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Northern Isles Roles (Game 5)


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This is the list of possible roles for Game 4. Unlike previous games, only 16 of these will be used. The roles will be chosen as follows:

 

Roles 1-10: Anama Priest, Bound Servant, Darkside Blademaster, Darkside Mage, Dionicio, Domont, Gladwell, Machrone, Micklebur, Shanker.

Role 11: Adventurer or Empire Spy (50% each)

Role 12: Alchemist (25%), Craftmaster Strine (25%), or Oliver (50%)

Roles 13-16: Randomly chosen to be any role not currently used.

 

The magic users are: Aimee, Darkside Mage, Gladwell, Necromancer, Sacred Item Cultist, Shanker, Vahkos.

 

People who may join the Anama are: Adventurer, Alchemist, Anama Hunter, Dionicio, Fae, Infiltrator, Machrone, Oliver, Pure Spirit, Ronaldo, Skribbane Addict.

 

People who may join Gladwell are: Adventurer, Anama Hunter, Craftmaster Strine, Dionicio, Fae, Infiltrator, Machrone, Necromancer, Ronaldo, Sacred Item Cultist, Skribbane Addict.

 

The roles, in alphabetical order, are:

 

Adventurer

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: May target one person per day. If that person has any items, you steal one of them (chosen at random).

 

Victory Condition: You must do two of these: Have the Assassin Leather at the end of the game, kill Dionicio, kill Gladwell, kill Empire Spy, kill Darkside Blademaster, kill Darkside Mage, kill Craftmaster Strine, kill Skribbane Addict.

 

Aimee

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: None

Immune: Most Attacks

 

Abilities: Your target may not perform any actions for 24 hours. You may not directly attack anyone or hold and use items. You can only be killed by: Somebody compelled by Gladwell, Anama Priest, Vahkos, and Wand of Death. Anyone else who attacks you will learn your role.

 

Victory: Number of Avernites (not counting Aimee) that win is at least twice the number of Imperials that win.

 

Alchemist

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Abilities: You will have a stock of alchemicals. Using your alchemicals, you may brew one of the following: Antidote, Heroic Brew, Ironskin Salve, Knowledge Brew, Resistance Elixir, or Weapon Poison.

 

Victory: Only one of Shanker, Gladwell, or the Anama Priest win. If all are dead, collect two randomly chosen artifacts.

 

Anama Hunter

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: May target one person per day. Reveals if that person is in the Anama. While attacking someone in the Anama, your skill level is treated as Power.

 

Victory Condition: Total elimination of the Anama sect. The Anama Priest and all followers must be dead by any means necessary.

 

You may join the Anama to go undercover. You will gain the magic immunity, but your victory condition will be unmodified. Also, you do not count as an Anama member when evaluating anyone's victory conditions.

 

Anama Priest

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: If you are attacked, your skill is power for the duration of the battle. May use one of two abilities: (1) Once per game, may resurrect one person, or (2) remove all status effects from a target.

 

Victory Condition: Have the number of Anama members outnumber the mages and servants of Gladwell at the end of the game. The magic users are: Aimee, Craftmaster Strine, Darkside Mage, Gladwell, Necromancer, Sacred Item Cultist, Shanker, Vahkos. Gladwell begins with one servant, the Bound Servant, but may acquire more.

 

Anama Priest can recruit Anama members who are not mages, servants of Gladwell, or Darkside Loyalists. Anyone who joins the Anama gains immunity to magic. See the rules for specifics. An exact list of roles that can join is given at the top of this thread.

 

Bound Servant

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: Physical

 

Ability: Reveals if your target would be a suitable candidate for recruiting by Gladwell. So long as Gladwell is alive, you are immune to physical damage. When you attack under Gladwell's geas, you will always get the first strike.

 

Victory Condition: Gladwell wins or his geas is broken.

 

You are a servant of Gladwell.

 

Craftmaster Strine

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Magic

Immune: None

 

Abilities: You may craft an item from the list below. Each item on the list may only be made once per game:

 

* Box of Traps

* Clover Boots

* Disruption Crystal

* Disruption Crystal

* Ivory Skull

* Knowledge Brew

* Resistance Elixir

* Rod of Alacrity

* Vulnerability Scroll

* Wand of Death

* Warding Crystal

* Warding Crystal

 

Victory: Collect two randomly chosen artifacts.

 

Darkside Blademaster

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Power

Attack: Physical

Immune: Physical

 

Ability: None.

 

Victory Condition: All five of the following must be dead, by any means necessary: Dionicio, Shanker, Adventurer or Empire Spy, another random Avernite, and one other random target.

