Mafia! Mafia! Mafia! Character Role Discussions

[Iwamoto Yuri]

Maybe add shadowman!BO if you think the Mafia needs more options? :x This was half a joke, but eh, maybe it could be considered.

Shadowman, Serial Killer
Night Action: Backup
Day Action: Stalk
Interrogation: Yes
Scent: No
Disguise: No
Items: Gun, Car Keys, Alcohol
Gender: Interchangeable*
Observe: Adult
Note: If Shadowman is Gender-Observed and/or Stalked, the Observer/Stalker gets a random result (either Female or Male). Shadowman can't be Gender-Observed/Stalked by the same person twice (but if done anyway, that person would get the same result they got last time).


*Flees*

Why make it a BO? The shadowman never worked for the BO, plus having a killer among the townies can actually add an extra challenge. (which, out of experience, is fun)

Just commenting about this because in Town of Salem, a mafia/werewolf like game, they have a serial killer. The SK can't be killed unless you lynch him, so the BO can't kill the serial killer, but the sk CAN kill the mafia (except for their boss, who the mafia needs to exist there).
This is interesting because the mafia might have to work together with town to kill the SK, or the SK could help out the town and risk being lynched.
(or they leave kill notes saying x is immune for kills. It not always leads to the mafia there because there are multiple immune roles, but it's interesting).

[PT]

Well, we were specifically discussing needing to add more BO roles, that's why. And we've tried out Serial Killer roles in the past, but they never stuck.

[Iwamoto Yuri]

Ah, too bad, it would be interesting to see.

[Raiden]

Well, my initial idea of adding the Shadowman was just taking Stop's half joking idea one step further; edited it later with some serious thoughts/input.

Basically what PT said, but also the Backup ability; I stole it from Calvados. If you read up on his ability it only works if s/he got a team to, well, backup...using abilities from members not in the game. ^^'

[Osaka Detective]

If we're lacking BO roles and are desperate, can't we add "alternate" versions of characters that worked in the BO? Like have separate Kirs - Mizunashi Rena which is the current Kir and Kir the BO member, or separate Akai Shuuichi/Rye. I mean this sounds like a pretty bad idea but from a canon point of view, both of them are inside the BO and should've definitely been involved in BO-ish activities. Of course Kir/Mizunashi Rena and Akai/Rye shouldn't exist in the same game. Like I mean we already have Haibara/Sherry and BO!Akemi who betrayed the BO so...

*flees*

[pofa]

It looks like due to various circumstances I'm being bumped up to GM next, so I'm starting to go through all this and will be following the thread closely.

Toichi was kinda my baby, so I'm going to add him to the rules pretty much for sure. I agree with Inv 3/SI 1. I'd like to give Frighten to a townie, too :x

I personally think the protectors are not going to be OP'd with Stalk, but Kleene has a point about there being a finite number of BO roles (especially in a smaller game) and not everybody has info-gathering abilities :/ If the BO loses a member early, it's likely that member was the only one on the whole team with their particular ability, so the BO can be badly thrown off-balance much earlier in the game than the town can even if the town loses a cop or something N1.

Adding more roles to the pool might help, but if only 15 people sign up for the game, I'm still only going to be able to choose 4-5 roles out of that pool. The problem to me is less that there aren't enough different BO roles and more that the roles only have 1-2 abilities apiece, and the abilities don't repeat from member to member, so it's hard to set up a versatile 4-5 member team and it's hard to recover if, for example, the GM balanced you to have an investigator and you lose them early.

Would anyone be absolutely 100% against reinstating the Black Manual? For newer people, it's sort of like Calvados combined with the BS. :x The BO gets to confer with each other at the start of the game, see what roles they have, and decide on 1-2 other abilities to set into the black manual for use each night (iirc you can only use 1 BM action each night, but they'd have the choice between the two). So if they don't have Bourbon, they could still have detect, they could still have observe if they don't have a sniper.

Anyway, whether the BM happens or not, I'd love to add more roles, so if you guys can think of ways to make current BO more useful, new abilities, etc, I'd like to hear it.

