Post game thoughts, rewards, etc.
The Traditionalist Wizards
TheMaskedReader's death was a bit of a shame, as the Space-Time Wizard was the more powerful of the two roles. While the two lurked in the shadows, he could have swapped suspected members of the Witch Hunters and Black Order or powerful town roles with sus players, suspected of being either Witch Hunters or Black Order, getting obstacles to their victory out of the way by their foes own tools. The presence of his swapping would have caused chaos, too, as the Veteran Witch Hunter and Village Elder investigated the wrong targets. Likewise, a wizard could have claimed, and then swapped with a target of choice, blowing the Witch Hunter's one charge and possibly killing them by hitting town.
Then TheMaskedReader got day one Lynch trained, and not even for being sus. Just for having a vote and being more acceptable a target to town at day's end than either TPK or Nanimani.
All that said, Winged Cat has insisted that they lost with TheMaskedReader's death. This is not so. Things became considerably harder for the wizards at that point, definitely. But with luck, simply laying low may have allowed outlasting the Witch Hunters, and with them dead simply claiming the role in full and upfront may have allowed them to bargain town into letting them live in exchange for their kill, among other angles. Or had the Witch Hunters blown their kill, even if they remained in the game. Either way.
Overall, the Traditionalist Wizards probably were at a disadvantage off the bat, something that Rikimaru's n1 save of Nanimani and TheMaskedReader's day 1 lynch didn't help with, but they probably would have at least been interesting without the poor early luck.
Also, fact that failed to matter: Had Winged Cat used his fireball, he would have registered as vanilla to Joebobjoe's rolecop power.
The Witch Hunters
This was clearly not apparent to those playing, even the Witch Hunters, but the Witch Hunters were generally pro-town. I realized during the game that this was not entirely true, but the Witch Hunters were envisioned as almost an extension of Town with the Traditionalist Wizards as their executioners. That was actual the core of the game as a game idea, the idea of a faction of executioners.
In running the game, I realized they were required to kill the wizards and didn't know if any town counted, and so were incentivised to be somewhat cagey. Still, their win condition requiring the death of both the Traditionalist Wizards and the entire Black Order encouraged town play. They had no incentive to preserve their lives beyond power value and deductive skills once the Wizards were both dead, as they would win with town even if they'd been picked off.
Indeed, the set up was balanced under the assumption that for the purposes of balance, they were effectively two more townies, putting it as 10 town vs 3 scum, with relatively weak scum and five town power roles.
The kill, incidentally, was non-suicidal against Black Order and Traditionalist Wizards. I don't believe I decided in advance for if they hit the other Witch Hunter through eg the power of the Space-Time Wizard.
The Witch Hunters had a ton of informational power: more than I entirely realized in finalizing the set up. Between a rolecop of sorts and a medium they could collect tons of info, and killing the rolecop would not have cost them that night's report, he could simply mention it in dead chat. Likewise, both could report their information through the other, meaning only one mason needed to be exposed to report everything. Not to mention collating it between each other.
Also, had the Veteran Witch Hunter been bus driven into targeting one of his team, the oneshot kill would have been reported if unused.
The Black Order
As I said when discussing the Witch Hunters, the Black Order was a relatively weak scum group for the numbers. They had a killer, a roleblocker, and a tracker, and in turn were facing three different roles that could have caught them one way or another, as well as a doctor and a bus driver (who, had he lived, would have been able to redirect any of their actions, potentially back onto themselves.)
The fact that the Tracker is not a standard scum role and town was somewhat power light among it's eight members seems to have allowed the Black Order Scout to go under the radar for awhile... But then both cops simultaneously decided to check him, even aside Bahn revealing during day four who their third was.
One of the intentional features design wise was the need for all roles to risk being spotted by the Watcher if they wished to make full use of their options, and a designated killer meaning they couldn't shake things up by varying who killed unless Bahn died. And at that point kills would come at a cost to utility.
The Black Order would have likely faired much better had they killed Rikimaru instead of shadow shinobi n2: AlphaDelta would have remained unknown that day.
One last note: Rolecopping Black Order members aside the Ritualist before the Ritualist died would not have reported killing powers, as was seen with AlphaDelta. Doing so after would have.
The Village People
The game's proper town was definitely internally weak: As noted by several players, town barely held the majority day one, and possessed three power roles and five vanillas, when all members of the other factions were not only masons but each possessed at least one night power.
The game went very well for them, in spite of my concerns that they were understrength. I seriously considered making the Innkeeper a neighborizer or adding one or two additional vanillas last minute, but decided there wasn't time to examine such decisions critically.
Town was relatively standard but intentionally denied any form of killing power. As was, it was hypothetically possible for any faction to be wiped out by dawn of day 2.
Awards
@Rikimaru gets the award
Beginner's Luck, for successfully catching the one kill from scum on night 1. On the other had, I can't call it anymore than luck, when he proceeds to roleclaim under no pressure day 2
after it was revealed scum probably had a roleblocker and that this roleblocker was compatible with night kills. The idea that having shadow shinobi watch him was of any use is absurd from the info available day 2: scum could easily roleblock one and kill the other, removing that loop without showing their hand at all. The complication for scum that blocking shadow shinobi and killing Rikimaru was the only correct move for scum was not evident with Nanimani having yet to reveal Medium. In fairness, if one believed Cakestepid was town, he could
potentially have caught one of the two, but his chances don't go up from painting a target on yourself. He has to guess which players have visiting powers, not which will be visited. Still, catching scum's kill the first night is a bit rare.
@atk50 receives the award
Master of Secret Powers, for attracting the attention of both the Witch Hunter's Rolecop and the scum Tracker in the first two nights. I don't know what you did, but in spite of soft claiming vanilla in response to TPK day 2 and then hard claiming before day's end, everyone was convinced you had something to care about night powers wise.
@Pawn Lelouch earns the award
Wise Elder, for well thought out cop targets, excellent discretion in not getting fingered as a target or reveaing his role while still using the information gained to lead town to not lynching town he had checked. While he didn't get any scum night one or two, that's not terribly surprising, and he did confirm the town status of one of the only two proper town power roles aside himself night 1. He also correctly picked out the final scum night four, although admittedly he was running out of targets.
@Nanimani and
@Joebobjoe share the
Wearing Each Other's Clothes award, for pretending to have each other's powers to throw off everyone, especially those in the dead chat. And everyone bought it, perhaps unsurprisingly. It didn't wind up mattering as much as it could, thanks to neither dying, but it did influence actions taken.
@Bahn earns the award
There Was A Sign, for naming his third scum team member in dead chat in spite of the warning and the lack of a dead medium role. While it wound up kinda not mattering, because Pawn Lelouch and Joebobjoe zeroed in on Cakestepid before that was noticed, that info could have had scum dead day four and meant Nanimani had access to information on who the last scum was that would require Nani died before checking dead chat to allow a Black Order win.
@Winged Cat I award the award
A Bold Claim. While it was pretty much guaranteed to end poorly, the mix of true and false info gave his claim an edge of credibility.
@Cakestepid earns the award
Kill Him Already, for doing what the Black Order probably should have done n2 and killing Rikimaru.
@TPK receives the award
A Fishy Look. I liked the fish puns, deal with it. And I appreciated both picking up where the role card left off and punning away, and the low key attempt to make it look like he was a power role lying about being a vanilla.
There will be one more post where I break down lessons learned in building and running this.
