Octopus Overlords

I have never designed a Werewolf game. However, I got the idea in my head that there should be an Archer-themed game, so I thought I would try out some notions. I don't know if or when I would be able to run this.

I know nothing of WW game balance or the requirements for a good set of roles, so please take these as suggestions. Roles here are heavy on scans and protection (as fits a secret agent game), but no one is ever told the source of what protected them.

The two teams are ISIS and the Assassins.

Power note: Archer's one-time protection of Lana and Krieger's experimental drug protection cover both successful lynch votes and night time assassinations. Lana's power protects only against night assassinations. Cyril's power protects only from a lynch attempt the day after sleeping with him. The daytime protections against lynching provide some cover for Barry's cyborg resistance to lynching.

ISIS Specials:



Sterling Archer -- "Are we seriously not doing phrasing?"
The world's greatest secret agent, probably. (1) You scan a player every night, learning only their alignment. This ability is lost when the assassin Katya Kazanova is killed. (2) If you are alive, you automatically protect Lana Kane from (only) the first attempt to lynch or assassinate her. Players are told only that she was protected. (3) Rampage: after both Lana and Katya are eliminated, one lynch vote of your choice (PM the moderator) counts triple; it ignores Barry's cyborg protection if he is the lynch target.

[Votes are frozen at the moment a majority is reached, so Archer's rampage can shift the target if totals are close.]



Lana Kane -- "Since when is babysitting Archer my j -- oh my God, that's exactly my job."
Expert operative. Every night you choose a player to protect from assassination, not yourself and never the same twice in a row.



Cyril Figgis -- "Jeezy-petes!"
Comptroller and sex addict. Every night sleeps with another player (PM your choice to the moderator), never the same player twice in a row. Sleeping with a player has a 50% chance of either scanning their alignment -or- automatically protecting them from a lynch attempt the following day.



"Dr." Algernop Krieger -- "It's a proprietary blend."
Experimental drugs. During night 0, choose another player to protect. Protecting that player reveals their alignment to you, but protection persists until an attempt is made to lynch or assassinate them. They survive (players are told they were protected, but not by whom), but protection is now removed. The following night, you choose a different experimental subject.

ISIS Regulars:



Pam Poovey -- "Damn dog! That's Inappropes!"
Human Resources. You start the game with a (random) list of two other players and their alignments. One of the alignments is wrong.



Cheryl Tunt -- "You're not my supervisor!"
Big mouth. If killed, the wolves learn the special role (if any) of a random ISIS agent, living or dead.



Nikolai Jakov -- "Thirty years of my life I give to the KGB, and now this!"
Defector. You are ISIS but show up as an assassin if scanned.



Malory Archer -- "Well then you better nut up!"
No powers.



Ray Gillette -- "Dukes!"
No powers.



Woodhouse -- "I shall fetch a rug."
No powers.



Brett Bunsen -- "God damn it, [insert name of whoever shot him]!"
Bullet magnet. The first time an ISIS special is killed (either by lynching or assassination), you die instead.

Assassins:



Barry Dylan -- "Barry, does this make up for Framboise? It does, Other Barry. It sure does."
Relentless cyborg. You will survive the first lynch against you. (Players will be told that you were protected, but not by whom.) The second lynch attempt succeeds.



Katya Kazanova -- "This man, Sterling Archer, is the world's most dangerous spy. And he is the man I will marry."
Beautiful cyborg. Your death eliminates Archer's scan power.



Conway Stern -- "You, uh, see something you like?"
One step ahead. Once per game, you can declare that the night assassination will ignore all protection.



Crenshaw -- "I'm the Mole, idiot!"
Double agent. You show up as ISIS if scanned.

If you are looking for balance input....Stessier & Remus West are great people to get involved. They really tear into things. Elguapo too.

If you go with random roles then balancing becomes pure luck. When I do my BSG games I have a large list of possible characters and a lot of the good/bad roles balance each other out. If I had a A protector/Starbuck I then had a bad guy who could find the protector/Leoben. There was also Baltar/Six/Troy Foster combo. (go back and look at the roles in those BSG games for ideas) I then ran lots of if-then analysis on the roles I chose to make sure it is somewhat balanced and the majority of my games have gone down to the wire.

Archer, Lana, and either Cyril or Krieger are definitely necessary for ISIS. Archer and Cyril/Krieger provide the ability to thwart/spoil a lynch, which gives cover to Barry. For the Assassins, both Barry and Katya feel necessary. (Maybe add Conway if Krieger is included and Crenshaw if Cyril is included.)

