Fruitful Kingdom

[Snaq ◢ ◤]

Theme by Alexander489 and Snaquaza
Spiritual successor to Fruitful Village

FRUITFUL KINGDOM

Description: This 10 or 16 player Open Setup revolves around the Fruit Vendor and a custom modifier: Hungry. The Hungry modifier gives the player some power-up upon receiving a fruit.

Roles
Fruit Vendor: Every night, the Fruit Vendor may give a fruit to another player.
Hungry King: When given fruit, turns into the King. King gains a Vigilante ability. Furthermore, the Fruit Vendor gets to know their identity! Any person the Fruit Vendor fruits afterward is also informed of the King's identity.
Hungry Townie: When given fruit, turns into an OS Cop. This only works the first time they are given a fruit. Is a Named Townie when not given fruit.
Hungry Goon: When given fruit, turns into an OS Millermaker. This only works the first time they are given a fruit. Is a Named Goon when not given fruit. The Mafia faction gets a nightkill each night.

Setups
10p: Fruit Vendor, Hungry King, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Goon, Hungry Goon
16p Fruit Vendor, Fruit Vendor, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Townie, Hungry Goon, Hungry Goon, Hungry Goon

The Mafia have a factional OS Millermaker.

The Hungry Townie / Goon can use their OS abilities on the night after being given fruit.

No Vote is disabled.

Questions (This is a currently untested alpha version of the theme, we appreciate any feedback)
Is the power-up given to the Mafia strong enough to give them a reasonable advantage when getting the fruit?
Is the Hungry King a fun and balanced mechanic? We wanted to maintain the aspect of the original Fruitful Village, where there was an incentive to give fruit to a specific village, while buffing the rest of the village such that it would be less likely that the Fruit Vendor is useless (and thus has a more central role).

[iavh]

Is this going to be interesting if we add a solo assassin that wins if the king dies before it
there can be 2 factions that win at most
the existence of a king is almost asking for an assassin lol

[Snaq ◢ ◤]

We explicitly do not want the theme to be a meme like AitC and facilitate more serious gameplay. If there's an Assassin, that risks it quickly devolving into an all-or-nothing game with low stakes. we chose to have two Mafia Goons, who are at serious risk if they don't catch the King either, as the King can both lead town, and expose them.

[commanderawesome]

Does king death lead to game loss? If so its probably worth for king to just claim outright early honestly, its not worth it to be alive as king and take the risk. My bigger worry though is I think clears spiral out of control pretty quick- between fruit vendor replacement and cops I think mafia has to deal with the potential of a poe or gamesolve extremely early, much more so in the 15p version.
I think the issue with mafia pr being miller maker is the mafia is just outed by the fruit vendor if a cop's inspect ever flips incorrectly, ideally mafia has some counter play to this. Maybe they start with one or two millermaker shots collectively as a faction? 

[ForgotToFlush]

i'd support more options being given to the mafia
maybe their choice between millermaker, or something like a roleblocker 

[Snaq ◢ ◤]

Nov 2, 2023 2:06:09 GMT commanderawesome said:

Does king death lead to game loss? If so its probably worth for king to just claim outright early honestly, its not worth it to be alive as king and take the risk. My bigger worry though is I think clears spiral out of control pretty quick- between fruit vendor replacement and cops I think mafia has to deal with the potential of a poe or gamesolve extremely early, much more so in the 15p version.
I think the issue with mafia pr being miller maker is the mafia is just outed by the fruit vendor if a cop's inspect ever flips incorrectly, ideally mafia has some counter play to this. Maybe they start with one or two millermaker shots collectively as a faction? 

King death does not lead to town losing, so it should purely be a buff to Town (and is intended as a strong reward for Town).

For the gamesolving issue, I agree it might be an issue in the 15p version. I do believe it will not be "extremely early", as a cop inspecting can happen on Night 2 at the earliest. However, we're open to exploring different rewards for the Town players (including having different players get different rewards, unknown to them before receiving the rewards). It is still worth considering that the game is unlikely to go very far into the game. But, I think it might be worth looking into banning No Vote.

Mafia is not necessarily outed if a Cop inspect flips incorrectly. Town does not know who would have used the Millermaker, unless it is the specific situation where it is Day 4, and two players were given Fruit on Night 1 and 2 respectively. Then, the Cop could push a player thinking they were Mafia, and the other person having fruit could be "outed" as the Mafia. However, this either requires Fruit Vendor to claim (although it is scummy not to claim with Fruit). However, the more likely claim for the Mafia would be that the Cop isn't actually Cop at all - they are Mafia faking a Mafia result, getting a Town to flip and then claiming that it is because of Millermaker.

In this specific scenario, Mafia will get 1-2 town votes before dying themselves, while getting more chances if there's more potential Millermakers on later days.

PS: should kill go before giving Fruit - this gives Mafia an incentive to kill Fruit Vendor. 

