants

What makes them stronger and what roles of the same alignment they can be paired with to make them stronger

What roles they make stronger

What makes them weaker and what roles of the same alignment they can be paired with to make them weaker

What roles they make weaker

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Godfather is a dumb role.

"Hurr durr, I made it so that if the cop can be trusted, he actually can't be trusted but town won't know"

Literally the pinnacle of bad design.

You literally have to design around godfather roles so that town can inevitably discover (or already know) there is a godfather role, otherwise the game becomes "ignore the cop completely" or "follow the cop all game and end up with a bunch of townies and absolutely no way of knowing if the cop was redirected, roleblocked, or displaced in some other way at any point in the game so we just kind of ended up here with no way of knowing this is the case and oh by the way when this happens the game is likely over because cops rarely have the ability to discover everyone especially when he investigates the godfather early, announces it, and THEN mafia kills him and that guy is cleared the entire game unless town guesses with no reason to that there is a godfather which defeats the entire point of the cop role in the first place why even put it into the game."

At the same time, you need to make people second guess the cop or it's not worth adding into a set-up. A straight cop needs something to keep it in check or the role is inherently bonkers for town.

That or you do Fire and Ice where the Cop is town's only PR and it doesn't clear people over just saying, between these two there is scum. And if you claim that, you die.

 

[#HBC | FrozeηFlame]

Using roles that one wouldn't naturally expect to be given to a certain alignment works wonders. Mafia Tracker like you had it in your old Batmanfia game is a fantastic mix-up - totally counter-intuitive, provides a juicy safe-claim, punishes *******es for lynching by claim instead of play and is actually quite useful for the scumteam. For Touhou Mafia Ryker and I came up with Mafia Tree Stump, which is actually a lot less insane than you'd probably think.

If you're looking for an easy way to give scum safe claims, this is the go to method.

Take a town PR. Think about how that power could actually be useful for the scum team when the player isn't being transparent about his NA's. Then think about how that role can still be used in a pro-town fashion if the player decides to claim it and become transparent about his NA's.

If you can come up with meaningful choices and strategies in this manner, use that typically town PR and just literally make it a mafia member. Voila, you have a fair, functional, and fun safeclaim.

I do this all the time with roles like tracker/watcher/reporter/voyeur/jailer/doc(in setups with killing roles other than the mafia)/shrink/gambler/etc. This goes on and on. Most town PRs can be slightly re-purposed for scum play while still having functionality that allows for a scum player to fake pro-town NA's. Ask any of the guys who played in my IRL closed setup at Apex this year. I had a scum voyeur and a scum roleblocker as partners in a 9 man setup where everyone had a power, though some were red herrings. This gave the scum a tool for finding out more info about what they were up against, and also provided the player with the ability to use his ability in a "fake" pro town fashion to build town cred if he wanted to. Best part is, the red herrings could have easily created misinformation for the scum players if they came up on the voyeur results. Thats a balancing mechanism that you'd think is generally just for balancing town roles, but actually, it works well regardless of alignment.

As for mafia tree stump, adumbrodeus and I played in a mafiascum game based on Game of Thrones where littlefinger was the mafia tree stump. As Gheb said, not actually as insane as one might think.

#2cents + anecdotes

 

[#HBC | marshy]

Godfather is a dumb role.

"Hurr durr, I made it so that if the cop can be trusted, he actually can't be trusted but town won't know"

Literally the pinnacle of bad design.

You literally have to design around godfather roles so that town can inevitably discover (or already know) there is a godfather role, otherwise the game becomes "ignore the cop completely" or "follow the cop all game and end up with a bunch of townies and absolutely no way of knowing if the cop was redirected, roleblocked, or displaced in some other way at any point in the game so we just kind of ended up here with no way of knowing this is the case and oh by the way when this happens the game is likely over because cops rarely have the ability to discover everyone especially when he investigates the godfather early, announces it, and THEN mafia kills him and that guy is cleared the entire game unless town guesses with no reason to that there is a godfather which defeats the entire point of the cop role in the first place why even put it into the game."