The protection-from-lynch powers in the game are partially random in that Archer doesn't know Lana and Krieger picks his first subject blindly. Cyril can wind up accidentally protecting someone he intended to scan. None of these protectors can initially be certain that it was their protection that prevented the lynch. Krieger and Cyril will be tempted to expose themselves if they suspect that they have prevented a valuable lynch.

I don't know--that starts to sound complicated. Too much so?

For a 10-person game, I would think the following might work. How do these powers seem to stack up?

ISIS:
Archer
Lana
Cyril
Pam
Cheryl
Mallory
Ray

Assassins:
Barry
Katya
Crenshaw

I've never designed or run a WW game so I don't really know much about balancing individual roles against each other. I will say, though, that my preference is for a defined set of roles that will definitely be in the game - introducing random roles (and conversions, although that's not present here) IMO makes WW more of a crapshoot than a deductive reasoning game.

Having three protection roles in the game (Lana, Archer, and Krieger), even though two are limited, seems potentially problematic. Starting at the beginning of the game Lana knows that she's protected, so she won't protect herself. As long as Lana and Krieger don't choose the same protection target first night (which is improbable) then there will be three villagers protected on that first night (probably the second night too), at least. Which is a significant chunk of the village.

Plus there are 2.5 scanners, which seems excessive.

Also thematically I think Mallory should have a power - she's not useless.

FWIW I would suggest powers along the lines of:

Archer - survives first assassination attempt against him (since he survives so many on the show), has a "kill someone at any time during the day" one shot ability.

Lana - protector

Mallory - scanner (she has the intelligence files)

Honestly not sure what to do with Krieger. Seems like his power should be more unpredictable and dangerous. Not totally sure what to do with that - maybe take away Archer's auto-protection of Lana but give Krieger two (say) protections per game, BUT with some chance (30%? 40%?) of random side effects - something like (1) the protected player is silenced for the next day; (2) the players abilities are negated for the next day; (3) player can only post what other people post the next day (like, the robot limitation from Scoop's random powers game); (4) protection fails; etc.

IN!

Suggestion: You only need one seer so instead make Archer Friggin Unlynchable baby!

In. Need to get this one rolling before Lassr,s game.

If this is going to happen, I'll probably need to rebalance a bit. Do these roles seem too overpowered?

IN

In as long as there's only one game running at a time!

Vorret wrote:In as long as there's only one game running at a time!

Me as well.

BSG will not start until after this game finishes and I am back from Vacation. Mid-late June.

OK, if this game is next up, give me a little time to rebalance. I'm accepting criticism.

Holman wrote:OK, if this game is next up, give me a little time to rebalance. I'm accepting criticism.

Make a rule that Remus cannot be a wolf!

Holman wrote:OK, if this game is next up, give me a little time to rebalance. I'm accepting criticism.

I would suggest that you keep your first game pretty simple.
maybe 2 wolfs and 2 good specials...

say like for good 1. seer & protector or option 2- seer & shooter

for team wolf - 1. wolf seer & normal wolf? or 2. wolf seer & berserker

Newcastle wrote:say like for good 1. seer & protector or option 2- seer & shooter

for team wolf - 1. wolf seer & normal wolf? or 2. wolf seer & berserker

Yeah I would agree with this.

I'll take a little time and work on it.

In.

IN

are we seriously not doing phrasing?

Holman? Are you still alive?

I am. Sorry--I'm having a busy time.

Am I next in the queue for games? If so, I could be ready to start in just a few days.

Holman wrote:I am. Sorry--I'm having a busy time.

Am I next in the queue for games? If so, I could be ready to start in just a few days.

Yes, you are next! If you are too busy, someone else can run something (ME). I dont mind running something plain and vanilla ish. let me know. I have the time and inclination.

Newcastle wrote:

Holman wrote:I am. Sorry--I'm having a busy time.

Am I next in the queue for games? If so, I could be ready to start in just a few days.

Yes, you are next! If you are too busy, someone else can run something (ME). I dont mind running something plain and vanilla ish. let me know. I have the time and inclination.

Would this be the grumpy Newcastle WW game? Lol


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Scoop20906 wrote:

Newcastle wrote:

Holman wrote:I am. Sorry--I'm having a busy time.

Am I next in the queue for games? If so, I could be ready to start in just a few days.

