Soul Scourge [signups]

So this game was made a while ago, with a minor adjustment tonight. It follows in the sense of some games of "pre-selection" or drafting, e.g. the termite pirate mafia, or a "pick your poison" variant game. Where the game setup determines starting abilities from players' choices.

If it is extended to be a series, it would incorporate more character customization.

It is also supposed to be "scalable", so anywhere from 15+ signups can come.

It is slotted for 20 people.

At its core, the game is completely "open". The game setup is known, and play goes from there. I made some small adjustments to the theory, in the shaman, so I think it should be fairly balanced but if I overlooked something it can be adjusted.

It is a stat-based game, with every class having predefined stats and abilities.

As a player, you PM the host what of the 4 Champion classes you will be when signups close. Any post saying "I'm an X" in this thread is NOT considered valid (I will make this clear).

People that end up as scum, i.e. Soul Scourge, are strictly randomly selected once everybody's class selection is in.


The game has 2 stats in attack and defense: ATK c5war and DEF c5strength

There is a 20% scum ratio, or 1 scum for every 5th signup (e.g at 2 at 10-14 players, 3 at 15-19, etc). I.e. in a game of 20 signups, 4 scum (Soul Scourge) and 16 townies (Champions)

• ATK > DEF kills at night. Ties do not. All stats (including auras and soul scourge gains as applicable) are summed up in an attack and defense.
• lynch is plurality and kills automatically; no stats matter for lynch. tied lynch first to reach number dies. "no lynch" is option
• Anyone can attack. If you have +0 ATK as a stat, you would just contribute 0. However, it is possible to have negative attack and such.
• The attack with the highest ATK stats against him will be hit first. In case of tie, the attack with the highest number of people involved goes first. So if like the demons are attacking swordsmen who are attacking the demons, it depends on the numbers involved, and thus the person who is attacked second could survive if they kill the other attacker first
• Role reveal on death
• no editing posts with votes in them

The only rules I care about is no quoting PM's or screenshots/similar things. You can make whatever quicktopics you want, PM freely, post in thread day and night phases, whatever.

The Spearman is a class of honour and discipline. He has spent his life preparing himself and others for combat in the citadels; with a core philosophy that Defense is better than Offense, with a desire to protect his kin and his homeland, he has a very high defense.

Defend self (default): A spearman naturally takes a fortified position. His default stance is to defend himself, reflected in his base stats (20 DEF).
Defend another: A spearman can defend someone else by giving +15 DEF to target and drops to 10 DEF on himself. Thus, two spearman watching each others' backs would have 25 DEF each (10+15). It is better to collaborate!
Offensive Thrust: A spearman can attack if he wants. His base stat is +0 ATK. However, since he still only cares about himself in combat, he has 20 DEF.


The Swordsman is a class celebrating the art of warfare. Himself, chosen at a young age, has trained in the mountainous monasteries and temples. Upon reaching the level of master, expert craftsmen and forgers have custom-made his blade and his hilt to his exact specifications.

Attack: The swordsman has been taught to attack, taking swift action so as to not leave himself vulnerable to a counter. He has a base stat of +10 ATK.

The swordsman cannot defend someone else. His stats are always +10/+10 unless modified by a shaman.


The Bowman comes not from the cities and castles nor from the monasteries, but out in the farms and roaming lands. He hunts and protects his keep, needing flexibility in his role and someone who has neither the time nor the resources to craft a masterful weapon or spend years in military training.

Defensive stance (default): Unlike a spearman, a bowman can improve his defense by focusing only on protecting anyone coming towards him. Defending yourself would make your DEF stat 15. It is the default night action, but it is not his base stat.
Defend another: A bowman can protect both himself and someone else, utilizing his range to shoot enemies before they approach. The target gets +10 DEF and the bowman remains at +10 DEF.
Attack: The Bowman can attack with his +5 ATK. Since his attack is from range, it does not leave him open to losing his guard in melee combat. He keeps +10 DEF.


The shaman has spent years tuning himself to the auras of life all around him. He has perfected this craft, and often is heard mumbling about "the balance of all things".

Default: Protect Thyself and smite Thine Enemies: If a shaman does nothing, he will use his aura manipulation to cast a defensive +2.5 DEF on himself.

