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Keep it as is

3 (12%)

Change it to a full Jester, with game-end on win

1 (4%)

Change it to a full Jester, but without game-end on win

5 (20%)

Change it to a full Jester, with game-end on win AFTER day 3

3 (12%)

Change it to a Jester with the loss of the Next Day phase

4 (16%)

Remove it entirely

9 (36%)

Other (explain)

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 25

[webadict]

How is a Field Tester Scum Scientist overpowered? If they give away inspects and protects to their team, they can be found out, plus the team gains nothing really. That's like saying a roleblocker is stupidly powerful because they always hit someone not on their team. Sure, they're more powerful, but they aren't ovepowered. They're like... Twice as powerful as their Town counterpart. No big deal.

As for abductions... Nah. Since there are things like the Exty kill, it's not that big of a deal to keep it like that. However, Dariush's Stasis Field is interesting, if you want. Having the ability to hide behind human roles is the key, not more Alien roles.

And the SS acts more like a survivor town, in that they win with the town if one survives. I think it's fine to have town friendly aliens to pretend to be.

What I'm trying to say here is that the Scientist I described isn't stupidly powerful as scum. It would be if he gave away kills, but he wouldn't. He'd give away trackers or inspections or a one-shot tech block shield or something random. The best part about it is that you literally can pick almost any ability to give away, and he'd still be pretty balanced for both sides (excluding kills).

The abduction thing just artificially extends the game for no reason. Do you really want that? Because, honestly, having human counterparts to alien roles is what Aliens want. They don't want Alien counterparts. This makes scum have claim options, aliens have claim options, and even humans have claim options.

[Mephansteras]

Hmm...I think I see where you're going with that. I'll need to ponder the effects of different techs, though, to figure out the balance.

Field Tester is probably not going in this game because of that.

So I'll leave Field Tester/Tech Thief out for this next game.

SS I'm still on the fence about. I like the idea of having roles with different win conditions than simply Kill/Survive, but it's a bit harder to balance and still be interesting for both the person who has that role and the rest of the players.

[webadict]

Hmm...I think I see where you're going with that. I'll need to ponder the effects of different techs, though, to figure out the balance.

Field Tester is probably not going in this game because of that.

So I'll leave Field Tester/Tech Thief out for this next game.

SS I'm still on the fence about. I like the idea of having roles with different win conditions than simply Kill/Survive, but it's a bit harder to balance and still be interesting for both the person who has that role and the rest of the players.

Playing something Jestery isn't really all that fun for everyone else. Look at the current list of alignments I made, and try to work on that. You could switch Spore Spreader to be something Martyr-like. That makes it so he has to play town-like, which is good for a game, but he doesn't have the survive part of his alignment.

[Mephansteras]

Martyr could work. Haven't figured out a good thematic justification for one yet, though.

[Dariush]

Only in close quarters will he be able to ensure that enough spores get inside the enemy for infection. Infection has no game effect. If he doesn't infect anyone, his mission on Earth was a failure. Also, I would suggest making him able to visit people to trigger sentries and war vets. (though sentries would obviously make him lose)

[Bookthras]

Coming a bit late to this discussion. A couple of thoughts and questions:

   Deadman Bomb becomes Hold-out Blaster: If the Alien is lynched, he pulls out the blaster and gets to shoot a single target before dying. If he is night-killed, he gets a shot off on his attacker (although he still suffers the effect of the attack). This is a one-shot item.

Do I read this right as the kill being directed if lynched? That is, the alien can choose who dies with them, not the person who last voted them?

If this is the case, then I am in favour of this. It removes the randomness, and while it does nerf the bomb a bit, it's still more powerful than the (still random) Werewolf Leader lynch action on Supernatural. The downside is that it no longer lets the Exty win in a 2-vs-1 scenario -- I would miss that, but it's an acceptable compromise.

Body Double gets a nerf: [saves your life on lynch only]

Good, I am also in favour of this. Hopefully it gives other tech choices more action as well.

  Spore Spreader [...]

I voted "Remove it entirely" on the poll, based on the lack of consensus, on the fact that I agree a game-ending jester is a terrible idea, and the other poll options were not much better. I'm also not a fan of the Martyr thought.

