Shapeshifter (Neutral Evil) [Executioner/Jester Replacement]

[orangeandblack5]

Shapeshifter

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Abilities: Every day, you may pick the role that you will appear as if you are lynched. Every night, you may take on the appearance of another player, framing them as having visited someone else and causing investigators to receive confused results.

Attributes:
-Basic Defense
-Your target will appear to have visited whoever you specify, rather than who they actually visited, to any Tracker or Lookout.
-If your target would normally appear as Innocent to a Sheriff, they will appear Suspicious, and vice-versa. Detection-immune roles will continue to appear Innocent.
-Framed targets will appear to be a Framer, Vampire, Jester, or Shapeshifter (or Hex Master, if playing with the Coven DLC) to an Investigator.
-All Mafia and Neutral Killers will be notified that you were the Shapeshifter if you are lynched and appear as another role.

Goal: Ensure that three Town players are lynched.

Win Conditions:
Wins with the Mafia
Wins with Serial Killers
Wins with Arsonists
Wins with Werewolves
Wins with Witches
Wins with Survivors
Wins with Vampires
Must kill Town

Investigative Results:
Sheriff: You cannot find evidence of wrongdoing. Your target seems innocent.
Investigator: They must be a Framer, Shapeshifter, Jester, or Vampire.
Consigliere: Your target can take on many forms. They must be a Shapeshifter.

F.A.Q.

Isn't this just a NE Disguiser/Framer combo?
Sort of, but it's much more than that. Its goal is to prevent other non-Town roles from being lynched and push mislynches instead. Unlike other evils, however, it can do this through acting a bit suspicious during the day - much like the Jester, the Shapeshifter uses getting lynched as a tool to achieve its win condition. Unlike the Jester, however, it is a true Neutral Evil, that must balance its useful night ability with its ability to get itself lynched and send the Town down the wrong path. It can also "tailor" other evil roles, making them appear as innocent to a Sheriff, a niche no other role currently fills.

What's all this about being a Jester or Executioner replacement?
This role can either be implemented as a new Neutral Evil, and Jester and Executioner can be made Neutral Chaos and Neutral Benign, respectively; or, one of the two can be reworked to have the Shapeshifter's abilities, and the other one can be moved. Either way is perfectly acceptable, as both remove a role that is toxic to the game (Jester) and a role that doesn't fit in Neutral Evil (Executioner) from Ranked and replace them with a role that works in a similar fashion to both but to an end that doesn't punish the Town for correctly lynching a Neutral Evil.

Discuss.

[JacksonVirgo]

So the goal is to get lynched but not have more than two other non-town roles lynched?

[orangeandblack5]

By the time I finished writing like two paragraphs in the FAQ about that I figured I was getting too complex for ToS. That would work in FM, but I decided to drastically simplify its wincon. Please read the new version.

That being said, yes, that was the basic idea, although getting yourself lynched was never required, merely helpful.

[JacksonVirgo]

It seems a lot better now actually since I was about to say this role is practically a 'you lose' role in All Any since majority of evil are of multiple factions and thus more than two evils would have to be lynched.

This new change kind of makes it easy for the NE to just 'give up' and if they get lynched they can still win with mafia and nk which is bs lol

[orangeandblack5]

I agree, but I'm not convinced that's a good enough reason to change it to something that is significantly more complex when getting lynched is one of its best tools.

Open to improvements on that front.

[orangeandblack5]

Aha figured out my issues and re-did the win condition again.

Now it's also an Executioner replacement, at least for Ranked. Reworked wincon and added basic defense to this end.

[Malphas]

It might be better to make the condition the same as the Witch's, "Survive to see the Town lose.", but I'm not sure if that's what you envisioned for this role.

[orangeandblack5]

I think "Survive" as a wincon is really uninteresting, especially because it prevents you from using your death to further the wincon of the non-Town factions.

[Malphas]

I get that, but you can't have the wincon be having three Town members lynched because that would mean that even if you die the first night you can still win without doing anything. Maybe make wincon be to lynch three Town members while you're alive and one day after because that way you can sacrifice yourself, maybe win and not encourage players to do nothing if you get what I mean.

[Brilliand]

I get that, but you can't have the wincon be having three Town members lynched because that would mean that even if you die the first night you can still win without doing anything.

Just like when a member of the Town faction dies the first night and the Town wins?

[orangeandblack5]

I get that, but you can't have the wincon be having three Town members lynched because that would mean that even if you die the first night you can still win without doing anything.

Just like when a member of the Town faction dies the first night and the Town wins?

This is pretty much my stance on the issue

Designing an overcomplicated wincondition just to avoid giving out a few wins that may have been undeserved when in the majority of cases they won't happen seems questionable to me

[Insertname12341]

I get that, but you can't have the wincon be having three Town members lynched because that would mean that even if you die the first night you can still win without doing anything.

Just like when a member of the Town faction dies the first night and the Town wins?

Yes- but that's town, while this is a Neutral role. Neutral roles should have to act decisively and should be punished (or at least shouldn't win) if they die early. (unless you're Jester, I guess...).

There's a reason why Executioners don't win if their target is lynched after they die.

[Brilliand]

Yes- but that's town, while this is a Neutral role. Neutral roles should have to act decisively and should be punished (or at least shouldn't win) if they die early. (unless you're Jester, I guess...).

There's a reason why Executioners don't win if their target is lynched after they die.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're making. Neutrals are the oddball roles that aren't Town or Mafia. Townies can win while dead, Mafia can win while dead... most neutrals can't win while dead, but some can because Neutral is a catchall category. Not being able to win while dead is weird, and not every neutral has to be weird in that way.

A Shapeshifter who sows confusion and causes several townies to be lynched has done his job, even if he dies partway through the process.

(That said I think "Ensure that three Town players are lynched" is too difficult a goal to achieve intentionally, and too easy a goal to achieve by accident.)

[orangeandblack5]

I'm not sure I agree - making it 4 mislynches means that you have to lynch more town than may be possible depending on rand, and plus the Town loses the large majority of games with three mislynches anyways (last time someone in higher Elo computed Town winrate as a function of number of mislynches), so it seems reasonable for the goal to be "get the game into a state where evils usually win".