Aura Manipulation: Each night, the shaman may cast an aura on a person modifying that person's stats by 2.5. This gives 4 aura options: +2.5 ATK, +2.5 DEF, -2.5 ATK, -2.5 DEF. A shaman's aura takes place immediately, and takes 2 days and 1 night to fade away if not reinforced.

E.g. a shaman casting a +2.5 ATK on a person night 1 will be in effect night 1 and night 2, but fade beginning night 3.

If an aura is reinforced, it is replenished. E.g. a shaman casting +2.5 both n1 and n2 on a target (+5 ATK), will not fade until beginning night 4 (-5 ATK night 4).

A shaman may call an immediate stop to any auras that he gave to a target as a free action. I.e. a shaman casting a +2.5 ATK aura on a person n1 can be cancelled by that shaman n2.

The aura does not contribute to the soul scourge's stat gain upon being eaten!


The Soul Scourge are the scum of this game. They are a demonic bunch that feed on the physical (NOT-AURA) energies of Human beings.

The starting stats of a Soul scourge depend on the class composition of the Champions. He gets:

• +1 ATK per spearman
• +1 DEF/swordsman
• (+0.5 ATK +0.5 DEF)/bowman
• (+0.5 ATK +0.5 DEF)/shaman

The Soul Scourge gain stats for every kill they perform. This is immediate upon the kill. When making an attack, they specify which Soul Scourge involved in the attack gets the stat gain, or split evenly amongst those involved in the kill.

I.e. if a Soul Scourge eat a swordsman, there is 10 ATK and 10 DEF to split amongst those of the killers.

ATK and DEF are separate, so they specify each. They could split the ATK evenly (2 do this kill: +5 ATK each) but decide only 1 gets all the DEF (+10).

Shaman auras are not physical energy and do not add to the stat gain!

1) Visorslash
2) Zack
3) King Morgan
4) Sprig
5) SouthernKing
6) remake20
7) bsmith1068
8) samsniped
9) count dingdong
10) Jarrema
11) verarde
12) stmarco
13) spaceman98
14)
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15)
16)
17)
18)
19)
20)

Reserves:
1) choxorn
2)
The number is not set-in stone. It is scalable, but I personally would want >15. As a small game, it would be capped at 20.

I'll play.

You said 11:59 on Friday! This was 3 am on Saturday! (edit: nvm, forgot you're not on the east coast anymore)

...With that out of the way, at 4 am I'll sign up.

Inners

What mechanism is in play that stops SS from getting overpowered? Seems to me that they could quickly get to the point where they overwhelm any possible defense...

Maybe the solution is in the rules, I'll have a reread again when i am not so tired.

Oh and In of course.,

Sprig said:

What mechanism is in play that stops SS from getting overpowered? Seems to me that they could quickly get to the point where they overwhelm any possible defense...

Click to expand...

The big problem here is that Scourges scale with number of players, but townies don't. With 4 Scourges, the minimum total attack for a combined effort is 20, and that's only if there's only Swordsmen (who couldn't withstand the attack...), and that's an unlikely situation and still generally unfavorable for town (lynch is the only weapon then, and soon multikill nights will boost Scourges too much, making even more kills at night...).

More likely, each Scourge would have an average of 0.5 for each attack and defense per town, so +8 each or thereabouts, making 13*4 = 52 total. A full-strength attack there by Scourges will get through pretty much anything (self-defending spearman needs two helping spearmen and a shaman, minimum), and a double attack (26) will get through most.

If we instead had a 15 player game... we'd have something closer to 11*3 = 33 total initial power, which means Scourges have to stick together for a while until they feel safe enough to split attacks. Unless they want to roll the dice and hope townies feel like attacking at night?

Now consider a 25 player game... Something like 15*5 = 75 strength which means there could even be two reliable NKs per night from the beginning (and quickly three, with possibility of even as many as five to start). Sure, there are 20 town vs. 5 Scourges, but at 2+ NKs per one lynch, town has... likely only three mislynches before loss. The game could very reasonably end after Night 3 if no Scourge has been found by then. Now, a Scourge could well be found by then, but three mislynches is small wiggle room...

