99% of the time a Physician will be in the game, so it’s mostly not a problem.
But if you do have a game with no healer, you are absolutely screwed.
I know this is unlikely, but you are kind of screwed if the Unseen/Cult just get four extra kills.
There are several hidden things in the class list which aren’t on screen to avoid turning then game into a checklist like ToS. Less info on the classlist us always better as it forces you to scumread as opposed to mechanically check claims.
3 Likes
Except that just arbitrarily gives an advantage to veteran players who just happen to know these “hidden rules”. If it’s guaranteed every game to have at least 1 healer, it should be included.
3 Likes
I thought it was just said a healer was guaranteed. If it’s in the game, it should be included, otherwise you’ll just confuse people.
2 Likes
There’s nothing wrong with it being like a checklist. The only downside is that it’s harder to balance.
There’s a massive massive problem with it being a checklist. Instead of actively scumreading players you just have to read a list on the side and see their claim is impossible or very improbable. I wouldn’t be against including one for new players but for the average player who wants to play a social deduction game it would be awful.
3 Likes
As long as you know it exists, you can still use it.
Besides, the knowledge that there is at least one Physician or Alchemist doesn’t change much.
2 Likes
It doesn’t reduce claim space, and it has no benefit.
There’s no limit to healers, so you can’t check them off your list.
And also it gives people who know this extra information for no reason.
1 Like
It does have one very serious implication:
If you have claims from everyone, and only one person has claimed a healer, you know, with near-100% certainty, that they’re telling the truth. This is especially true if they’re an Alchemist (they cannot have been converted, and they must be telling the truth because there’s only one healer claim and one healer is guaranteed.)
1 Like
But if you know the game well enough, you’ll still be informed about this.
It just hides information from new players. We can’t balance the game for uninformed play. Either everyone should know, or no one should know (which is impossible).
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The game is already hugely complex (and will be no matter what we do.) We should try to make the interface and rules as informative as possible in an effort to limit the problems caused by that complexity, and to make it so the game relies more on strategy and social interactions and thinking rather than memorizing obscure rules your opponent’s don’t know about.
Say that a prince executes the only healer claim because they don’t know about this hidden rule. Saying “lol, they were uninformed!” is ridiculous when the rule isn’t written down anywhere and when the role list that is constantly on the screen flatly omits key details about what the actual rules for the role list are.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like “checklist” gameplay either. But hidden mechanics are even worse. All the rules should be available in a clearly-defined place where people can go to look them up; where, exactly, does a player go to discover that a healer is guaranteed? The role list, which is normally where they’d check, is going to outright lie to them. The wiki doesn’t have it at the moment. AFAIK the only place anyone could discover it is if they stumble across something like this thread, which gives everyone who learns about it in this sort of thing an unfair advantage.
The game needs to be upfront about the rules, and it needs to spell them out as much as possible in obvious locations. Otherwise, you’re giving players who learn weird details like this an unfair advantage over people who trust the written rules to tell them what they need to know.
2 Likes
Also, what are the other “several hidden things?” If there are other details about how the class list is selected that aren’t on the screen, I’d want to know so we can at least add them to the wiki.
EDIT: Something I’ve been meaning to bring up: AFAIK the two-of limit isn’t mentioned anywhere, either, and it’s much much more important than this. People eventually learn about it from other players, but that seems to be the only way to discover it.