 

Darkside Mage

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Magic

Immune: None

 

Ability: May target one person per day. The target is cursed for the next 24 hours. If the target decides to attack anyone, his or her attacks will be unable to harm the opponent. Note the curse only affects when the target attacks, not when the target is being attacked.

 

Victory Condition: All five of the following must be dead, by any means necessary: Dionicio, Shanker, Adventurer or Empire Spy, another random Avernite, and one other random target.

 

Dionicio

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Power

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: May target one person, living or dead, per day. Reveals that person's role.

 

Victory Condition: All Darkside Loyalists (DL Blademaster, DL Mage, Domont) dead by any means AND have possession of Crystal Spire at the end of the game.

 

Domont

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: May use one of these per day. (1) Target a role (e.g. Domont), you will learn about any actions that role did for the last 24 hours, (2) Target a Darkside Loyalist role (e.g. Darkside Mage) and give a keyword (must not be a name or other personally identifying information), the person in that role is given a keyword. This second ability is to help you find the other Darkside Loyalists.

 

Victory Condition: All five of the following must be dead, by any means necessary: Dionicio, Shanker, Adventurer or Empire Spy, another random Avernite, and one other random target.

 

Empire Spy

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: You can investigate a target's nationality. When you kill someone, you will learn their role.

 

Victory Condition: You must do two of these: Have the Flaming Sword at the end of the game, kill Dionicio, kill Adventurer, kill Shanker, kill Machrone, kill Darkside Blademaster, kill Darkside Mage, kill Skribbane Addict.

 

Fae

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: May assume the identity of any other role (e.g. Fae). You will appear as this role to all information gatherers. Your identity is retained even after death.

 

Victory Condition: Your goal is to trick people into "joining" or trading with you. Anyone who "joins" you, trades with you, or gives you an item ends up dead regardless of skill, immunities, or other effects. Trick at least three people this way.

 

Gladwell

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Power

Attack: Magic

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: You may not attack anyone directly. If any of your servants attack you, you will always get the first strike. You may do one of the following once per day: (1) Compel one of your servants to do any action they could do, or (2) Switch your immunity form magic to physical, or vice versa.

 

Victory Condition: Four randomly generated victory conditions that contain holding two artifacts at the end of the game and two people dead by any means or under your geas.

 

Gladwell can bind other players who are not Anama members or Darkside Loyalists. An exact list of roles that can join is given at the top of this thread.

 

People who join are immune to physical damage if Gladwell is alive. However, they have the following penalties: (1) Gladwell can override any ability request with his ability and (2) person gains the victory condition that Gladwell must win or the geas be broken. Note that if Gladwell compels someone to attack, they will normally get the first strike.

 

Infiltrator

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Once per game, may get a free action that does not count towards the 24 hour period. You must specify this in a PM with your action.

 

Victory: Kill three Avernites by your own hand. Dionicio counts as two.

 

Machrone

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None.

 

Ability: Conduct an demographic poll of all the living characters. Pick one from this list:

 

* Reveal (at random) one of the randomly selected roles. (Roles 11-16)

* Faction identification. (Anama, Gladwell, Darkside Loyalist)

* Magic users.

* Current skill levels.

* Current immunities.

* Nationality.

* Targets of the Adventurer.

* Targets of the Empire Spy.

* Targets of the Darkside Loyalists.

 

Victory Condition: Every day, two questions about the game are given to you. You must answer, by PM to the moderator, at least one question every day. Your response is posted publicly by the moderator. You must answer five questions correctly to win. Each incorrect response or failure to submit a question during a day will raise the number of questions you need to answer correctly by one each time never to exceed the total number of questions available. You may answer a question as many times as you like, but only your last answer will count toward your victory.

 

Micklebur

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Power

Attack: Physical

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: Can detect if a target is a magic user or is a servant of Gladwell.

 

Victory Condition: All mages dead by any means.

 

You are an Anama Member.

 

Necromancer

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Magic

Immune: None

 

Ability: Target a dead person, you will learn their role and gain their ability as a possible action.

 

Victory Condition: Use your ability on two randomly selected roles.

 

Nephil Activist

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Visit the Fang Clan once per 24 hours with a list of actions. While there, you can do any of the following:

 

* Trade for an item for another with a Fang Clan trader. He has a randomly generated inventory of three items every day that you see.

* Hire the Nephil pathfinder for two items to learn the role of a target.

* Hire the Nephil shaman for two items to offer a blessing towards any player. The blessing gives skill of power for 24 hours.

