That's how we used to have it way back. The general opinion was that it caused paranoia in the "wrong" team. I'm not saying it can't be used again though.
EDIT: With those rules what usually happened was that the cultist PMed the wolf saying "I'm your cultist" and the wolf replied "What are you talking about, I'm a goodie. But good luck fishing for stupid wolves" and then never talked to their cultists after that. Boring for the cultist. OTOH every two-three games a goodie would spam the newbies with "I'm your cultist" PMs and often the baddie newbie replied "Jolly good, this is a list of my packmates" and then game over for that team. Boring for villagers that didn't have anything to discuss, boring for the outed team.
This.
Wolves should never have to doubt if someone who was with them from the start is in their team or not.
And for unattached baddies, the rules should be clear enough that either the wolves are innately careful (free-roaming sorcerers) or have a reliable way to verify the identity of whatever attaches itself to their pack.
Either there not allowed (on there honor), or we give reasons for the wolves to hunt them, like if a wolf hunts his cultist, the wolf gets a random trait or something, so a wolf would actually want to kill his cultist, which would deter the cultist from revealing himself
That sounds like a really bad idea. The whole idea of having cultists is to have difficult-to-scan baddies that can relay inside information to team evil. Prohibiting them from talking is stupid.
And no pack would want to hunt a cultist to get a random trait - no trait is worth wasting a hunt that can be used to get closer to parity just so you can kill a guy who can be used to get closer to parity.
Team size is everything for the wolves. Reduce them by enough, and they become powerless to influence the lynch and keep the game interesting.
It would be interesting to see the cultists have to work for the wolves and trying to do their bidding without the latter knowing it. I would imagine that it would be hard to play as a cultist if you were forbidden to contact your allies while simultaneously try to subvert the village.
Not just hard. Pointless, uninteresting and pretty much powerless.
Thanks! Although I wouldn't support using that variation again either. I really think we have enough potential to refine the current set-up before making huge structural changes.
It's nice for a one-off, but that's what it should stay. A one-off.
I like this idea. I do see one problem though: While I agree sudden unexpected deaths are to be expected and considered fair, the two for one nature of it makes the game balance unstable. It's the old story of something moving the winning team two steps towards victory instead of one, eg a doctor saving a patient+getting a wolf name or a hunter making the wolves lose a hunt+killing a wolf. It shouldn't be too big an issue, however.
I've been complaining about those two roles/traits in particular for some time, but they just won't go away, will they?
I still believe having cultists turn into wolves upon the deaths of their masters is actually the most sensible way to handle it.
Or perhaps even better: Have a pack consist of *two different types* of wolves, which require different scanners. And then have no cultists at all.
Just make sure the seer(s) at the very least understand that bit, too, or the balance may swing in completely the opposite direction. Speaking from experience here.
What about him being able to get scanned only after his master died? It would prevent instances of the cultist being killed because his master was autolynched or decided to out himself.
That might be a nice balancing factor as well.