Disguiser, Forger, Framer Balance Ideas

[Joacgroso]

I haven't read yet what others said, but I feel like the disguiser buff would fit the framer better, who needs to be able to fool all TIs.
I'm not sure about the forger change, seems a bit too strong, but I'll see what others have to say. I really liked the idea of forgers being able to read whispers instead of bmers, as someone else suggested in the previous thread.

[Ezradekezra]

I just thought of something that might help to eliminate the issue I brought up about a will taking too long to forge. Rather than forcing the Forger to write the will entirely within the night of the forgery, you could give them an extra notepad, which will be used as the input for the fake will. This would allow the Forger to begin writing the forged will earlier, perhaps even during the day if the Mafia is coordinated enough. The icon for it could be that of a regular will, with a bloody feather icon on top of it.

[wozearly]

Still not enough for the Framer; if it doesn't receive the ability to trick other Town Investigatives it will never be a good role. Forger change is good, though. I have no comment on the Disguiser change.

Agreed with the Framer. It needs to be able to affect every TI to be useful enough. Here are my ideas:
- Trackers see the Framed person visit a random person
- Lookouts cannot see the Framed person visit
- Psychics are guaranteed to have one of the Framed people, selected at random, appear in their evil visions (If Alice Young, Samuel Sewall, and John Hathorne are all Framed, then one of the three will be selected at random to appear in the evil vision. The actual evil still appears.)
- Spies bugging the Framed target see a random message added onto the original ones. Spies cannot see who the Framer visits.

I like the general approach to your thinking, and agree the Framer should be the core architect behind making most TIs lives a misery. To be honest, I think these changes (semi-permanent frames, framing fellow Mafia members) actually go further than people think, and a slight tweak would let the Framer sweep in most of the remaining TIs without too much difficulty.

Sheriff: semi-permanent frames is more than enough to close the current horror-show of trying to second guess who the Sheriff might check that isn't a Mafia member. Seems good to me.

Investigator: currently more of an annoyance than a disruption - in the absence of vampires, Fra/Vamp/Jest is a generic "untrustworthy, but not a priority lynch" result. If the proposed Invest change goes through, double-checking will be more painful because of the additional time delay. If Framers can target the Mafia as well, this would allow a Framer to tactically prevent an Investigator unmasking a specific target. Seems good to me.

Spy: The world's best anti-Framer role. I agree there's an argument for not allowing the Spy to see Framer visits, but although it's less critical with semi-permanent frames and the Framer being able to visit Mafia roles, as that would make it tricky for the Spy to keep track of who might or might not have been Framed, and lose their ability to be certain visited people are non-Mafia unless you're sure there's no Framer. "Schrodinger's Framer" potentially casting doubt on Spy results even if there is no Framer in the game is actually quite a nice way to undermine the Spy's existing overpowered ability. Again, all seems good to me.

Lookout: I like the concept that the Lookout is unable to see visits by a Framed target. Firstly, that's a nice ticking time bomb to plant in terms of encouraging the LO to accuse a Town member as wills are shared, working similarly to how Sheriff and Invest are disrupted. Secondly, it casts some meaningful doubt on LO wills and makes LO a more plausible role for non-Town to attempt to fake. Thirdly, it allows a Framer to shut down the lazy strategy of using a Lookout as a pseudo-TP (ie, watching a single important role so the Mafia to have to reveal the MK if they attack it) as they can simple frame the Mafia Killing role for that night. That will encourage LOs to think twice about whether that approach is worthwhile, and make LOs doing it appear less trustworthy, which again helps to make LO a more plausible role for non-Town to attempt to fake. This seems like a pretty solid change to me.

Psychic: I'd personally go with having framed people potentially roll into the evils list, rather than guaranteeing that one does. It's just simpler that way. But yes - allowing the Framer to mess with the Psychic is a good change. Very much in support of that.

Tracker: I'd personally go with the Tracker receiving no visit info if they watch a Framed person, rather than introducing a random visit - 9 times out of 10 that random visit wouldn't be inherently suspicious (ie, the target didn't die, get blackmailed, roleblocked, etc.) so it might be too easy to identify as the work of a Framer. This would also keep the explanation simple, as it mimics the Lookout effect, so...


