you forgot
theres a 4th
4. create a setup based on pissing off your players as much as possible
2 Likes
Let me explain.
3 ways to design a game means “First” thing game designer focuses on when creating a setup.
Flavor:
- Probably easiest one to notice.
- Designer tries to create setup where roles are fitting the flavor.
- This allows players to flavor solve or at least confirm or deny possibility of people bein certain roles purely due to flavor analysis.
- Due to limiting factor of flavor when creating roles, if game also has some new mechanics, they will most likely end up being unpolished… due to problems with flavor putting restrictions on role which can interact with them.
Example:
Both JoJos.
Roles were guessable or at least confirmable due to pure analysis of people’s stands.
However mechanics in this games were… unpolished and not really used as much as they possibly could, purely due to lack of possible flavors to interact with them.
Outcome:
Game which is very enjoyable for people knowing the flavor.
For rest… it will just look like standard game.
Mechanics:
- Games which are built around new, weird mechanics.
- Make it possible to setup solve, while forcing players to play in somehow unusual way.
- Most mechanics make games more swingy, meaning it’s harder to balance around them.
Example:
Quantum mafia (Duh). Or… actually any FoL.
In FoL example we have conversions, which force certain roles to be able to counter and detect them etc.
And as we all know, ToL is swingy as hell… and flavor was kinda patched up on it after role creation.
(Cause why is princess investigative flavor-wise?)
Outcome:
Good for players with mechanical analysis skills.
Annoying for people who just want to focus on simple scumreading.
2 Likes
Balance:
Balance doesn’t mean “simple” game.
It rather means general cohesion of setup as a whole.
This design will most likely be either simple, or complicated with roles having thought-trough, possibly interesting interactions.
- Roles and interactions are first thing which comes to designer mind when creating a game
- Most easy to understand for players.
- However disables some other means of aproach towards the game solving.
Outcome:
Game most likely will end up equally interesting for everyone.
However certain communities and new players might end up being feeling a bit overwhelemed.
Now here comes the problem.
Most “Impressive” games on this site were ones which succesfully integrated 2 or more of those ideas.
However most “Failure” games on this site were ones which failed to integrate 2 of this ideas.
Hence for less experienced game designers… best way would be to chose one way to create a game and focus on it, while keeping everything else as standard as possible.
This way game won’t end up “bad” and will easilly pass the review.
But that creates another questions.
What is needed to succesfully go for “Masterpiece” connecting all 3 elements into one?
I will leave that one open.
Feel free to discuss.
3 Likes
Let’s compare 2 basic setups:
Mountainous 15er:
12 vanilla towns
vs
3 mafia goons
Cop 13er:
9 vanilla town
1 town cop
vs
3 mafia goons
It’s more or less known knowledge that cop13er is way more town sided than mountainous 15er.
So a single role, not only is worth losing 2 townies but still tilts the favor into town favor.
If you think about it - red checks, green checks, and fact that cop is basically named townie himself… it’s kinda obvious why it happens.
So let me ask you, how would you counter it?
.
.
.
I will guess your ideas:
Roleblocker / Framer / Godfather / Miller etc.
But let’s analyze it a bit deeper.
Even if we add roleblocker and framer, the cop still will be named townie himself.
And in case the framer gets eliminated before him, will be able to provide valid results.
Hell, even when framer still exists, every night 3 mafia would be visible red along with one townie.
The same goes for miller. Which is an even weaker counter, cause mafia cannot adjust who is a “framed” person.
So while those are counters to the cop as a role, they won’t balance setup back.
Not even slightly.
Let’s leave those two setups aside for a moment and think about the mafia in general.
Name 3 mafia roles which are not only existing to counter town roles and would not be useless if no town PRs existed.
.
.
.
Now name 3 non-killing mafia roles which are not only existing to counter.
Much harder, isn’t it?
That’s mostly cause scum goal is to kill town to begin with.
But there are still examples of such roles:
Doublevoters / neighborizers (if used correctly to convince others to own PoV) etc.
But still… there is few non-killing roles which are actually a benefit for mafia to have and not just to counter town’s weaponry.
Let’s go bit wider.
Given problem is the main reason why the perfect scum percentage in vanilla games is said to be 19%, while in role madness games it gravitates towards 25-30%.
Because usually, role exists to help town to begin with, and… that makes games kinda unfair for scum.
So… when creating and balancing a setup, ask yourself first - did you ask role which is truly balancing out the roles, or did you just add a counter which would be useless otherwise?
Don’t misunderstand me, some roles need to be countered.
And it’s perfectly fine.
But scum should also have something beneficial for themselves for setup to be balanced, or otherwise, you will be forced in a situation where you need to add more scum to even it out.
Let’s get back to the starting thesis.
Why best counter in cop13er is janitor?
It could be other beneficial role. But since setup is open, there is… less usable options to begin with.
In this case janitor (if knowing who they cleaned), if they cleaned cop is able to claim cop themselves, mislead town, maybe even get nightkilled and cleaned as well, while other scum survived as “cleared by cop”.
Also it makes town paranoid and double question itself if cop is actually real.
A convincing scum would be even able to get cop lynched.
I saw that once happened (altho for last mason, not cop).
Either way, it’s a role that actually brings something beneficial to the table.
Does it really balance it out? … Probably not.
Is it better counter than framer? Definitely.
the best counter to cop in cop13er is randing the cop to katze because they’ll be killed regardless of claim
I mean, analysis was more about mafia roles anyway.
There is too many setups which focus scum team around ability to respond to town, but don’t give any benefits for scumteam itself.
And… that’s not a way how it should work.
There is no perfect counter to anything, and that means that role even if countered, still tilts balance toward town favor. Forcing increased number of scum in the game.
Ofc there are other factors, like other roles etc (for example look eevee’s thought of a day 1), which can tilt favor into actually scum favor.
Still, that’s not very coherent game design itself.
If you add a janitor into any setup that a town PR doesn’t claim d1 you entirely remove PR clears
You can even have two mafia CC eachother if you jan the cop
I thought this was common knowledge
Mafia also isn’t required to CC the cop if a janitor is present
As the current cop could be janned and it’s mafia that claimed
I read halfway through it, realised exactly what you were talking about and posted my experience based on a janitor being present too.
Example setup
Town Vanilla
Town Vanilla
Town Vanilla
Doctor
Alignment Cop
Uninformed Miller who appears Town Vanilla
Fullcop Oracle
Janitor
Lawyer (target any mafia to make them appear innocent, cannot target self)
If you jan the AI cop, you don’t even need to CC later on because checks are already weak with lawyer being a thing & real cop can be janned
Nah. My version of tailor I’ve grew up knowing is that it entirely changes a player’s flip and investigation results