:thumbsdown:

godfather is one of the most ballinest roles in mafia. it forces town to not take cop results for granted if a cop exists and can be used without a cop role in the setup at all. its always a fun role for scum to use cuz they have free rein to do whatever the **** they want. i love gettin that role cuz it screams bus your mates! the latter example you have here is actually "read posts during dayphase to determine if a cops innocent result is worth giving a **** about" cuz town is forced to analyze dayplay instead of shutting off their brains and going HERP COP BELIEVE EM AND SHEEP EM like youve suggested here. youre acting like the entire game is ruined if town cant trust cops results completely but thats trash

 

[Overswarm]

No, I'm acting like if you put in a role that says one thing but then give one instance where it doesn't then there is no feasible way for any logical person to deduce that it doesn't work one hundred percent of the time.

Saying "they should just read the day phase" is idiotic because there's no sense in even having a cop role if the status quo is "ignore the cop".

Scum godfather gets a free ride if investigated unless every other player has also been investigated.

 

[#HBC | marshy]

1. No, I'm acting like if you put in a role that says one thing but then give one instance where it doesn't then there is no feasible way for any logical person to deduce that it doesn't work one hundred percent of the time.

2. Saying "they should just read the day phase" is idiotic because there's no sense in even having a cop role if the status quo is "ignore the cop".

3. Scum godfather gets a free ride if investigated unless every other player has also been investigated.

ahh dem classic os arguments. my favorite! now i just need to play tug of war over a lynch with ryker and i can officially declare 2014 a successful year of mafia

1. why does it have to be 100% of the time? if cop investigates godfather and puts the blinders on scum then thats his own fault. you dont stop being skeptical of a player cuz of cop results when plenty of roles exist to **** with cops andve been used commonly enough that their results should instill some kind of doubt into the player

2. one cop result is being tampered with here as opposed to every one of them meaning the cop still has relevancy. the cops results will most likely have some impact on how the player(s) treat the results and approach the dayphase regardless of accuracy. whether or not the cop is ignored by town is determined by circumstances occurring in that specific game so im lost in youre mentioning of the status quo changing other than just exaggerating cuz itd take a longass time for that to happen and even then that shift would be disrupted if not halted by mods putting their own spin onto cops and their counters

3. this is THE PLAYERS fault not the mods. if youre giving a player a free pass off of a role result over dayplay then your priorities are out of whack. if x acts scummy as **** all game and y ignores it on d5 due to a n4 action telling him x is innocent then y is a ****** for excusing scummy play in that case

the cop and town saying to themselves "damn i dunno if i can take the cops results at face value. lemme read over the dayphases to see if i buy his results" is a good thing and the godfather encourages that. your argument for godfather being whack hinges on a cop existing when the role is still ballin as **** regardless of a cop being present in a given setup. you seem to be sympathetic towards a cops results always being reliable and if it isnt then whatever role is causing that sucks cuz blah blah blah absence of 100% surefire method to deducing the manipulative factors present

man. this argument is pretty pointless considering i doubt either of us would actually use a cop. that said i couldnt stand to see you ****ting on a swagged up role and let people fall for it without considering the other side of the spectrum

 

[Overswarm]

1. Those are all bad roles in an attempt to fix the main issue with a cop. The godfather is the worst of it as it doesn't fix the issue, it simply reverses it so it works in scum's favor for town. It's no different than the mod saying "Also, this player is confirmed town" when they're scum. If the cop investigates 5 people in a row and the first 4 are town and the 5th is scum, with the cop dead and 6 people remaining the one you lynch is the guy that wasn't investigated, end of story.

"Having doubt" about mod-confirmed information is a bit silly unless town has other ways of indicating this. If you have a cop role in the game you can either trust his abilities or you can't. If it's the former, it needs to be difficult or limited in some way to use because it's stupid good. If it's the latter, town needs to know this. I'm fine for a cop having an investigative role that says "1/3rd of the time you will receive the result of "scum" regardless of their alignment" (except I'm against probability roles, but FOR THIS EXAMPLE...). This tells the cop "hey, you can't always be trusted but you can do a decent job at guiding town at strange junctions". That's a different ball game then "Wait, all 5 people left are town? ****, this cop has been ****in' with us, lynch him. ****, he was town, only 3 left. Now I guess we should be playing mafia except we only have this phase to do it."