What I liked the most about the Spore Spreaders was the multi-generation thing. I think any change that removes their ability to make more Spore Spreaders is ultimately scrapping the role and coming up with some unrelated new role (whether the same name is shoe-horned into it or not).

The big problems with the infection mechanism were a) dopps/aliens are immune; and b) SS wins with town, so can just play survivor. So:

Dopps being immune is mandatory, of course, but how about making aliens susceptible? would give them a bit more play, yes? For the other, how about making them win only if last surviving or with an alien win? That way town and dopps must kill them, Survivors, XenoZoos, Hiveminds should be careful or be infected (but still win with them if so), Agent-Ops could be converted and maybe give up their agent. The SSs still have no defence against dopps, though (but that could be a good thing). For the Exty, two choices: a) could win with them if all non-SS players are dead; this would make an Exty win easier; or b) must kill all SSs to win, if so should also be immune to them (otherwise can't kill them without tech).

Harvester
    Race: Alien
    Goal: Kill/Find
    Rules: The Harvester is collecting things for its own purposes. There are three different types of Harvesters
      Organ Harvester - The Abducted player is killed.
      Mind Stealer - Copies the Role from the Abducted player for the following day/night as well as the Win Condition of that player until a new one is acquired. The abducted player reverts to a vanilla role for the rest of the game(Aliens will all become survivors). If the Mind Stealer doesn't have any other goal, then it is a Survivor.
      Tech Thief - Needs to steal X amount of tech. Like the Xenozoologist, but tech based rather than Player type based.

I like the Organ Harvester, looking forward to seeing it, but dislike the Tech Thief (or tech giver alternative). wuba's comments notwithstanding, I think it would lower the general value of tech and mess up the strategies and balance too much.

The Mind Stealer, I'm also not a fan of. Especially the win-condition stealing thing. See this post I made earlier about it:

The mind stealer sounds off... he'd need to abduct N1 to gain a role, use the role N2, abduct again N3, use the new role N4... his win condition would change every time, hard to make a consistent strategy. What if he abducts a dopp? Can he dopkill? Or a Xeno?

On top of that, I dislike the idea of turning other players into powerless townies. Having a role and a strategy to use it is a great part of what makes paranormal fun. The emasculation of a player could be even more frustrating than being killed. Several roles turn into townies after your one-shot wonder is used, or you could roll vanilla at the start, but at least you know that D1 instead of it being inflicted upon you.

Really, not a fan of the Mind Stealer. Wouldn't mind if you gave it a miss.

[Leafsnail]

I kindof disagree on the mindstealer - the problem is that it's overpowered.  It has an action that can perfectly identify a player's alignment and role, and can switch to town whenever it likes to use that information to win.  Or if it fails to win as town it can just grab a dopp again.

[Mephansteras]

Of course, any time it switches it runs the risk of being hit by a War Vet/Sentry Bot. Plus, switching too much is going to weaken the team that the Mind Stealer is on. And it's not like the Mind Stealer has any special ability to know who to target ahead of time, which means unless he gets really, really lucky he's as likely to hit town when he means to hit dopp or vice versa.

That's somewhat dependent on the player, of course.

But even assuming the player makes perfect alignment choices, let's look at two scenarios:

1) The MS hits town first. This makes the MS town and converts the other player to Vanilla (who's also gone for a day). Town is now weaker. The MS now manages to nab a Dopp and switches sides. The dopp is weaker, but not as weak as a VT, and also can't be lynched until at least day 4. Which also relies on the MS becoming town again, and making the town even weaker, since you're in a situation where the dopp is known but a Town player is out and can't vote (plus the loss of any powers that townie had). Once he reveals himself, he's a ripe target for being killed off. While this is powerful, I just don't see how it's more powerful than an Agent or other inspection role. Yes, it's perfect knowledge, but at a cost.

