Sarachim

Keep in mind, Skribbane is very powerful. First strike is hard to get, and Skribbane gives it to you even when defending. Power skill not only enables you to attack anyone, but also makes you immune to the attacks of many other roles. It's appropriate that it should carry an equally heavy penalty.

*i specified when other abilities are once per day or once per game, so I assume Fae can change identities as often as she wants.

Several roles have abilities that involve gaining coins.

I've given this a little thought, and I have some comments: The Pure Spirit has an pretty ambitious win conditions and pretty weak abilities. Worse, the two are only weakly connected, so the PS can't do much to help himself. It's not a hopeless role, but it seems too weak to me. I like that you've made it easier for the Anama to cooperate with others, but I think you've gone too far with it. They have two mortal enemies among the random roles, one of whom is Vahkos, and a wide variety of possible but unlikely enemies, and of course they could be random targets. Furthermore, joining the Anama has very little downside, as the only enemy you'd gain in the Hunter, who probably won't even exist. That's a small price to pay for magic immunity and a group of steadfast allies. Unless they're horribly unlucky or play like morons, I just don't see how the Anama can lose. Shanker's win condition is ambiguous in some cases. For instance, if she and the Alchemist are the last two players alive, then if she loses the Alchemist loses, which means that she wins, which means the Alchemist wins, which means she loses, etc. Do paradoxes like that count as "not certain" for the purpose of satisfying her win condition?

For some items, you did not specify whether or not using them counts as an ability use. Excluding ones where your intent seems obvious, you did not specify this for the Chitrach Eggs, Infiltrator Cloak, Poison Potion, or Razordisk. Which is it? Also, what is the significance of "offensive use?"

IIRC, when I did this fight I had a clawbug to block the door, and two cryoas backing it up. The key was to block the door just right, so that only one enemy could attack in melee at a time.

If you only need to use the symbol to get this benefit, what's to stop allies from passing it from one to another?

Also, does Vahkos need rebalancing in light of the fact that the game now only lasts five days? Instead of getting six kills and indirectly causing nine, he can now get four and must cause 11.

The problem I see there is that Oliver has no reason to sell an item for less than its value plus 6, so for the lowest-value items the mod shop is actually a better deal. Oliver is more competitive the more expensive an item is, but still has very little room to turn a profit. Creative play possibilities like starting a bidding war over the game's only Wand of Death are substantially reduced, and his advantage in prices is undermined by the fact that he is less safe to deal with and could be Fae.

I don't think anybody I was talking to ever explicitly confirmed it, but you did know that PGLB was Gladwell, which we knew but didn't publicize much. Plus, almost nobody died that we couldn't account for, which wouldn't make sense if Vahkos was in the game. You do have a point, though, we could probably have been more careful.

Huh, so you were close to victory. And the whole game, I was wondering what was going on, because you didn't seem to be doing anything.

Xelgion, who were your random targets?

Well, having Mickelbur means that an alliance based around the Anama can't work with any mages, reducing all of their options.

Clarification: does that mean that Mickelbur needs to get and keep the Holy Symbol, or just get it and use it?

Nioca: Sorry about the backstabbing. I only do that when I have to to help one of the allies I already have. If by pure chance I investigated you first, we probably would have gone out and destroyed the Anama together. As for the spectator thing, well, there are several roles that have a limited capacity to directly affect the game. Shanker come to mind. The key is finding allies who you can work with in a support role. Aimee is blessed in that department, because she has lots of potential allies and very few enemies.

What if the Pacifist had three randomly-chosen roles that had to survive the game? I guess there could be a wide variation in difficulty depending which roles got chosen, but on the whole it still seems reasonable.

Regarding the Demon: He has a magic attack, he can't use items, and he has to wipe out the Anama.

We don't want to make this too complicated. *i is only human.

Hmm. Now that's interesting. I'm not sure it's balanced, but if it were I'd be for it.

The Guard Captain's special ability sounds fun, but possibly overpowered. He'll have the Adventurer on Day 1, for one thing, which means the Adventurer is doomed (if the game has one). His victory condition is appropriately ambitious for such a powerful ability, but a bit unoriginal. Lots of roles already need those targets dead. The Mad Monk, I don't like so much. Five "kill by your own hand" requirements is completely unacceptable- the game could easily be unwinnable on day 1. And, again, we already have lots of death-oriented victory conditions. Wow, all that was a lot more critical than I planned. I guess it's only fair that I think of something myself: Channeler Nationality: Whichever Skill: Standard Attack: Magic Immunity: None Ability: Dead players are allowed to speak freely with the Channeler. Apart from this, they are still asked not to influence the game in any way. Goal: I'm not sure about this part yet, to be honest. I'm trying to think of a good win condition to go with the ability, because I like the ability so much. Any ideas? EDIT re Vahkos: Part of his job is to prevent that. If I were Vahkos, I'd be looking for potential alliances like that and trying to take out a critical member of them, so that the survivors have to resort to a plan B in which they have to keep killing. It's challenging, sure, but the role was designed to be.

*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?

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?

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.

Ash makes a good point. I think our latest Machrone is the best and most interactive Machrone yet, but we shouldn't be married to the role. Of course, to scrap it, we need something to replace it with. Anyone have an idea?

Here's an idea: give Machrone his random conditions at the start of the game, in order of priority, then don't tell him when he gets a role wrong.