TWG CXXII Host Marching Bands

[BlackDragonSlayer]

Everyone, get ready to march into the latest edition of TWG host sign-ups!!! Games should be built around a maximum of 8 players, as per the most recent activity poll. Poll will go up end of day Sunday March 24th.

Hosts:
1. mastersuperfan
2. TheZeldaPianist275
3.
...

[SpecsFlyer17]

April Fools Challenge

1. Mute Wolf
2. Mute Wolf

3. Mute Human
4. Mute Human
5. Mute Human
6. Mute Human
7. Mute Human
8. Mute Human

Nightless game.

Mute players cannot talk in the thread nor in PMs.
Mute players can vote by PMing the host their choice.

Humans win when wolfs are eliminated.
Wolfs win at parity.

[BlackDragonSlayer]

April Fools Challenge

1. Mute Wolf
2. Mute Wolf

3. Mute Human
4. Mute Human
5. Mute Human
6. Mute Human
7. Mute Human
8. Mute Human

Nightless game.

Mute players cannot talk in the thread nor in PMs.
Mute players can vote by PMing the host their choice.

Humans win when wolfs are eliminated.
Wolfs win at parity.

...what

[mastersuperfan]

TWG: Parasite

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: CLASSIFIED REPORT

The lockdown days are not over. A new species of brain-consuming fungus has originated in the population. It is known to take over humans' minds and jump from host to host, evading capture and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Each night, the parasite rapidly consumes the resources of its current host to inject noxious spores into its new target, preparing them for infection. The next day, it leaps into the new target's body at sunset, and the old body is left for dead... The only way to stop this process is to either (a) kill the current host before the leap happens, or (b) kill the intended target, which leaves the parasite no choice but to go down with its current host, depleted of vital resources. By that point, it's already too late to save either one of them.

Unfortunately, the local supply of masks and protective equipment has been depleted, and our healthcare facilities are already at capacity. There's not much left we can do. It's only a matter of time until it kills everybody...

Wolves:
1. Infected Human
2. Infected Human

Humans:
3. Human
4. Human
5. Human With Avocados: If transformed, becomes an Infected Human With Avocados, a wolf role that returns healthy if checked with a Testing Kit. Role PM says they're a normal Human.
6. Human With Avocados
7. Human With Allergies: Will return infected if checked with a Testing Kit. Role PM says they're a normal Human.
8. Human With Allergies

There are no normal nightkills. Instead, each night, the wolf team chooses one living human and one living wolf. At the end of the next day:

• (1) If either the selected human or selected wolf is lynched, the other one also dies.
• (2) If both the human and wolf survive, then the parasite transfers hosts: The selected wolf dies, and the selected human transforms into an Infected Human on the wolf team.

NOTE: If the wolves achieve parity at the same time a human player transforms into a wolf, the newly transformed player does NOT win with the wolves.

All wolves (including the newly transformed player) will be notified whenever a player's role changes. Newly transformed wolves will be told the identity of their living wolf partner, if one exists.

Items: At the start of each night, two random living players are given the following item, for that night only:

• Testing Kit: During the night, privately choose one player to test. At the start of the day, get privately notified about whether that player is healthy or infected.

Night start, full OC, no cardflips, lynching is required, instas on, phantoms in play.

Wolves win at parity. Humans win when all wolves are dead.

[SpecsFlyer17]

Cool game, MSF.

(If the action is blocked by a Face Mask, this player will not die.)

I guess I'm wondering what the purpose of the Face Mask really is.

Patient Zero doesn't die until he successfully infects two humans, so him hitting a Face Mask doesn't change the game-state all that much; Patient Zero sticks around longer, but there is one less infected human.

The way the rules are written now, an infected human hitting a Face Mask also doesn't change the game-state; an infected human sticks around for another set of phases, but no new human is infected. Opposed to a new human getting infected, but the original infected human dying off.

In both cases (more apparent in the second case), the Face Mask doesn't really change the wolf-human ratio; all it does is prolong the game. Which I suppose could be slightly town-oriented, as it could allow more lynching opportunities, which is the only way for the town to win.

Having an infected human die anyway even after hitting a Face Mask would probably be too powerful, as that essentially functions as a successful lynch; a wolf dies and no one new is infected.

[mastersuperfan]

In both cases (more apparent in the second case), the Face Mask doesn't really change the wolf-human ratio; all it does is prolong the game. Which I suppose could be slightly town-oriented, as it could allow more lynching opportunities, which is the only way for the town to win.

Having an infected human die anyway even after hitting a Face Mask would probably be too powerful, as that essentially functions as a successful lynch; a wolf dies and no one new is infected.

Yeah, both of these things were on my mind. The benefit I saw was mainly having an additional lynch opportunity—plus the player who used it could claim if they so desired (although this comes with interesting consequences of potentially being converted), or otherwise push the lynch in the direction they want, knowing that they prevented a nightkill (assuming the wolves didn't abstain). Of course, such a claim could be faked.

I also just edited the game again during what I think was probably the time you were posting, to give the wolves more choice in who dies, which is probably more fun for the wolves (and also simpler)

thanks for the thoughts! will think more and refine

[BlackDragonSlayer]

Specs, for the time being I'm going to assume the game you posted was a joke and not a serious entry MSF, I'll look over your game with any comments by tomorrow when I'm (hopefully) less busy and/or tired.

[SpecsFlyer17]

Specs, for the time being I'm going to assume the game you posted was a joke and not a serious entry

Yeah, it's a joke lol

[SpecsFlyer17]

MSF, when a selected human avoids being lynched and becomes an incubating human, does the infected human die? Like it did in the last version?

