Gameroom discussion: Overpowered roles and game balance

[Askthepizzaguy]

Mafia at its heart is a game of an uninformed, nearly powerless majority against an unknown, informed, powerful minority. The town uses the lynch to win, the mafia tries to avoid being lynched and uses the murder as their main weapon, killing whoever the town doesn't lynch. That said, it is also a game which can be re-designed to include a wide variety of roles which add character and flavor to a game, and it breaks up the monotony of a streak of vanilla games.

Yet these flavorful roles can not just add to a game, they can also take away from a game. The most obvious example is the Joker role; this is the role which wins by trying to get lynched. When the Joker gets lynched, it wins at the expense of everyone else's fun and enjoyment, and the other players are compelled by role to lynch almost anyone but themselves. It's too easy for the joker to achieve its aim and it does so against a foe which is compelled to make moves designed to help the joker win.

The Joker role is almost universally despised because of how disruptive it can be. That's why in the "Gameroom rules" joke thread, the joker is banned forever, and then in another rule it's repeated; it's banned FOREVER.




But the Joker is not the only role which makes people cringe. Certain players who shall remain Pizzaguy absolutely hate being scanned over and over again by true/sane investigator roles at the beginning of games, and despite oft-stated protestations it keeps happening and it happens sometimes many games in a row, resulting in there being no mystery as to what my alignment is and no fun whatsoever if I happen to be handed the scum role. There's not just the lameness factor but the fact that I cannot use my bluffing/lying abilities to try to wiggle out of it. It's not me you're playing against there, you're playing against a random number generator. Did Pizza get the mafia role or not? I have no control over that, and can't stop myself from being lynched if I get scanned and outed. So boring and cheap. Why did I sign up, then? That's why I hate those roles and anyone who has ever waited a year to become mafia, only to get scanned and outed and destroyed right away, knows exactly what I'm talking about. And some folks get scanned a lot and they don't want to play in games like that.

These are not the only roles which can cause disaster for players' fun factor and ruin a lot of the good hard work they put into games. There are other cheap things which warrant being discussed:

Multiple doctor roles; I cite for you the first Council of Villains game, and also Capo III, as examples of what happens when several doctors band together and form an invulnerable voting bloc. If they alone outnumber the mafia or very nearly do, the mafia simply cannot win the game unless the mafia can expand in size. Even then, it's still pretty cheap, and if the mafia expand by consent, not forced conversion, like in Capo, then sometimes the obvious move is to become a doctor and never go mafia. That's boring and cheap.

One doctor is a challenge, a thrill, an added flavorful element to a game. Multiple doctors results in solid walls the mafia can't break through and mafia should be more powerful than the town. The counter to this is the mafia Strongman role which can break doctor protection, but if you're going to have that, why have doctors and a strongman in the first place? Get rid of both roles. If the mafia loses its strongman then the same problems arise. You haven't fixed anything.

I have played in a mini game where every townie was a roleblocker. The mafia couldn't murder and had little/no alibi, and no allies. That was crazy. An experimental game for sure, but it reminds me that roleblockers can be just as bad as doctors, especially if there are several of them.

If you've ever been mafia and roleblocked N1 and there was no murder, what happens? N2 you're blocked again. It just drags it out, and then you're lynched anyway. And if that's not bad enough, imagine finding out there are more roleblockers after you finally kill that guy. No, no, no.... no thanks. None for me, please.


Games with bulletproof or unlynchable roles really sap the willpower of folks who need to remove the bulletproof character or the unlynchable character. In dramatic fashion, this was the main gripe with Capo IV, as I was able to be Director [bulletproof] and Lawyer-protected [lynchproof] and I did everything I could to make that happen. Leaving the lawyer undefended wasn't compensation enough for folks, and I'm sure I'd have been quite frustrated on the opposing side as well. Even if you can prevent or go around such roles with roleblockers, they're still too cheap in the minds of many.

How about Force Breath? We all remember how annoying that was. Or, what about the roles with multiple lives that need to be killed over and over? It's the same sort of thing... imagine if all that stood in your way is this one role which you pull off a strong tactic and finally remove, only to find out, they're not removed. They're still there! I remember this happened to me in a game on another site, where I removed the role which could kill someone who tried to lynch or murder them. Once dead, I felt we had won, except this role also self-revived and there it was, a thorn in my side again.


