Class Cards and Keyword Text

Feedback/Suggestions
#1

Hello again everyone!

Having a discussion the other day with LunarWolf and it eventually evolved into us questioning interactions in the game, and ultimately how misleading class cards are and how many interactions are vague. I proposed an idea where Class Cards and wordings would be standardized, so that Key Words and word selection would allow players to easily distinguish intended effects of their actions (much like a game such as Magic: The Gathering would do it). In addition players would be able to hover over bolded words to see a quick tooltip about what it means.

I feel that this type of standardization not only makes the game seem cleaner, but it removes a lot of burden of skill for lower level or new players.

What is a Visit? What is Target? What is the difference between the two?
Can I Happy Hour a person in Jail? What about King’s Guards!, will it allow them to die?
Prince Jail says it protects target from all Visits, but my Wolf doesn’t visit! Why doesn’t it work?

For example, here are some of the following Keywords that may appear on Class Cards:

Attack: An offensive action that causes death to the Target.

(X) Immune: Unable to be affected by the effects of X. Options can include Death Immune, Occupy Immune, Redirection Immune, Conversion Immune, Bleed Immune, Poison Immune, etc. The effect Targets you but has no effect.

Occupy: Prevent a player from taking their Night Ability.

Prevent: Stop an effect from occurring.

Redirection: Changing a player’s Night Ability to another Target.

Target: The player selected for an Ability.

Visit: A specific type of Target. When Targeting a player with a Visit ability you will be affected by effects that deal with Visiting targets such as the Observer’s Follow.

Ultimately class cards would get fixed up to be clearer. Some examples include:

Wolf Companion (Hunter)
Target a player to send a wolf to Attack them. They will Bleed and die in one day unless Healed. They will be informed a Wolf Attacked them. Cannot be used until Night 3.

Imprison (Prince)
Target a player to jail tonight. They are unable to be Targeted. Can only Imprison the same player three times. Players who are Imprisoned are Occupied and it bypasses Occupy Immunity.

Concentrated Wine (Butler)
Throw a party, Occupying all players who Target you tonight. Bypasseses Occupy Immunity.

Follow (Observer)
Visit a player to see who Visits them and who they Visited at night.

Reap (Reaper)
Visit and Attack a player, killing them and leaving an empty body for a day. Healing on the victim is Prevented.

Frame (Scorned)
Visit a player making them appear Suspicious to investigative classes.

Guards! (King)
Target player gains Death Immunity for the Night.

There are many Class Cards that can be cleaned up but those were just some random selections. While it is nice to have the flavour text in the Class Cards (“Reap a player’s soul, killing them…”) they ultimately aren’t very descriptive. Core classes such as the Prince have some funny wording on their abilities (preventing Visits, but in reality preventing all Targeting) and it has caused plenty of confusion with newer players not familiar with Throne of Lies or Mafia in general.

I think that as a whole this type of regular expression is important for interactions, clarity of play and new player understanding.

So what are some Keywords and Interactions that the Class Cards are misleading about that have bugged you? I’d like to get a full list up and running but I’m strapped for time today.

8 Likes
#2

This is cool , but I feel like

Would make the player think it did some form of occupation before the kill. I think it should be changed to a Negative Effect: Something that causes harm to you or changes what happens to your intended action
Or smtn.

#3

Ah but here’s the thing, all Attacks are Offensive Actions, but not all Offensive Actions are Attacks.

Looking at Bear (Hunter)…

Summon a bear to protect you from all attacks at night. The attackers will be dead in the morning (Bypasses night immunity). You will be death and conversion immune.

Bear doesn’t Kill Drunks and Butlers despite them having Offensive Actions (going by the class description of Offensive). Attack seems to be a specific type of Offensive Action.

Just goes to show the vagueness of the wording. I’m not a wordsmith myself so the definitions can be changed but its just a series of examples really.

1 Like
#4

rubs eyes

I see , but you don’t mention what an offensive action is. Just an occupation , which I assume is an offensive action.

#5

There is no reason to specify almost every single ability as visiting. There are only a few abilities that don’t count as visits. It is much more reasonable to just label those. It is much more clearer that way.

5 Likes
#6

Its not a Comprehensive List of course.

#7

That is fair as well. It would reduce the overall complexity by specifying the exception rather than the base.
It would be easier if thats the case to change the wording on Imprison and Party to be inclusive of Targeted abilities (ones that aren’t Visits).

#8

Bit that’s not technically true - they can be targeted while jailed, but all visitors are prevented.

#9

I do agree that there needs to be more clarity in keywords. For example Prevention vs Occupy and Target vs Visit ect.

#10

While it maybe be easier to only specifically label ability’s that don’t visit. It is still important to have a well defined definition of the term so that other ability’s that use the mechanic (such as possessor and sorcerer) are easier to understand when they are interacting with each other.

#11

Even abilities that don’t Visit such as the Wolf and Inquisitor?
I’m being cheeky but you see what I mean.

1 Like
#12

I agree. Consistency is crucial in a game like this, where you can’t really be asking information.

I only also just realized that it may help people who may have English as a Second Language. I’ve never played a game outside of my native language, if anyone has, would something like this be beneficial at all?

1 Like
#13

One question I want answered that I think something like this can help with: Does someone who was prevented by Jail or something count as having visited them?

#14

That’s fair shoot

1 Like
#15

I like the idea a lot, and think it would help with clarity. Also, a page showing the “turn order” would be useful, so new players could guess at the more arcane combos better.

I would disagree with aome of your wordings, but that seems to be digressing from the main point of this post.

3 Likes
#16

It’s not a good idea to think about roles in terms of priority. It leads to lots of arbitrary outcomes that don’t have to be arbitrary

#17

yes bos even if the game is based on priority it’s still not a good idea to think in terms of them.

#18

There is no simple turn order.

There’s almost a thousand lines of code to try to determine the right turn order for things. Even then, the Court Wizard sometimes decides it isn’t gonna get occupied this time for no reason.

5 Likes
#19

This explains why I’m always confused…

#20

Things are going to generally gonna work out the way you’d expect them.

The Butler’s occupy isn’t gonna be the last thing that happens at night.