Spoiler:
Why change the Jester and Executioner?:
The thing about the Jester and Executioner is that while their actions and goals fit primarily into the Neutral Evil sub-alignment - which is meant to represent anti-Town roles with no real allegiance to any single faction - they actually have the ability to extend their powers and help the town. When I made this post previously, I thought the best solution was to spread the impact of these player's actions across most of the town in order to offset any balance that evil factions could take, however I realized that it took away what makes these roles fun and interesting in terms of interaction with the good and evil factions. Additionally, it would have made playing as these roles less fun and engaging in casual environments, which I feel is equally as important as ranked (if not more due to an emphasis on fun over balance). So I went back to the drawing board. During my own speculative theorycrafting, I came up for a few ideas that help to deviate back to the base concept of a Neutral Evil, and how to actually screw over the Town even if the consequences of these roles don't bounce to help evil factions in the long run, so I think these changes are what can make the Jester and Executioner definitively evil and contribute to being deserving of that sub-alignment.
Jester changes:
- The Jester's haunt will now cause your target to disappear if killed - they will have their role and last will be unrevealed during the death notices at the start of the day. They appear as (Lost) in the graveyard, and a Janitor cannot reveal the contents of either of these. But like with regular Cleaning, a Retributionist, Necromancer, and Amnesiac may not interact with their corpse.
- The target of a Jester's haunt is forcibly roleblocked.
- The target killed by a Jester's haunt may not win the game even if their faction wins, but may still win if they achieved non-factional related goals (ex. The Guardian Angel, Executioner, and Pirate)
- The target killed by a Jester's haunt cannot activate their postmortem abilities from beyond the grave (ex. The Medium and Guardian Angel).
Executioner changes:
- If the Executioner's target gets lynched, the target may not win the game even if the Town wins.
- If the Executioner's target gets killed at night, instead of becoming a Jester, the Executioner has a new vendetta to spite their target: outliving them and defiling their faction - their new goal will now be changed to survive to see the Town lose the game, however they lose their Basic Defence in the process.
Old Post:
Spoiler:
Why change the Jester and Executioner?:
The thing about the Jester and Executioner is that while their actions and goals fit primarily into the Neutral Evil sub-alignment - which is meant to represent anti-Town roles with no real allegiance to any single faction - they actually have the ability to extend their powers and help the town. The Executioner is a kingmaker, he has a Basic Defence so he can't easily be eliminated, and for those with Powerful Attack or better, it's usually slow to use it generally, wasting one of their kills against them makes their efforts to win slow. The Executioner will just sit there after he got his target lynched, taunting the town who will he side with. Meanwhile, the Jester's haunt is an Unstoppable Attack, which can pierce a Neutral Killing or a Godfather, heavily swinging the game Town-sided. However, some conflict exists with making lynching the Jester have consequences, as his ability must also atleast hinder other evil roles as to not make his lynch almost guaranteed every game. This post hopes to make the Jester and Executioner actually more akin to their respective roles.
Jester haunt changes:
- The Jester's haunt no longer deals an unavoidable Unstoppable Attack to a single target that voted guilty or abstained, choice courtesy of the Jester. Instead, the haunt now causes an unavoidable disabling of abilities, defence, and passive abilities for all players that voted guilty or abstained.
- The haunt disables day abilities that take effect once night comes (i.e The Jailor and Pirate).
- The haunt's disabling of abilities and passive abilities surpasses the potential of a Roleblock as it also works as soon as the night begins (ex. It can prevent a Medium from reading what the dead say that night and also affect normally Roleblock immune roles).
- The haunt does NOT disable innate passive abilities that are a part of a specific faction, such as the Mafia, Coven, and Vampire being able to identify and talk to other members at night.
- Lastly, the haunt does NOT disable the abilities of anyone who has (or in this case, had) a passive basic defence, whether it's permanent or temporary (such as the Coven Leader wielding the Necronomicon), however their defence and passive abilities are still disabled for the night they are haunted.
Executioner kingmaker changes:
- If the Executioner has gotten his target lynched, the Executioner is evicted from their citizenship due to conspiracy against the town, and they are not able to vote anymore against any person or for any verdict, always abstaining during the trial. Additionally if the game is down to just 3 people (including him), stalemate detectors will kick in whilst ignoring the victorious Executioner.
- If the Executioner has gotten his target lynched, his defence upgrades from Basic Defence to Invincible Defence. (He is taking a vacation in cucamonga let him chill in peace)
The Jester vs Jailor interaction:
tl;dr : This additional change creates a new mindgame between the Jailor and Jester, a battle of wits so to speak where one has to be able to read the other.
Why add this special interaction?: Small history lesson for context before I start, the Jester and Executioner roles came from SC2Mafia, and were based off griefing character archetypes: Self-Victimizers and Vengeful-Lynchers, one would gaslight the town into discourse and disagreement when it was revealed they were actually the town, and the other would attempt to get a single person lynched at all costs, down to even lying about evidence procured. There has and must always be a reasonable punishment for voting guilty the Jester, the most reasonable solution was the current one: Kill one of the people who got you hanged. However, it was easily cheeseable; there was no Unstoppable Attack in SC2Mafia, the max was the equivalent of the Powerful Attack, so a Doctor was able to prevent the death, and additionally it was only guilty voters they may be targets for the haunt, unlike today's system where abstainers could get away. This made a toxic and uneventful system where the Jester was a effectively a routine and free win if the crowd liked you enough. For the better, it changed, and later an additional strategy of redirecting the blade using a Transporter was also disabled, allowing for the Jester's haunt to be an actually work as intended. The Jester is a mind-games role completely dependant on his charisma and cunningness, his reward - alongside winning - should be watching the chaos he created. However, there is one thing that effectively circumvents that, the Jailor. There is nothing wrong with using the Jailor as an additional kill for the Town, it's a staple part of his identity that should not be removed, but due to the Town being able to communicate whom should be executed by the Jailor falls within that grey area of effectively being a second lynch. However, because the Jailor has a direct line of communication with whom he jails, unlike the Vigilante, something unique can happen here; you make a hyper-miniature version of the trial voting system here. Thus, the Jailor and Jester can now duke it out in the microcosm of an arena, a mindgame to the death where the best Sicilian wins.
- The Jester has a new toggle (similar to the Serial Killer cautious toggle) called Breakdown. Breakdown may be toggled on or off anytime but cannot be changed while jailed.
- If the Jailor executes the Jester while under Breakdown, the Jester wins, the next day the town will be alerted 'The Jester will get their revenge on the Jailor, from beyond the grave!'. The next night, the Jailor is dealt an unavoidable Unstoppable Attack, akin the current haunt.
- If the Jailor could execute the Jester while under Breakdown but does not on their own volition (ie. Is not roleblocked or controlled out of doing it), the Jester loses and is sent to the asylum (which is effectively death in all aspects). The next day the Jester will not show up in place from his home nor his dead body, and a death reveal message will show: "<player_name> was sent away. They were treated to the asylum last night for immedicable and chronic insanity. We found a will inside their home - (shows will). <player_name>'s role was the Jester"
