While Lucid is gone, I'm going to start making a few lists of stuff for him to investigate once he gets back. To start, let's talk about sl0nderman's least favorite kind of role: alignment swapped roles.
What roles, new or old, deserve to have alignment-swapped counterparts? A lot of the new roles have been village and could use some mafia versions. What about the vice-versa of that? What about the rare third-party alignment swap?
I'll start: I think Monkey and Jailkeep could both use mafia versions.
Third-sided granny--maybe called like a Little Old Lady. It would be a hostile third with win-con: Wins when no killing roles remain.
Third-sided King. That should exist. Except it should know that it's king. It wins if among final 2. Rare third where town has to joint against it.
Maf-sided cupid: chooses one maf member and one non-maf member to fall in love like with regular cupid.
Third-sided Guiser, maybe called something like Infiltrator. To make it not outweigh regular killer, it should take priority over maf for trappers/surgeons, and convert to villager 100% of the time if visiting priest or shrink.
Town-sided Gingerbreadman: Gingerbread Woman. Same mechanics as gingerbread man, but gives a bread to whoever she visits. If she and gingerbread man visit each other, it should give each one an extra life.
I had one role suggestion over 6 years ago which is basically a mafia-swapped Troublemaker called Moon Goddess: https://epicmafia.com/role/3405 It skips one day once per game instead of repeating a day meeting like Troublemaker does.
town sided tailor - called "designer," can give anyone a suit but the person suited will receive a message saying what role they were suited with, ie ("You received a Doctor suit!") or smth along the lines of that. it can be used to trick ww and maf into thinking youre another role
maf sided keymaker - called "smithy," basically gives people fake keys. i know fab can give ppl fake keys but lets be honest here all people do as fab is give people guns and watch them backfire on the victims.
town sided cat lady - called "caretaker," sends a cat to a persons home and if they choose to let the cat in they will be roleblocked, but anyone who visits the person with the cat will cause the cat to meow, alerting that person that they were visited. the cat will meow if visited by town, and hiss if visited by 3rd party. if the person with the cat dies, the cat will run back to the caretaker and tell them the role of the killer (not sure how, but maybe smth like ("Your cat runs back to you looking scared... By looking into its eyes, you feel that a/an [hostile role] hurt the person the cat was visiting.") if visited by a nonkilling maf role (or arson) or scout/watcher/etc the cat will growl.
I agree with ookami that alignment swap characters in general degrade gameplay. But I am also ALL FOR new roles because I agree also with HillaryClinton2020 when she says that sandbox simply needs better setups.
And so I will continue to push for greater setup flexibility, aka being able to combine closed role randomness with pre-determined role rosters. Lucid has expressed that he indeed has something in mind for this.
In the meantime, you can do your part by:
a) creating new setups and trying them out b) not expecting every role to be in every setup (there are too many now for this to make sense)
I'll say one more thing, and this is a message for those users who are often on the ball in terms of pumping out new setups whenever new roles come out. My suggestion is to start making MULTIPLE setups in order to incorporate new roles. For example, instead of making 1 12-player closed-role setup that covers ALL roles, create 3 12-player closed-role setups that collectively cover all roles. And then if you're hosting, make an effort to cycle through them. Know what I mean?
When married reveals the target as blue (does not convert just others see them as blue) and takes all their items once they die. Can be used on anyone, so it doesn't give town a clear and gives Gold digger some tactics.
1. Priest - I suggested this a while ago, and the main issue is this wouldn't be good in closed setups; unlike town with mafia, there's not always guaranteed to be a town/third killer in every game. My suggestion was making it so maf-sided Priest couldn't be lynched, but died from any night visit and converted killers. Of course, any mafia role that can't be lynched is gonna be a slippery slope, so maybe no. Though, I'm sure that my 3-4 year old suggestion could be tweaked to work out these days. 2. Crier - a lot of people aren't thinking outside the box with this one. Sure, Crier is a town staple role, but think about it: it's the town CRIER, and it cries out as a result. Why can't mafia have their own variation of that? Maybe Screamer, and all of their anonymous messages are tagged with "someone screams out." Something to show that they're dealing with a member of the mafia, but at the same time, the purpose of the role remains the same. I think it'd be a great idea.
Definite nos: tree, virgin, chef. Way too townsided to make work in any way.
Alignment swaps are my religion because they prove that even if you play a role 100 times, you can still get a fresh experience out of it. Especially in sandbox, they're great.
My two cents on the situation:
1. Gallis and Loudmouth - mafia isn't town, so both of these wouldn't need to be hidden from the actual user like how both roles appear blue to the user. Just give us mafia roles akin to each and that'd be great 2. Bride - give it the Heartbreaker treatment. Only the person the scumsided Bride chooses gets revealed, and not the actual scumsided Bride 3. King - a mafia role that counts for ALL mafia votes at night (and maybe during the day as well) would be great 4. Troublemaker - I'm unsatisfied with Rainmaker, as I think it's a load of wasted potential. Give some kind of condition for mafia and if fulfilled, they get two kills during the night for one night 5. Secretary - this should've been a mafia role in the first place
Mafia sided Robin Hood that steals all items from someone and gives them to his mafia friend, doesn't attend mafia meetings.
It could be like "Cannot give an item to anyone from the village" just like Robin Hood or instead of having player nicknames on the "give" list he'd have mafia roles to pick from.
This is just part of the greater Sandbox malaise problem that we have. I’m not sure if there’s ever been a dedicated thread to it, but maybe someday I’ll type one up.
The Fall Guy, the maf-sided virgin. You could either make it so if they get lynched all town is role blocked (similar to snow queen) or mafia is immune to lynching the next day.
Town Graverobber would be good. Mafia Siren would be interesting although about as effective as Siren is, no? But then again let's think broader than the 12p sandbox setups.
Mafia Samurai and Snoop are both good calls, and probably easy to make.