A Framed Target:

1) Appears suspicious to the Sheriff
2) Appears as Fra/Vamp/Jester - or - Will be identified as a Framer to the Investigator (post-invest change)
3) Cannot be seen visiting by the Lookout or Tracker
4) May appear as evil in the Psychic's results

Frames stay in place until triggered by one (or more) TIs at night.
The Framer may apply a frame to anyone, including fellow Mafia members and themselves.

[Ezradekezra]

Investigator: currently more of an annoyance than a disruption - in the absence of vampires, Fra/Vamp/Jest is a generic "untrustworthy, but not a priority lynch" result. If the proposed Invest change goes through, double-checking will be more painful because of the additional time delay. If Framers can target the Mafia as well, this would allow a Framer to tactically prevent an Investigator unmasking a specific target. Seems good to me.

I'm pretty sure the Investigator change got canned, or at the very least put on hold.

Psychic: I'd personally go with having framed people potentially roll into the evils list, rather than guaranteeing that one does. It's just simpler that way. But yes - allowing the Framer to mess with the Psychic is a good change. Very much in support of that.

Are you saying that the framed person would have a chance of replacing the actual evil? I was thinking that a framed person would be guaranteed to be one of the random people added to the vision. I'm saying that the vision would be evil + framed + random, not framed + random + random.

Tracker: I'd personally go with the Tracker receiving no visit info if they watch a Framed person, rather than introducing a random visit - 9 times out of 10 that random visit wouldn't be inherently suspicious (ie, the target didn't die, get blackmailed, roleblocked, etc.) so it might be too easy to identify as the work of a Framer. This would also keep the explanation simple, as it mimics the Lookout effect, so...

This does actually make more sense.

[OreCreeper]

Also unrelated but PLEASE allow copy-pasting forged wills, I don't know if its a bug or an intended feature but you couldn't copy/paste anything into your forged will as Forger. This makes it so you have to write everything by hand which is a lot more annoying. Please allow copy-pasting into forged wills.

[JacksonVirgo]

ego

[Brilliand]

Tracker: I'd personally go with the Tracker receiving no visit info if they watch a Framed person, rather than introducing a random visit - 9 times out of 10 that random visit wouldn't be inherently suspicious (ie, the target didn't die, get blackmailed, roleblocked, etc.) so it might be too easy to identify as the work of a Framer. This would also keep the explanation simple, as it mimics the Lookout effect, so...

I favor the much older proposal of having the Lookout/Tracker see the framed person visiting the Mafia kill.

Are you saying that the framed person would have a chance of replacing the actual evil? I was thinking that a framed person would be guaranteed to be one of the random people added to the vision. I'm saying that the vision would be evil + framed + random, not framed + random + random.

The framed person needs to be able to replace the actual evil, otherwise the Psychic isn't being nerfed at all. Visions of evil+town+town are commonplace under the current system; allowing the Framer to make such a vision more likely (by guaranteeing that one particular townie appears in the vision) would change nothing.

[JacksonVirgo]

Tracker: I'd personally go with the Tracker receiving no visit info if they watch a Framed person, rather than introducing a random visit - 9 times out of 10 that random visit wouldn't be inherently suspicious (ie, the target didn't die, get blackmailed, roleblocked, etc.) so it might be too easy to identify as the work of a Framer. This would also keep the explanation simple, as it mimics the Lookout effect, so...

I favor the much older proposal of having the Lookout/Tracker see the framed person visiting the Mafia kill.

The one issue I have for the framed visiting the mafia kill is that, it would either act as an extension of clearing a scum as the framed will "visit" instead or that it will visit in addition to the mafia kill + forger/jani etc.

What I don't like about the former is that it's more or less going to clear mafia and that's not what I think "Framer" should do. The latter is also bad I feel because if a Framer is confirmed by lynching the framed + the accuser of the framed or whatnot, it can be figured out a way to go around the Lookout result. I am probably rambling on, but I feel like if it HAS to be a one target role that's probably the best we're gonna get but I prefer a two target one like my own or dragonclaws. My own preferably since it has more control in many different situations.

