Here is a brief explanation of the roles:

Mafia Goon is the basic Mafia member. They can secretly talk to other Mafia team members at night, and vote with them to decide the Mafia team's night kill. They have no other powers.

Mafia Hooker is as above, but in addition they may role-block one player each night. If their target has a night action, it fails.

Mafia strongman is as a Mafia goon, but in addition may force through the Mafia kill, once per game, such that the Doctor (or any other relevant power) cannot prevent the kill.

The Cop is town aligned. Once per night, the Cop can investigate one other player, and will learn their target's alignment.

The Doctor is town aligned. Each night they may visit a player. If their target is attacked that night by the Mafia, or shot at by the Vig, the Doctor will save their life. They may not target the same player on consecutive nights.

Vigilante is Town aligned. Once per game they may shoot another player, during the night. Their target will be killed.

Vanilla Townie is the basic town role. They have no power beyond their vote.

Can doctor save themselves?

Its a GM call.

Ok, I have played that way in FtF so just wondering.

We have played both styles before. Its fairly common to allow self saving. But its best to verify that

GM NOTE

The Doctor *can* self-target, yes. As with any other target, they may not target themselves two nights in a row.

Isn't the point of the scum role-block to mitigate follow-the-cop, without preventing the doctor from saving them successively?

Hi Mouse.

The role-block can be used both to try to block the Doctor, and to attempt to directly block the Cop. In more complex scenarios there would be other town-aligned Power Roles which might also be role-blocked, but for this first game I'm trying to keep it simple.

Yes, I'm disputing the necessity for a "can't target the person you did last night" restriction to all roles, as the scum roleblock sufficiently counters any actual abuse that can be done with that.

Usually the "no consecutive save" clause on doctors is to allow doctors to self-save while preventing newer players from distorting power role balance by playing "selfishly" (i.e. saving themselves every night). While it's true that the scum roleblock is functionally a good enough counter to abusive interactions like follow-the-cop, a "no consecutive save" clause provides a useful extra buffer (for scenarios where, for example, the roleblocker is lynched before the cop or doctor are outed/killed), provides a balancing benefit to the GM, and doesn't significantly interfere with gameplay.

Probably the most disappointing consequence of a "no consecutive saves" rule is not being able to save the strongest townie indefinitely, but in some sense that's also a positive (the scum's nightkill is their best tool for trying to control town discussion, so having it potentially neutered by being unable to deal with a dominant town player through the night phase is pretty rough for scum).

I would strongly disagree that's a positive, from any perspective - essentially what disallowing the doctor from targetting a person a second night is doing is setting up a guaranteed "x is going to die tonight" situation, rather than allowing the natural second-guessing debate about who to kill and who to save. It completely eliminates the tension of 'can't go for the preferred target, because doctor will save them, except they know that, so they'll save the other likely target instead, blocking that, except...', which is basically the only night-fun a doctor actually gets.

Basing your balance around assuming people are going to play poorly, whether deliberately or through inexperience, is... not actually balancing the game.

Whether or not the doctor has interesting decisions at night has no bearing on the scum team, which means that from the scum team's perspective, giving them some more certainty regarding their night actions working as intended is a positive.

It's clearly a negative for the doctor in all respects (increasing the number of interesting decisions, raw power level of the role), but it's not a negative for all players.

And there's no implicit assumption that people will play the doctor role poorly, the rule simply prevents one method of poor doctor play from occurring. It's a common enough happening in games with a newer community that taking action to prevent it might help the balance (preventing a poor line of play that happens a minuscule number of times in an experienced community is of dubious merit, while preventing that same line of play that happens, say, 80+% of the time in a newer community may have more merit).

FWIW when we started on webdip, I made the roleblock a factional power and allowed the doctor to save whoever they wanted except for themselves. I think that's probably the best compromise of the different tensions at play. But I'm also not involved in this game, likely won't be involved in any emerging vDip forum mafia community, and thus don't have a vested interest in any particular outcome. I'm also not really familiar with how the webDip forum mafia community evolved, so it's possible Jamie's decision to use this set of doctor rules is rooted in experiences I'm not aware of. I thought to give my 2c as someone who has a little experience in running these games and creating formats that help grow mafia communities while still giving veterans meaningful decision-making with their roles.

Thanks Eden. (And thanks Mouse for sharing your views)

This is one of the big old debates in Mafia game balancing. The policy I've gone for in this game is the most common solution on webDip these days and in my experience it works pretty well, balance wise.

A reasonably popular option #2 is to allow the Doctor to consecutively save, but make them unable to self-target.

Actually please withdraw me from the line up. I simply don't think I will have the time to commit to this game for this round.

If I can commit to this as a 1L then you can definitely commit to it as well.

What's a 1L ?

As long as the roleblock is not a *must act* this seems fair

A cop is pretty OP in a small setup with no lawyer or godfather but if scum gets lucky towns in deep poo poo

Jamiet, you should maybe consider using a jailer if there is a 9 person set up

There are no "must act" roles in this game.

Seriously what's a 1L ?

So are we confirmed? This starts wed at? 5?

Askin 4 a frand

GM NOTICE

Kaner's withdrawal takes us down to 9 players.

1. DemonOverlord
2. Bozo
3. Brainbomb
4. ubercacher16
5. Mouse
6. Ezio
7. Ghug
8. Snowy801
9. CaptainMeme
10.
11.
12.

Substitutes:

A: Fluminator
B: bo

Would either of our subs be willing to step into the starting roster?

Will Kaner change his mind?

Will anyone from the recently-ended webDip game join us here?

Find out on the next episode of Jamie and Scooby!

9 people is a very nice number for a game.

Agreed. 9 is quite nice. Plus you cant ask for a better player pool.

I'm thinking about playing. Should I play?

Yes

You would be very welcome, Teacon.