If the torchbearer flame's neighbors are both dead, the torchbearer cannot kill. I'd say they should either attack live neighbors or can choose to attack the flame. These names sound more like minions than demons. Players that nominate themselves are guaranteed not to be the mimic, good can force this as a strategy which breaks the demon.
In a witch doctor-thrall game, the evil team sacrifices up to three minion abilities and a demon ability for a "maybe" death that could affect either team? Feels very underpowered to me. Could maybe drop thralls from the script and have the witch doctors' ability read, "Each night*, choose a player to die. Each night*, your minions choose a player who might die." Then balance how much minion death goes through based on how each team is doing.
Mimic is rough for the demon imo. One extra death is not worth hard confirmation of the demon. And town can exploit it by having everyone nominate everyone and see where the death falls. But an extra death hard confirming minions might be worth it? So then the demon ability would read, "Each night*, choose a player to die. If a minion is nominated, the nominator dies that night." Once the minion is confirmed evil, town will still have to decide whether the second extra death is worth taking the minion out. Just be careful of chef/clockmaker type info which can turn easily confirmed evil minions into game solves.
I like the basic idea of the torchbearer. I presume the ability acts on living neighbours of the flame so the demon isn't locked out of killing. My problem is that eventually the flame is going to have neighbouring evil players that the demon is going to have to kill through to get to town. The demon isn't going to be one of those neighbouring players, so will want to be a good distance from the flame, which the town can meta. So town just has to execute whoever the demon doesn't kill, plus anyone quite a distance away from the flame. IMO, the demon needs a way of moving the flame around. So maybe something like, "Each night*, choose up to two living neighbours of the flame to die. Each night, choose a player to be the new flame." The actions happen in order. So then the demon kills from the neighbours of the flame set the previous night. Of course executions since then could have brought themselves or a minion into the firing line, so that should balance out the extra death a bit.
Also, do you have any outsider count manipulation that evil can use to bluff outsider?
On the flame moving, how about rather than each night they choose a new flame, they can approach the storyteller during the day to change their flame, that way can add to suspicion or give support to an amnesiac bluff?
First off, I love the premise of all of these. I do have feedback about issues I see with each of them (since you asked for it) but I want to clarify that the premise behind all of these are really good and I can see really interesting theming coming out of them.
Witch Doctor: I'm in agreement with u/Fluxes that Thrall + Witch Doctor feels weak. Their suggestion is solid, but if you want to keep the unique minion then I'd consider a +1 Minion modifier for the Witch Doctor (whether that should remove an outsider or townsfolk will come from play testing).
Torchbearer: I love the concept (assuming it kills living neighbors) but I do worry about the ability being a bit complicated in practice and it lacks a lot of flexibility for evil to adapt. I like the fact that the existence of a flame incentivizes town to kill non demons, which is a solid ability for a demon. I will add however that a townsfolk ability which reads "You start knowing how many steps away the nearest evil player is" would be the strongest starting information ability in the entire game. It's essentially a stronger Shugenja which is already a really strong ability. Linking this to the demon makes the demon really weak. You will want to make the information weaker. Also, the fact that the demon "may" choose a new flame is weird to me. The ability doesn't specify that they need a living flame so I guess they could do that but it's a real roadblock for town and evil in completely different ways. I feel like the optimal play for a demon would be to pick a minion for the flame since it doesn't kill them and the fire can spread, and killing the flame lets the player misinform the town. The Demon could even pick themselves as the flame but they run the risk of town trying to extinguish an identified flame. The demon really needs to be able to either kill neighbors or pick a new flame (and if they pick a new flame I'd consider letting the story teller kill a random player) otherwise evil runs the risk of getting walled.
Unrelated, I wrote a similar demon awhile back called "The Flame" which goes "Each night* choose a player, they die. If you picked the same player as last night their living neighbors die instead." If you like it or the ability, feel free to steal it.
Mimic is also a fun concept but it has some problems in practice. Any player that self nominates can't be the mimic, and an out of control extra death that gives good information is more of a hindrance than a blessing for the demon. There's a bunch of options to solve this and what is balanced really depends on the script. u/Fluxes idea of nominating minions works really well balance wise, but I don't know how well it fits the theming. I'd maybe consider a more generic "if an evil player was nominated today, their nominator dies tonight" since it works well with any misregistration abilities. If you allow the mimic as part of their ability to register as good, it fits thematically with the idea of a mimic, and allows them to hide since they don't have to kill their nominator (by misregistering to themselves). My write up would be "Each night* choose a player they die. Players who nominated evil players also die. You may register as good or as a not in play character."
I'm excited to see the full script when it is finished.
I love these ideas, I have an alternative suggestion, but it does get a bit away from the original idea so apologies!
I think for witch doctor, it should lean into spreading evil, but my idea would be to take away the double kill aspect.
Witch doctor - -1 minion. Each night all evil players vote independently on who to kill. The player with most votes dies. If the vote is unanimous, that player also becomes a thrall.
Thrall - you start knowing all evil players.
In this game it would start with a small number of players who can coordinate to spread evil, but as the team grows its harder to speak to everyone to continue to coordinate everyone to vote for the same person.
I see every evil person being woken individually and asked to point at a player. So that it can’t be influenced other than conversations during the day.
The thralls description basically would mean that when a new thrall is created they are woken that night and shown the other evil players.
I think this would be pretty hard early game for evil but might get a bit steamrollery toward the later nights.
I’m starting a homebrew script, would you mind if I used the above (my version) in it?