I have similar complaints for Tracker, Watcher, and Bus-Driver roles, because all of those roles have their issues as well. Bus-Drivers are extremely powerful even if folks haven't ever really abused them yet, I predict that there will be a game where that's the case. Trackers and Watchers can be just as bad as sane Detectives if someone catches you murdering someone. While it's not as bad as a guilty scan in some respects, it's also more specific and even more conclusive. Guilty results can be wrong. It's hard to explain away being at the scene of a murder.



Solution: Rather than have gameroom moderators ban these types of roles outright, how about a simple agreement between player and host?


Gamers can ask the following or similar questions before a game begins, to determine if they want to sign up.

1) Are there sane/true detective or similar roles in this game?
2) Are there multiple doctor roles in this game?
3) Are there roles which can survive lynches or murders in this game?
4) Are there multiple roleblockers in this game?
5) Are there Joker roles in this game, or roles with similar, highly unusual win conditions?
6) Is this a game with forced alignment changes/recruitment? Or even unforced alignment changes/recruitment?
7) Does the game have several serial killers or multiple vigilantes?

Game hosts can decline to answer, or answer truthfully. If they decline to answer, you can expect folks might not join their game. If they answer, sometimes people may still not join their game because they don't like certain design elements. If a game host answers untruthfully, then people will likely not join their games in the future and I would strike such a game from the record books except to mention that the game happened.




Please discuss roles or design elements you'd like to see disclosed by the game hosts before a game.

[Montmorency]

All of those are fine, IMO. Even the Joker. The problem with the Lawyer seems to have been that no one had ever heard of such a thing (AFAIK) prior to that day. Now that it's understood that a super-lynchblocker is a possibility...

For game of 30/40 or more, such things can be permitted. In small games, it probably makes more sense to simply limit the # of uses on a skill.

Remember A Country For Old Men? There was a lynchblock there, and it worked very nicely. It was a very exciting, hard-fought game, and in the end Mafia beat the odds and won, despite all the roles. Perhaps what we should take from that is that Mafia should have skills of their own, when the townies themselves are loaded up.

A setup like the one used by Johhog, where RNG decides the town roles, and the Mafia are proportionately scaled up is another neat solution.

And metagaming aside, if a power role suspects you enough of being scum to target you, well, bully for him! That's what it's about!

and I would strike such a game from the record books except to mention that the game happened.

Pretty harsh. Even for mini or experimental games?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Pretty harsh. Even for mini or experimental games?

If a game host answers untruthfully, that's different than not answering. That's misleading the game players intentionally or not intentionally, and breaks the game for them.

They've got to be able to rely on the game host to give accurate rule information. If there's no detective by rule, and a detective shows up, the game host is a blankety blank.

[apocalypse ed]

If a game host answers untruthfully, that's different than not answering. That's misleading the game players intentionally or not intentionally, and breaks the game for them.

They've got to be able to rely on the game host to give accurate rule information. If there's no detective by rule, and a detective shows up, the game host is a blankety blank.

Nailed it on the head. The game host has to give accurate rule information or things can break down quick.

[Andres]

A new member trying to escape the formalities of being greeted by the DIVINE GREETER OF NEW MEMBERS himself?



*** grabs apocalypse ed, holds him in front of him and stares with red glowing eyes for a few brief moments, breathing heavily while smoke leaves his nose and wide open mouth***

Welcome @apocalypse ed

*** puts apocalypse ed down again ***

Enjoy your stay at the .Org

[Jarema]

yeah! join some games!

[Askthepizzaguy]

[I]*** grabs apocalypse ed, holds him in front of him and stares with red glowing eyes for a few brief moments, breathing heavily while smoke leaves his nose and wide open mouth***

Oh dear lord, and/or Andres,

Andres' avatar has taken over Andres' mind! The Admin has gone literally insane with power!

[Ishmael]

I'm going to (perhaps unwisely) wade into this quagmire and give my opinions, centred around the concluding dot points:

1) I actually agree that detective roles are a bit unfair, in that it comes down to luck whether a mafioso is scanned or not. I think a game in which two complimenting detective roles have to work together to get an absolute result (TLD's A Country for Old Men had this, I believe) is much more balanced, as it brings in issues of whether you trust the other person and so on. To me, there should be few if any absolutes in mafia - one should always be doubting who they can trust. As to insane detectives, I've never played them so I can't comment. Probably should be disclosed, as by the time the mafia realises they're in the game it's already too late.