* Hire the Nephil thief for one item. He steals a random item from a target's inventory (if any) and gives it to you.

* Hire a Nephil assassin for three items. He attacks a target of your choice. Has skill of stealth, physical attack, no immunity, and gets the first strike. If he dies, he may not be hired again.

 

The pathfinder, shaman, thief, and assassin can only be hired to do one action per day. The Fang Clan will also not accept artifacts as objects of trades.

 

Victory: The following must be dead: Gladwell, Shanker, and the Anama Priest.

 

Oliver

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None.

 

Ability: Can see the inventory of a target.

 

Victory Condition: Have at least two of three randomly chosen artifacts in your possession at the end of the game.

 

Oliver will have a shop that will be discussed in the rules. Items in your shop may not be used by you except when defending from attacks. You may move items from your inventory to your shop, but not vice versa.

 

Pure Spirit

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: Can see who the target has killed, if anyone.

 

Victory: Neither the Darkside Loyalists nor Gladwell win AND have the Holy Symbol.

 

Ronaldo

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Poison

Immune: None

 

Ability: Can identify the skill level of a target.

 

Victory: Kill three Empire citizens by your own hand. The Darkside Blademaster counts as two.

 

Sacred Item Cultist

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Magic

Immune: Poison

 

Ability: May target an item. It reveals which role (e.g. Sacred Item Cultist) has the item.

 

Victory Condition: At the end of the game, have at least two of three randomly chosen artifacts in your possession.

 

Shanker

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Magic

Immune: Physical

 

Ability: May target one person per day. This person is protected by magical wards from being attacked for 24 hours.

 

Victory Condition: Neither Gladwell nor the Anama Priest win.

 

Since you are a mage, you are automatically enemies with anyone in the Anama. Unless there is another reason, you are NOT an enemy with Gladwell or his servants.

 

Skribbane Addict

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Can detect if a target has skribbane. If you attack someone with skribbane, your skill level is power for the battle duration and you normally get the first strike. You are immune to Skribbane Withdrawal.

 

If you do not use Skribbane at least three days from your last use or the start of the game, you die.

 

Victory: Use Skribbane at least twice. You must also survive until the end of the game, so time your usage wisely.

 

Vahkos

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Power

Attack: Physical or Magic

Immune: Poison

 

Ability: You always get the first strike and may choose whether your attack is magic or physical. You may not use or equip items or artifacts, nor may derive any benefits from having them in your inventory.

 

Victory: You are the only survivor at the end of the game.

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Some of the roles havn't been tested yet. Vahkos in particular may turn out to have significant problems.

 

EDIT: I noticed this in the Machrone role 'In the event, any submission is wrong, you will gain an added victory condition.' Are you sure it's a good idea to have the moderator effecitvely confiring (or denying) two roles to the Machrone each day?

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Good point. I would consider something else, but I want to make sure it is always possible, from a rules standpoint, for every role to win at any time. The other extreme is to just kill off Machrone for being wrong, but for some reason I do not find this particularly satisfying. If you have other ideas, please let me know.

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I like it. Machrone will have a set of victory conditions ranked from 1-14, if he gets something wrong, I will activate them without telling him. It is up to Machrone to figure out that he needs to satisfy them. Thoughts?

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After a bit of thought, I came up with an idea that should help, but isn't perfect.

Each time that the Machrone submits roles, the moderator only tells him if they were all correct or not (and gives one extra condition if they aren't). This means he can't know which of the two roles is wrong, or if they are both wrong.

 

I quite like Sarachims suggestion however. As the game progresses the Machrone should be able to get a good idea how many of his claims were wrong, and how many extra contitions he needs to fulfil.

 

EDIT: Just how difficult will these extra conditions be? Will they be things like 'collect artifact X', or 'Role X must die by your hand'?

Pesonally, I think the extra conditions should start out fairly simple (e.g. you must have at least one item in your possesion at the end of the game), but get more severe as he gets more roles wrong. I also suggest that you steer clear of conditions that require the death of other roles, since they may already be dead by the time the conditions activate.

 

Maybe you could replace replace the Machrone's polling abilities (I only used them once last game, and they told me something I already knew) with something that he can do to fulfil his extra victory conditions. Examine body perhaps? (get the role of a dead player)

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Here is what I think I will do unless there are major objections or a significantly better idea. Every day, the moderator reveals an additional victory condition for that day. If he gets either one (or both) of his submissions wrong on that day, he will require that condition to be done. If Machrone gets both right, the victory condition is not required.

 

My reasoning for this is because of hidden roles, I don't think everything should be revealed all at once. Also, I do think having 14 of them gets a bit unwieldy for both him and the moderator to handle.

