Giving Free Wins to Executioner/Jester is Wrong [Opinion]

[HimikoToga13]

Does anyone else feel like it's wrong that town goes out of their way in 99% of games to give wins to Executioner and Jester?

I guess I'm just an asshole but I feel like every other role is competing and doing what they can to win and way too often those roles can just stay quiet, or even worse be an obvious and bad Exe/Jester and then still get wins out of it.

It seems so counter-intuitive since everyone else has to earn their win. Sometimes it can even cost town the game when they miscalculate the votes or remaining roles, but even when it's a free and clear win it still seems wrong to me.

I would say that more than half the times that role wins it's because of a free win given, and not because executioner did a good job of framing their target or Jester did a good job of acting sus, but not too sus.

In my opinion, if you do a bad job with your role, you deserve to lose, not be gifted a pity win.

Again, I'm sure I'm just an asshole, I mean why not give an extra win away if it doesn't hurt town, but once again I come back to just feeling like everyone else has to earn it and they don't.

I also feel like a confirmed Executioner is bad for Ranked/Ranked Practice. It's impossible to come out as Sheriff if you find a suspicious N1 and makes it harder to win as Executioner legitimately.

I would love to see Executioner replaced by Neutral Benign or Any, but that's a whole nother topic on the Ranked/Ranked Practice update and removal of NK. I really miss the days of NK, NE, NB, and Any way back when.

Anyway, that's my rant, let me know if you agree it's kinda of stupid to give away free wins to a bad play, or if I am, in fact, just an asshole.

[Ezradekezra]

If you're talking about the people who claim Executioner D1 or as soon as they wind up on the stand or in jail, I wholeheartedly agree with you. There's no way I'd trade the utility of a Town role for the vote of an Executioner who could still backstab the Town and side with the Mafia.

If you're also talking about the other 90% of begging Executioners who didn't really have any other option because their target got confirmed early on and/or the Mafia got steamrolled, then I disagree. It's really the only move they can make at that point, and there's no reason to screw them out of 7 elo if the Town is going to win anyway.

I really miss the days of NK, NE, NB, and Any way back when.

[alex1234321]

I agree with Ezra. Giving a Jester/Executioner a pity win when the outcome of the game is still in doubt is a bad strategy. If you're Town, then giving an Executioner a free win involves losing one of your members. If you suspect someone of being Jester, your guilty vote increases the chance that someone on your team gets haunted, so you are incentivized to vote innocent.

However, I try to be a nice person and give pity wins to Jesters and Executioners when the game is effectively over and there's close to zero chance of the outcome changing. If there's 3 Mafia, a TI, and a Jester remaining, there's no reason to not lynch the Jester. That situation isn't very different from Mafia lynching a Witch when they already won, which is considered harassment.

[OreCreeper]

I never give wins to any exe who does a sheriff exe play that fails if they aren't forced to do it (by an investigator or something). It's just lazy, and unless the exe really went out of their way to help town, I'd be happy letting them lose.

[wozearly]

I've generally seen it be situational.

As Town, I'm open to letting the Exe/Jester win if they were screwed over beyond their reasonable control (e.g. evils got steamrolled in 2 days, or half the evils quit) and Town has an unassailable majority.

As Mafia/Coven/Vamps/Witch, if there is a way to get the neutrals a win that doesn't risk our own faction's win, I'll nearly always do it. Most of the time, Exe and Jester are helping out the other evils, even if indirectly. The only time I don't is if the neutral's idiocy caused problems or deaths for the evils, or if they openly sided with Town (as anything other than Survivor).

[OreCreeper]

I'm usually in favor of giving a free win to NEs but if it's a sheriff executioner play, or the NE has been really annoying, or the NE has been openly siding against town to the point of being a pain in the ass.

[cob709]

I am in favor of entirely overhauling Executioner and Jester, as they are not suitable for Ranked play.

In Ranked, yeah give them free win because it isnt a very well made role
otherwise, meh up to players to decide

[OreCreeper]

I am in favor of entirely overhauling Executioner and Jester, as they are not suitable for Ranked play.

In Ranked, yeah give them free win because it isnt a very well made role
otherwise, meh up to players to decide

If I'm being honest, I'm not really a huge fan of this idea of making a completely new role out of every single role that has some slight balance issues. The first step in trying to balance a role shouldn't be to immediately try to turn it into a completely different role, even if that role is more fun/more balanced/better for competitive play, because there would be no difference between doing that and just making a different role. Fundamentally, it is the same as removing the role from the game entirely. Every time a role is entirely overhauled, it is basically removed from the game, with the only difference being that a completely different role was added in its place with the same name. It is no longer the same role. The first step to trying to balance a role should be to try and do so while changing none of the core mechanics. Ideally, roles should be balanced without changing any of the core mechanics, but if one of those core mechanics are fundamentally unbalanced, it is fine to remove it. But completely scrapping the role should be used as a last resort, like with retributionist, because the idea of bringing someone back into the game from the dead was in and of itself unbalanced. This is why I'm not a huge fan of what they did with disguiser. They just changed the role into something completely different, even though the previous version of disguiser could still be saved without changing its core mechanics and purpose entirely. They could have made framer into current disguiser, but with the ability to target anyone instead of just mafia for the first target and non-mafia for the second target. They could have given disguiser the ability to disguise other players, which was a great idea, and gives the role some utility. But for some reason, they gave that ability to the forger, which makes no sense since back then, it was the disguiser's ability. They could have buffed forger in a different way, in which case we would've had 3 useful mafia deception roles, whereas now we have 2 useful mafia deception roles and one useless pile of garbage. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely an improvement, but I don't think the reworks were handled in the best possible way.

[Flatliner]

Agreed. I used to do this because I HATE getting exe myself, but I've had too many executioner's betray me as evil for no particular reason (after we'd got to 6-6 or even 5-6), just to give town a win. And it just feels bad and unfair. So I never give a 'free' win to exe/jester anymore as town. Also 90% of them never talk or do a lame sher play which should not be rewarded IMO. I've had people start reghunting me for this. Literally they'll hang me as town for not voting up jester when last mafia is known. It's cost at least one game.

There may be one exception - if they get outed by spy/attacked n1 and help the town from that point on. Because that's just the worst and nothing they did caused that. But usually they just get hung right away in case they're witch so this never comes into play.

[Midio7]

In my opinion, Executioners and Jesters should be given their win only if they helped the town, otherwise they should win by deception.