2) I haven't played a game with many doctors so I can't really comment, but I think having 1 or 2 is nice (it gives people something to do at nights, and ensures the mafia can't just target the obvious townies). No need to disclose, a doctor can surprise/thwart the mafia for one night, but it won't kill them.

3) On lynches, I have to agree with GH and 'khaan - if you're lynched, you should die. Even having lynch-blocking powers for only one round is pushing it. Murder-proof roles also seem a tad unfair to the mafia, but I haven't played any games with this role so I can't definitively comment.

4) I think roleblockers should have limited uses, or only be able to block on every second night or something. But that's not based on much experience either.

5) I think this depends on how actively it impacts the game. For example, in A Country for Old Men I had a role that had to kill all people with names starting with 'J' (but had no nightkill, could only use the lynch). That's fairly passive and is by nature secretive, so I wouldn't think disclosing it would be necessary. The Joker on the other hand has a massive, active impact on the game, and so should be disclosed. One's a side-show, one's the main deal.

6) Probably should mention it, or at least make it clear in the opening few write-ups. Things could just get confusing otherwise.

7) I think having multiple SKs/vigilantes (apart from in a huge game like Capo) would lessen their shock impact/wild-card nature, so I'm against having too many in the first place.


...yikes, I wrote a lot (not compared to ATPG of course, but still ). Anyway, those are my thoughts if anybody is interested.

[TinCow]

ATPG has covered pretty much everything I have to say on this issue already, with my main gripes being with the Joker, roles that outright prevent lynchings from occurring (as differentiated from roles which just mess with individual votes), and detectives that get flawless guilty/innocent style results. However, there's another type of role that has irked me multiple times and which I think unbalance the game: dead players with active abilities. Death has a finality about it in mafia games that is comforting to the players. Whether you're townie or scum, you can rest at ease knowing that if you manage to get that certain player lynched or killed, their ability to thwart your plans will be reduced to frantically trying to convince other people to do what they can no longer do. Sometimes, though, some roles retain the ability to do night actions (or even vote!) after they are dead. I do not like this at all. Dead players are immune from all actions, they cannot be blocked, cannot be killed, etc., so they are essentially invulnerable and will remain a thorn in the side of the opposing side for the rest of the game, regardless of how much effort the town/mafia spent on disposing of them in the first place. Being dead should remove a person's abilities to do anything except speak.

To be clear, I do not include resurrection roles in this complaint, so long as they are not capable of self-resurrection. Resurrection roles do not allow the dead people to engage in actions while they are dead, it requires them to be brought back to life first, which allows them to be disposed of again just like they were the first time. While resurrection certainly needs to be handled carefully, it has been used before in a balanced fashion. I do not think that roles that can use abilities or vote even when they are dead can be balanced in this same fashion.

A final note on dead speech: I wish more hosts would give a lot more thought to their rules on private conversation. I think a lot of game balance issues occur because roles that were conceived of for use in vanilla mafia games (which inherently have no PMing) are used in games that actively encourage private discussion. The balance of a game setup can shift dramatically depending on how much information players are allowed to share privately. In practice, I feel like allowing private conversation, but limiting the content, can be confusing and turns some players into rules lawyers who try and figure out how to stay within the letter of the rules while still sharing information in self-serving manners. I am personally guilty of this. I think it is best to either let everything be fair game, particularly role PMs, or to completely ban conversation outside the public thread. This is particularly true for dead players. With the exception of dead mafioso, who I think should be able to continue private discussions with their living teammates, I think it is generally a very bad idea to allow dead players to communicate anywhere except in the public thread. It can wreck game balance for the same reason that dead abilities can: the players are invulnerable to repercussions. If you allow dead players to organize group efforts, convey investigation results (even if the actual PMs can't be quoted), etc., you are giving players the ability to engage in positive activities to disrupt their enemies, without their enemies having any ability to stop them in any way.

Game balance means just that: balance. If you are adding in a role or ability that the opposing side cannot counter, then the role or ability is unbalanced. It is not enough to be satisfied with a setup where a role or ability is capable of being countered if X, Y, and Z happens, because that still means that the role cannot be countered if those things do not happen. When it comes down to it, the town should always retain the ability to win if they vote for the right people and the mafia should always retain the ability to win if they can just avoid getting lynched. The whole point of mafia is the lynch phase. These games exist for the day phase voting first and foremost, and I'd like to see some focus put back on the day instead of the night.