It's also been suggested that we might wanna remove some of the duplicate town roles since we're pushing 50 possible roles rn (I think adding abilities to the BM would help the BO narrow down, but 50 possible is kinda ridiculous). Ones like Chiba, one of the tricksters, etc. And if the game gets big enough we can always add them back in--would anyone have a suggestion as to which ones?

[KangarooGirl]

The issue with BM is that it powers up the BO a little too much we had to take the BO number down closer to 1/4 to balance at the time so it became that when a BO member is lynched randomly it hurt even more so if that makes sense. I'd be more inclined to add more "OR" actions to BO members so they're not so individual. It does make betrayal weaker (which maybe isn't such a BAD thing), because Kir won't straight away be able to tell which BO is in, only the ability that they have. So I mean for Gin and Bourbon could be twins: Inv 3 OR SI + Detect, Vodka/Tequila/Pisco could all have Frighten OR Discombobulate OR Erase + Sabotage, etc. So more BO have access to each ability and we can have duplicates of roles in the BO as backup although I'd advise caution in putting both Gin and Bourbon in the same game in this case due to the detect :x Otherwise stipulate for stronger abilities only one BO can use it per phase except for cover/backup.

[pofa]

SO, After talking it over with some folks there has been another idea suggested about how to handle the BO this round since most people don't really care for the Black Manual.

The suggestion is to give the "ability-locked" BO roles (Gin, Bourbon, Vodka, Pisco, Tequila, and Akemi) more ability options, from which they would choose each night. Snipers would stay as they are, Calvados and disguisers would stay as they are, and I'm not sure what Sherry's even going to be doing yet, so I'm not counting her in this.

Here are the suggested ability combinations:

Gin - Investigate 3 OR Steal
Vodka - Discombobulate OR [Frighten + Abduct]
Tequila – [Frighten + Abduct] OR [Erase + Sabotage]
Bourbon - [Detect + SI] OR Investigate 3
Akemi - Steal OR [Detect + SI]
Pisco - [Erase + Sabotage] OR Discombobulate

The big stipulation is this: No two of these roles can use the same ability in one phase. If the BO has Gin and Bourbon, only one of them can use the 3x investigate per night. If they have both Vodka and Pisco, only one of them can discombobulate per night. If the BO has Calvados or a disguiser whose ability duplicates one of the above ones, that's fair game like it always has been. But these six roles can't double up on abilities.

The point of this is to let the BO recover if they lose an ability early that they were balanced to have. So if the BO had both Gin and Bourbon, and Gin died D1, they'd still have the power to investigate if they really really needed to--they'd just have to give up Bourbon's Detect + SI that night to do so. If Gin and Akemi were on the same team and Akemi died early, Gin could still perform a theft if the BO thought that was worth more than his investigates that night. But Gin and Bourbon can't investigate everyone in the game for protect on N1. :x No doubling up, no 2x steal or 2x detect or 2x frighten, just more freedom as to who does what, and backup options to be used after a loss.

Would trying this be a dealbreaker for anybody?

Edit: Added brackets to clarify that "ability + ability" is a package deal; for example, you can't have abduct and you also can't have frighten if you choose the dicombobulate option.

[Kleene Onigiri]

@pt about protector: Removing the notice on stalk would help a lot. Especially if we also buff up the BO like it's already talked about here
Canon wise I like Ran and Makoto having stalk, considering they did "stalk"/followed people around in the story XD


@BO changes:
It's a great idea to give the BO that "ability combinations" Since the problem isn't balancing it at the beginning, but that the BO could lose some important roles early on and that the rest of the BO can't do much after that.
I had the idea that the BO would maybe get some abilities unlocked once more and more BOs are lynched, but the "ability combination".


Any yeah, I agree that it's fun and great to add new roles and abilities But since story wise there are usually more new town possibilities than BO options, we shouldn't forget about the BO XD
I also like the evil Kir and Rye options, also the shadowman, tho he's not really a BO in that sense XD


@tricksters:
We could always try to make a variation of the tricking too? So even if there would be 2 town tricksters, their abilities would be a bit different? (like giving one trick the other one has frighten etc.)

That said, I had the Idea of giving Sherry the ability to injure someone for 1 or for 2 phases? Kinda like she gives someone poison or a sleeping pill? XD
Not sure if that would maker her too strong again?
Maybe make her a injurer/sleeper instead of the other ability she has.
With that, there could also be a town injurer/sleeper too.