2) The MS hits Dopp first. This makes the MS Dopp and converts the other player to basic dopp (also, gone for a day). Dopps are weaker and since the MS doesn't get the Dopp Chat he only gains info on the other dopps if his captive tells him. Of course, that's risky for the dopps since the MS could turn on them at any point, and even if he never turns again he's a Dopp ally without any abilities. The dopps could confide in him and plan with him, but they're risking exposing their team to someone who could flip town on any given night and blow open the scum team. So any reasonably cautious scum team will, at most, speak to the MS through whomever his first captive was (and the MS has to expose himself to the dopps in the process). The MS could flip to town and then try to grab another dopp, but that's not too likely unless the dopps let him.


Hmm...only real question I see is what to weight him as. Pro-town, I think, since dopps can't afford to let him flip them too much and have no reason to really trust him.

I do think I need to give him a rule where he can't Abduct the same person twice, since that's an obvious loophole that keeps the team weakening under control.

[Leafsnail]

That does make sense.  I'm not sure if I'd weight it pro-town though, since there's a good chance of him hooking up with the scumteam, and that could allow the scumteam to win at what would otherwise be mylo.

[webadict]

I like the Organ Harvester, looking forward to seeing it, but dislike the Tech Thief (or tech giver alternative). wuba's comments notwithstanding, I think it would lower the general value of tech and mess up the strategies and balance too much.

I think Tech SHIELD is highly undervalued right now because of the lack of actual Tech. It protects from Aliens and that's about it. You might get lucky with a Scientist, but if you add a bit more Tech, Tech Shields can become a worthwhile investment. Something a scum Scientist could switch out for, for instance. No default Mind Shield on Exty. Just putting that out there.

[Mephansteras]

Minor note on that: The Exterminator gets a free Mind Shield or Anti-Tech Barrier. Various people have taken both options, although I do see Mind Shield taken a bit more often.

[Leafsnail]

The main thing is that the Mind Shield stops two common and major threats - the Telepath and the Warden.  The tech shield does have a few uses (against int scientists, assassin bots and the occcasional rival alien) but those uses seem rare compared to the roles that are essentially the town's bread and butter.

It's probably partly that extys usually have more to fear from the town and dopps than they do from other aliens (they already are the guy with the most tech afterall).

[webadict]

The main thing is that the Mind Shield stops two common and major threats - the Telepath and the Warden.  The tech shield does have a few uses (against int scientists, assassin bots and the occcasional rival alien) but those uses seem rare compared to the roles that are essentially the town's bread and butter.

It's probably partly that extys usually have more to fear from the town and dopps than they do from other aliens (they already are the guy with the most tech afterall).

Exactly. I feel like it's undervalued, and it definitely has a place in the game.

[Captain Ford]

I read part of the discussion about the Spore Spreader and wanted to add my own idea to the mix:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Anyone who visits the SS becomes infected with spores.
The SS can also visit one person per night to infect them.
If lynched, the SS can infect one person who voted for them, but this reveals that he was a spore spreader. Otherwise, this status is not revealed when the SS dies.

The SS has a vague awareness of the actions taken by anyone it has infected. Each night, it learns the 'goal' of each of its infected, as if by a telepath's read, as well as the target(s) of their night action.
The SS can exert some control over the ones it has infected. Once per infected individual, the SS can control their vote (or maybe a night action target), as if using a mind-control device. Using this ability clears the infection on the individual, and they cannot be infected again during the game. The SS can use this ability even when dead.

The SS wins if at least half of the winning individuals in the game are infected at the time the game ends. (Losing players don't count, and neither does the SS). The SS does not need to survive to win.
The SS wins and the game ends if at any time all of the other players are infected.

I'm not sure how well it fits your original concept of the Spore Spreader, but I tried coming up with something different from what's already in the game, that didn't inflict a penalty on the town for using their lynch, and made for a relatively balanced third party.

It would work well to add or modify tech/role options to add ways to detect and clear infections. Perhaps the scanner/telepath could reveal infections?

[Dariush]

Way too overpowered. Cut out or at least nerf (to one maximum person per night) the goal learning (which basically makes your version a confirmable omnipotent cop who can hang anybody by the balls and has no loyalties to anyone) and you have a workable role.

Meph, so what are you going to do with the SS?