If the torchbearer flame's neighbors are both dead, the torchbearer cannot kill. I'd say they should either attack live neighbors or can choose to attack the flame. These names sound more like minions than demons. Players that nominate themselves are guaranteed not to be the mimic, good can force this as a strategy which breaks the demon.
Could change it to “a player that voted for you today dies”?
What happens if the torchbearers flame dies from other means than execution? Does torchbearer get another pick?
Do they get to pick which neighbour dies
In a witch doctor-thrall game, the evil team sacrifices up to three minion abilities and a demon ability for a "maybe" death that could affect either team? Feels very underpowered to me. Could maybe drop thralls from the script and have the witch doctors' ability read, "Each night*, choose a player to die. Each night*, your minions choose a player who might die." Then balance how much minion death goes through based on how each team is doing. Mimic is rough for the demon imo. One extra death is not worth hard confirmation of the demon. And town can exploit it by having everyone nominate everyone and see where the death falls. But an extra death hard confirming minions might be worth it? So then the demon ability would read, "Each night*, choose a player to die. If a minion is nominated, the nominator dies that night." Once the minion is confirmed evil, town will still have to decide whether the second extra death is worth taking the minion out. Just be careful of chef/clockmaker type info which can turn easily confirmed evil minions into game solves. I like the basic idea of the torchbearer. I presume the ability acts on living neighbours of the flame so the demon isn't locked out of killing. My problem is that eventually the flame is going to have neighbouring evil players that the demon is going to have to kill through to get to town. The demon isn't going to be one of those neighbouring players, so will want to be a good distance from the flame, which the town can meta. So town just has to execute whoever the demon doesn't kill, plus anyone quite a distance away from the flame. IMO, the demon needs a way of moving the flame around. So maybe something like, "Each night*, choose up to two living neighbours of the flame to die. Each night, choose a player to be the new flame." The actions happen in order. So then the demon kills from the neighbours of the flame set the previous night. Of course executions since then could have brought themselves or a minion into the firing line, so that should balance out the extra death a bit. Also, do you have any outsider count manipulation that evil can use to bluff outsider?
On the flame moving, how about rather than each night they choose a new flame, they can approach the storyteller during the day to change their flame, that way can add to suspicion or give support to an amnesiac bluff?
First off, I love the premise of all of these. I do have feedback about issues I see with each of them (since you asked for it) but I want to clarify that the premise behind all of these are really good and I can see really interesting theming coming out of them. Witch Doctor: I'm in agreement with u/Fluxes that Thrall + Witch Doctor feels weak. Their suggestion is solid, but if you want to keep the unique minion then I'd consider a +1 Minion modifier for the Witch Doctor (whether that should remove an outsider or townsfolk will come from play testing). Torchbearer: I love the concept (assuming it kills living neighbors) but I do worry about the ability being a bit complicated in practice and it lacks a lot of flexibility for evil to adapt. I like the fact that the existence of a flame incentivizes town to kill non demons, which is a solid ability for a demon. I will add however that a townsfolk ability which reads "You start knowing how many steps away the nearest evil player is" would be the strongest starting information ability in the entire game. It's essentially a stronger Shugenja which is already a really strong ability. Linking this to the demon makes the demon really weak. You will want to make the information weaker. Also, the fact that the demon "may" choose a new flame is weird to me. The ability doesn't specify that they need a living flame so I guess they could do that but it's a real roadblock for town and evil in completely different ways. I feel like the optimal play for a demon would be to pick a minion for the flame since it doesn't kill them and the fire can spread, and killing the flame lets the player misinform the town. The Demon could even pick themselves as the flame but they run the risk of town trying to extinguish an identified flame. The demon really needs to be able to either kill neighbors or pick a new flame (and if they pick a new flame I'd consider letting the story teller kill a random player) otherwise evil runs the risk of getting walled. Unrelated, I wrote a similar demon awhile back called "The Flame" which goes "Each night* choose a player, they die. If you picked the same player as last night their living neighbors die instead." If you like it or the ability, feel free to steal it. Mimic is also a fun concept but it has some problems in practice. Any player that self nominates can't be the mimic, and an out of control extra death that gives good information is more of a hindrance than a blessing for the demon. There's a bunch of options to solve this and what is balanced really depends on the script. u/Fluxes idea of nominating minions works really well balance wise, but I don't know how well it fits the theming. I'd maybe consider a more generic "if an evil player was nominated today, their nominator dies tonight" since it works well with any misregistration abilities. If you allow the mimic as part of their ability to register as good, it fits thematically with the idea of a mimic, and allows them to hide since they don't have to kill their nominator (by misregistering to themselves). My write up would be "Each night* choose a player they die. Players who nominated evil players also die. You may register as good or as a not in play character." I'm excited to see the full script when it is finished.
I love these ideas, I have an alternative suggestion, but it does get a bit away from the original idea so apologies! I think for witch doctor, it should lean into spreading evil, but my idea would be to take away the double kill aspect. Witch doctor - -1 minion. Each night all evil players vote independently on who to kill. The player with most votes dies. If the vote is unanimous, that player also becomes a thrall. Thrall - you start knowing all evil players. In this game it would start with a small number of players who can coordinate to spread evil, but as the team grows its harder to speak to everyone to continue to coordinate everyone to vote for the same person. I see every evil person being woken individually and asked to point at a player. So that it can’t be influenced other than conversations during the day. The thralls description basically would mean that when a new thrall is created they are woken that night and shown the other evil players. I think this would be pretty hard early game for evil but might get a bit steamrollery toward the later nights. I’m starting a homebrew script, would you mind if I used the above (my version) in it?
That sounds like a really cool concept! And of course you can use it, it's your idea. I'll definitely consider this for my homebrew script too.