Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Suggest new roles or changes to current roles for the game here.

What is your opinion of the role?

It is good and should be implemented as is.
2
40%
It needs small edits to balance the role.
3
60%
It needs major changes to be feasible.
0
No votes
The role is bad and should be scrapped.
0
No votes
 
Total votes : 5

Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby EtherealEnder » Mon Jul 26, 2021 10:35 pm

You are a puppet master that wants nothing more than to have the world at your fingertips.

Name: Puppeteer

Alignment: Mafia (Deception)

Attack: None - Defense: None

Unique Role: No

Abilities:
Choose someone to puppet at night.

Attributes:
If your target dies, you can speak for them for one day.
You may puppet only twice.
Retributionists and necromancers cannot use dead puppets.

Mechanics:
- If the kill is successful, the target dies and becomes your puppet- if not, then the ability is wasted. Just like jani.
- Puppets can be controlled by you during the next day. There will be a button next to the vote button on the side, similar to the mayor's reveal button, that allows you to select whether you are controlling yourself or the puppet.
- When you are controlling the puppet, you can talk for them. You also have access to their will, but you cannot edit it.
- Jailors and pirates can choose to target puppets, but if they do, they will receive a special message letting them know that their ability failed and their target was a puppet. The puppet will show up dead the day AFTER they first die.

New Messages:
You have successfully turned your target into a puppet - you may speak for them for one day.
You are now controlling your puppet.
You are now speaking for yourself.
You visited your target’s house, but found them dead on the floor. (Jailor/Pirate selects a puppet)
(Name) was found guilty, but they collapsed on the stand, dead. (A puppet is hanged)

-Investigative Results-
Sheriff: Your target is suspicious!.
Investigator: Your target could be a medium, janitor, retributionist, necromancer, or puppeteer!
Consigliere/Witch:Your target is masterful with puppets and ventriloquism. They must be a puppeteer!
Goal: Blah blah blah kill all that oppose you or whatever the mafia goal is

Changes:
- the puppeteer can no longer make their puppet vote
- changed invest results to med/jan/ret
- retri/necro can no longer use puppets

Possible Changes:
- If the puppet is killed at night before they show up dead, by an SK or vigi for example, should the puppeteer die as well?
Last edited by EtherealEnder on Mon Aug 09, 2021 9:56 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby Salocin481 » Mon Jul 26, 2021 11:34 pm

I like this! I see a potential issue in this role only because maf can have majority in voting sooner, and that can be kind of a big deal in Ranked. Worth thinking about.

However, it partially solves the old disguiser problem of report abuse, because you can only stick around for a day. If there's a role that replaces speech and voting, this is probably the best way to do it. I also think it has quite a high skill ceiling. Imagine arguing with yourself? Backing yourself up? Quickly switching between both voices has a lot of depth, which I like!

I've got a couple questions, however. First off, what happens if you try to lynch a puppet? Secondly, what happens if a Vigilante shoots a puppet? Will the Vigi die? What about TIs checking the Puppet?

This is more of a note, but what can Puppeteer claim in that invest bucket? I don't think it's a very good invest result for Puppeteer bcuz it can't roleblock or transport. Med/Jan/Ret results would be my first thought when it comes to this role, but if you disagree, tell me why!

Also a *tiny* touch that might make the role better is if you had the 'switch' button where the Mayor's reveal button is. The big one. Just so you can switch a little bit quicker.
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby EtherealEnder » Tue Jul 27, 2021 12:02 am

thank you! the original idea i had for lynching a puppet would be that a special message would appear: "[Name] was found guilty, but they died on the stand."

i haven't actually thought about a vigi shooting a puppet; i guess since they're technically already dead, nothing happens? logically that would make sense however i think it could also be interesting to have a puppet act evil and get vigi to shoot them for a free dead vigi. TI checking the puppet probably just get the same results as usual.

and, yeah, i guess med/jan/ret works a little better as a working result. i only put it with esc/cons/trans because i had this as a slightly different role before and i never changed it when i adjusted the role hah

and the thing about the mayor reveal button does work better tbh
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby Dragnier » Tue Jul 27, 2021 5:16 pm

I like this concept!
Now let me see if I get it: Mafia Killing kills the target, and you puppet it for the next day. I assume the MK will get a message that the target died but was turned into a puppet (if the kill was successful). Then you gain control of the target for one more day, and then the target dies.

