Board Thread:Role Ideas (Town)/@comment-34703140-20190402050728/@comment-26234016-20190402203126

Dude, you got beef? This is a potential role for an online video game. There's not much at stake here. Y'ain't gotta, like, go at my throat.

Anyways, I would still say you're being obtuse. I'll admit that I don't play ToS all that much anymore, but unless the game has drastically differed from what the patch notes say, you know what makes for good and bad gameplay.

No player wants to play a boring game, right? And a game that devolves into VFR is, well, boring. Yes, town roles can confirm themselves. For one thing, almost none of the roles you've mentioned in the last post are self-confirming– either they are contingent upon other players to confirm a certain event happened without counterclaims (Doctor, Bodyguard, Transporter, and the Transporter is funky because you admit a Transporter needs two other confirmed roles in order to confirm), or need the town to believe them, or the evidence can just be faked. An Escort claim could be a Consort, a Hypnotist could make up like half the information present, a mediocre Consigliere can take the guise of literally any TI except Spy I guess and even Spy is possible, just... a weird play.

You haven't listed any ///self-confirming/// roles aside from, well, Mayor, Medium, Retributionist, and Lookout.

You know what? Mediums and Lookouts are easily faked as well! If the Mafia agrees to throw one of their own under the bus, that's an easy 'confirmed' Lookout. The Janitor can make a perfect 'confirmed' Medium, especially with the unwitting help of the Retributionist.

And the Retributionist and Mayor are both in the process of being balanced! Recent additions of the revealed Mayor's inability to whisper, for instance, and the Doctor being unable to heal the revealed Mayor, really help a Mayor weigh the consequences of revealing or not, which keeps things like Mayor Games on the down low.

I'm not touching Coven Mode because again, I haven't played it, but I doubt Trapper has a button that they click to reveal their role to the town.

Not just that, but some of your stuff is very out there. Yes, a Jailor can reveal their presence (Jailors giving the Mayor their name is a tried and true strategy) but at the same time, especially early in the game, a Jailor runs the risk of revealing themselves to the Mafia.

Lastly, a townie confirming themself is very different from self-confirming. The difference, like the difference between so many things in this game, is a matter of skill. If a, I don't know, Bodyguard is able to convince the town of their role, power to them! The point of a hidden role game is to convince others of your role. That's one of the fundamental pieces of ToS, that's where all the strategy– the scumreading, the meta, the whatever– comes from. So if someone is able to confirm their role, good!

But they shouldn't self-confirm, because that makes the game easy! So, no! Self-confirming bad!