Board Thread:Role Ideas (Neutral)/@comment-26494712-20161029183719/@comment-26494712-20161030021254

Dongarinos wrote: '''Right off the bat, I just want to say that this role has a lot of information. And I really like that, so therefore, I wont be so blunt since effort was put into this.''' Merchant (Merch) " The Merchant, a simple man from the next town over, simply wants to make a living. Unfortunately, disaster and chaos has struck the town and the merchant has found himself in a midst of it all. With his family still in his mind, he must continue to make money, so he trades with the townspeople during the day. But a revelation strikes him during the day -- people like money. And he has money. "

Alignment : Neutral Benign

Immunities: Temporary Night Immunity

Type : Protections

Priority : 4

Restrictions : 2 coins lost per bribe

Investigation Results

Sheriff : Your target is not suspicious.

Investigator : Your target stays away from the crowds. They could be a Mayor, Merchant, or Consort.

Consigliere : Your target deals with money. They must be a Merchant.

MAKE IT MORE ORIGINAL: CREATIVITY PEOPLE, CREATIVITY!!!!

Summary : An innocent bypasser who was dragged into mayhem.

I like that.

Abilities : Gain one coin by trading each day. You will miss voting if you decide to trade. Automatically prevent someone from attacking you by bribing them with two coins.

'''You don't really HAVE to stop voting. This needs to be a night time activity. And along with that, scrap the idea of protecting others. The safety of the Neutral Benign comes first. Trading is the only thing that needs to happen.'''

'''The other concern is that you can prevent someone from attacking you by bribing them with coins. That isn't really... effective... But what you could do is instead, bribe someone like an escort or consort to leave you alone.'''

Attributes : You can gain one coin each day by trading, but you will miss the voting because you are handling your wares. Lose two coins when you are attacked.

'''When you're attacked, you're dead son. But whatever is good.'''

Goal : Live until the end of the game.

'''Maybe the goal could be to end up with a specific amount of coins. '''

'OR EVEN BETTER, DON'T GO BROKE! BECAUSE THEN THE TWO COIN BRIBES COULD WORK.'

Wins with : Anyone

Mechanics ◾ When you are attacked, the attacker will take two coins instead of killing you. Night Immunity.

Comment above can explain this. ◾ When you are transported, you will not lose coins if you are attacked since the targets change.

◾ You will not be protected if you are role blocked.

'''If this role is roleblocked, you should lose one coin to get them to leave you alone. But this should only happen one time per roleblock, because otherwise, a troll could continue to force you to lose.'''

◾ If you are attacked by a Vampire, you will lose two coins and not be converted.

If you are attacked by a vampire, you should turn.

◾ Your two coins will protect you from being doused but not from ignition by an Arsonist.

Instead, maybe you could lose one coin to bribe the arsonist to clean you instead of igniting you.

◾ Merchants still win in the event of a Draw.

Strategy

Like Survivor, the Merchant is a difficult role to play, since they have the same goal but their abilities work differently. Despite your only goal being to survive to the end of the game, there are several things that could go wrong. Evils might think you're a Neutral Killing trying to get away with a Merchant claim, and the town doesn't have to consider your existence for their secured victory. Considering that you won't have any abilities for the first night, you are extremely vulnerable and must play your cards right. However, being a free-willed loner also gives you the advantage of not caring who you win with. In addition, you don't have to play the "guessing game" on whether you will be attacked or not, as long as you have two or more coins.

The role is interesting, but I have no real reason to reject this until more details on what I said above are added.
 * I should note. "coins" are only of any value to the Merchant themselves. If an attacker is successfully bribed and "gains" two coins, they really don't gain anything. After all, the merchant is the only one who "deals" with money.

Thanks for your input! I find that the investigation results are not "out of this world" but neither are the actual roles. I took deep inspiration on this part from other existing roles and I found that not everything is out of the box. Some Consig and Invest. results are simple and straight to the point. - The fact that he is a merchant -- he trades during the day. What merchant trades at night? I had to design this role and keep in mind that he is a merchant. Having him stop voting because he is "occupied by his wares" is an extremely plausible reason and a semi-setback from the Merchant's ability from becoming too powerful. Also, Merchant does not protect anyone besides themselves. I don't know where you read, but Merchant's can't protect other people.

Bribing someone to not attack you is very effective, I have to disagree on that. "When you're attacked, you're dead son. But whatever is good." There are tons of roles that do not die when attacked, so I don't see the point of that statement.

Pretty cool idea for a new goal to end up with a certain amount of coins but I believe since he's a neutral benign I guess it just makes sense to me to live.

The statement with transporters is futile, I agree. That should be a given, so i'll delete that one.

I don't agree with your roleblock statement, that is the point of roleblockers, to annoy you and/or prevent you from using an ability. Same about the Arsonist, I am trying not to allow this ability to become too omnipotent.

I misworded by vampire statement. Yes, if you are attacked by a vampire, you should turn. I meant to say that you can also bribe vampires not to attack you, similar to other attackers. It's just that vampires don't kill you, they just turn you so I thought it was worth mentioning. I'll delete that one.

In any event, this role could use some work -- it's not perfect and I love feedback to help it improve, but I designed it with many factors in mind. I mean, look at retributionist. An extremely helpful and valuable role but it's a one trick pony.