Kingly king rework

Feedback/Suggestions
#1

Cross-posting from my thread over on reddit.

OK, King’s getting a lot of flak after this most recent patch- he’s more of a liability than an asset to everyone, not someone you can trust on any level, not very kingly. Why have the (King) flare if he’s more of a glorified random-align executioner?

I’ll get right to the point- I want a more thematic, more important king that can control the ebb & flow of the game.

To do that, first: make starter Kings always Neut, with the objective of keeping someone of noble blood on the throne. Predictable.

Give him another Decide fate, AND the prince’s jail (without the no-BD-kills caveat), but take away his normal guards. Instead he knows the identity of one knight at the start of the game. His invest skill now tells him if the target has noble blood, if they can guard/heal/protect him, or if they’re none of the above. Lastly give him a “Pace: See if someone visited you tonight.” ability.

Elaboration on the jail- the prince still has access to it but only 1 person can be jailed per night & the king’s choice takes priority over the prince’s (and wastes the prince’s turn if he attempts to use it). People wouldn’t know if it’s the neut king or the BD prince jailing them. They each have 2 charges of execute. Give the prince something like the princess’ flirt to keep him busy/give him a backup ability.

As for no regular guards, knowing a knight, Pace, and his invest skill- the objective is to make the king carefully manage his whispers & bully people for protection with his executes, instead of just hitting his guard button.

The end result is that no one likes him, (including the prince, who can’t use his jail without permission anymore), no one can trust him 100%, BUT he’s still generally on the side of BD, at least at the start of the game, and due to his jail & free kills everyone has to respect/work with him. Also, his objective to keep royal blood on the throne at all costs & his reliance on other people to do it would sap the protection infrastructure the currently-OP sheriff relies upon, while also soft-nerfing the role of the prince & the threat of jailing vs cult/unseen.
Not to mention, it keeps an ability theme going on within the royal family- jail, ‘flirt’, and pace/wisp.

Question is, what to do about those that ascend to kingship?

I haven’t given this part much thought, but we don’t want too many free executes floating around. Hmm. Also-
maybe get rid of noble blood’s first claim to the throne, instead leaving that responsibility to the king marking his successor/keeping logs.

What do you guys think?

#2

That’s a lot of power cooped up in a guaranteed Neutral.

1 Like
#3

Sounds to me like a class I would always exe ASAP to free up the prince.

#4

@orangeandblack5
That it is, but kings are supposed to be special no?

@NuclearBurrito
Still treason-immune for for the first 3 days, but that would probably still become the new meta you’re right.
Hmm…king is vulnerable to night attacks & butler poison, and being taken out by your underlings deserting you/poisoning you seems more thematic than being called up for treason.
Could the initial king be made treason-immune for longer?

#5

My point remains. No matter now BD sided he is the actual prince is more trustworthy. This change would make it just BD desperately trying to kill the king at all costs. I could see myself letting an assassin live to make him kill the king instead to not be outed.

#6

Basically. A living prince is a sign of a winning BD. This king change would make the prince effectively dead until you kill the king. This makes wanting the king to live INCREDIBLY scummy to the point where I don’t even care what you claim.

#7

But on the other hand- prince isn’t as important with an outted sheriff directing the forces & getting the claims.

And then the king will kill you if you speak out against him/don’t guard him as he demands, so yeah the animosity is by design!
People don’t like him, but they know what his motivations are, they can work with him, and it takes effort to get rid of him.

#8

False. Prince is the most important BD class by far. Also cult games exist and don’t have a sheriff.

#9

False again. 2 Executes is not enough to kill the entire court simultaneously during a single day. If it was then Alchs would ever lose.

#10

@NuclearBurrito
Prince WAS most important class by far. He’s now less important in Sheriff games. And there’s no reason to KEEP him as the most-important class- sheriff is pretty dominant now inspite of the un-nerfed prince still kicking around.
As for cult…yeah the paladin would need a buff to bring him up closer to the sheriff.

2 executes is not enough to kill the entire court simultaneously during a single day

They serve as leverage for the always-outed-but-hard-to-remove king to get his way, not to kill the whole court and make the king invincible. Sure everyone COULD stonewall the king and give him no protection, but that’d cost them lives & the king’s general animosity, (perhaps flipping him to the evil side if they reach out to work with him and, say, a converted noble). BD prince-turned-king or really any BD-turned-king might be somewhat more optimal, depending on what an ascended king’s abilities & objectives are (which we haven’t discussed yet), but getting there is the challenge/deterrent.

#11

You have proposed no method of replacing Prince as the most important BD. No the sheriff is not as important as the Prince because jail/exe is the most versitile Ability in the game while invest does a single non-tamperproof faction check.

You are not removing the Prince’s importance with this suggestion. You are simply giving someone a passive that keeps him from taking advantage of it. Because of how Anti BD that is the king would always be killed and replaced with a regular king.