[Renata]

I hate lynch-avoidance roles except in very limited circumstances (I actually think a huge game like Capo has a lot more latitude for limited use of such things, simply because its size gives more opportunity for second chances). I'm not a fan of detectives and to a lesser extent town trackers/activity detectives, either. I have many fewer issues with roleblockers, town watchers, and the like. My basic criteria there is:

-- if an oft-metagamed player has the capability of preventing early incriminating results being produced on them as mafia/third party without compromising their team, then all is well
-- if not ... not.

As an example, a mafia team of three is set up in a hierarchy with designated killer, roleblocker/backup killer, goon/backup roleblocker/third-chance killer. There is an activity tracker in the game for the town. What's the mafia team now to do, if the oft-metagamed player gets the #1 killer role? You can't not kill, so basically you're resigning yourself to losing one of your players right off the bat almost by default, and no matter how well you are all playing otherwise. Now imagine the same team re-imagined so any of the three mafia can do the kill on a given night; or with an untrackable team kill plus three minor powers. The problem evaporates, provided at least that the oft-metagamed player has access to a decent cover role to explain his minor-power activity once caught (or the powers are so minor that non-use is not crippling).

That brings me to the other big gripe I have in playing (and generally losing) mafia roles: lack of (good) cover for the mafia. Without a strong canon source it's not as important; without a very powerful town it's not as important -- but generally as games are played around here some effort needs to be made in that regard so it doesn't turn into "lynch everybody without a good name claim/lynch all the vanillas/everyone without a verifiable night power is mafia".

[classical_hero]

That brings me to the other big gripe I have in playing (and generally losing) mafia roles: lack of (good) cover for the mafia. Without a strong canon source it's not as important; without a very powerful town it's not as important -- but generally as games are played around here some effort needs to be made in that regard so it doesn't turn into "lynch everybody without a good name claim/lynch all the vanillas/everyone without a verifiable night power is mafia".

That is what i think is the biggest gripe about mafia, not the roles that could be "overpowered". Part of mafia is the ability to bluff your way out of situations where you might be in trouble. If you are a game where the characters are known, then you must give a cover role otherwise it is impossible to be the mafia.

I don't think that there is an overpowered role, just when you get good co-ordination between some factions then roles become extra powerful by the total effect of other power roles coming together. I think to be perfectly honest I don't believe that a role can really be overpowered, unless they cannot be killed full stop and there is no way of removing that player. Basically mafia is about co-ordination and trust, but can you really trust the person you are working with, should be at the forefront of any game.

[Skooma Addict]

I would like to hear some opinions/advice on how recruitment can be implemented into games without it becoming an overwhelming and disheartening opposition. Cults and mafia recruiting is something I would like to use without worry of imbalance and unfairness to the town players. I've played games where the cult would be lynched during the day, and the deceased is immediately replaced the following night which essentially is a free day kill for the cult. I like the idea of using a base percentage, or restricting recruitment to specific nights.

[TinCow]

I would like to hear some opinions/advice on how recruitment can be implemented into games without it becoming an overwhelming and disheartening opposition. Cults and mafia recruiting is something I would like to use without worry of imbalance and unfairness to the town players. I've played games where the cult would be lynched during the day, and the deceased is immediately replaced the following night which essentially is a free day kill for the cult. I like the idea of using a base percentage, or restricting recruitment to specific nights.

Recruitment of any kind is going to pose balance issues, but I think the greatest problems are when recruitment is unlimited. I think the best recruitment systems are those that only let the recruiter recruit a limited number of times and from a limited pool of candidates. Combine such limits with night actions to find the recruit candidates, and the system then balances the advantages of recruiting by making the recruiter give up multiple night actions to find, and recruit, their new people. These kinds of limited recruitment systems have been used successfully in many games without unbalancing them in favor of the recruiter.

Cults are a bit of a different problem. I don't really like them because I don't think they're much fun. A true cult (as opposed to a mafia faction with recruitment abilities) is basically an alternate town trying to supplant the original town. I don't really see much entertainment value in that. No one really wants to be part of town B instead of town A. If there's a desirable role change, it's to the mafia, not just some other group you vote with.

[Montmorency]

5) I think this depends on how actively it impacts the game. For example, in A Country for Old Men I had a role that had to kill all people with names starting with 'J' (but had no nightkill, could only use the lynch). That's fairly passive and is by nature secretive, so I wouldn't think disclosing it would be necessary. The Joker on the other hand has a massive, active impact on the game, and so should be disclosed. One's a side-show, one's the main deal.

Well, that's not really a role: it's a VC.

