PS: As always, a long read below.
There is something that I really like about games like this, that is how certain classes affect the game passively, working as a strong force even thought they aren’t even spawned in this match. Great examples are Princess, forcing evils to claim in between two Class Types. Fool and Scorned make people not trust 100% in mechanical feedback, giving some priority to more deduction and escape plays. Noble afflicts evils space to safely whisper between each other, while King take most decisions at trials, being followed by court until they find out their alignment, which is hidden to everyone else. These stuff aren’t even a confirmed answer until someone confirms themselves, but are always put into consideration during gameplays. With this idea in mind, I thought of something: what if we could explore King Elections with Pretender, making them more tense, more thoughtful, just like Scorned and Fool do with trials?
For this, Pretender would need some rework. First of all: she needs do be a threat. Why?
Give people a reason to think about elections, more than just “not elect an EK”, and you already have a tense situation in every election. A thing either evils and town could fear, forcing them to think twice before choosing their target. If Pretender being elected had a drawback to people, just like a Fool’s execution, the court would be more careful in their plays, leading to more interaction, deduction and strategies.
This, however, is a mined field. If we make Pretender a threat, her chances of being elected will decrease, and for this we would need to make it easier for her to get the throne. Not only that, but she needs a reason to stick around after being elected, avoiding the “neutral that decides who won” dilemma. Or she could just end the game there or close to that, in some way.
My feedback, for those who already know, isn’t a completely built for me suggested altered Class. I usually don’t do that. What I try to do is throw random and unconnected suggestions that could be worked around by the devs team if so they wish. I don’t have the necessary power to balance an entire Class, so I just give them ideas, discuss their reasons and show it for you. So, an important warning: do not take all suggestions here as something put up together in just one Class; take it as an separated idea from the others. THEY CAN interact with each other, but of course I am not suggesting 5 day abilities to be put together, right? Maybe? Also I really like to give concepts more than a final product, so feel free to polish the ideas suggested here, they are far from perfect.
Now, with that in mind, I will list what I will try to cover here.
Objective: Make Pretender a Class that can interact with the game even if it isn’t spawned, making players think about their decisions during King Elections. Not only to avoid EK or NK taking the throne, but to avoid something else.
Necessities: She needs a way to get the throne, be it by yourself or for conving the court. It could involve advantages (like her Royal Blood and Death Immunity, granting her a carpet to the throne), taking out who is there (like killing the King, what she can already do) and who could take it in her place (what she already does too). She needs something to punish people for electing her, and she needs something to look forward after she is elected.
I suggested that on the Discord feedback channel and got some ideas from there. I am kinda lazy to look for credits, but if you see your suggestion here feel free to comment and take the credits for. Of course, there is a lot of things I made myself.
Now that everything is explained, let’s go for some suggestion on how to achieve the objective here.
Getting to the Throne
Since she is becoming more of a threat, she will see people reluctant on voting a suspicious Pretender player. Claiming Princess may not make her way into becoming King, so she needs more ways to achieve that. Be it fake claiming, be it by force. Here I will try to cover abilities that could cover that necessity of the Class, not repeating already existing ones.
Self-proclaimed (Passive) If the game has no King with 4 players or less, you become the King.
WHY
Starting off with a straight out aggressive approach. Pretender biggest weakness is that she cannot step much early, but neither much late. This ability covers the lategame disadvantage for the cost of confirming her as the Pretender, as only one could be elected in this situation. It would also imply for Pretender to survive, which is achieved easily with her Immunity and could lead to a spectator player. She can still be executed during the day, tho, and there is always the chance of giving her an one-hit-immunity as well. I will cover survivability later, so wait a little.
Unhurriedly Advantage (Passive) (Replaces Royal Blood) Increase in one each vote in Elections for you for each King that you’ve seen die.