Seriously, what kind of idiot would have a claimed cop say "I got a scum result on Player X" and then NOT lynch X when you know the cop's role is legit? When would the guy say "I got a town result on player Y" and then lynch THEM?

2. Sure thing Marshy. I'm gonna give you 12 apples. One is poisoned. Your goal is to remove apples one at a time by eating them. Since only one has been tampered with it shouldn't be a problem, right?

"Here's the antidote. Well, maybe. One of the testing units we use to determine the antidotes validity always tells us positive." NO PROBLEM.

It's a game design issue because the cop is a pivotal role. The cop's job is to investigate and stay alive as long as possible and because he's so powerful, once he claims his results they are out for everyone to see then everyone should follow them, especially after he flips town. If a role is put in to mess with those results then town needs to have some way of knowing this otherwise there's no reason to pay attention to ANY of town's results. If there's one godfather or one miller, why couldn't there be two? Why not a mafia game with a cop and ONLY godfathers for mafia? You have no reliable way of knowing except your own experience.

Yes, if I played in a dozen bad games and 8 of them had godfathers I'd just tell the cop to be quiet and go along my day. But from an actual design perspective that is more sensible than "Well, we let town get screwed over a few times by this hidden mechanic they don't know about and then they'll learn not to trust the cop anymore", I can't see it working.

3. Incorrect. The majority of players' in-game reads are incorrect. You can run the numbers if you want, but both in-game play and observers have shown that no one has above even 50% accuracy in finding scum. You can play hypothetical all you want, but the fact is the cops role says "determines alignment". If the cops role said "determines alignment, but WATCH OUT! There is a godfather who will always turn up as town!" then the role would be fine. Not knowing? Totally wrong.

If the cop results aren't reliable then the cop either has to know or town itself has to know, and quickly, otherwise its simply bad design.


Compare Gau to a cop with a godfather in the game.

Gau: If you vote during the day phase, you cannot use your ability that Night. Each Night you may investigate one player to determine their alignment.


Clean and simple. It's all up to the player and the advantages of the cop result increases as the need for his vote increases. His visibility to mafia increases as the power of this ability increases. Built-in balance system for the role.

Cop: Each Night you may investigate one player to determine their alignment.

See the difference?

To figure out that there is a Godfather, one of the following has to happen:

• Cop gets a town result, but another investigative role sees him visit a dead guy or use a killing ability
• Mafia GFather accidentally outs himself as mafia in-game
• The player base has to shrink to a level where all the remaining players have been investigated
• Someone else has to just not believe the Cop's results and/or alignment
• Godfather has to be lynched or killed prior to being investigated

If you noticed, absolutely none of those have to do with "logic". Most of them aren't balanced either. If the cop is so strong he needs a godfather to reverse it, then WTF does scum do if the Godfather gets panic-lynched D1 or vigged randomly N1? Lose?

It's a pathetic attempt at game balance.

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

Yes, if I played in a dozen bad games and 8 of them had godfathers I'd just tell the cop to be quiet and go along my day. But from an actual design perspective that is more sensible than "Well, we let town get screwed over a few times by this hidden mechanic they don't know about and then they'll learn not to trust the cop anymore", I can't see it working.

I wanna highlight this in particular because I wanna mention that set-ups shouldn't be used to make a point. Recently I've seen certain set-ups run with specific wrinkles in them deliberately made to **** with town (double coroner in Luigi's Mansion comes to mind). That's not a good set-up in my eyes because those roles were deliberately put in to punish town for using a tool given to them to help them win the game. In LM's case, that was massclaiming, but it's also bad to punish town deliberately for that just because you think that massclaims shouldn't win the game for town. There should be more inherent risk involved (more vanillas if you can't do something like OS' games where no role is obviously one alignment or another) but putting in two roles that essentially accomplish the same thing and then expecting town not to get caught up in that and ultimately lynch both simply due to conflicting claims because, historically, these things have happened, is not only hopelessly naive but it will essentially punish town for the logical idea that two roles that do the same thing shouldn't exist in the game for plenty of reasons.