Now my two cents:
- If a killing role (other than the mafia) attacks the target the same day, they could get a message like the target had defense or was healed. This could turn the attention of the townies toward the puppet, and away from other suspicious mafia members.
- I think it is okay and would be fun to talk using the puppet (although it could be challenging to manage separate chats for both the puppeteer and the puppet). The voting sounds a little powerful to me. I would remove the voting powers, but leave the chatting and the ability to destroy the puppet's will (but can't forge it).
- When the puppet dies they should be revealed as a puppet to the town, with their will destroyed.
- I would add that a puppet can't be used by a retri or necro. Their corpse endured too much to be useful for them after they die.

Keep it up, good work!
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby Odin1999 » Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:30 am

I like this role very creative and unique.


Perhaps to balance it out if your puppet is killed by a Vigilante or lynched then prehaps the Puppeteer should die as well. Thoughts?
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby EtherealEnder » Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:29 pm

Now let me see if I get it: Mafia Killing kills the target, and you puppet it for the next day. I assume the MK will get a message that the target died but was turned into a puppet (if the kill was successful). Then you gain control of the target for one more day, and then the target dies.


I didn't think about the MK getting a notification for it, but it might be useful for that to happen tbh. Otherwise, yeah you got it

If a killing role (other than the mafia) attacks the target the same day, they could get a message like the target had defense or was healed. This could turn the attention of the townies toward the puppet, and away from other suspicious mafia members.


I like this! This way it isn't immediately obvious to other killing roles that the person they attacked is now a puppet, and could lead to a "mislynch" for the mafia so they have an extra day to work.

I think it is okay and would be fun to talk using the puppet (although it could be challenging to manage separate chats for both the puppeteer and the puppet). The voting sounds a little powerful to me. I would remove the voting powers, but leave the chatting and the ability to destroy the puppet's will (but can't forge it).


Maybe; though this is why I think the puppeteer should only have 2 uses, to prevent the mafia just steamrolling the town with votes. Idk if it would be better to remove the voting power or not since then the town could just say "alright everyone vote" and the guy who can't vote must be a puppet. Or maybe that could be a good change? idk

When the puppet dies they should be revealed as a puppet to the town, with their will destroyed.


I think the goal of the puppeteer should be more to pretend that the person they're controlling isn't a puppet, kinda like how the forger should try to convincingly forge someone so no one can tell there's a forger. This would kinda defeat that purpose

I would add that a puppet can't be used by a retri or necro. Their corpse endured too much to be useful for them after they die.


yeah this makes sense

Perhaps to balance it out if your puppet is killed by a Vigilante or lynched then prehaps the Puppeteer should die as well. Thoughts?


This is an interesting idea. The puppeteer would have to make sure that they're convincing enough not to get their puppet shot, so they can't really just use them as a free extra vote. I kinda like this
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby ak521 » Wed Jul 28, 2021 3:31 pm

This role is super powerful; I would say to remove voting capability. Then, allow infinite uses of puppeting
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby Dimethyltryptamine99 » Wed Jul 28, 2021 8:15 pm

ak521 wrote:This role is super powerful; I would say to remove voting capability. Then, allow infinite uses of puppeting


I disagree with this, leave the voting as it is.

The problem with evils gaining majority in ranked has more to do with the playlists and the certain swingyness of certain roles.

Ranked should be a 10v5 while slightly buffing Mafia and removing deadlocks.

And we should be creating roles for a more balanced game, not the shit we have at the momemt.

Draginer wrote:- When the puppet dies they should be revealed as a puppet to the town, with their will destroyed.

