Remove Death Interation

[TheWinner2015]

Part 1: Why Death Interaction is Bad

Death Interaction is a huge problem in Town of Salem. Why?

1: It brings more confirmation than it needs to. Imagine every time you, as a mafia member, were outed as scum from someone that you killed because you were afraid they would out you as scum.
2: It's unfairly dealt with. The town gets more use out of Death Interaction than any other faction, since only town roles can interact with the dead.
3: It forces people who died to still play. Jailors who die while town has a majority are forced to waste time waiting for one night just for the hope a Retributionist. This time that they waste could be spent on, perhaps, queue-ing up for another game.

Part 2: A Solution

So what can be done about this?

1: Remove any and all roles that interact with the dead players. Role like Necromancer can stay as they don't ever interact with the dead in a way that, say, a medium does.
2: Remove "X left the Game" Text. (I have a different post on that here: https://www.blankmediagames.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=101957)
3: Remove the Dead from using taunts (At least for living players). Although it is rather rare, you could technically be any Investigative who taunts your target while dead to "confirm" or "deny" them of being good or evil.
4: Remove anything else that is not listed on here that the dead could do to give information. (Within their power. Obviously cheaters who use 3rd party chatrooms can still be mediums in a way, but BMG can't just delete all of them, because it would just be too much work. And if someone is physically in the room with you, BMG can't detect that.)

Part 3: "BuT dEaD iNtErAcTiOn GiVeS tOwN mOrE pOwEr!!1!1"

Some criticism I predict I will get might involve the following:

"Removing Dead Interaction could take a long time!"

So? Just because it could take a long doesn't make it any less worth it. Do you just not have a job because it takes a long time to get your paycheck? Do you not play a game of Town of Salem because it can take too long to win as what you are? Do you not do something worthwhile because it takes too long? If you do, then you have problems on your end, not our end.

"But Dead Interaction gives town more power!"

The town is already pretty powerful, and removing 2 potential claims from a Janitor is already very powerful (Yes, the Janitor results will need to be reworked). Not only that, but you get a better chance at getting the other Town Support roles, as there are literally less choices for a Town Support to be.

"But if [important role] dies, the evils pretty much win!"

Let me tell you about a little game about Throne of lies, a very similar game to Town of Salem. Now, when their Jailor dies, do they always lose to evils? No. And guess what? They don't even have a Retributionist like role or a Medium like role.
Even if what I said was a lie, You can still win as the town if your power role dies. Mayor is a Prime role that can win even without a Jailor, because of their confirmation. Sheriffs will still get results, Spys will still do spy things, etc. It's not impossible for the Town to win just because your jailor died. Sure, it doesn't help that it dies, but it's not detrimental.

"But if there's [Janitor/Forger] in the game, their [roles/wills] can't be retrieved!"

Then what is the actual fucking point of those roles? If Janitor's cleanings are negated by a Medium, then why have a Janitor in the first place? Janitor exists purely to remove mechanical deduction based on what roles are available on the rolelist. For example: If the Janitor cleans the one and only Town Killing in a Ranked Practice, then the Mafioso claims the Town KIlling role with no counterclaims, No one could prove them false by mechanically deducing that they cannot be the Town Killing based purely on the fact that there's no Town Killing that visibly died or claimed.

Part 4: Closure

I hope that Death Interaction gets removed from this game. It's honestly a terrible idea that should be removed, because it makes the Town too powerful, it makes the Janitor and Forger useless, and it makes people who are scum leave because it's pretty much a game over once the Jailor was revived or once the Janitor was caught in a lie. It also forces people to continue playing this game after death because it could be gamethrowing for not sticking around and giving information to someone who might not even exist.

That's it. Cya.

[kyuss420]

I dont like Throne of Lies, theres no dead interaction which is a cool mechanic unique to Town of Salem.

Im hanging around to the end of the game anyway. I play in a party, Im waiting to requeue with my friends, so i dont have to play with a bunch of noobs who leave when theyre dead. Having a medium makes the game more interesting when youre dead.

When Im evil, neutral or chaos, I give the medium misinformation to cause confusion. The mediums usually say ''The dead say'' bla bla bla. Town have no idea that ''The dead'' is actually the framer/exe/jester. If its early and theres 2 mediums, I say that there is only 1. I mean, if youre an evil role and trying to solve the game like youre town when youre dead, then youre a noob.

Every role has a counter role, it adds a dynamic that makes maf think about kill order. Do you really want to target the sherrif over the medium in a janitor game? Altho janitor is a hard counter to ret, even in a medium game. I mean if there was no ret, then what would be the point of the janitor?

[Brilliand]

I find it sad that Throne of Lies removed death interaction, because the Death Knight was a pretty cool idea. (Though, the Physician was probably the wrong role to give the ability to.)

[TheWinner2015]

All of you are basically saying "ToS should be different from ToL"

If that's one of your points, you're missing my point completely.

I brought up Throne of Lies, not as a core point, but as an example as to what Death Interaction can do.