And this isn't limited to "cops are dumb, m'kay" or "massclaims are bad, m'kay". Your set-up shouldn't reflect your opinion of how mafia should be played. Your job as a host is to make a set-up that is fun to play and doesn't punish one faction or another by compromising facts and truths they've come to experience in mafia because at that point, that's basically power abuse as a host. Your game is not your soapbox. It is simply the medium in which you invite a bunch of people to have fun.

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

Dude it's like every thread is a different heated argument all living cohesively within each other lmao.

It's like you guys are both arguing that cop is ******** but for TOOOOOOTALLY different reasons.

 

[Overswarm]

But I'm right.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I like both methods to balance a cop.

Depends on roles and what kind of set-up it is.

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

But I'm right.

Ehh. Your logic is sound, but I don't agree. A check to the cop is needed, and having a godfather is a solid one imo. It's not needed for sure, but if your cop is a generic cop it sure balances it pretty well. You're good at balancing those roles though so you have a good stance on not liking godfather lol.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

There are better ways to balance cops than to add a godfather. If you really need to use a Cop for whatever reason then you should try to keep him balanced with Traitor, Framer / Lawyer / Taylor, Roleblocker / Busdriver, Rolecop or whatever other option you can think of to make him less OP. Having a stupid role balanced by an even more stupid role isn't something I'd recommend to go for.

 

[Overswarm]

Godfather doesn't balance anything, it just gives a possible chance that it reverses the implication of a cop.

Cop in game, 13 players. Cop knows he is town. 12 players. Cop has 1/4 chance of hitting scum. Cop hits scum, he announces "FOUND SCUM", town lynches scum, confirms Cop's townness. 10 players to look at minus whoever had died already. Watchers/trackers/docs/etc. all work off cop making him STRONGER after he has found scum as he is now unlynchable and potentially unkillable.

Cop in game with godfather. 13 players. Cop knows he is town. 12 players. Cop has 1/4 chance of hitting scum. 1/12 chance of hitting Godfather. If he doesn't hit godfather, same as before. If he DOES, Godfather cleared for entire game.

I seriously don't understand how someone can be dumb enough to think "well, mod-confirmed town by a town-confirmed role on a scum player is balanced".

Cop removes mafia from the equation completely. It becomes a game of "can we trust the cop" and the godfather gives no way of knowing if you can or not and as such has no bearing on the balance of the role but only the intended effect.

Balanced is "if this game was infinitely played an infinite number of times and infinite number of people could come to the same conclusions in the same scenarios". Godfather doesn't do that.

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

Then don't blindly follow the cop? If a players play is too bad to be true it probably is?

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I kinda have to agree with OS.

If you can't trust your results, what is the point of your role? Yeah more day play but then if you can't trust it, why even include it?

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Aka I think godfather can work but in closed set-ups that WIFOM kinda invalidates a cop.

I mean at least when I did disney Sing-a-long the forensic investigator revealed there was a ninja and who made night actions or at least could help town figure out info from claims. Same with tracker.

Town could actually figure out there was a ninja and not like it invalidates that someone couldn't be scum via play.

Godfather? How is town suppose to figure this out outside of a blind guess?

 

[Rajam]

It's easier to balance whatever role when you punish it for bad decisions. For example, making a cop vig his target if it's town aligned

EDIT: Or give the role limited shots. 1-shot cop looks ok imo

 

[Overswarm]

Then don't blindly follow the cop? If a players play is too bad to be true it probably is?

Red Ryu mostly covered it. If your role says "you learn their alignment" but in practice its not, the role is a bad choice to put in the game.

Make roles count, make them mean something, and make them synergize with the other roles in the game.

It's easier to balance whatever role when you punish it for bad decisions. For example, making a cop vig his target if it's town aligned

EDIT: Or give the role limited shots. 1-shot cop looks ok imo

1 shot cop better than the former, as the former is just a weaker vigilante.

 

[Top Deck BLS]

Then don't blindly follow the cop? If a players play is too bad to be true it probably is?

That's some bull****. What if the Godfather literally only lurks. If it's some new player who BARELY makes the post requirement to stay in the game and was copped to eliminate him as a suspect? How do you finger him? By a mechanical lynch on a cop inno'd target that has nothing to do with reading the slot?

