A Look at the Godfather

[Jailbar]

In this topic, I'm going to write out what appears to me to be the ineffectiveness of the Godfather's various protections, and what I would do to make them a little more effective. If you don't care about my reasoning, skip to the TL;DR at the bottom.

The first protective option is "cannot be killed at night". This option would be a huge advantage for any non-mafia class, but as you all know, the mafia are usually the ones doing the killing. It protects the Godfather from Vigilantes, Serial Killers, and Arsonists, which is terrific in games with these players. However, if it is a Vigilante, he immediately knows that you are a Godfather, Survivor, Citizen, Serial Killer, or Arsonist, or being protected by a Doctor, and in many games where there are no Citizens and neutrals are lynched just to be safe, this means death anyway. Communication with a Doctor or Sheriff/Investigator, if necessary, will just delay your death. If there is an Arsonist, there's a good chance that his kill will go through night immunity. I think this is default. And Jailors will still kill the Godfather if they have a good hunch. D'oh.

So to me, this option mostly just protects the Godfather from being randomly killed by a Serial Killer in games that have them, which is nice, but let's continue.

The second protective option is "immune to detection". This REALLY means, "you appear to be a Citizen, Jester, Godfather, or Framer" to an Investigator, and "you could possibly be innocent or the Godfather" to a Sheriff. Let's assume that we aren't playing with Citizens, and we are playing with Investigators, as with most games I've played. This means that the best means for a Godfather to protect himself in the case of being investigated (which will happen if the Sheriff says his findings) is to act as a Jester the whole game. If he suddenly claims Jester during his trial, people will obviously lynch. Acting like a Jester may very easily get you lynched anyway, as opposed to more subtle strategies you could otherwise employ. So this isn't a very good strategy at all, and most likely, if you get targeted, you're getting lynched.

For completeness, let's assume "immune to detection" is off. A Sheriff will know you instantly, an Investigator will know you as a Mason Leader (who people rarely put in games), a Mayor (who can reveal himself), or the Godfather (yep, it's this one). You have nothing to claim here. The benefit of this mode is that if the Investigator targets an actual Mayor first, he will be forced to reveal, and either him or the Investigator can be killed by you the next night (though pick well, because one or both of them will be Doctored). It seems to me that being immune to detection is more beneficial currently, because the Sheriff protection is the most useful of anything mentioned so far.

TL;DR: Now, what I would do to amend this big wall of text. I would make a Godfather under the "immune to detection" option appear to be a specific role to Investigators which could possibly be town. I think the Investigator descriptions need a bit of working around to begin with, but simply making it "spends the night with people" could allow the Godfather to claim Escort or Bodyguard.

With this change, the Godfather is much safer from being detected. Against a Tracker/Watcher or whatever they're called now, he can claim that he visited a townie with a benign role. Escort if they died, Bodyguard if they didn't. Smart people will eventually be able to piece together clues which lead to the Godfather's possible lynching, but at least "immune to detection" means something close to what it says.

Now, for "cannot be killed at night". If a Vigilante targets you with the above change, you can now claim to be healed by a Doctor, and investigations may follow through. This now means something close to what it says as well.

I am not claiming that the Godfather is overpowered or underpowered, especially since these options are optional! I just think that the host should have the power to use these options as they are described if he wants to. A small change for such a big wall of text, but let me know what you think!

Side suggestion: I currently can't make a game that has Random Mafia and a Mafioso and can't possibly have a Godfather, without also removing other power roles. If this is possible let me know. However a lot of setups are made impossible because you can't just restrict specific roles through a separate menu. This should be possible. I would use more Basic Towns if i could restrict them from being Doctors, and nothing else. The Basic/Advanced thing right now is somewhat arbitrary and unhelpful to hosts.

Side suggestion: List the roles for "your target is not suspicious" when this message is received by an Investigator. It really is pointing to certain roles just like every other description.

[Dark.Revenant]

To your first suggestion: I won't do this because it encourages people to abandon the only popular reason for Citizens to be allowed thus far. The Godfather is not meant to be a super-soldier, too; he's only human and has to perform gambits in order to survive like everyone else.

Third suggestion: This defeats the point of it saying "not suspicious". It's a deliberate psychological thing.

Second suggestion: Several reasons why I won't do this now:
A. I have to rewrite the error-checking algorithm from scratch, which is an extremely dangerous, greuling, difficult, and time-consuming task.
B. I have to somehow fit the exclusions into the save slot, which might not even be possible.
C. I have to make the interface widget which would be rather difficult; I can't just make a big list like the current menus. I would have to make a custom thing because there would need to be check boxes. There's no multi-selection list in SC2.
In all, it would be a very lengthy task, probably requiring several days of solid work to get it working right.


Mafia is not perfectly balanced, nor should it be. I meant it to be a fun game that takes some skill, luck, and social manipulation to win. This is similar to Super Smash Brothers, for instance, which is a fun game to play with friends and lets balance take a back seat to other design directives. SSB can still be won with skill, but the game can be evened out by handing your little brother the rigged character while you take a crappy one, for instance. The same general rule applies to Mafia. I usually design games the other way around; Mafia is the exception to my stricter balancing philosophy I apply to most other titles.

[Jailbar]

TBH I am happy at least that the second suggestion may one day in the future come to pass . The third suggestion I am most disappointed about because right now I just have to keep the wiki open when I'm an Investigator to double-check. It's not a very friendly design for casual/little brother players either. Oh well.

[Nick]

"Cannot be killed at night"
Surviving for another day is at least better than being killed outright by a stray bullet or knife. SK will not call you out straight away. If Vig call you out, they will use next day's lynch and jailor can't do his job.

"Appear as citizen"
While the first couple of turns is 100% luck, in later turns it really depends on how good you can blend in as town (not high priority target for investigators). Having sheriffs to vouch for your innocence is good enough. Currently in pubs, town is not that bright. They can even fail to lynch a correct mafia with a Sheriff, an Investigator, a Detective and a Lookout around.

[TheJackofSpades]

It's funny, because all of the options are designed to EXTEND the gf's lifespan. Each option you add onto the gf, works in tandem with the others to achieve the same goal. When you combine all of them, you'll begin to realize just how small of a chance the GF has of being caught in any of the scenarios you could describe outside of dumb luck in your standard 5 night game.

If a vigi shot me, I could probably extend my life by that night, that day lynch, and the preceding night as well just by claiming vested survivor and insulting the vigi for random killing(something that most people hate to begin with), or forever if there's no invest alive.

[Jailbar]

It's funny, because all of the options are designed to EXTEND the gf's lifespan. Each option you add onto the gf, works in tandem with the others to achieve the same goal. When you combine all of them, you'll begin to realize just how small of a chance the GF has of being caught in any of the scenarios you could describe outside of dumb luck in your standard 5 night game.

That's why they are options, and not mandatory. Even with "immune to detection" on, an Investigator would still know that the person could possibly be Godfather, just not definitely, as the option says. it's not dumb luck at all.