WHY
I cannot describe it properly, so I will first explain how it works: for default you just get one vote in elections like every other non-royal Class. However, for each time a King dies, these votes for you increase in one. So with one King dead, you have regular Royal Blood, with each vote to you counting as two. With two Kings dead, you have a stronger Royal Blood, as each vote to you count as three. The three votes advantage will probably be the longest Pretender will get regularly, as three dead Kings is unlikely and if she keeps trying to increase the vote counts she can just end up dead earlier than that (like Sorc keeping bombs). This forces Pretender to get a much more aggresive approach, killing as much Kings as she can. This, for chain, would make players more likely to protect the King, as just would make Kings protect themselves more. It’s all about court timing and reads.
Fraud (Day Ability) Take to you all Election votes given to target player. 1 use.
WHY
Holly molly what a devastating ability. Again, not that important in the current scenario where she cannot step early and do nothing if the King doesn’t die, but indeed a strong choice when everything is at the hands of a confirmed player. This forces court to think a lot on their choices, or just don’t annouce them publicly. As it is only 1 use, Pretender cannot abuse it either, having to choose the right target to take advantage of. Could exist with or without Royal Blood passive on.
Blackmail (Day Ability) Prevents someone from getting votes at the Election. 1 use.
WHY
Similar to Fraud, but less aggressive. It would not notify target player, neither their voters, just nullify all votes to said person without feedback given (besides Pretender’s). This also has the same effects that Fraud has, leading to less announces of votes and more deduction from Pretender.
Mind Games (Day Ability) Announce to the court there is a Pretender at Election. If you receive any vote other than yourself, you become the King.
WHY
The most impractical and funny ability from that topic. Literally playing with confirmability, but in the opposite direction of what we’re used to: you know there is something you don’t want in the throne there, but who is that? Should you take the risk? And if you don’t, they might just vote themselves and win anyway. It sure needs a lot to be a better ability, but the idea is there, and what would hurt to be more daring in the approaches of objectives?
Kinslayer (Night Ability) (Rework) Target a player or attack the King. If target player is Royal, you will kill them and get their Passive Abilities. If they are not, you will get two possible Class Types for that player.
WHY
lmao look at this guy mixing abilities YES! In this scenario, Pretender does not start with Royal Blood. She must acquire it through lucky or townreading skills, while also being able to get results for her not-that-great-fakeclaim, but hey it is something.I always wanted to put together both her Night Abilities to be honest, they can work well together and gives space to a second one, expanding her possibilities. It would also make her a faster Class, as currently they are really slow.
Deceiver (Night Ability) Choose between Debauchery, Flirt and Court Spy to use tonight.
WHY
I really like Alch’s wheel of possibilities, and this could work on other Neutrals too. Give this to a RB neutral and see their claim space growing and adapting as the game progress! Pretender being able to fakeclaim other RB classes better is a move that I personally like more than just putting weight on Princess, that are already one of the most untrustful claims of the game. However, in all cases she lacks Happy Hour, Will-o-Wisp and Gossip, so there is always that.
Taking out obstacles
The King, other Royals and any other that would dare to be against your election deserve to die! But how, though? In these abilities, the approach to the throne is more indirect, but still fights for the objective of becoming King. Be it directly killing people or just making them suspicious, it has to affect their competition.
Ballot Mixing (Day Ability) (Buff) Force a decision to the trial as Execute or Pardon and make it look like the King used Decide Fate. 1 use.
WHY
This one really affects how the King and Pretender play. The Pretender would not use it if King fingered, which would lead to King fingering much more than before. And, if they didn’t, they would try to use Fate as quickly as possible. Decently interactive, as it asks attention for both roles. If King isn’t instantly executed the next day, he still has the chance to confirm themselves using Decide Fate. Or not, if Pretender uses Silence. Also, even if it doesn’t lead to a King being hanged, they can get a forced Exe on a filthy townie.
Kinslayer (Night Ability) (Buff) Kill a player with Royal Blood or The King. You must have first discovered that they were a Royal. If they somehow survive the attack, silence them and their abilities for the next day and night.