It gets worse and worse as you increase: 30 player is 17*6 = 102 which can even be a reasonable four kills (three more likely, but possibly even five or six...) per night. At four kills per night, NKs entirely outpace lynches.

Sure, more townies means more possibility for defense (spearmen who have someone to protect can help out a lot; bowmen can certainly help; shaman are meh at the beginning but grow in power as they survive), but there's only so much they can do without better coordination than might be expected from blind townies at game start. Townies need to be able to combat Scourges from the get-go. To be fair, townies shouldn't really be attacking unless they're somehow pretty confident of alignment, since they're more likely to do more harm than good. And they probably need support of some sort to get through Scourge defenses... >.< And eventually probably can't even do that what with all the Scourge defense buffing from their kills.

((Oh, and magic OP for stacking persistent buffs ; still, it probably doesn't outpace Scourges' thingy unless stacked... which leaves other vulnerable...))

I'll hold off on joining for now, but I'll keep tabs on this.

I'm in

Re sprig: your base concern probably gets addressed if signups mod 5 != 0. I.e. with 19 signups I there would be 3 soul scourge.

I never performed the intended testing of everything, but the main thing I am flip flopping on is the shaman 7.5. It was 10 in the last iteration (see "theory" link in OP), but I think the 7.5 would maybe put pressure for a shaman to network since he is the only townie that can die to a lone base swordsman. Shaman is a class for "eh protect myself do nothing" in a way. I havent even thought about scaling past 24, so if it reaches 25 (it is not supposed to as a small game) Id have to relook. Count dingdong has fair points; but I think at first glance the 15-24 range is appropriate. The starting stats are probably 13/13.

The game could snowball, I know that, but it'd be the player's choice. Tons of game can snowball that by sheer "luck" dont. Mini games always can do that, like 10-15 players tend to have 2 scum and 1 could be lynched d1. Also, nothing is stopping everyone from being a swordsman, or everyone being a shaman and doing -2.5 ATK aura on people, maybe stopping night kills past n2. But I think the base is pretty good. The game might be uninteresting if everyone is a swordsman and like 10 night kills happen the first night, but it'd essentially be balanced (random draw of who dies, though it would be interesting in the stacking of attacks to see what goes first.)

The big town weapon, as always, is the lynch and the info gained from the lynch.

Zack said:

You said 11:59 on Friday! This was 3 am on Saturday! (edit: nvm, forgot you're not on the east coast anymore)

...With that out of the way, at 4 am I'll sign up.

Click to expand...

Matlab grace period submissions

Wining

Kennigit said:

The game might be uninteresting if everyone is a swordsman and like 10 night kills happen the first night, but it'd essentially be balanced (random draw of who dies, though it would be interesting in the stacking of attacks to see what goes first.)

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If there are 20 players and only town swordsmen, the four Scourges have 5/21. It takes two players attacking to kill one townie, but it takes three players attacking to kill one Scourge. And that's just the first night. Wolves can guarantee one kill the first night with a 3-person attack (split attributes +6Atk/+4Atk/+10Def). Guarantee two kills the second night with the newly-11atk man and the 3-team (they could even do it with a 2-team if they want...). With the three-team, they can make a second and third 11atk person. The fourth person needs to tack on to a kill the third night to get 11atk, so by night four all Scourges can kill single-handedly and gain 10def per kill.

Aside from being initially more difficult to kill than townies, Scourges can quickly single-kill and be unkillable at night. Lynches will certainly be the primary method of killing Scourges, but an all-swordsmen team is just bad in most cases. Actually, an all-anything team is bad as long as Scourges know about it. All-swordsmen and all-spearmen is evident to Scourges by their ability scores. The only "hidden" type of this is all-bow and all-shaman, and it's difficult to coordinate that without also letting the Scourges know.