 

[Overswarm]

It's like reading poker players saying "I just put them on a hand and if I can beat it, I bet more and if I can't, I fold!"

no one does that

no one

 

[#HBC | marshy]

1a. Those are all bad roles in an attempt to fix the main issue with a cop. The godfather is the worst of it as it doesn't fix the issue, it simply reverses it so it works in scum's favor for town. It's no different than the mod saying "Also, this player is confirmed town" when they're scum. If the cop investigates 5 people in a row and the first 4 are town and the 5th is scum, with the cop dead and 6 people remaining the one you lynch is the guy that wasn't investigated, end of story.

1b. "Having doubt" about mod-confirmed information is a bit silly unless town has other ways of indicating this. If you have a cop role in the game you can either trust his abilities or you can't. If it's the former, it needs to be difficult or limited in some way to use because it's stupid good. If it's the latter, town needs to know this. I'm fine for a cop having an investigative role that says "1/3rd of the time you will receive the result of "scum" regardless of their alignment" (except I'm against probability roles, but FOR THIS EXAMPLE...). This tells the cop "hey, you can't always be trusted but you can do a decent job at guiding town at strange junctions". That's a different ball game then "Wait, all 5 people left are town? ****, this cop has been ****in' with us, lynch him. ****, he was town, only 3 left. Now I guess we should be playing mafia except we only have this phase to do it."

1c. Seriously, what kind of idiot would have a claimed cop say "I got a scum result on Player X" and then NOT lynch X when you know the cop's role is legit? When would the guy say "I got a town result on player Y" and then lynch THEM?

2a. Sure thing Marshy. I'm gonna give you 12 apples. One is poisoned. Your goal is to remove apples one at a time by eating them. Since only one has been tampered with it shouldn't be a problem, right?

"Here's the antidote. Well, maybe. One of the testing units we use to determine the antidotes validity always tells us positive." NO PROBLEM.

2b. It's a game design issue because the cop is a pivotal role. The cop's job is to investigate and stay alive as long as possible and because he's so powerful, once he claims his results they are out for everyone to see then everyone should follow them, especially after he flips town. If a role is put in to mess with those results then town needs to have some way of knowing this otherwise there's no reason to pay attention to ANY of town's results. If there's one godfather or one miller, why couldn't there be two? Why not a mafia game with a cop and ONLY godfathers for mafia? You have no reliable way of knowing except your own experience.

2c. Yes, if I played in a dozen bad games and 8 of them had godfathers I'd just tell the cop to be quiet and go along my day. But from an actual design perspective that is more sensible than "Well, we let town get screwed over a few times by this hidden mechanic they don't know about and then they'll learn not to trust the cop anymore", I can't see it working.

3a. Incorrect. The majority of players' in-game reads are incorrect. You can run the numbers if you want, but both in-game play and observers have shown that no one has above even 50% accuracy in finding scum. You can play hypothetical all you want, but the fact is the cops role says "determines alignment". If the cops role said "determines alignment, but WATCH OUT! There is a godfather who will always turn up as town!" then the role would be fine. Not knowing? Totally wrong.

If the cop results aren't reliable then the cop either has to know or town itself has to know, and quickly, otherwise its simply bad design.


Compare Gau to a cop with a godfather in the game.

Gau: If you vote during the day phase, you cannot use your ability that Night. Each Night you may investigate one player to determine their alignment.


Clean and simple. It's all up to the player and the advantages of the cop result increases as the need for his vote increases. His visibility to mafia increases as the power of this ability increases. Built-in balance system for the role.

Cop: Each Night you may investigate one player to determine their alignment.

See the difference?

3b. To figure out that there is a Godfather, one of the following has to happen:

• Cop gets a town result, but another investigative role sees him visit a dead guy or use a killing ability
• Mafia GFather accidentally outs himself as mafia in-game
• The player base has to shrink to a level where all the remaining players have been investigated
• Someone else has to just not believe the Cop's results and/or alignment
• Godfather has to be lynched or killed prior to being investigated

If you noticed, absolutely none of those have to do with "logic". Most of them aren't balanced either. If the cop is so strong he needs a godfather to reverse it, then WTF does scum do if the Godfather gets panic-lynched D1 or vigged randomly N1? Lose?

It's a pathetic attempt at game balance.