If that’s impossible due to all kings having the ability for some reason then I would start the day with having a previously agreed on person (like an Alch) voted up. If the king doesn’t decide fate inno (or guilty) thus proving that the jail will be Prince then we exe the King until one plays along.

#12

Prince does:

Offensive - Jails and Occupies a Target
Social - Freely talks with Target
Support - Prevents all visitors to Target
Killer - Can kill the target in Jail 3 times

Unconvertible
Occupy Immune

Sheriff does:

Unconvertible
Results can be tampered with

Support - Can prevent people to himself
Investigative - Can see who got converted
Investigative - Can see who is “Unseen” which includes Fool, Scorned, in addition to Unseen

And you say Prince is worse?

Sheriff still relies on Prince because Prince wields the most power in the game for the Blue Dragon single-handedly.

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#13

And even if you were somehow right.

How do ANY of your suggestions solve the above problem!?

#14

@NuclearBurrito
Jail/exe is a truly versatile ability but a tamperproof faction check is arguably better for the purpose of rooting out unseen. Sheriff can be outted, protected & trusted. He finds someone at night & it’s game over for them the very next day- he’s practically a social/killer with his public influence on treason-court.
Prince can be lied to & is more vulnerable, so he has to deduce his targets & keep himself concealed, and he’s more likely to make erroneous calls than the sheriff is to find someone who was framed that night.
As-is the sheriff can do more work, more consistently, in less time.

And yeah, keeping the prince from taking advantage of his importance is doing exactly that- decreasing his importance. He’ll still have power but it will be less absolute.

Ok so you’d have the king use his day ability to guarantee the prince has the jail that night, & threaten execute if the king doesn’t comply? That doesn’t work if the king is immune to treason.

@Livicus
I’d say sheriff can play a more active, publicly work-doing role than the prince now, as I stated above. Prince is overkill when BD has an active sheriff.
As for him relying on the prince for his jail, why not rely on the king/prince instead? The king isn’t mute, so coordination can be done just fine.
The prince’s power isn’t disappearing, it’s being redistributed.

@NuclearBurrito
You can’t trust the king because he can be a BD/objectiveless neut/Evil, and his only powers are to kill people or guard them at night. Everyone ignores him.

Suggestions would make him predictable & thereby more trustworthy- if you KNOW what motivates him, you can count on him to pursue that & interact accordingly. It would give him broader social/invest powers, so he isn’t just an executioner. And it would make him more kingly in that his gameplay would fit the name of his class. Also, people would stop ignoring him.

#15

The king is not immune to treason and if he was then what’s to stop him from simply sitting there and doing nothing but exeing butler claims? Unseen/cult isn’t going to attack someone that is keeping the Prince from doing his job and if BD can’t remove a rogue king then the king would always go rogue.

Now instead of possablely being trustworthy I KNOW I can’t trust you.

See above for why this king would either die immediately or would never help BD.

#16

@NuclearBurrito
He is immune to treason for the first three days as-is, and that could be extended. As for what’s stopping him from doing nothing but exeing butler claims? Limited ability uses for one, and the better chance of completing his objective by working with BD. Which is why Unseen/cult would want him out- he’d be a thorn in their side by default. Not quite as much as an unfettered prince/BD-king, but still a pain.
And we could spice up the rewards for replacing him with an evil king/make the BD king replacement somewhat less potent- only one exe & no invest for BD, vs evil king having more. That kind of thing.

‘Possibly being trustworthy’ == not trustworthy.
You might KNOW you can’t trust the king to always vote BD, but you also KNOW the king will try to keep noble blood on the throne. So long as you’re the best chance for that, he’ll be on your side.

Also, keep in mind the king doesn’t have to survive- he can still win if his successor is of noble blood. So you might find they wouldn’t mind dying so long as nobility (like, say, a prince) is elected afterwards & you guys can actually protect said successor until game-end.

#17

If is extended too long then he will just win before BD can remove him. If it is too short then BD will remove him.

Not limited enough. 2 uses of exe is enough to kill both Butler’s.

Doesn’t matter. Prince is worth it and you could always just keep killing the king until he is gone for good.

#18

@NuclearBurrito
BD have other options for removing him. As for extended too long…BD don’t need to prevent him from winning. They just need to be able to fight back if he’s working against them.

If he uses them both to kill BD butlers then no one will guard him & he’ll have to pray no one wants to replace him.

Follow-up kings wouldn’t be motivated by noble blood. They’d be similar to the current scheme of BD/neut/Evil.

#19

Oh and just saying, here’s a list of the many ways Sheriff can be messed with.

  1. Prevention from Visiting
  2. Fool’s Deceive
  3. Scorned Frame
  4. Illusionist’s Mind Warp (MOST EFFECTIVE)

With an outed Sheriff, having an Illusionist on him will guarantee that he becomes useless until the Illusionist dies. And Court Wizards get executed too quickly to help most of the time.

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#20

And why would scum want to replace the king when doing so frees up the prince?