- I would add that a puppet can't be used by a retri or necro. Their corpse endured too much to be useful for them after they die.



Highly disagree with these points as well.

The will should not be destroyed at all. EtherealEnder idea for the will to remain intact is the more sensible. You're just adding Janitor attributes to the role now which it does not need.

Retributionist is already an insanely weak role most of the time and is already hard countered by Janitors and somewhat countered by Forgers. This is just another role that would hard-counter Retributionist.

Puppeteer should not have Janitor attributes at all. Leave corpses intact after use and don't destroy the will.
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby Benn3 » Wed Jul 28, 2021 9:34 pm

So this role is essentially the original Disguiser, but better? Mafia should not have the ability to control votes, since Blackmailer removing the ability to chat can already be argued as a bad mechanic. Plus, giving the Mafia another vote I could see being too overpowered.

The original Disguiser would take the place of their target, not just control themselves and their target at the same time like this role. If you remove the voting ability it'd become the old Disguiser + Tailor(another role suggestion thats been made).

It'd be better if the old Disguiser was added back as long as they were buffed, like being able to choose "their" own role upon death and remove the last will so they aren't immediately outted by somebody putting their name on their will. It'd be more balanced than this due to the Mafia gaining no more extra votes or an extra person to back them up since the Disguiser would be REPLACING the killed target. Also it'd be easier to play as, because you wouldn't have the need to be switching between 2 people constantly.

If there was a role that could control votes it'd have to be a Neutral Killing/Chaos role to be balanced enough IMO.

TL;DR: This role is interesting but it'd be better if the old Disguiser(if buffed a bit) was added back instead. A Mafia role that can control votes is most likely too OP, especially with the current Ranked list we have.
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby Dimethyltryptamine99 » Wed Jul 28, 2021 9:39 pm

Benn3 wrote:TL;DR: This role is interesting but it'd be better if the old Disguiser(if buffed a bit) was added back instead. A Mafia role that can control votes is most likely too OP, especially with the current Ranked list we have. [/b]


"with the current Ranked list we have" which is extremely unbalanced in the first place and not to mention most of the roles in this game are unbalanced or have mechanical flaws.

I disagree with an extra vote being op.

With a more balanced set-up which gives town more leeway to make mistakes then 1 extra vote wouldn't be all that overpowered.

There still has to be a successful kill and you only get 2 uses. I don't know if it was specified but I imagine seeing as the dead player isn't in the graveyard yet the votes needed for majority wouldn't change?
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby Benn3 » Wed Jul 28, 2021 9:52 pm

There still has to be a successful kill and you only get 2 uses. I don't know if it was specified but I imagine seeing as the dead player isn't in the graveyard yet the votes needed for majority wouldn't change?


Why wouldn't the votes needed for majority change? You still KILL the person, it's just that they appear to stay alive. Then, as the Puppeteer you can steal their vote, granting you another vote for majority. With the current 9v6 role list, if you kill and chose to turn somebody into a puppet N1, it'll become an 8v7, so evils will only be one way from majority at that point. In a 10v5 list it'd become 9v6.

I just feel like a role that can mess with the game's core mechanics(talking & voting) wouldn't be healthy for it. Blackmailer usually only wants to silence people when they actually need to, since they automatically reveal that they exist the moment they blackmail somebody. You also still allow them to vote, so it's fully about restraining information(unless your bmer just wants to be an asshole). Personally, they're fine for me as long as they don't constantly blackmail the same person, which can get really annoying, but there's many people who think that blackmailing somebody is a bad ability per se and I don't really blame them.

Honestly if this was a NK role, I think it'd have a lot of potential as NK's lack voting power due to them not having a faction to back them up other than NBs which may not even side them.
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby Dimethyltryptamine99 » Wed Jul 28, 2021 10:09 pm

The votes needed for majority wouldn't change as it appears they're still alive. You need 8 votes to vote someone up with 15 people alive, so if Mafia kills someone and they get puppeted, they're still shown as alive so it should still require 8 votes to vote someone up.