Joker should be a really difficult role. If it is known from the start that there is a Joker, and if the Joker wins only if lynched when 50% or less of the players remain (losing no matter what otherwise)...

If a game host answers untruthfully, that's different than not answering. That's misleading the game players intentionally or not intentionally, and breaks the game for them.

They've got to be able to rely on the game host to give accurate rule information. If there's no detective by rule, and a detective shows up, the game host is a blankety blank.

Oh, I misread that as affecting non-disclosers.

Didn't this happen in the last few months? I swear I can remember something - was involved. I'm sure of it.

I do not think that roles that can use abilities or vote even when they are dead can be balanced in this same fashion.

Eh, maybe something like 4 dead townies can *haunt* a player: effective roleblock? Even as a one-shot for those involved? Such an arrangement seems balanced, and could certainly add flavor if it conforms to the universe of that particular game.

A final note on dead speech: I wish more hosts would give a lot more thought to their rules on private conversation. I think a lot of game balance issues occur because roles that were conceived of for use in vanilla mafia games (which inherently have no PMing) are used in games that actively encourage private discussion. The balance of a game setup can shift dramatically depending on how much information players are allowed to share privately. In practice, I feel like allowing private conversation, but limiting the content, can be confusing and turns some players into rules lawyers who try and figure out how to stay within the letter of the rules while still sharing information in self-serving manners. I am personally guilty of this. I think it is best to either let everything be fair game, particularly role PMs, or to completely ban conversation outside the public thread. This is particularly true for dead players. With the exception of dead mafioso, who I think should be able to continue private discussions with their living teammates, I think it is generally a very bad idea to allow dead players to communicate anywhere except in the public thread. It can wreck game balance for the same reason that dead abilities can: the players are invulnerable to repercussions. If you allow dead players to organize group efforts, convey investigation results (even if the actual PMs can't be quoted), etc., you are giving players the ability to engage in positive activities to disrupt their enemies, without their enemies having any ability to stop them in any way.

I'm pro-transparency by default. Communicating night actions could probably be forbidden most of the time in small games. Also, remember that if there is no reveal upon death, a dead scumbag can infiltrate his scheming ghost-foes.

Game balance means just that: balance. If you are adding in a role or ability that the opposing side cannot counter, then the role or ability is unbalanced. It is not enough to be satisfied with a setup where a role or ability is capable of being countered if X, Y, and Z happens, because that still means that the role cannot be countered if those things do not happen. When it comes down to it, the town should always retain the ability to win if they vote for the right people and the mafia should always retain the ability to win if they can just avoid getting lynched. The whole point of mafia is the lynch phase. These games exist for the day phase voting first and foremost, and I'd like to see some focus put back on the day instead of the night.

More day-actions it is, then!

[Sigurd]

I agree with what has been said.. mostly.
And I understand the gripe TinCow brings to this discussion about dead players. I was guilty of bringing in those in my Star Wars game and I realized that they were indeed faulty. I brought them here, and I publicly declare them unfit for mafia games.

About the detective, tracker, watcher roles... The host should consider ambiguity and alibis for those scanned.

Then we have the long debated issue of private discussion. Setting a rule against it with all those tools around us which enable us to discuss things outside the game thread is utopia. I know some of you have high ideals concerning fair play and adhering to strict rules, but reality is that some will break them. How will this be brought to the attention of the host? -> whistle blowing by co-players. Which will just bring bad feelings into this, which will last outside the game.

As officers in the Navy, we knew the men were trusting each other if there were no "ratting" among the men. They took collective punishment and sorted it out among themselves. This was a healthy sign. And they were repeatedly tested on this during bootcamp. The goal was to make a chain with no weak links. (this is not the discussion of a group bringing forth a bad apple, that is different)

Having games with too strict rules against things that is so easily broken are just like those tests that one have in boot camp, with the purpose to forge a strong group of men and women.
It would just be easier that the hosts would factor in private sharing of roles, abilities and results.
There is a potential here for gathering a large group of people wanting to play mafia games. This group will be largely international and I would advice us to be more lenient in these things.

[Jarema]

For many of mentioned roles, the perfect solution IMO could be limiting them. Either they can be used only limited number of times (like doctor, who can protect 3 times), or they have other limitations. Like doctor, who cannot protect the same person twice in a row. The issues that you mentioned, ATPG, are then not as important.

OTOH, I agree that asking those questions would not hurt anyone, and host can just reject them