1a. it doesnt matter if the roles are bad. they exist andve been used (a lot more in the past than the current environment admittedly. but then again the same can be said about cops altogether) to the point that your dislike of them doesnt change my point. in the example you have here you lynch the guy who was investigated as scum and thats only IF town is dumb enough as youre suggesting here that theyre just blindly following the cop. ill play along to your terrible town play in this example for the sake of argument. regardless what you do afterwards is dependent on both the flip of whoever got investigated guilty and the play of the remaining players in the game

1b. town doesnt need to know about the cops unreliability for reasons already stated that ill leave out of here for the sake of this not going in circles. at this point youre getting into the wording of role pms and thats a boring argument i dont care enough to engage

1c. this "idiot" values whats said during the dayphase over night actions that may be able to deduce that results are not to always be taken at face value due to manipulative roles existing to **** with em. this idiot is also playing well if hes successful in correctly reading people and going with those reads over night actions should he draw one of the cop variants or hit the gf

2a. heh. im not going to touch this. keepin this related to mafia in the interest of this not devolving into a back and forth over how i would try to guess which apples are legit

2b. nah ****** dont just blindly follow the cop once he claims. thats some epicmafia level ****. there is reason to believe in the other results but thats dependent on the situation. if the godfather dies before the other scum then towns probably good to just lynch the other guilty results (this is bad game design but whatever we at least agree that standard cops suck) and not have to worry about it. the other reasons all go back to play. you dont overrule a solid scumread for a flimsy cop result unless youre just a ****ty player and like losing games. sure there could be multiple godfathers and millers but lets be real that never happens so who cares?

2c. i agree with you. if mafia was pure or youre taking an approach to designing a setup acting like those players past experiences never happened then this is legit but only so far as godfather being used to counter the cop. but at that point who even cares about what youre saying here? theres been enough precedence on this site that cop claims cant be taken at face value regardless of your views. what youre throwing out in this thread might be worthwhile for a site thats just getting started with mafia but here on swf were polluted. the godfather role still has use outside of its outward function

3a. this doesnt mean you flush all of your reads down the toilet. you have a habit of throwing around the word "guess" without "educated" before it. it works in getting people to buy into your robotic viewpoints. the rest of this is pretty much rewording **** youve already said. roles that tamper with cop results are bad cuz of the generally accepted wording of cop role pms. roles that tamper with results are bad if town has no way of knowing them through information present in the setup. i get it and weve been over this you dont have to try and drown me with needless verbosity were not in a game here

3b. yes. im stressing that the second and fourth scenarios youve outlined here are what town should be focused on regardless of the cops results cuz theyll always have information available with which to decide if these two are worth pursuing. it goes back to what im saying about dayplay being more important than anything a cop can offer. say what you want regarding the merit of those methods but if thats what it takes to win a game then thats what it takes to win a game. as for your question here theres a bunch of answers but i think theres been enough hypothetical instances thrown around

 

[#HBC | marshy]

That's some bull****. What if the Godfather literally only lurks. If it's some new player who BARELY makes the post requirement to stay in the game and was copped to eliminate him as a suspect? How do you finger him? By a mechanical lynch on a cop inno'd target that has nothing to do with reading the slot?

first step is "i dont give a **** about the claim/result" always a good thing

poe

guess off of what he has said and when hes said it

if other scumve flipped analyze interactions

 

[#HBC | Laundry]

Look at it this way:

When's the last time you've seen a cop of varying sanity? I bet it's ages ago. Y'know why? It's ****ing ****ty. You make the cop result less trustworthy and put him in a position to throw the game due to a mechanic he's not initially aware of. People realized this and stopped running varying sanities for the most part a long while ago. I haven't seen one on this site and GS stopped running them completely after a certain point as well.

Now tell me how a godfather isn't a weaker version of this?

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

first step is "i dont give a **** about the claim/result" always a good thing

No, it's not. It's a bad thing in every single situation where the claim/result is correct. Some of us like games in which investigative roles exist and give interesting interactions. You just keep playing 9 VTs and 3 goons.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Marshy on EM they follow the cop because it is an open set-up where they know there is no miller or godfather unless you play competitive in which case they do consider it.

**** claims can matter in closed set-up where you think someone is bull****ing but you can't do that in an open set-up.