Yes, you are next! If you are too busy, someone else can run something (ME). I dont mind running something plain and vanilla ish. let me know. I have the time and inclination.

Would this be the grumpy Newcastle WW game? Lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am all about the love now scoop. All over the love. No grumpiness anywhere. In fact in my game grumpiness shall be banished. It shall be none. It will be alll about unicorns, rainbows and singing fishes. Yes welcome to my delusional world!

Newcastle wrote:

Scoop20906 wrote:

Newcastle wrote:

Holman wrote:I am. Sorry--I'm having a busy time.

Am I next in the queue for games? If so, I could be ready to start in just a few days.

Yes, you are next! If you are too busy, someone else can run something (ME). I dont mind running something plain and vanilla ish. let me know. I have the time and inclination.

Would this be the grumpy Newcastle WW game? Lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am all about the love now scoop. All over the love. No grumpiness anywhere. In fact in my game grumpiness shall be banished. It shall be none. It will be alll about unicorns, rainbows and singing fishes. Yes welcome to my delusional world!

Can we have 1 grumpy unicorn just to keep it interesting?

bb2112 wrote:

Newcastle wrote:

Scoop20906 wrote:

Newcastle wrote:

Holman wrote:I am. Sorry--I'm having a busy time.

Am I next in the queue for games? If so, I could be ready to start in just a few days.

Yes, you are next! If you are too busy, someone else can run something (ME). I dont mind running something plain and vanilla ish. let me know. I have the time and inclination.

Would this be the grumpy Newcastle WW game? Lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am all about the love now scoop. All over the love. No grumpiness anywhere. In fact in my game grumpiness shall be banished. It shall be none. It will be alll about unicorns, rainbows and singing fishes. Yes welcome to my delusional world!

Can we have 1 grumpy unicorn just to keep it interesting?

Singing fishes aint good enough for you? Geez tough crowd!

HEY ALL!

Look for some revised rules in 48 hours or so. I believe this is the next game up.

Now, the big question: when would you all like to start? Is this weekend good?

Holman wrote:HEY ALL!

Look for some revised rules in 48 hours or so. I believe this is the next game up.

Now, the big question: when would you all like to start? Is this weekend good?

Weekends are bad, Holiday weekends are worse, but if there are no time limits I am game to start before the weekend.

Well I've just learned that I'm going to be out of town Saturday to Monday...

More updates to come.

When you post your final take on the rules, I will happily try to break the game for you.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Hi folks. I'm sorry I'm taking so long!

Here are my thoughts on revised powers. This is a more modest set and thus more manageable. I've toned down the major powers but kept (most of) the minor ones because they keep things interesting.

The two teams are ISIS and the Assassins. The mix below is 7 good and 3 evil. Good ratio?

Power notes: Archer's and Barry's survival power means that both will survive the first lynch or assassination against them. The first time he is lynched, Barry can claim to be Archer.

Krieger's one-time experimental drug protection, like Archer's survival power, covers both successful lynch votes and night time assassinations. This provides cover for both Archer and Barry.

ISIS:

Sterling Archer --
The world's greatest secret agent, probably. (1) You automatically survive the first attempt to lynch OR assassinate you. Players are told that you survived. (2) Rampage: if you are alive after *both* Lana and Katya are eliminated, you gain the one-time power to eliminate one player during a night turn, bypassing any protection.

Lana Kane --
Expert operative. Every night you choose a player to protect from assassination, not yourself and never the same twice in a row. Your death (with Katja's) ignites Archer's Rampage power.

Malory Archer --
Head of ISIS. Every night you scan another player's alignment. (Conway Stern, if scanned, shows as ISIS rather than an assassin.)

"Dr." Algernop Krieger --
Experimental drugs. During night 0, choose another player to protect. Protecting that player reveals their alignment to you, but protection persists until an attempt is made to lynch OR assassinate them. They survive (and players are told that they survived), but protection is now removed. This is a one-time power.

Pam Poovey --
Human Resources. You start the game with a (random) list of two other players and their alignments. One of the alignments (chosen randomly) is wrong.

Cheryl Tunt --
Big Mouth. If killed, the assassins learn the name/role of a random ISIS agent, living or dead.

Cyril Figgis --
Comptroller and sex addict. Every night (if you choose not to pass) you sleep with another player, never the same player twice. You learn nothing from this until it is Lana, at which point you learn her identity and you lose the power. If your choice is one of the assassins, they learn your identity (and thus that you are not someone better...).

