Board Thread:Role Ideas (Town)/@comment-3560733-20170118023602

So, I was thinking about how one of the key balancing issues in ToS right now is that town just has a higher win rate than everything else, and so I was thinking of ways to nerf the down. First, I contemplated new roles that could lower towns win rate, and I have one in the neutral forum section. Then I thought what about nerfing common town roles that are fairly powerful. My mind quickly went to Town (Investigative) as they give information to the town.

The 2 key ones are Investigator and Sheriff. Now, the Investigator is fine in my opinion as it is. All you could do to nerf it is simplify the potential role lists, making them larger and therefore making it that much less likely that someone is the role you think they are. Not a horrible idea, but not what this topic is about. So, moving to Sheriff, i was thinking about how it could be nerfed and I thought about the key difference between the Sheriff and the Investigator when they get meaningful results.

The Investigator is always vague until some things have been ruled out. If you find a Mafioso night one, you just know he has a 1/3 chance being mafia but a 2/3 chance to be an ally. Those aren't good odds. However, if a Sheriff finds that same person, he knows, end of story. So, here comes my idea.

What if the Sheriff wasn't so certain? What if when he visited a Mafioso, it just said that he might be suspicious? And then you could add a few town roles that show up that way. Mafioso and Vigilante, Escort and Consort, Spy and Blackmailer, and Consigliere and Investigator. If it was made so that some or all of these came up as "Your target seems to be suspicious, they could be a member of the Mafia!" Then it would add that level of uncertainty to it all. It could even be more specific. For the Mafioso and Vigilante, it could say, "Your target owns a gun, they could be a member of the Mafia!" or, for the Escort and Consort, it could say, "Your target spends their night in others' beds more than their own, they could be a member of the Mafia!", etc.

I feel that a change like this could make the Sheriff a bit more well rounded as a character as he no longer can just get lucky and be certain someone is Mafia or not. And if it wasn't clear, there would be no changes to the Serial Killer or Godfather when inspected by the Sheriff. 