Host thoughts:
Obviously the setup was very imperfect. There were some balance pitfalls, shortcomings in terms of role design and an overall lack of thoroughness with respect to action resolution and consistency that the game severely needed. That's all on me.
As for how that affected the game, for the most part I think the overall experience was not hurt. There were opportunities to use your roles to help you win and I felt like there were special interactions that made the overall process more engaging.
The goals were for this setup were to have plenty of offensive roles and a very low amount of protective roles. As a by product there were more disruptive roles to fill the gaps. I didn't want the game to go too long since each and every action resolution session was expected to be very intensive.
The initial half of the setup which Fenrir and I collaborated on was envisioned to be on the higher end of the power scale. I ended up having to do the other half myself. I kept the high power theme in mind but ultimately burnt out and some roles suffered. As a result we had 50% of a setup which I think was really good for the game, another 25% that I think was just okay and the final 25% was just bad and lazy. That's on me.
Now there aren't any roles, bar a couple, that I think had zero counter-play. I think that in most cases there were answers available to big role threats. The issue was this required more coordination and experience, something which wasn't present in what was a first venture into EiMM for a lot of the player-base.
Going forward, seeing the widespread approval of this game format and definite interest, I'd like to make this a yearly hosting venture. This was a learning experience for both you and I, and I expect to take what was learnt and ensure that the next time this gets hosted, more is done to make the setup more complete, and in some cases less detrimental to the overall enjoyment.
With that being said I still consider this game a success. Players had fun, I think the outcome was justifiable via gameplay and there were a lot of intriguing and entertaining gameplay elements.
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Sheets:
docs.google.com/document/d/1W63J5yADcZnWA7f7S88Sr0bcaGZ37NLvd47Bn86yIZ8/edit?usp=sharingdocs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ztoFpklukD3-ndHCN8aLDjtPMorcClTZDO7uUmbNsfU/edit?usp=sharing---
And for funsies I said I would do a host role tier list
S
Gambit: SO this entire role was a huge oversight. Essentially this role could kill users with their own standard shot and would have made for a bad gameplay experience if it lived past n1.
Norman: Living twice is so generically good and it's the functional equivalent of 3 extra bpv's. The os unstoppable shot was also a nice touch.
A
Nico Yazawa: The loverizer plus the dayvig meant that this role was an extreme offensive threat, one of the better ones in the game. Not only does it maximise the users' own actions but it also makes your allies more impactful as well.
Roy: The dayvig and the passive meant this role was difficult to stop without flat out killing it. Motivate was an extra bonus that lended itself to boosting the social gameplay aspect.
Heather Chandler: The thunderdome essentially crippled two players and left them unable to win. The jailkeep, being one of the few prot roles, but it's user in high demand. The blackmail wasn't as useful but ultimately there were applications for it that could've proved it more effective.
Diavolo: While this role suffers from a need from general game info, the vig shot plus the commute prove to be so useful in so many different situations. Having one of two bpv restores was also very nice for the kit.
B
Ness: The passive is only marginally useful but PK Thunder and PK Starstorm had the power to end the game for people on a whim. Having to trade a BPV for starstorm meant that its use became extremely situational though.
Charizard: Will-O-Wisp comes off as a strong ability but ends up losing value incrementally the longer the game goes. It's a fun exercise in patience since it takes 4 nights to strip someone of BPV's. Math works out to about 3 kills every six nights. The passive held incredible use in lategame pinch situations but that's ultimately niche for the role and not continued utility.
Lightskin Monte: Given that the other fake alias role never had shots on it, it's uncertain how effective this role would've been. The shot hijacker and the os pgo do make for a fun combo however and there was a lot of potential for some offensive explosiveness.
Hercules: This role really just needs one strong ally to increase the value of it. The generically good disruptive elements meant that there were plenty of self protective possibilities. The offensive capabilities were on the milder side, but the Stymphalian Birds were an interesting counterpiece to the Jailkeeper role.
J: High priority bus driver means that it was only stoppable by passive. This role, in theory had the potential to counter nearly every single role on this role list because of the lack of a non consec tag. Unfortunately, the bus drive was the only thing the role had.
Tobias: OS PGO + Fullblocker serves well to take out threats and ensure the users survival but it needed some sort of additional offensive capability to be truly strong.
C
The Grinch: Falls under the generically good category. The power to oneshot someone is fun but the ability thief ultimately requires a lot of information to be truly useful and the passive is just not good to begin with.
White Martians: The Commuter+ OS Deflecter combo was interesting and the high prio standard shot was tantalizing. Unfortunately, this role suffered from needing a good sense of timing and game awareness in order to be useful.
Oda Nobunaga: This role ensured an unstoppable shot for at least n1 and gave the user 2 fake aliases to play with. In terms of usefulness, it falls off severely and does nothing to circumvent the glaring weakness of increasing its own vulnerability.
Dawn: BPV count cop was a useful utility and the perma self watcher is always a strong addition. However, this role didn't have enough to capitalize on any information learnt, instead it serves to supply information networks.
Boo: The action delayer, at its core negs a lot of other actions via its use. The bus driver proved to be an additionally useful disruptive tool. This role needed another third action with proven usefulness in order to be better.
Loki: Another fullblocker but this role lacks something else to make it more useful. The random redirector is a fun idea but ultimately it's niche in utility.
Slime: The pure roleblocker is marginally useful but the bpv doubler was an interesting dynamic that unfortunately, did not get explored. It has proven use any night you use it, however.
D
A cat: Being a pure invest role meant that this was never going to be any good.
Zero: Having the shot delayer was nice but the Learning System was severely outclassed.
Cutiefly: Ultimately, this role doesn't do that much and takes 3 nights before proving to have any sort of use outside of niche situations.
Red Hood:Having a perma bpv breaker is nice on paper and the alias trader meant that your survival could be extended. However this role didn't have enough outside of marginally useful abilities.
Sora: The ability to name target is an interesting tool but ultimately this role had too many restrictions.
Zeke: This role is fun for what it is but even the one thing it's good at doing is marginally useful for the user.
Jon Snow: The perma pgo is very powerful but the role having not much else to offer plus the neg util passive is why it isn't higher.
Moana:The OS damage negate is good bug everything else about this role returns mostly useless results.
Iron Man: Having the inventor and nothing else meant this role had a complete lack of agency. The offerings from the inventor were generically useful but ultimately this role had little to offer.
Jibril: Having a full role pm cop is fun for exactly one night in this format. Ultimately the information the tracker returns is useless 9/10 times. The low prio bpv breakers The os bpv break was standard for that ability type, which is not very good to begin with.
Miles Edgeworth: The shotblocker was a nice rarity but everything else about this role was marginally useful at best.
F
A pair of dice: Yeah the rng is pretty bad but it made for a bright spot every action resolution phase where i got to bust out my dnd dice set every night, which i rarely get to use. Outside of being a flat out meme, there were some interesting result possibilities.
Fenrir: lol
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