Also, what is the purpose of the incubating human role? The game can't end during the night phase, so why not just make them full-blown infected upon the start of the night?

[mastersuperfan]

MSF, when a selected human avoids being lynched and becomes an incubating human, does the infected human die? Like it did in the last version?

yes

Also, what is the purpose of the incubating human role? The game can't end during the night phase, so why not just make them full-blown infected upon the start of the night?

EDIT: oh actually I remember now this was the real reason

Suppose you have one wolf (X) and two humans (A, B). Suppose that we also remove the Incubated Human step. If X targets A in the night, and claims to A about having done so, then whether wolves or town win is up to A's whims, since A can either choose to lynch X and win as town, or lynch B, transform (while X dies), and win as wolves. (The same situation happens if there are 2 wolves and 3 humans left.)

To prevent this, A shouldn't be allowed to win as a wolf in this scenario. But if B gets lynched, then it should still be a wolf win. If the lynch, X's death, and A's transformation all happen simultaneously (as I imagined it, since they would all be rolled into one phase update), then A would be the only living player left. Hence the creation of a temporary role that counted toward wolves but didn't win the wolves—it lets wolves win here without letting A win.

I guess one alternative would be to say that lynch happens end-of-day and the parasite jump happens at the beginning-of-night, so in between the two, there's a split second between the two where the wolf team achieves parity (wolf!X and human!A alive), and thus wolves win. That seems kind of weird given that both the lynch and parasite death go in the same phase update, but maybe that's clearer than having a separate role.

Basically this role exists just to handle this technicality and I'm not currently sure whether there's a better way to go about it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[SpecsFlyer17]

Okay, yeah that makes sense.

Another question. Since there can only be a maximum of two wolves alive at a given time, what is the purpose of each wolf selecting a wolf during the night phase? Wouldn't it always just be the other wolf?

And also, does a newly transformed incubating human get to pick a human to target for the next day?

[mastersuperfan]

Okay, yeah that makes sense.

Another question. Since there can only be a maximum of two wolves alive at a given time, what is the purpose of each wolf selecting a wolf during the night phase? Wouldn't it always just be the other wolf?

And also, does a newly transformed incubating human get to pick a human to target for the next day?

the wolf team collectively chooses one human and one wolf, as opposed to it being separately as in the previous iteration (I can see how the wording would be confusing, will fix) — hence why I got rid of the delay. I felt that letting the wolves choose who to sacrifice would be more fun/strategic, and it would also not require us to reason about wolves being on these 2-day cycles (which was starting to confuse me lol)

since reasoning about the Incubated Human rule is pretty nontrivial, I might also just remove it and hardcode the rule that "if wolves achieve parity after the lynch but before the parasite jump, the game ends there and the parasite jump doesn't happen"

[SpecsFlyer17]

Ah sorry, I misread it. The wolf team collectively chooses a target and wolf.

[TheZeldaPianist275]

Toby's right, it's been too long since a faction game.

TWG: Rock, Paper, Scissors

Rock
1. Rock Vigilante
2. Rock Reviver
3. Rock Nullifier

Paper
4. Paper Vigilante
5. Paper Reviver
6. Paper Nullifier

Scissors
7. Scissors Vigilante
8. Scissors Reviver
9. Scissors Nullifier

Misc.
-Order of operations: Nullify > Revive > Vigi
-For example, the following chain could exist: (paper nullifier) targets (rock nullifier) who targets (paper vigilante) who targets (scissors reviver). In this case, the paper nullifier at the top of the daisy chain would cancel out the rock nullifier, allowing the paper vigilante's kill to go through. The scissors reviver would be dead, but his revive would still go through.
-Example 2: If a nullifier and vigilante target each other, the nullifier wins out.
-Example 3: If a vigilante targets a nullifier who targeted a reviver, the nullifier dies, but because the vigi's kill does not block the power of the person he targeted, the nullify still goes through, and the revive fails. Uh oh!
-Your team wins when your people are the last ones standing.
-Night/day cycle as usual. No one is required to use their power at night, but there must always be a lynch candidate.

---

I'm open to suggestions for moving this setup around! I experimented with the idea of each team's powers only working on one of the other teams, just like rock-paper-scissors (i.e., scissors vigi could only kill paper, paper nullifier could only stop rock, etc.). I think this would be an example of overtheming a game, though--having all your powers only work situationally doesn't sound very fun to me, and it also could lead to some broken endgame scenarios where there are two teams and one has no defense against the other.

The thing that I'm most uncertain about: should the vigilante's kill also nullify the power of the person he targets, as it would in a regular game? I opted for no. The vigilante is much more powerful than the nullifier if yes (the latter blocks powers, the former blocks powers and also kills), and I'd like to avoid this. But I'm aware that's an unorthodox way of handling vigis

Also, I know the poll was for 8 people, but Math told Specs and me privately he'd play again if I host, so I don't think we'd struggle overmuch to fill this one.

[BlackDragonSlayer]

TWG: Parasite

So, if I'm understanding the mechanics correctly, it would take 4 lynches for the wolves to achieve parity assuming none of the wolves are lynched. Under this assumption, my initial inclination is that condition (1), although it does provide a super interesting dynamic to the game, is extremely unfavorable to the wolves since they both need to avoid getting lynched and having their picked human get lynched (which gets more and more difficult as the game goes on).

Again running under the assumption that there are 4 lynches until parity, I think simply giving the wolves a once-per-game nightkill instead of once-per-game skip of the infection mechanic would potentially be a good addition.