[JacksonVirgo]

I see some posts got deleted, probably for good reason since I read them but nonetheless I think the best proposal for Framer would be
- Make framer visits Astral and/or rework Spy to stop seeing visits passively.
- Framed targets shows as Mafia to the Sheriff (for single target) OR appear as the same alignment as the second target (for double target)
- Framed targets show as the result of the Mafia killer to Investigators OR the same results as the second target.
- Framed target is shown visiting the Mafia kill to Lookouts/Trackers OR is shown visiting the same player as the second target to LO/Trackers.
- Framed target shows as Mafia to the Psychic OR framed target shows as the alignment of the second target to the Psychic.
- Framed target shows as Framer to the Trapper OR framed target shows as the second target to a Trapper.

Whether or not you make them be able to "frame" mafia to look like town is questionable, personally I don't like that idea but that's personal.

EDIT:
The reason I favour the latter is that you can easily frame someone as being a Blackmailer if that situation arises, it's more of a frame as it's less predictable than if all frames make them appear as the killing mafia. Hope that makes sense

[Brilliand]

I really liked the idea of forgers being able to read whispers instead of bmers, as someone else suggested in the previous thread.

Oh yeah, I think that was me who mentioned that (though it didn't originate with me; unfortunately I don't recall who should get credit).

It's a GREAT buff to the Forger... that takes most of the power away from the Blackmailer. Then we have to figure out how to buff the Blackmailer, which we haven't really been discussing because Blackmailer hasn't needed it up to now. (There have been a few proposals, but those just served to show that Blackmailing itself is hard to buff.)

[wozearly]

I'm pretty sure the Investigator change got canned, or at the very least put on hold.

It's no biggie either way - Framer is more of an irritant than a trickster to the Invest under both current and new versions. It would just be slightly more influential under the proposed change, because it's more of a headache for the Invest to have to re-check someone who they think may have been framed.

Psychic: I'd personally go with having framed people potentially roll into the evils list, rather than guaranteeing that one does. It's just simpler that way. But yes - allowing the Framer to mess with the Psychic is a good change. Very much in support of that.

Are you saying that the framed person would have a chance of replacing the actual evil? I was thinking that a framed person would be guaranteed to be one of the random people added to the vision. I'm saying that the vision would be evil + framed + random, not framed + random + random.

Yes, the possibility of framed + random + random is what I was proposing. Essentially, allowing framed targets to be picked for the guaranteed evil slot - the other two are already essentially random picks, and so may or may not include additional evils. This would trigger the frame being used against the Psychic, as opposed to being triggered simply by turning up in the Psychic's results under the random slot.

Brilliand made the same point, but to repeat - basically, the problem with evil + framed + random is that's functionally no different from evil + random + random, unless you were to keep re-framing the same person to get them to appear multiple times. I presume that's where you were coming from with having a guaranteed framed result in the randoms, but that's a lot of effort for the Framer and forces you to sit on one person to trick a Psychic - which is the exact opposite of what you want to do versus all other TIs. It would also mean the Psychic would continually be wiping out the frames for no real deceptive value - you'd be better off not bothering.

Allowing the Framer to have the chance (but not a guarantee) to torpedo a psychic's evil results creates the risk of mislynching and/or undermining the Psychic's claim - which is pretty much how Framer functions versus all of the other TIs.

[Ezradekezra]

- Framed targets show as the result of the Mafia killer to Investigators OR the same results as the second target.

I'm not sure I like framed people showing up as the current MK for two reasons. One, wouldn't that out which MK the Mafia has? It doesn't make much difference in Ranked, but it does in other modes, especially AA and CAA, where the Mafia's roles aren't guaranteed. Two, the Fram/Vamp/Jest/HM category is the only Investigator category without a Town role in it for a reason: the Jester and the possibility of a Frame/Hex make it so that it isn't an insta-lynch.

[wozearly]

I favor the much older proposal of having the Lookout/Tracker see the framed person visiting the Mafia kill.

That would work better against the Tracker than the Lookout.

From the Lookout perspective, there's no guarantee the LO is going to be watching the Mafia kill - in fact, as a general rule, you really don't want to be targeting someone the LO is watching as Mafia. If they are then they'll suddenly trigger every active frame all at once. As that'll raise the chances of pushing the LO into only seeing 3 results (some of whom will be framed) there's a chance it'll help hide the MK, but more often than not some of those Frames will be disprovable and it's hard for the Framer and MK to really know what the outcome will be, as they can't guarantee all 3 results being framed targets. That's a low reward for losing all active frames, and probably won't cause that much disruption to the LO.

