I have thought about that. However, I am thinking of other tweaks in my game which may favour the baddies, so this would hopefully be a 're-balancing' mechanism of sorts.
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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.
Yes, in future rounds, my reply whether real cultist or not will be "noted" and nothing else.
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.
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.
Not just hard. Pointless, uninteresting and pretty much powerless.
It's nice for a one-off, but that's what it should stay. A one-off.
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.
That might be a nice balancing factor as well.
It can also apply to Sorcerer's, if the GM deems it necessary to balance the game.
So your saying in this type of game that a cultist is immune to scans until his wolf dies, and then said cultist becomes a wolf, and it is now possible to scan him? if So I think two or maybe three seers should be in the game
In my proposal, he'd remain a cultist, instead of converting to a wolf. I am wondering whether the Seer that scans his master should be told that his scanned target is capable of having a cultist attached (even if said cultist already died).
I like them up until they grow so powerful that they leave little else to do but have the village follow their lead, or the similar problem of making the game boring for any goodie not in contact with them.
But in "Pining..." you made them pack specific and even allowed them to order hunts.
randakar said:
Maybe, but no more powerless than a villager without a role or meaningful contacts. Maybe give such a cultist a scanning capability of some sort to detect goodie roles and at least be able to infer, with some luck, who the wolves are.
No, that was "instead of", not "in addition to".
Why would he be told that?
When it comes to the GM handing out information: Less is more, reis.
The difference is that the unattached cultist doesn't even know for sure what side he's on. Going after suspicious people in the thread may hurt his own team's chances, deliberately trying to save people who look suspicions will get him lynched, and doing nothing/hiding may mean he gets to be lunch and or run up for being quiet.
Someone like that really has no good options, except perhaps trying to go the "shenanigans" route that are likely to blow up in his face ;-)
Because someone being unscannable for the large part of the game, yet being able to coordinate himself to the fullest extent with the baddie team might swing the balance too far. You can do tons of stuff you wouldn't otherwise do for fear of drawing scanner attention.
Yes, but having them packspecific was not so much because I wanted that as for there being a discussion prior to the game about it and most (or at least the most vocal) players seemed to want that.But in "Pining..." you made them pack specific and even allowed them to order hunts.
And if the cultist is really in the pack like packspecific cultists are I don't see why it has to be a wolf that sends in the orders
Hm, seems I never finished the GM AAR for that game. I think I encountered a similar situation as son of liberty with a question about how to attach a fake cultist in one game I hosted and I thought this was the one.
But we don't need to prevent those instances. Firstly, people die in WW all the time for things beyond their control, and secondly, it's an important balancing factor to this:
The seer would know he can't trust anyone, this is no different from any scenario except the small proportion of cases where someone is double-scanned and there have been no subsequent no hunt nights.
He has the potential to cause trouble, that's the exact reason I proposed it. Yet at the same time, his life is totally dependent on his master's survival.
Weird that you say the cultists would be too overpowered yet above you suggested to remove the one mechanism that works strongly against them. I'm not sure you've considered the consistency here. You can't say the cultists would be overpowered, then propose an alteration that makes them actually harder to kill.
I don't. I don't see the point. In this case there is no real difference between cultists and wolves. The only thing setting them apart is that one can be scanned by scanner x, and the other can be scanned by scanner y. But what purpose does it serve having two different scanners (priest and seer) for effectively the same role in the same pack?
Cultists might not be able to send in a hunt order while they remain cultists. But by the time there's no wolves left to send in the hunt orders, then the cultists have becomes wolves anyway. There's effectively no difference apart from whom gets scanned by whom.
At the end of the day, it doesn't damage the game much. So keeping that variation won't be a big problem. But on the other hand, I'm not sure I really see the point of it.
This isn't a bad idea.
That's what I mean. I don't mind and in fact actively encourage co-operation behind the scenes.
You'd prefer free cultists then. Do you want them to have the possibility of attaching to a pack or not?
I like the idea of two different types of wolves, what about a pack consisting of a werewolf, and a vampire, the werewolf is scanned via the seer, and the vampire is scanned via the priest, or something like that.
I like cultists to start in contact with a wolf (both know eachother) but have it so that cultists can win with either pack. Upon the death of the last wolf in their pack they can still win with the other pack. If there are no more wolves in any pack then the cultists (and the sorcerer) have lost. I don't mind other variations but I don't think this old version is broken and must be changed.
There could also be cultists starting not in contact with a pack, aka "free cultist", but usually I only use that if the baddie:goodie ratio is hard to balance otherwise since being a free cultist makes little sense theme wise and are supposedly boring to play (never been one myself). Having just one free cultist is a way to balance the packs against the first outing of the game.
Oh, I misinterpreted. Thanks for clarifying! Although, thematically a free cultist might make sense if you think of him as an evil/disillusioned villager.
Generally though I agree. The one problem with this thing is that cultists are often ignored (obviously, if cultists can win with both packs, it goes without saying that you can't tell the cultist all the names of their pack, only their master), but that is the wolves choice, and they can be encouraged to involve the cultists if they're given a trait, or a scanning role or something.
That's basically the idea.
Of course there's nothing stopping you from taking it further, or even going overboard with it - I distinctly remember a Lite that had 8 seers - 2 for each wolf in the Lite.
That was pushing it just a tad though, really. Four wolf-specific seers - one for each wolf - would make a rather decent Lite setup, but putting in more than that definitely threats game balance in favor of the goodies.
Pretty sure the four-seer version has been tried? I even think I may have won that game...
It nerfs the village a lot IMO.
Edit. Mm, yes. CCXLIII - Werewaffles.
My lite is ready, All I have to do is hit post, but before I do I have no theme, is that cool with you guys?