Yeah, I signed up for that game 3 weeks ago. Where’s the other game? 
First, thanks to all who played in this experiment. I tried my best to think through the ruleset, but I think we all know nothing ever really goes according to plan.
Second, I welcome all comments good and bad about the game setup. I’d like to try something like this again, so more feedback about what worked well and what didn’t will be good for designing v2.0.
Third, my thoughts:
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The main thing that happened that I did not anticipate was Mahaloth (London Metropolitan Police) becoming unkillable. It is something that I should have considered, but didn’t. I like the idea of cops investigating the other city. My intention was this made cops less effective. Once they claim, scum can conceivably kill off their investigations right away (which is what happened). Furthermore, it makes investigations trickier. Mahaloth chose to investigate ShadowFacts on his first opportunity. ShadowFacts was very nearly arrested (twice!). At the time ShadowFacts was in danger, Mahaloth could not claim to save him. He very well could have lost his investigatee to arrest. What I hadn’t considered is that once Wellington was cleared of Scum, Mahaloth would be able to investigate without being killed.
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One might consider that 2 cops are unbalanced. My view was that in a single 12 person game, 1 cop is not considered unbalanced. Therefore, two 12 person games should be able to support 2 cops. The cops were further weakened by not having any protective roles. A claimed cop was a sitting duck.
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Masons were weaker, not only because there were only 2, but because they were on different Cities.
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The International Spy (Suburban Plankton) was noticed to be a possible game breaker if he were able to investigate the same city twice. Doing so would have allowed a differential to indicate the alignment of a large set of people at once. To combat this, the spy was restricted in needing to survey both Cities before a repeat could happen. The events that happened in game were not a concern in the design phase. It was assumed that Town would figure out when a City was clear of scum based on the lack of night kill. Furthermore, it was not expected that Town would go 2 for 2 in Wellington.
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The Nocturnal Hacker (Cookies) was placed in the game to offset the fact that London had 3 criminals while Wellington had 2.
Other than those, the rest of the “town power roles” were more fun than functional. Traveling was not considered a powerful force in the game. (I still don’t know if this is true or not as traveling was universally considered ‘bad.’) The Attache, and starting 2 players in transit was meant to get traveling on the map.
Roles that affected travel never came into play, so I don’t know if they are good or not.
Overall, I’m very happy with the game. I was so afraid that the entire thing was going to blow up in my face. Improvements are certainly possible, and I welcome suggestions to improve gameplay.
Also, I welcome others to attempt split games as well.
Again, thanks for trying out this crazy idea of mine.
Oh, and sorry for the lack of proper closing and colour. I’ve been traveling again.
spoilerboard: http://sachertorte.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=international
scumboard: http://sachertorte.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=icr
Hi Sach.
I can’t access the International forum. It thinks I’m trying to log in under my old account and tells me I’m banned. Any chance of unblocking me?
Thanks.
(I’m BadPersonIV there.)
I’ve removed all bannings. Hopefully that fixes things.
I’m in thanks. 
Good game, everyone. The spoilerboard is still closed to guests. Can you open it up too, sach? I’ll give my opinion of the balance once I’ve read the entire setup. It’s too hard to judge games with just a few pieces.
I was ready to campaign against Wolverine. Their investigation results revealed nothing that hadn’t already been stated in the thread. Perfect for a falsely claiming scum.
Done.
A quick overview of the roles.
19 town total
3 limited investigators
2 masons
2 travel-blockers
1 cross-voter
1 vanilla town required to travel
5 vanilla town with travel
5 vanilla town
5 scum total
1 scum godfather with travel
1 scum travel-blocker with travel
1 scum with very limited investigation with travel
1 vanilla scum with travel
1 vanilla scum
Quick analysis, ignoring the venue and travel mechanics, assuming town only mislynches, scum only kill unconfirmed townies:Beginning of Turn 1, 2 confirmed town, 17 unconfirmed town, 5 scum, 7 mislynches available
T2, 3 c.t., 14 u.t., 5 scum, 6 mislynches
T3, 4 c.t., 11 u.t., 5 scum, 5 mislynches
T4, 5 c.t., 8 u.t., 5 scum, 4 mislynches
T5, 6 c.t., 5 u.t., 5 scum, 3 mislynches
T6, 7 c.t., 2 u.t., 5 scum, 2 mislynchesTown wins at this point because they can lynch all the remaining unconfirmed town and scum. Each confirmed townie lynched or killed delays the confirmation victory by 0.5 turns. A scum lynch does not affect this.
My impression is that this confirmation victory comes too fast. But that is mitigated by the lack of protective powers. The number of mislynches seems slightly low. The lack of a Vig makes this worse. With consideration for travelling and venues, I think this rules set is balanced, but very swingy. (In hindsight, I think how it played out supports that.)
Ignoring travel, we can look at the two sites separately.
London: 9 town vs 3 scum
Wellington: 9 town vs 2 scumBeginning of Turn 1, 1 confirmed town, 8 unconfirmed town, 3/2 scum, 3/3.5 mislynches available
T3, 2 c.t., 5 u.t., 3/2 scum, 2/2.5 mislynches
T5, 3 c.t., 2 u.t., 3/2 scum, 1/1.5 mislynches
T7, 3 c.t., 0 u.t., 3/2 scum, 0/0.5 mislynchesTown would have a confirmed-pool win at this point, under the assumed conditions. But the town is out of mislynches, too. I’d say that without travel, this indicates a setup slightly in favor of scum. I think the town needs a protective power or Vig to even it up. Of course, smaller games are even more swingy.
Including travel in the analysis is hard. My initial impression is that it is neutral for town vs scum. It allows one side to leverage it’s advantage in one venue to the other. That’s a good thing in general since it lets balance correct itself in-game.
The next step in a good game-balance analysis is looking how powers interact with each other. I don’t have enough time to do that properly, but I’ll note one obvious problem. Town had powers to affect the other venue, while scum did not.
My suggestions for this rules set:
- Limited protective powers for town. Finite number of uses, restricted to work only against some scum players, blocking powers, etc.
- Vigilante-type role for town. Extradition to a third country, secret prison, etc.
- Scum blocker or cross-venue kill. Letter bomb, hacker, etc.
Just got back to the board for the first time in a week. And oh my Og, we won.
Way to go Town!
Thanks sach for hosting.
My role was WLG Air Traffic Controller – I could block outbound flights. I had no reason to do so Night 1, no need Night 2, and doing so Night 3 would have been anti-Town. So this was my first game with a Night power, and I never got to use it. Oh well.
I will review this game later, to understand how Natlaw and Special Ed got found out. I never suspected either of them.
My comments on the Town:
- Make travel a more attractive option. This will make the two cities more interactive. In fairness, part of the issue was this was a new mechanic in this game.
- Suburban Plankton’s role of Spy was very powerful, given the situation. The role needs assessment for balance. Plank was able to confirm a whole bunch of people as Town. (Also, for color, I suggest retitling it INTERPOL Officer.)
Thanks for the comments. I wanted to say more and be more engaging, but work got busy this week. In a way, I’m lucky the game ended when it did.
I appreciate the time people spent playing the game and offering their advice.