From the Tracker perspective, there are some nice pros in that it puts TP and Vigi claims in hot water by making them appear to be the MK. Unconfirmed non-visiting roles appearing to visit is also potentially misleading if they're not confirmed. But for quite a few visiting roles (Investigator, Escort, Transporter, Jailor - and potentially Lookout, Retri, Tracker and Vigi) the fact they actually visited someone else would be easily provable. So it has a reasonably high chance of revealing the Frame.

It also means the frame wouldn't kick in if, for any reason, the mafia does not secure a kill.


It's an alternative way of achieving the same sort of effect we were discussing by having the visits not appear. But IMO, the advantage of hiding visits is that it's simpler and more predictable for the Mafia to understand how the frame will trigger in practice, and allows them to more effectively disrupt a Lookout acting as pseudo TP, or a Tracker sitting on the suspected MK, by tactically framing the MK.

[Ezradekezra]

If the LO sees framed people visit the Mafia kill, and the Framer is also given semi-permanent frames, then if the LO watches the Mafia kill when like 5 people are framed it'll make the frame obvious. I favor making it appear that framed people do not visit. Once the LO or Tracker fails to see the framed person visit when they do, the frame is removed.

[TheFluffyWaffleV2]

If the LO sees framed people visit the Mafia kill, and the Framer is also given semi-permanent frames, then if the LO watches the Mafia kill when like 5 people are framed it'll make the frame obvious. I favor making it appear that framed people do not visit. Once the LO or Tracker fails to see the framed person visit when they do, the frame is removed.

The most powerful thing about it isn’t necessarily the framing part. It’s the “hide who the Mafioso is” part.

[Brilliand]

The most powerful thing about it isn’t necessarily the framing part. It’s the “hide who the Mafioso is” part.

That's a argument against putting this ability on Framer.

[Ezradekezra]

The most powerful thing about it isn’t necessarily the framing part. It’s the “hide who the Mafioso is” part.

I also feel like it would be too much if the Framer could make the Mafia look innocent to TIs. I feel like it's the Disguiser's job to make the Mafia look innocent, while it's the Framer's job to make Townies look suspicious. Just make the Framer actually work on all TIs, give it the semi-permanent frames, and hide the Framer's visits from Spies.

[wozearly]

If the LO sees framed people visit the Mafia kill, and the Framer is also given semi-permanent frames, then if the LO watches the Mafia kill when like 5 people are framed it'll make the frame obvious. I favor making it appear that framed people do not visit. Once the LO or Tracker fails to see the framed person visit when they do, the frame is removed.

The most powerful thing about it isn’t necessarily the framing part. It’s the “hide who the Mafioso is” part.

It's only a powerful counter to the Lookout acting like a TP and sitting on a key role and/or the Tracker sitting on the MK*.

Having that in the Mafia's back pocket is tactically incredibly useful, but specifically against situations where Town has developed a strong enough understanding of the role list enough to convert the LO into a pseudo TP, or where the Tracker is already pretty certain they've identified a key Mafia member. Giving the Mafia a get-out clause in those situations (both of which would typically lead to Mafia losing) provided they have a Framer kicking around isn't going to transform most games, but it would have a distinct effect on Trackers and LOs having to think more strategically about how they play if they're not certain whether a Framer is around, or if they know there is one.

Taking on board Ezra's point, I think there's a valid case to be made for splitting "hiding the Mafia" versus "framing the Town" between Disguiser and Framer respectively - provided that can be done without overcomplicating the Disguiser or making it too devastating on its own. Following the existing proposed change, Disguised players' visits not being seen when the Disguiser's visit is already Astral, feels like it might be too thorough a shaft to Lookouts, Spies and Trackers.

There's also the issue that the Disguiser is always useful irrespective of which TIs roll, whereas the Framer is utterly reliant on being able to fox whichever TIs happen to be in play. Abilities to stump the Lookout and Tracker in a meaningful way almost inevitably require the Framer to be able to deploy some kind of ability onto the Mafia themselves. It's why it's been discussed in multiple different variations before.

*1) Presumably Framing a Mafia member would continue to make them look suspicious to Sheriffs;
2) The visit would be seen by Spies (and could suggest who was Framed if the Lookout sees no visitors to a kill target)
3) Investigators would have good reason to question whether a Fra/Vamp/Jest or Framer result was hiding something more dangerous
4) Psychics would be unaffected
5) Framing the MK defends one role specifically against 2 out of 6 TI roles, at expense of causing problems to the other 4 and at risk of the whole thing falling over if the Mafioso/Godfather switch who does the kill. I think that's actually a fairly reasonable trade-off, personally.

