It would also combine nicely with a setting with (self)protective roles, where scum have the option to send a team of two persons to perform their one NK. Since protectors typically protect against only one attack, such a double attack would go through a protection, at the cost of both attackers leaving their DNA at the crime scene and therefore becoming detectable.

Some of that seems a bit complicated but it is interesting for sure. Your biggest mistake was to post it publicly. You should keep such roles as surprise and only balance them together with some revwiever/assmod.

Nothing good comes out of feedback from an assmod.

Actually I prefer semi-open games. How the roles work should be known. But not necessarily which roles are present in the game. Some quirks can be left as surprise, if necessary for the setting, but completely closed games are too random because players can't plan at all. So it's better if the mechanics are known.

Speaking of setups, I was toying with an idea of a "choose your own role" game, where the role pools are assigned randomly, but then each player chooses a role from their pool.

e.g. (not saying this is balanced in any way, just to show the idea)

11 players:

Town
_ Cop/Doctor/Vig
_ Cop/Doctor/Vig
_ 1 shot Cop/ 1 shot Doc / 1 shot Vig
_ Tracker/Watcher/Roleblocker
_ Vanilla
_ Vanilla
_ Vanilla
_ Miller/Beloved Princess/Hated Vanilla

Mafia
_ Goon
_ Godfather/RoleCop/1-shot-bulletproof ninja
_ Tracker/Roleblocker/1 shot strongman

What do you think? For more fun, the choice pool could be bigger than 3. Has something similar been done?

(And knowing my luck I'd still get vanilla).

That could be interesting. You'd have to be very careful about what goes in each pool though, because some choices are likely to be considered much better than others (like Cop is probably going to be chosen over Doctor).

We've had a few setups where people could bid for roles, but nothing quite like this.

On the whole I agree. Unless it's known to be a bastard mod game in advance, a design that has both sides pursuing counter-productive strategies (while amusing) is generally not going to end well unless you've carefully balanced it.

I do like the AAC concept quite a bit though, I think it opens the door to some really interesting claiming gambits, as well as some tough decisions for all factions as to what to do. And it takes some of the paranoia out of the standard role.

The DNA cop is interesting, but if you are seriously thinking that the role would pick up multiple DNA results, it should arguably pick up anyone active, not just them killers then. But if I'm following you I think the codebreaking part is a bad idea, unless you're implying the mod is doing that work.

Also, semi-useless cops aren't the worst thing in the world, as long as the overall setup is balanced around that. In some ways it's easier to plan a game around 2 weak cops than 1 strong cop, which can be super swingy if it dies early or gets a hit early. Adding a N0 action can help counteract some of that weakness as well.
Similar to Wyrm's point/question, would all pools be announced to all players in advance, or is each player picking from their pool knowing nothing about the rest of the setup? I think the picking potentially becomes problematic if it's secret, but a bit weird potentially if open.

More importantly, with those examples you could end up with a completely unbalanced game if say, town picks three cops and a tracker, and maf picks BP + strongman (i.e. functionally no roles at all), which may just not be that much fun to play.

I have a list of roles for a very peculiar setup. The gimmick is... the roles rotate every night. One of them is a forensics cop/scientist. I'm at work on my tablet so I can't access the stuff.

Maybe I'll remember when I get home.

I was thinking of both.

I was also thinking of a mechanic, where the some or all of the discarded roles are revealed. Which might shed some light on what was chosen.
(I'd choose Vig over either)...

You're right, I'd need to balance this either with shots, or maybe by having an open setup, where there are more anti-X roles than anti-Y (in the e.g. of Cop/Doctor there would be more Millers/Godfathers than Strongmen).

Yes, the codes would be generated by the mod, of course and they are only fluff. I know that MD5 is theoretically not 'safe', but I doubt anyone would invest the super-computer resources to break the encryption. Also one could use SHA3 instead. ... Or the mod just numbers the players in a random fashion and tells the cop "You found DNA number 5 on the scene" when a scene is investigated. Or "Lifthrasil has DNA number 3" when investigating a player. But I like the flavour more if the 'DNA' found looks a bit cryptic.

Getting DNA from other actions too is an interesting idea, but it would make the CSI too strong, since it would also become a Watcher in the process. Or did you mean that he gets results if more than one person visited the killed person at night? For example, if a Doctor is present and the target ist killed by a strongman, the CSI would find the DNA of both players? That would make sense, flavour-wise, and would open a false-claiming possibility for scum.

You are the Forensic Scientist!


You have two actions to perform at night.


Collect a Blood sample. You may collect a blood sample either from a crime scene (dead player) or from a player. You may only collect one sample per night. If you collect blood from a crime scene, you will collect blood from the victim and all killers. (Example - Collect: <name>)
Return to the lab for analysis. With the available samples in inventory, you may choose to do one of the following:

Analyze two samples for a match. If any DNA in the first sample matches any DNA in the second sample, you will receive a POSITIVE result. Otherwise, you will receive a NEGATIVE result. (Example - Analyze: N1 and N4)
Clean a sample - Sometimes contamination happens. You may clean a sample, removing all contamination. Unfortunately, this also removes all prior DNA from the sample: rendering it ineffective for DNA matching. (Example - Clean: N2)
Contaminate a sample - You may contaminate one sample with the contents of another sample. All DNA from the contaminating sample will appear in the contaminated sample. (Example - Contaminate N1 with N3)

I've considered a couple of different set ups that rely on rotating roles or something similar.

I quite like the idea of running two small simultaneous games that interact in some way or running a game where the dead players go on to another (connected) game.

I was wondering why would someone want to contaminate a sample, till I realized it's a rotating role. Nice.

Oh definitely. I'd be all over that Vig shot.

I know Lift has done something sort of similar in his STALKER themed games, with the roles being passed on each night. This could be interesting though, with a whole different decision making process.

I'm not sure how effective this role would be, due to economy of actions. Like, it collects a sample on the first night but can't do anything with the sample (except clean it, I guess).

Would be more interesting if the role rotation schedule was known, meaning scum can't just "lol contaminate now you can't trust any of your results".

That makes a lot more sense than what I was imagining, where the player tries mixing two samples for better odds of a positive match later.

Yes, there were pools of roles and someone who had a role could either pass it on to someone else in a controlled fashion or just release it back to the pool from which then a random role would be assigned to a random person.