Board Thread:Debate of The Week/@comment-32881402-20180129202907/@comment-34551912-20180201215433

Town (Power) can easily be balanced, but it is mechanically flawed, when using these definitions:

Balance - Defined as everything being in correct proportion. This is to say that every aspect of a game of mafia is completely fair for all sides. Mechanics - The mechanic, or ability, of a role, is the skin and bones of it. It is what the role does rather than how well it does it.

These are 2 very important things to remember, as they are the pinnacle of creating a good game of mafia. With a balanced game and a good mechanical game, there would be no more games where you get completely screwed over, but rather you lose because your opponent played well. That is why it is so important to look at the mechanics of a role, rather than just the balance.

Now don't get me wrong when I say Town (Power) is absolutely terrible. It isn't all too bad, and is completely balanced. You could build a rolelist around them with a fair winrate for all sides.

With that out of the way, let's get into the main mechanics of Town (Power). The problem is the way it distributes skill. A faction needs to be a combination of all the player's skill put together. If you are the mafia, and all 3 players know what to claim, when to claim, who to visit, and how to make a great fake will, then you should win over a town who is built upon 1-2 good players who scumread the mafia with the rest of the town not voting at all. However, with Town (Power), this isn't always the case. If one of these so-called "good players" gets Jailor, they kill out the mafia. But if one of these so-called "nubs" gets Jailor, you get a dead townie and a murdered Jailor. Just think about the amount of damage a Jailor does in each of your games personally, have you ever won a game by killing the evils as Jailor, or have you ever lost it all because the Jailor couldn't even write a will? This is what we call swing, where the amount of skill in the role completely changes the game. Now think, how many games have you won because there was an amazing Medium in the game who played out the mafia and talked to the right people? Outside of some double Medium Retributionist on Jailor games, you probably can't think of very many. This is an imbalance of skill distribution, and who, or should I say what gets to decide what is given out? Well, the answer to that question is the Rolelist RNG. Yes, RNG. The fate of the town rests on the shoulders of RNG to determine if 2000 elo gets Jailor or 1200 elo. That is what we call swing, and swing cannot be present in anything good in regards to Town of Salem.