What is the actual point of Town of Salem if you can be killed by a medium who said that the sheriff that you killed said that you were suspicious. It makes the game heavily unfair. Something else is that literally only the Town gets a medium. There IS no evil medium or neutral medium. Why? It would cause a meta where "oh, don't say anything to the medium because they could be evil", making the medium a useless role. And you can't make an evil or neutral Retributionist, because they would just be killed instantly if they were evil.

[kyuss420]

All of you are basically saying "ToS should be different from ToL"

If that's one of your points, you're missing my point completely.

I brought up Throne of Lies, not as a core point, but as an example as to what Death Interaction can do.

What is the actual point of Town of Salem if you can be killed by a medium who said that the sheriff that you killed said that you were suspicious. It makes the game heavily unfair. Something else is that literally only the Town gets a medium. There IS no evil medium or neutral medium. Why? It would cause a meta where "oh, don't say anything to the medium because they could be evil", making the medium a useless role. And you can't make an evil or neutral Retributionist, because they would just be killed instantly if they were evil.

I didnt say ToS should be different from from ToL. I said its a shit idea, no support

[Brilliand]

All of you are basically saying "ToS should be different from ToL"

If that's one of your points, you're missing my point completely.

I brought up Throne of Lies, not as a core point, but as an example as to what Death Interaction can do.

If you had brought up this idea without using Throne of Lies for support, you would have been treated even worse.

You haven't made your case for it being good to remove death interaction, not even close. "Throne of Lies did it" was your best point.

But I'll address the other points you made:

1: It brings more confirmation than it needs to. Imagine every time you, as a mafia member, were outed as scum from someone that you killed because you were afraid they would out you as scum.

Wills do the same thing. This is a very weak point anyway, since the dead info only helps somewhat with confirming things, and many other things in this game also help with confirming things.

2: It's unfairly dealt with. The town gets more use out of Death Interaction than any other faction, since only town roles can interact with the dead.

Also the Mafia doesn't have any protective roles, and only has the one investigative role. Does it matter? Not really. The Mafia don't really need those things.

That said, giving the Mafia some death interaction could be good. Maybe a Mafia role who can hear what the dead and the Medium are saying, but can only talk to the Mafia?

3: It forces people who died to still play. Jailors who die while town has a majority are forced to waste time waiting for one night just for the hope a Retributionist. This time that they waste could be spent on, perhaps, queue-ing up for another game.

This is a good thing.

[Villagerlover]

I think you're missing a lot of context involving the reason we have death interaction.

For one thing, the Medium is there to give the town a second chance at retrieving information that could've been lost in the underworld. Yes it does help town of course, and in addition to what kyuss420 said about evil roles throwing off the "dead chat", there is also a matter of role alignment.
You do realize that Medium is currently the only role in the town support category that is even remotely claimable for evils? Even then, town generally find Medium claims scummy because it's too easy to fake. But that is versus a Mayor, Retributionist, Transporter and Escort, all of which can easily confirm themselves. So flat out removing the medium (involving death interaction) will pretty much render all of TS to be unclaimable to most evildoers, which is a really bad thing.

Also, you ask what the point is of having a janitor since a medium can out the cleaned roles, but you failed to mention that Mediums also fall into the very category of "Medium/Janitor/Retributionist". When a medium claims who the cleaned roles were, it can easily be refuted back that the medium themselves are the very janitor since it fits in their category. It's a huge reason why they're thrown into the same category and you probably overlooked that.
As for the forger, I don't think that necessarily qualifies as "dead interaction" since you're just deceiving townies with a last will change. Sure the townie dies in the process, but it's not necessarily interacting with the dead chat themselves.

On the other hand though, I do believe the Retributionist is quite awful, and needs to either be completely reworked or nerfed in some manner. It's too powerful in ranked games, and basically triumphs all evils when they revive someone. So I can easily agree to a Retributionist change.

I also believe you are right for the section about taunts. Taunts should be removed from the dead players because it can sooooometimes be used as an exploit for townies, and is a pay-to-win sort of thing if used in that sense. It's kind of ridiculous when you think about it that way.

But completely removing death interaction? No way man. Death interaction has been a core part of town of salem for a long time, and roles involving death interaction help keep the gameplay interesting for people who want to stick around and see what happens instead of just switching to another tab and waiting for the game to end.

[TheWinner2015]

I think you're missing a lot of context involving the reason we have death interaction.

1. For one thing, the Medium is there to give the town a second chance at retrieving information that could've been lost in the underworld. Yes it does help town of course, and in addition to what kyuss420 said about evil roles throwing off the "dead chat", there is also a matter of role alignment.
You do realize that Medium is currently the only role in the town support category that is even remotely claimable for evils? Even then, town generally find Medium claims scummy because it's too easy to fake. But that is versus a Mayor, Retributionist, Transporter and Escort, all of which can easily confirm themselves. So flat out removing the medium (involving death interaction) will pretty much render all of TS to be unclaimable to most evildoers, which is a really bad thing.