And 9v6 is a terrible and lazy set-up design.

Wouldn't work as a Neutral Killing role because that basically just makes them a Serial Killer with a Unique abilities
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby Dragnier » Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:03 am

Dimethyltryptamine99 wrote:
Draginer wrote:- When the puppet dies they should be revealed as a puppet to the town, with their will destroyed.


The will should not be destroyed at all. EtherealEnder idea for the will to remain intact is the more sensible. You're just adding Janitor attributes to the role now which it does not need.


I was not imaging a cleaned report like a Janitor - I pictured a destroyed will like a SK when he is jailed or visited by escort. The point is the same, no new information revealed to town after this player's death. Forging a fake will is too powerful, but preserving the original will is too lazy.

Still It can be discussed further if mafia can try to forge/clean the puppet corpse as they know it will die for sure the following night, or if the puppet is immune to further deception strategies. If the puppet is immune I would insist in destroying the will for good. If the puppet can be forged/cleaned then it could remain intact unless it is replaced by other mafia deception roles.

The logic behind this (will destroyed and dead player revealed as a puppet) will remind town that anything the puppet said in the last day can't be trusted, and if they need information they should relay on Mediums, or check the chat logs two days or more before.

And if I wasn't clear, the dead player's role wouldn't be changed to "puppet". He will show his real role when he dies, but he died because he was turned into a puppet.

Dimethyltryptamine99 wrote:
Draginer wrote:- I would add that a puppet can't be used by a retri or necro. Their corpse endured too much to be useful for them after they die.


Retributionist is already an insanely weak role most of the time and is already hard countered by Janitors and somewhat countered by Forgers. This is just another role that would hard-counter Retributionist.


Still if "X" role is weak, then maybe that role needs a revamp to make it stronger. New roles shouldn't be punished if a weak role remains being weak when a new role is added.

EtherealEnder wrote:Maybe; though this is why I think the puppeteer should only have 2 uses, to prevent the mafia just steamrolling the town with votes. Idk if it would be better to remove the voting power or not since then the town could just say "alright everyone vote" and the guy who can't vote must be a puppet. Or maybe that could be a good change? idk


I pictured the puppet as a tool for confusing. The puppet should try to make a fake will to share, or divert the attention toward an specific player. The puppet can't vote someone up, so he will depend on other players to have a person upped (smart mafia members will know they need to move fast as the puppet can't vote someone up, so if they remain low profile the puppet can be spotted as he is talking but not voting). A puppet can't vote someone up, and will abstain if he needs to vote. Townies can discover a puppet if they pushed several people and puppet keeps abstaining, but the puppet will die either ways that night, and he achieved his purpose of distracting the townies attention for that day. I can start picturing the games, every night where there is no mafia killings town will wonder if mafia hit immune, or someone was turned into a puppet.

EtherealEnder wrote:I think the goal of the puppeteer should be more to pretend that the person they're controlling isn't a puppet, kinda like how the forger should try to convincingly forge someone so no one can tell there's a forger. This would kinda defeat that purpose


Puppeteer power should come from confusing town for one a whole day, and townies will need to think that everything they learned from the puppet (and any conclusions reached from that info) are surely wrong and dangerous. I think it is fine and expected that the townies discover the puppet after he dies, the confusion generated by it is powerful enough to risk them lose the game (a vigi shooting someone by mistake, jailor jailing the wrong target, TIs wasting efforts, etc.) leading them to lose majority.
As mentioned before, you could also discuss if a puppet could be further modified by other mafia deception roles (forger/janitor) for greater effects, achieving the result of concealing perfectly the puppet's nature.
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby EtherealEnder » Tue Aug 03, 2021 12:00 pm

bump. puppets can no longer vote, and i've added some potential changes (mostly nerfs lol) that were suggested to the bottom that are up for discussion
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Re: Puppeteer (Mafia Deception)

Postby EtherealEnder » Mon Aug 09, 2021 9:57 pm

bump again. made some other changes and added a poll
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