Nov 2, 2023 6:22:31 GMT ForgotToFlush said:

i'd support more options being given to the mafia
maybe their choice between millermaker, or something like a roleblocker 

I would not mind giving more options at all, but a Roleblocker being able to disable the central mechanic permanently is something I'd like to avoid.

[commanderawesome]

yeah cop is delayed but the I think the odds of having 4 clears on d3 is pretty high. I'm not worried about scum inspects as much as town inspects is what im trying to say. On second thought I think the king mechanic is cool then, creates an interesting dynamic. As for millermaker thing yeah mafia gets to trade themself off with at least one townie and outs fv before being outed, but I'm not sure a 1.5 for 1 trade is the power mafia should get upon getting a fruit in comparison to what town gets. Flushes rb idea is interesting, doesnt have to be rb but yeah more options is coo. maybe rolestopper gives similar results to rb without being as strong?

[Snaq ◢ ◤]

Nov 2, 2023 19:08:47 GMT commanderawesome said:

yeah cop is delayed but the I think the odds of having 4 clears on d3 is pretty high. I'm not worried about scum inspects as much as town inspects is what im trying to say. On second thought I think the king mechanic is cool then, creates an interesting dynamic. As for millermaker thing yeah mafia gets to trade themself off with at least one townie and outs fv before being outed, but I'm not sure a 1.5 for 1 trade is the power mafia should get upon getting a fruit in comparison to what town gets. Flushes rb idea is interesting, doesnt have to be rb but yeah more options is coo. maybe rolestopper gives similar results to rb without being as strong?

I think I'd be in favor of giving the Mafia a starting OS Millermaker, if that remains their power-up. Then, you avoid people receiving the spotlight if a Cop gets a wrong result. I think Rolestopper is relatively weaker, though it can stop the Fruit from being given. I think a little stronger reward to Mafia upon receiving Fruit is warranted.

Also, I discussed a bit with Alex, and we think the backup mechanic is probably not necessary in this theme anymore, since Fruit Vendor always gets a Fruit off Night 1, and there should be an incentive to kill the Fruit Vendor.

PS: with the 4 clears, are you talking about the 15p setup, as in 9p you would have 5 players left so it would approach endgame quickly. Still, it requires claiming (which would be discouraged if we remove the backup mechanic). However, I would be open to give town a different power-up still.

[commanderawesome]

I think the backup mechanic was probably the strongest aspect in getting clears, so yeah without that I think theres a lot less concern. 4 clears I was talking about 15p yeah, but as you said claiming doesnt really work as well now. OS millermaker start works, there may be alternative prs that work too (maybe maf gets to choose to start with os lawyer or framer? not necessary, pure random idea) but it looks interesting and good in its current form! looking forward to testing

[Snaq ◢ ◤]

Update
We have decided to
- remove the backup mechanic that'd turn a random Hungry Townie into Fruit Vendor upon an original Fruit Vendor dying.
- add a factional OS Millermaker for Mafia

[Snaq ◢ ◤]

After a few playtests, we encountered an unforeseen issue plaguing town playstyle upon the King being activated. Not only does it break the theme, the playstyle is also very boring.

When the King is activated, all town members gain a valuable piece of information that the Mafia members do not. This was intended to give Town a subtle way to get a clear, and punish Mafia if they try to push this clear. However, currently, Town does not have an incentive to keep the King hidden (besides maintaining them as a clear that Mafia does not know).

For this reason, it is optimal for Town to immediately expose their information at the start of the next day. While one player doing this will not break the theme necessarily, if everyone does it before Mafia can react, it can clear many if not all Town players. Obviously, this breaks the theme. Furthermore, it is also not very interesting gameplay to immediately expose the secret information the first chance you get.

I have received some suggestions to buff Mafia, but a more powerful Mafia does not tackle this problem at its core. It might make it less frequent, or worse, compensate when Mafia does not need it, it remains an issue when King is activated.

---

We are considering a few changes. I very much enjoy the idea of King giving some information-buff, but like this it will always be broken. Instead, we thought it might be a good idea if only the Fruit Vendor is informed. Then, any person who this Fruit Vendor gives fruit to after will also be informed (or if Mafia, that the King exists). That way, you want to actually soft, instead of confirming who is King.

However, that will probably leave the King a little weak. An option is to give it Vig powers instead, possibly in conjunction with the aforementioned.

More changes would require more playtesting, but if Town is still strong with a nerfed King, I would consider nerfing Hungry Townies. Their effect could be changed, or Mafia could instead become a Godfather upon receiving Fruit.

Would love to get some feedback!

[Snaq ◢ ◤]

Hi, there's been a few updates, hoping to playtest again soon:
- Hungry King now gains a Vigilante ability. Furthermore, only the Fruit Vendor gets to know their identity! Any person the FV fruits afterwards is also informed of the King's identity.
- Both setups gain a Hungry Townie.
- No Vote is disabled.