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He submits two per day. If on the first day, he gets only one of them right, he must do the condition for day one. If he gets both wrong, he must do the condition for day one as well -- no extra penalty for getting both wrong.

 

I would prefer to reveal the victory conditions after the day, but there is an inherent problem on the last day of the game where the victory condition is essentially blind.

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Actually I meant if he gets both roles right the first time he submits, but on the second day he gets one of them wrong. By this time he should have been given two victory conditions. which of them should he try to fulfil? Does it matter which one?

 

If you wanted to reveal the victory condition later, you could simply make it that conditions that have not been revealed do not need to be fulfilled.

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All right, I misunderstood. The way I have it now, it would be the one on the second day. To rephrase:

 

Every day, the moderator reveals an additional victory condition. If he gets either one (or both) of his submissions wrong that day, he will need to satisfy the victory condition revealed on that day. If Machrone gets both right, the victory condition of the day is not required.

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May I suggest something? I think the Machrone role adds very little to the game and all these complicated workarounds to try and improve it are pointless. Everyone playing already has a very large motivation to try and learn everyone's roles, and to win, it's basically necessary to do so. The only thing making him special is that he doesn't want anybody dead and only one person wants him dead. I don't see what a character like that adds, to be honest. I'd prefer to see it scrapped for a more interesting role.

 

As a side note, I think Domont's secondary ability (finding out what role did) could be scrapped or given to another character. Just because he's contacted all DLs doesn't mean he couldn't use the keyword to find other particular roles he would like to form alliances with. I would think that would be a more interesting and useful ability, without overpowering him.

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Gladwell is not the go out and kill type. He cannot attack anyone directly, including Aimee.

 

Vahkos was only ever immune to poison. His strength was the first strike, which makes him effectively immune to a lot.

 

Machrone. Taking him out was my first instinct. However, I would like to test him in the next round and see how it works out. If it is clear that it does not, I think we should either take him out or make him optional. Which brings up the point: who to replace him with? I contend a randomly selected role.

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To use another role from the list, I would like the Fae as a regular cast member. Alternatively, invent a new role. As I mentioned once before I like the idea of a Pacifist. No attack, and cannot use items that kill. No inherent enemies, but as he will not defend himself, people can kill him easily if they want. His ability is to prevent a target from attacking or being attacked for 24 hours. His win condition is for 9 people to survive. He also fills the Machrone's spot in the original list as a kind of harmless non-aggressor, but while giving him a much more interesting job.

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Honestly, I do not think the pacifist would be all that fun to play. The problem I have is what happens if too many people die right away? Then the person may as well leave. I am willing to consider it, but I would like to see a more robust development of this character.

 

As I said, I think keeping Machrone in the set of roles (if not being optional) is a good thing for the time being.

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When rules get a little more settled, I was going to make a histogram of how well roles performed. The one that stands out is the Empire Spy. It is a tough one to play, but I would like to collect more data before modifying it too much.

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Yes, early bloodbaths happen. But they do not take out 8 people. That doesn't happen until very close to the end - usually 5-7 are left alive at game's end. So it seems to me that even if the Pacifist gets into a situation where the game is unwinnable for him (which can also happen to other characters), it won't be until the game is nearly over anyway.

 

Add to that the fact that the Pacifist is the definition of harmless. He can announce his role safely, and everyone can tell him theirs safely (except a couple who need to kill a lot of people). This means he gains a lot of information quickly and in a game like this, knowledge is power. Plus the tactical decisions he'll have to make. Does he allow a character to die for the sake of less violence later, or does he trust his scheming to keep a lid on the murderfest while keeping dangerous roles alive? Even if he doesn't win - and he'll probably lose a lot more than Machrone does - I think he'd be tremendously fun to play.

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For a replacement role, I have a couple ideas.

 

Rakshasa

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Power (Or maybe Stealth?)

Attack: Magic

Immune: Magic

Mage

 

Ability: Can cast an illusion on one player, making him appear to be someone else. All actions and item uses aimed at the target for the next 24 hours get redirected to the person the Rakshasa specifies. Note that this does not interfere with a person using an item/ability on himself, and that the Rakshasa cannot select himself as a target.

 

Victory Condition: All faction members (Anama, Darksiders, Gladwell and Servants) dead by any means necessary.

 

Beastmaster

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immunity: None

 

Ability: Gains one beast per day. If attacked while in the possession of at least one beast, the beast will absorb the attack instead.

 

Once per day, you may do one of the following: (1) Defend a specified player, or (2) Attack a person with a beast.