Assassins:

Barry Dylan
Relentless cyborg. You will survive the first lynch against you. (Players will be told only that you survived.) The second lynch attempt succeeds.

Katya Kazanova --
Beautiful cyborg. Your death (with Lana's) ignites Archer's Rampage power.

Conway Stern --
One step ahead. You show up as ISIS if scanned by Malory.

--

I've toned things down, by I like the idea of lots of little abilities providing partial information. Is this mix still too busy? The next simplification would be just to get rid of Cyril's weak power.

What has to be done every night:
1) (Night 0 only) Krieger chooses his test subject.
2) Assassins choose their victim.
3) Lana chooses her protection.
4) Malory chooses her scan.
5) Cyril chooses his bedmate or passes.

What do people think?

Glancing at it and not thoroughly teasing out all the strands....

Seems way, way overkill on the powers for good. I can see them popping up on day 2 and basically winning the game. If this was a game of about 20-23 players, and the bad guys were sufficiently buffed, I could see it working. but with such a narrow pool of 10 players it overkill.

Think less is more; and what i mean by that...maybe 2-3 good powered; and 1-2 powered wolves. In a 10 man game probably the best numbers would be 8 good V 2 wolves.

Which powers would you eliminate?

How about this (which we'll call Take 3)?

ISIS:

Sterling Archer --
The world's greatest secret agent, probably. (1) You automatically survive the first attempt to lynch OR assassinate you. Players are told that you survived. (2) Rampage: if you are alive after *both* Lana and Katya are eliminated, you gain the one-time power to eliminate one player during a night turn, bypassing any protection.

Lana Kane --
Expert operative. Every night you choose a player to protect from assassination, not yourself and never the same twice in a row. Your death (with Katja's) ignites Archer's Rampage power.

Malory Archer --
Head of ISIS. Every night you scan another player's alignment. (Conway Stern, if scanned, shows as ISIS rather than an assassin.)

Pam Poovey --
Human Resources. You start the game with a (random) list of two other players and their alignments. One of the alignments (chosen randomly) is wrong.

Cheryl Tunt --
Big Mouth. If killed, the assassins learn the name/role of a random ISIS agent, living or dead.

"Dr." Algernop Krieger --
No power but theme.

Cyril Figgis --
No power but theme.

Other normal ISIS villagers as necessary.

Assassins:

Barry Dylan
Relentless cyborg. You will survive the first lynch against you. (Players will be told only that you survived.) The second lynch attempt succeeds.

Katya Kazanova --
Beautiful cyborg. Your death (with Lana's) ignites Archer's Rampage power.

[If there are at least 9 ISIS characters, Conway is added for a total of 12+ players.]

Conway Stern --
One step ahead. You show up as ISIS if scanned by Malory.

This looks workable. Pam's power is fairly useless and Cheryl's power helps the bad guys. It is a little more balanced. I still think overall the good guys are a little more powerful than the bad guys, but it should work well enough. I'm surprised you didn't have Christian Slater.

Yeah, this looks good (and note that the good guys have a weakness in that their protector can't self-protect). There's always the option of giving Katya a berserker power or something if people think the wolves are underpowered, I suppose.

One question - if the wolves try to night kill Archer, what exactly is the village told? Are they told "the wolves tried to kill Sterling Archer and failed" or is the village told "the wolves tried to kill El Guapo, who is Sterling Archer, and failed"? Just wondering whether that proves the Archer player to the village (especially since Barry might not be able to spoof Archer in that scenario).

bb2112 wrote:I'm surprised you didn't have Christian Slater.

"Just 'Slater!'"

I've never watched Archer and don't want to kill your theme. I'm merely looking at it from a powers standpoint.

The rule of thumb is 0.2 - 0.25 wolves per total population. So for 8-10 total players, 2 wolves is best. More wolves will decrease the chance the Villagers will win.

After that, you want to give the wolves sufficient place to hide while giving the town enough misses before losing. And you have to assume that the entire group of Good Guy Specials come out on Day 1 if it guarantees them a win. In this case, it would - you have too many powered Good roles.

So really you can only have 2 powered Good Guys and 2 Wolves (powered or otherwise) with a 9-10 player group. Archer's "Proven on Miss" capability is very powerful in this setting as is Barry's. I don't think you can keep the Rampage power unless Archer is the only powered Good Guy - which could make for an interesting game. In that case, Lana and Katya are named, but otherwise unpowered. The Good Guys are trying to lynch Katya and the Wolves are trying not to kill Lana - at least not early.