WHY
Just a little buff to current Kinslayer. It works just like the one we have now, but adds silenced talk and abilities for a day and a night, making their targets suspicious and unable to react. The reason for this is, as I said in the other Kinslayer suggestion, Pretender is very slow in her killing, needing the process to find RB and then try to get a kill out of it. With this, she can at least guarantee targeted RB will be sus or dead the next morning. Take more than a night, but is a much more effective slowness. This could work just decently in the current Pretender btw, I would like it.
Royal Perception (Night Ability) Target a player. If they are Royal, their abilities and trial votes on you will be nullified.
WHY
A more passive way of surviving throught the game. It just won’t prevent Prince from executing, but any other Royal ability targeting Pretender after this is used will get the prevented feedback. Trial votes will still count on the list at the right during the day, but not be a mechanical addition to the necessary votes to put her at trial. The reason for this is to make Pretender slowly get a mechanical advantage over their competition.
Bribe (Night Ability) Convince the King’s guards and informants to give him the wrong feedback for the night. 1 use.
WHY
Another way to passively make King more suspicious. They could get a wrong feedback from Guards, or Allies, causing a fuss to the court easily. Basically a mindwarp exclusively to the one at the throne, YOUR NEMESIS!
Punishment
As the main objective here is to make Pretender a threat, THIS topic is probably the most important. Here we will need to focus on abilities that would prevent people from wanting to vote a Pretender, obviously putting them in a spot where open claiming is bad (which isnt exactly, right now). Remember as well that for each punish play there is a reward for not doing it, like BEING ALIVE for pardoning the damn Hunter. As some punishments may require very specific scenarios, they can probably be put alongside Pretender’s objective if they had said ability. If there isn’t any specified, it is just to become King and survive.
Retribution (Passive) Kill two players that elected you, then give up the throne and preclude the court from choosing a new King.
Class Objective: Kill at least two people if you are elected.
WHY
Straight forward a reason to anyone NOT vote Pretender. Basically a Hunter. The interesting thing here is that she needs to CONVINCE people to vote her in order to win, not just get majority for double votes with Royal Blood. And, as she can only be elected once, it is a one-shot opportunity the moment she steps. This works well with suggested abilities to get away from obstacles, but would be really bad with, for example, the automatic King election with 4 players or less. The additional give up the throne thing is to avoid the “neutral that decides the winner” thing, as she already won. She will also put both town and scum at disadvantage, as they cannot have a King to lead anymore.
Tiranny (Passive) (Pretender King) The next two days after you are elected, there can be no trials.
WHY
This will allow Pretender to be immune during the day for at least two whole days and do a lucky 50/50 guess or read if someone decides to attack her during the night, as she only has 1 Guard. Just like her present idea, it is better in the lategame than in the early, as she can just be there being not that important target for BD or evils.
Badly Influenced (Passive) (Pretender King) If the Neutral Killer was dead before you are elected, you will turn into Psycho King.
Class Objective: Survive as PreKing, the same as PsyKing if she transforms.
WHY???
YEAH THATS IT NO WORDS NEEDED
Enfeeble (Passive) If you are elected, remove an use of all limited abilities from your voters and prevent them from taking actions tonight.
WHY
Basically Fool King, but you don’t want THAT kind of vote. It is a pretty basic punishment that can be changed around for more or less effects.
Survivability
The last topic I want to cover here is how well Pretender will perform to stay alive. If we take suggestions like Self-proclaimed, she will very likely just stay hidden with a claim until there is few people left. To play around this we need to either limit her Immunity (like Stoneskin from Alch or one-shot-immunities like Scorned’s and Inq’s) or completely remove that. I don’t actually need to put abilities and passives suggestions regarding this, because it is basically this: Stoneskin or one-shot-immunities. Of course, it needs to be flexible depending on the course the class will take. Maybe make it like Merc’s immunity, giving her points by finding Royals? For getting votes and use that when elected King? There are many ways to play with immunity.
Oof, the end
I know I usually do pretty long threads that no one bothers to read, but I would appreciate all feedback you could give and you can be sure I love to discuss my ideas with people. Everybody just has so many great ideas it is impossible to me cover the right ones, so that’s why I give concepts more than a final product and a lot of random suggestions instead of an already built class with everything at order. Comment!
