How to make not dumb roles

[Varanus]

We recently had our "Creator's Spotlight", and the next one is coming up soon. After seeing the how mess that was most of the roles submitted last time, I decided it would be a good idea to make a guide to try to stop people from submitting really bad roles, and possibly add some tips if you want something you made to get through this time.

• Town
  
  
  • Power
    
    For the most part, I would suggest avoiding making new Town Power roles. However, if you do insist on making them, just remember that balance isn't something you need to consider. Your role will be an IC in some fashion 90% of the time, so just try to make sure it's something different, and preferably doesn't make the game just be unfun for scum.
  • Investigative
    
    This is one of those roles people tend to screw up with a lot, BMG included. The baseline for what I consider to be an Investigative role is that it must be a role that checks a player to get information about that player. Try to avoid making overly complicated mechanics, and make sure the role's purpose isn't to try to help PoE hell when a mass claim rolls around purely by solving the exact setup. Don't be afraid to give anything in here limited uses of its ability if you want to make something stronger than a sheriff.
  • Protective
    
    Pretty simple here overall. The purpose of the role should be to be able to stop your target from dying, while trying to avoid getting attacked yourself. You can get far more creative here than you can with investigatives. Again, don't be afraid of limiting the number of uses on the ability if you want to make something strong.
  • Killing
    
    Free real estate right here, we're lacking in good TKs. Just try to avoid making roles that are effectively ICs.
  • Support
    
    This is the complicated one. Basically everything that doesn't fit into the other categories goes here. From a balance standpoint, you should default to trying to make everything you put here be the same power as escort. Once again though, be careful to avoid making roles that can turn into ICs here. For a lot of ideas, this can be solved by making a mirror of the role be mafia aligned.
• Mafia
  
  
  • Head
    
    This is the slot that should normally be doing the kills. Overall, this role is one that should likely be strongest in the late game, either by properly setting up the rest of the mafia, or by being able to make town plans ineffective. This is also a category that could use some love.
  • Tactical
    
    Think mafia support, but more for defense than offense.
  • Deception
    
    This one is particularly important, because most every role we have here right now (with the exception of janitor) is very poorly designed. For the love of god, make sure anything that rolls here is ALWAYS useful. Not just useful if town happens to roll X role. The goal here should of course be either to feed town false information, or to deny information outright. Please make something good here to replace disguiser and framer. I'm begging you.
  • Support
    
    Similar to town, this is where the rest of the misfits go. I guess you could throw them in tactical too, but that can just be dealt with later. Once again, try to balance everything out with Consort. Otherwise, go wild. Make sure what's being provided is actually useful.
  • Espionage
    
    Go wild, folks. We need to fill this category. For the most part, roles here should be similar to what you'd give NEs. There is a lot that can be put here right now, so I expect good things. Just remember it's mafia members that default to not being informed.
• Neutral
  
  
  • Don't. The end.

It takes the absolute smallest amount of effort to make a role name that isn't bad
If you really are having a hard time, just use this, and pick literally anything that makes even a bit of sense

[Varanus]

Of course, if you feel anything needs to be added, just say so.

But I will not budge on the Neutral part. Stop trying to make them.

[ICECLIMBERS]

I wouldn't discourage people from making neutral roles. A low power role that doesn't effect numbers, like Double, is fine for an episode. It's also possible for people to make roles that are designed to be played in certain games. I did that with Traitor during the last round. If somebody wants to make a Jester/Exe-like role that would only appear in CLs, that's fine. I would prefer that there not be more anti-town neutral evils or neutral killings. Kleptomaniac and Warlock have been around for over two years now yet we've barely scratched the surface with them. Meanwhile, any NK devised so far is straightforward enough that adding on any new twist to them would make them unnecessarily complex (see: Stalker). I'd also argue that in general we don't need new roles. The updated Potion Maker could use some love, and it can easily replace Marshal in a normal setup. There's also already 9 non-head mafia roles in episodes. Prankster can use a buff. I'd go into more detail but these are topics for a different thread.

Mafia Tactical isn't a "renamed mafia support." Think of mafia deception as the mafia's line of defense. Town wins by getting the information that the mafia has before mafia can kill the town, and deception roles obscure that information. Support plays offensively as they catch and shut down town's PRs. The purpose of mafia tactical was to have roles that synergize with other roles. Mafioso (and hustler) allow for more flexibility in night actions and blackmailer gives the mafia a source of day communication with each other and friendly neutrals.