[IwerSonsch]

Kigigiri recently posted a really cool Disguiser/Framer buff here: viewtopic.php?p=3500675#p3500675

The Disguiser buff proposed here looks OK, but it doesn't look like it could be combined with Kikigiri's idea, which I like better.

The two buffs are actually really similar, as both are based on disguising a Mafia ally. The main differences mostly seem to be restrictions in BMG's plan that aren't present in Kigigiri's idea:
- Disguiser is still limited to finding a player with the desired role, rather than freely picking from a list
- Disguises only last while they're being refreshed, which means more interaction with roleblockers and death.
On the other hand, BMG's change also affects the Lookout, as the disguised Mafia member is disguised as a different player and not just a different role, which can be strong in certain situations.

I like all three changes, as they should put the currently weaker Mafia roles onto a good level, and in what appear to be healthy ways. Especially the Framer probably deserves all of the buffs - semi-permanent frames as well as the ability to frame Mafia.

[SamLovesGames]

I just thought of something that might help to eliminate the issue I brought up about a will taking too long to forge. Rather than forcing the Forger to write the will entirely within the night of the forgery, you could give them an extra notepad, which will be used as the input for the fake will. This would allow the Forger to begin writing the forged will earlier, perhaps even during the day if the Mafia is coordinated enough. The icon for it could be that of a regular will, with a bloody feather icon on top of it.

And for framer:
- Trackers see the Framed person visit no one or maybe the mafia kill
- Lookouts cannot see the Framed person visit
- Psychics are guaranteed to have one of the Framed people, selected at random, appear in their evil visions (If Alice Young, Samuel Sewall, and John Hathorne are all Framed, then one of the three will be selected at random to appear in the evil vision. The actual evil still appears.)
- Spies bugging the Framed target see a random message added onto the original ones. Spies cannot see who the Framer visits.

[Joacgroso]

Oh yeah, I think that was me who mentioned that (though it didn't originate with me; unfortunately I don't recall who should get credit).

It's a GREAT buff to the Forger... that takes most of the power away from the Blackmailer. Then we have to figure out how to buff the Blackmailer, which we haven't really been discussing because Blackmailer hasn't needed it up to now. (There have been a few proposals, but those just served to show that Blackmailing itself is hard to buff.)

It isn't that much of a nerf, in my opinion. Blackmailers shouldn't be able to read whispers, since their active ability (blackmailing) confirms their existence to the town, which means blackmailers can't blackmail if they want to read whispers. Keeping TIs quiet is still pretty good. Maybe a little buff would be only allowing a blackmailed person to vote once per day, so they can't spam votes to tell they are blackmailed, without them being unable to vote, which would work as a better mafia kill. Reading whispers would help forgers way more than blackmailers, and I think this would be an excellent and simple change.

[Brilliand]

It isn't that much of a nerf, in my opinion. Blackmailers shouldn't be able to read whispers, since their active ability (blackmailing) confirms their existence to the town, which means blackmailers can't blackmail if they want to read whispers. Keeping TIs quiet is still pretty good. Maybe a little buff would be only allowing a blackmailed person to vote once per day, so they can't spam votes to tell they are blackmailed, without them being unable to vote, which would work as a better mafia kill. Reading whispers would help forgers way more than blackmailers, and I think this would be an excellent and simple change.

Very true. I think a buff to Blackmailer will be needed, but there's a very good chance that the little buff you proposed will be sufficient.

[Supertcgamer]

With the jailor meta currently in affect I don't think these OP buffs will do a lot. I agree that they seem op but the jailor meta literally confirms half of town still, so if forger hits LO after Day 2 jailor already knows who was on him. If you manage to forge a role and will on a tp, it's obvious that tp was forged, you forge a ti depending on what you do say turn a ti into tp well it's obvious that is a forge cause that forged ti disguised as tp is not in LO will. I'm aware of the nerf LO received down to 3 but this is still plenty of people to confirm. It confirms one TI, LO itself, it confirms a tp and potentially 2 RTs or another TI LO.

[SamLovesGames]

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