 

Each beast has a skill of Standard and an attack of Poison. When defending, the beast will follow the same first-strike rules as the player they're defending (e.g. If the player would have gotten first strike, the beast will). When attacking, the beasts will get first-strike unless a pre-existing effect dictates otherwise (e.g. Skribbane usage, Vahkohs' permanent first-strike).

 

Victory Condition: Have four beasts alive by the end of the game.

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I'm not sure I agree, Ash. For one thing, every role has some enemies, even if they're only the Infiltrator, Ronaldo, or Aimee. The Pacifist would also be a high-priority target for Vahkos. It's safer for him to reveal his role than most, but not completely safe. Even if it were, nobody could be sure that he was telling the truth, or that they could safely reveal their own role to him.

 

Furthermore, I fear that a player with this role could wind up unable to win no matter how well he plays. Several players set out to kill a target per day, and he can only stop one. If he sticks with one target day after day, all the others will die; if he changes, then the original protection could be wasted. All roles lack the power to completely ensure their victory, but the Pacifist as described seems more helpless than most.

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Sure, but none of those are even guaranteed to exist, nor have they been playtested. Further, if the Pacifist is an Avernite, then there's only the Infiltrator as a possible worry. He's a lot safer than Machrone.

 

As for Vahkos, well, it's true that V's prescence essentially screws the Pacifist over completely (either through killing him early or by killing way too many people), but he's going to screw a lot of people over. I'm willing to put up with it.

 

Yeah, there's a real limit on how much carnage he can prevent, but keep in mind that up to 7 people can die and he still wins. 7 is not an abnormal number to remain alive normally. He just needs to save two more. We could lower the number to 8 to start off though, and put it up if it turns out to be too easy.

 

Finally, the Pacifist's real tool is his ability to form alliances with most roles. If people have a guaranteed character interested in keeping them alive, they may well be less likely to give out info on themselves to others, which genuinely could affect the number of kills. But we won't know for sure unless it's given a try.

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The problem is that the reason we normally have 5-7 winners is that that's near the maximum number of people who can all win simultaneously. Until all surviving roles can coexist peacefully, the number of players alive will decrease. The Pacifist can delay the gradual march toward this equilibrium, but he'd have to do it for seven days, and so far our games have only lasted three or four. On day five, can he really keep everyone alive, when they all know each others' roles?

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*i and I had a new idea for Machrone:

 

Instead of identifying roles, he gets given a set of random questions (say, 10) at the beginning of the game. Questions could involve roles, factions, artifacts, actions, or pretty much anything else that makes sense. To win the game, he must answer a certain number (say, 7) correctly. Every day, he must answer at least one, and if he gets one wrong, the number he must answer goes up. He can change his answers later, and the number he must answer never exceeds the number of possible questions. Right or wrong, the question and the answer get posted publicly.

 

I think this makes Machrone much more interesting, both to his player and everyone else. Thoughts?

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Also, I may give out three new questions per day to reflect the days event.

 

Examples of questions:

 

Who is the Anama Priest?

Who initially had the Fury Crossbow?

What is the role of the first person killed?

Who killed the Stareye?

What is one of the artifacts Gladwell needs to collect?

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What about a ghost or spirit type character?

 

Vengeful Spirit

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: Physical & Poison

 

Ability: Target a person to take possession of them for 24 hours, or until voluntarily leaving using an action. Taking Possession involves attacking the person. If successful, instead of killing the person, they are possessed, and the Spirit gets another action for the day. While possessing a person, the spirit can use that characters abilities or attack another person with the possessee's attack. The Possessee will not know they are possessed until it becomes obvious to them when they are used by the spirit.

 

Victory: To get revenge against(kill) two randomly selected targets.

 

 

Basically the Spirit cannot kill anyone by himself, so he has to possess others to do his work. Possibly make it so the Spirit can only attack with a possessed person, using the abilties may make it to powerful, because it would confirm, for the Spirit, the persons role that they possessed.

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All right, for new roles, items, and rules, please direct them to the new ideas thread I made. I cleaned up the rules thread since a lot of the discussion there was stale and not applicable to the current set of rules. smile

 

For Round 5, I am not going to add any new roles or much else just yet because I want to test our existing set. The reason is I want to keep changes incremental from game to game so I can more easily evaluate what works and what does not. Changing too much all at once introduces too many variables and it becomes hard to identify what worked and what did not.

 

As for the pacifist, I am not opposed so long as the role always, from a rules point of view, offers the player a chance to win. This will be an absolute requirement to any role I add.

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