I don't think Mafia Head needs more love. The 50/50 of Godfather/Capo is tough enough on town already and that's exacerbated if there's more potential mafia heads. We already have Godfather, Caporegime, Enforcer, Underboss, and nuEnforcer. I'd appreciate a well-designed mafia head role but a poorly designed one would be oversaturation. I will state that I believe that some setups should have a set mafia head role and be designed around that.

Yeah, mafia deception can be a mess. Janitor is great, but I think people oversell it. Prankster is the least powerful in my opinion and a change can be looked into since it offers little utility in the current meta. Framer is unfortunate. It's like a doctor for mafia. It has done things in the past but those successes have been foiled by poor play, which I can expand on but it's too late for me to rant about a certain play right now. I've always felt like Disguiser is underrated. It's more consistent at fooling Investigators and can trick Lookouts too. Very little can be attributed to it for two reasons. The first is that it rarely appears in games. I think that in the years 2016 and 2017 it appeared in... 3 standards? 8G, 12C, 14A. The second reason is that people don't know how it works, a la the mafia not saving their Godfather from being caught by the lookout in Episode XIV.

I have little to say about town roles other than that a new town support could be cool. There was a 2015 thread with ideas if you want inspiration.

Also add "not having a terrible flavor name" into the guide as well as "if you don't understand it on the first read, it's probably too complex to be feasible."

[Gobln]

Oh my...goodness.

Thank you so much for this! I was getting a little confused... ( :

[Varanus]

Godfather is a bad role that is designed to counter only specific things that town may or may not roll, and Capo is a bandage on the wound that is mafia's ability to just get screwed over by a bad team comp
The bit about godfather goes for disguiser and framer
And don't encourage people to make neutrals. They aren't good for the game.
Fair enough on the offensive/defensive difference between tactical and support, I'll go do something about that at some point here

Honestly, flavor names aren't that important here. Just make sure the role isn't bad and it doesn't matter that much.

[ICECLIMBERS]

I think you sorely misunderstand what both of those roles are designed to do. Let's assume we're using the rolelist for Episode XV.

To begin, you should never roll something that offers no utility. If there's only a lookout you throw out framer rolls, for example. If you have a lookout, a veteran, and an arsonist then Godfather shouldn't be in the game unless the night feedback passive is that important.

Having investigative immunity and night immunity rolled into one thing is really strong and why I'd argue that Godfather is the best mafia role. It's consistent. Players can be overly reliant on investigative results, and the mere possibility of a Godfather existing reduces that. Night immunity is fantastic, especially if there's a serial killer. It also lets you play risky with a vig. I can personally attest to situations where having a night immune mafia member great helped mafia. Most importantly is that these passives give Godfather longevity. This is important for a mafia role since they need to live longer than town to win. There's a reason why in so many games the Godfather lasts the longest.

As for Capo, while it does give mafia the chance to alter their composition early on it has the added benefit of changing roles in a pinch lategame. Look at the hydra game where the Capo turned into a prankster to win the game.

I don't want to derail this thread so I'll stop here. All I'll say is that mafia head roles (and town power too) aren't 1-dimensional.

Flavor names do matter. Imagine having a role called Necrodancer.

[Varanus]

I wouldn't consider this derailing, it's pretty relevant

I would always consider it bad design if you have to reroll the game for mafia just because certain roles didn't show up, plus it means you give the mafia confirmation of certain roles existing if you do deal with the issue that way. And while Capo does have the pinch late game utility, I would still say that it would become significantly weaker if any setup the mafia got was of about equal power.



I'm pretty sure you have to make an active effort to have flavor names that are really bad, which should be expected at this point I guess. Might as well make a note for it.

[ChubbyMooshroom9]

I wouldn't consider this derailing, it's pretty relevant

I would always consider it bad design if you have to reroll the game for mafia just because certain roles didn't show up, plus it means you give the mafia confirmation of certain roles existing if you do deal with the issue that way. And while Capo does have the pinch late game utility, I would still say that it would become significantly weaker if any setup the mafia got was of about equal power.



I'm pretty sure you have to make an active effort to have flavor names that are really bad, which should be expected at this point I guess. Might as well make a note for it.

:^)

[SirCakez]

WE NEED MORE NEUTRALS

[SirCakez]

it was a joke >.<

[JazzMusicStops]

how about we make a neutral role that doesn't suck

[Parallax7]

WE NEED MORE NEUTRALS

Agreed.

[Icibalus]

neutrals that have creative and acheivable winconditions are a myth
pass it on

[lemonader666]

Dumb question: What's "IC" short for?

[JazzMusicStops]

Innocent Child

[lemonader666]

Innocent Child

cool thanks