...I'd actually say that swordsmen are the least pro-town of the roles. Sure, they allow you to kill Scourges at night, but the scourges will always get defense buffs from their kills. Always. Thus, swordsmen are most helpful at the beginning with lucky shots, and lose helpfulness at the game goes on. They're a bit more likely to do harm than good. And, well, their deaths are extra attack for Scourges... >.>

Shamans doing -Atk could be a good strategy, but they'd have to focus one person in order to make it happen. If they notice a lack of kills, they can't be sure it's because of them, so they don't even know that their target is a Scourge. And if they focus the wrong person, they're doing nothing. If they really think someone is a Scourge, they should be trying to lynch them instead of -Atking them. At least, that's my opinion on the matter. But yeah, an all-shaman team is probably the strongest, especially if they do a coordinated -Atk on everyone. A Scourge or two might escape the effects and keep attacks, though. It would certainly give town more chance for mislynches, though.

I guess this game will depend on townies reading each other well and teaming up to kill the baddies. Or protect themselves from them. Whichever.

((Yes, I talk a lot. Get used to it. ))


Oh yes. Question about the Shaman: "Shaman auras are not physical energy and do not add to the stat gain!"

...so the auras don't add to stat gain, but does the 7.5 base Def add? I would assume so, but your post in the "theory" link in the OP implies otherwise...

He also states that the "theory" link is outdated and that he has changed shaman since then.

I actually think an all-spearman town is the strongest. Each Scourge starts with 5 + (20 - 4) = 21 atk, and will never gain more attack since spearmen have 0 atk; in fact, stat gains from killing townies would be useless since it just increases their defense, and no townies can attack anyways. A protected spearman will have 25 def, making him unkillable unless the Scourge focus multiple attacks on him.

An all-swordsman town is terrible because swordsman are just plain bad.

An all-bowman town is bad because bowman are spearman but worse (their attack is essentially useless, especially after the Scourge rack up def from their kills).

An all-shaman town is bad because their def is only 7.5 and killing a shaman is trivial. Each Scourge starts with 5 + (1/2)(20 - 4) = 13 atk, and will never gain more attack since spearmen have 0 atk. +atk and -def are basically useless in such a case. Successfully using -atk is a shot in the dark trying to hit the Scourge, and you'd need to stack three for it to be meaningful enough to do anything. Using +def would be better, but at that point you're just inferior spearmen.

An all-spearman town seems to be the optimal configuration to me. It's the only way the Scourge aren't killing 4 people every night. All of the other classes are just worse (especially bowman and swordsman, since those just make the Scourge unstoppable after a few kills).

mmm to be honest, bowman might want to be 7.5/10. it's obviously intended to be a split between spearman and swordsman. *edit* nah, a big factor there is limiting stat gain, plus really synergy. 1 swordman and 1 archer can get the job done, at the start at least. the stat gain really make 4v16 difficult for the town side, 3v16 i think it is more reliant upon the scum avoiding the lynch.

we'll see if people sign up anyways, because like an 18 person game or 23 person game might be "best". Right at 20 a 4 vs 16 would be challenging, but a 3 vs 16 might be challenging the other way.

other metagame thing: i said I would randomize scum after role selections are finalized, but i might want for metagame reasons to change that to when signups close (official period for role selection is after signups close, though I will take any requests as you sign up, etc. I'm flexible and trying to be upfront). They could meta the town ("I'll be our swordsman, don't worry")

mmm but I guess if everyone discusses what they would be beforehand, then the mafia just has confirmation of who is who ^.^ I'll leave it as it is, for simplicity.

*edit* I'm happy where it is at. The only thing I forgot about was if I should reveal at death what class the person was. On one hand the scum know, so the town should. On the other hand, in a really theoretical sense, no reveal gives incentive for townies to network together early (and scum to lie early). It's a game really about how people organically group together, ideally anyways.

I'll reveal at death what class they are.

probably to-be-abandoned, im not going to go on a recruiting campaign

Count me in. With hopes that you get enough people to play!

Kennigit said:

probably to-be-abandoned, im not going to go on a recruiting campaign

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I'll make a post in the None Shall Pass 2 sign-up thread.

You also never posted a link in the queue thread or the mafia info thread. There are probably a decent number of people who don't even know this game's in sign-ups.

This sounds fun, but I have a bit too much going on right now, I'm not sure if I can commit to this... put me down as a reserve, though.

Kennigit said:

probably to-be-abandoned, im not going to go on a recruiting campaign

Click to expand...

If not getting enough players like many games seem to be struggling with these days, I hope it's postponed rather than abandoned. Looks interesting.