Sherry, Mafia Scientist
Night action: Sleeping Pill
Interrogation: Not BO
Scent: No
Disguise: No
Items: Gun, Panties, Alcohol
Observe: Teen
Note: Haibara and Sherry may not be in the same game together. This includes Anokata-Haibara because that’s just weird

Sleep Pill
Cannot be investigated
- Day
- Role with action: Sherry
- Day action
- Can be given to any player. That player will fall asleep at that night and can't preform any actions for that phase at all.
- Passive actions will still work.
- The player will be notified that they have fallen asleep.

That way, the player that was put to sleep already knows on the start of the night that he can't do any actions. But it's not too powerful, since you have to plan ahead who to give it to.
On the other hand, the BO could also use the sleep thing as an excuse that they can't be investigated? Which gives a bit of cover?

If we add that sleep ability or a sleep status, we can give that to a town too?


P.S.: I'm totally tired and have a headache, hope I didn't wrote anything wrong or confusing XD

[MoonRaven]

If we need a town role with sleeping pill, could Araide be that one? Just a random thought. I can't imagine anyone else doing it.

[PT]

@pofa's suggested changes: I agree with testing these out.

@Kleene: Sleeping Pill is an interesting idea (though you might want to fix in the character profile that it's a Day Action), just a few things to clarify:

- Is it a crime?
- How does it affect Arrest/Detain/HS/Pinch? (Particularly Arrest, since that action isn't usually affected by anything.)

Maybe she could have that and a night ability? Since by itself, it's kind of a slightly weaker Discombobulate. Let her keep Research? Something like that.

@Moon: I agree. If the town is going to have it, then Araide is the obvious choice.

ALSO. Would anyone be against changing Kobayashi to Heal instead of First Aid? Yamato can keep FA because he's a cop anyway. Just that being injured as town really, really sucks. Especially when it's because you're attacked at night and then you can't even tell people you're injured because it could get Kobayashi poisoned.

[pofa]

I wouldn't mind changing Kobayashi's FA to Heal; that + VoR make her a better Araide though. If we used "Sleeping Pill" in some fashion, though, that would no longer be the case (and I am all for giving more townies crimes btw :x Bad doctor).

[pofa]

Sorry for the double post but I also wanted to ask if anyone thinks I should remove some of the duplicate town roles from the pool for this round. I took a look through and right now the most similar (those without distinguishing abilities) are:

Shiratori/Megure
Takagi/Chiba/Uehara
Eisuke/Yoko
Okiya/Yusaku
Heiji/Shinichi/Conan
Jodie/Camel
Ran/Makoto (except that Makoto is a traveler)

The ones I'd be most likely to cut are Chiba or Takagi (Uehara is female), Camel (again since Jodie's a female role and there are fewer of those) and Yusaku--Okiya being around foils Haibara a bit, so I'd keep him of the two. Otherwise maybe one of the protectors, maybe one of the tricksters.

Any suggestions? Or should we keep the pool intact since the BO are getting a boost this round?

[PT]

We have three town tricksters listed in the rules. I think having two is okay? So cutting out Asami and leaving Eisuke/Yoko should be fine, since they're pretty easy to distinguish for the BO. Edit: I'm dumb and make stuff up, apparently.

I agree with removing Chiba and Shinichi and maybe Shiratori. Jodie/Camel should be fine, nobody really cares about poisoning them most of the time anyway and both of them in together isn't exactly overpowering the town. :x

[KangarooGirl]

The ability combinations look good. If no one objects I'll put that into the rules thread tomorrow when I have my day off and add the stipulation as well that the ability combo BOs can't use the same set on the one night.

Sleeping pill idea sounds interesting and would be good to try out instead of Experiment if people like that better. If she had all three it would probably be too strong.

I wouldn't be against giving Kobayashi Heal instead of FA.

I feel weird removing roles that are so often in the series but recently it was pointed out to me (thanks OsakaDetective) Kogoro wasn't in mafia anymore so I'd guess it's a matter of getting used to. If we were to do that I'd say Chiba OR Shiratori (because we added Uehara so we have a bigger pool of police and removing both would make things worse) and Shinichi and maybe Makoto since Sera is also a protector.