2. Also, you ask what the point is of having a janitor since a medium can out the cleaned roles, but you failed to mention that Mediums also fall into the very category of "Medium/Janitor/Retributionist". When a medium claims who the cleaned roles were, it can easily be refuted back that the medium themselves are the very janitor since it fits in their category. It's a huge reason why they're thrown into the same category and you probably overlooked that.
As for the forger, I don't think that necessarily qualifies as "dead interaction" since you're just deceiving townies with a last will change. Sure the townie dies in the process, but it's not necessarily interacting with the dead chat themselves.

3. On the other hand though, I do believe the Retributionist is quite awful, and needs to either be completely reworked or nerfed in some manner. It's too powerful in ranked games, and basically triumphs all evils when they revive someone. So I can easily agree to a Retributionist change.

4. I also believe you are right for the section about taunts. Taunts should be removed from the dead players because it can sooooometimes be used as an exploit for townies, and is a pay-to-win sort of thing if used in that sense. It's kind of ridiculous when you think about it that way.

5. But completely removing death interaction? No way man. Death interaction has been a core part of town of salem for a long time, and roles involving death interaction help keep the gameplay interesting for people who want to stick around and see what happens instead of just switching to another tab and waiting for the game to end.

1. "For one thing, the Medium is there to give the town a second chance at retrieving information that could've been lost in the underworld." Yes, because it's very helpful when you kill someone who has the information to convict you just for the medium to accuse you because "the dead said you were evil." Great job, you just recreated the bodyguard.
"So flat out removing the medium (involving death interaction) will pretty much render all of TS to be unclaimable to most evildoers, which is a really bad thing." If you have 2+ mediums, then TS is still completely unclaimable, only now you don't get to know if it's unclaimable. Sure, you could have 2 mafia members claiming to be mediums, but as soon as the one medium dies, that's 2 free kills for the town.

2. "Also, you ask what the point is of having a janitor since a medium can out the cleaned roles, but you failed to mention that Mediums also fall into the very category of "Medium/Janitor/Retributionist"." You also overlooked the fact that if there are 2+ mediums, or hell, even a retributionist, then you just got yourself the perfect anti-janitor. Even if you have neither, no one can claim medium because "the med didnt say there were other meds." You also have the problem of.. oh, I dunno, the medium having a seance which could reveal the roles to a jailor or a mayor or whatnot.
And then I ask you again: What's the point of a Janitor if there's a confirmed medium ingame?

3. Remove Retributionist, or make it so that the revived live 1 or so days, and that they can't speak (but they do still have full access to all other abilities, like voting, jailing, etc). Or, like in Throne of Lies, make a death knight like role, only for the revived.

4. You agree with me, not much to say here

5. " Death interaction has been a core part of town of salem for a long time..." You know what else was a core part of ToS for a long time? The Ranked Practice rolelist. But guess what happened? It was found to be unbalanced and unfair, so it was removed and replaced with a new one. Mayor Whisper Meta was also a core part of Town of Salem, until they removed it. Just because something is core, doesn't mean it's necessary.

[UzayAltay]

The problem isnt death interation being an OP concept .
The problem is retributionist being OP , and medium being very swingy ( An evil cant easily claim that due The chance Med/ret Rolls , they easily outed , A Real Med had to claim their role , which at that case they are either confirmed ( second Med / ret ) , or lynched Unless they make an early claim . )
Just nerf retri ( my Suggestion : revived Player wont be able to use whispers , Will be voteless and wont count at majority vote . ) and rework medium ( Example rework : Each night target A Dead town Player , You Will be able to see their Will ( If cleaned/forged ) , and learn who they targeted The night they died , What feedback they Get . )

[orangeandblack5]

Hot take

Everybody voting no would do well to find a non-Mafia hobby

Alright not can we stop being elitist all the time thanks

Anyways this is so obviously a good idea it hurts

How do you silence somebody?

Kill them

Oh wait they have a will

Oh wait the Medium just talked to them

Oh wait the Retributionist revived them

I have very little doubt this will never happen, but the game could be infinitely more competitive if it did. It's one of the things that keeps even high-elo Ranked from being competitive or appealing enough to be worth getting back to

[Cashew357]

I can see that you are extremely dedicated to removing medium, but it would help blankmediagames if you suggested a replacement for medium. Let's say, hmmmmmmmmm.... would a "reporter" sound like a good role? I mean like a guy who randomly picks a random person's house, and then the next day, a message will appear to the town that "X is either a Y or a Z". how does that sound? Sounds alot like a physic, though. maybe not.

[Brilliand]

I can see that you are extremely dedicated to removing medium, but it would help blankmediagames if you suggested a replacement for medium.

The obvious non-death-interacting version of Medium is a role that checks a dead townie to see all of the nightly actions they took while alive (including the night of death), along with any feedback they got from using their role.

Let's say, hmmmmmmmmm.... would a "reporter" sound like a good role? I mean like a guy who randomly picks a random person's house, and then the next day, a message will appear to the town that "X is either a Y or a Z". how does that sound? Sounds alot like a physic, though. maybe not.

Sounds almost exactly like an Investigator.