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Post by Kachu on May 25, 2023 15:04:06 GMT
Welcome, Panda, to Black Fable 5!
You've been assigned a power role: The Lamb.
You have no actions to perform. Instead, you are immune to all other actions. Actions targeting you will automatically fail, and if applicable, will give a 'No result' response. You are also immune to dying at the hands of Apostles. You will learn the names of Sinners who visit you with a non-factional ability. The way you do this in universe is up to you.
Additionally, your Sin is Pride. You win with the Employees.
This thread is where you'll submit any of your actions, as well as where you'll be notified if you live or die each Dusk.
Here, you can share information about your character and their history in two segments, which may be made public during the events of the game.
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Post by Panda on May 25, 2023 15:45:20 GMT
Oh so I'm Bertrand again huh. Neat!
Hmm, so, my role will definitely be to try and get the Apostles to think I'm the key holder, somehow. Even moreso than a vanilla Employee, I'm the best scapegoat. Though, because the key holder changes each time, it might not keep working. Also, this means ideally I'd want to pretend to be vanilla most of the game. Unfortunately I assume the jig will be up as soon as, say, the Detective tries to investigate me and suspiciously gets no result. It'll also be suspicious once an Apostle tries to kill me and it fails, but maybe they'll figure I was Doctored or something. Either way, it won't work for long, so the most effective thing I can do is try to make people think I'm the key holder in the first cycle.
On that note, is "No result" a distinct message indicating interference, or would some roles get that message for other reasons too? That is, is it clear to someone visiting me that something unusual happened? Or is there, say, a role that's like "Detect if your target is secretly a clown", and they'd get "No result" if they targeted a non-clown?
What do you mean by two segments? Like, you need to be investigated twice to learn everything about a person, and their history is split up appropriately?
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Post by Kachu on May 25, 2023 15:58:41 GMT
Your role wasn't much like Bertrand in the start, but it had a mechanic that after some thought, clearly incentivized killing you at the first vote every time. Oops.
So I swapped it for something useful!
It won't be 100% clear that it's you when they visit you.
Using the clown example, someone would get "Is a clown" and "is not a clown" but there will be circumstances in the game where they'd get "No result." It's not a response unique to you.
Exactly as you said, on two segments. Like an employee file being revealed publicly. First payment will give your sin, and the second will give your role. This is just an optional way to put things on display as like a backstory, that can be revealed in two segments during the game.
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Post by Panda on May 25, 2023 16:03:13 GMT
Your role wasn't much like Bertrand in the start, but it had a mechanic that after some thought, clearly incentivized killing you at the first vote every time. Oops. Well that would have been awkward It won't be 100% clear that it's you when they visit you. Using the clown example, someone would get "Is a clown" and "is not a clown" but there will be circumstances in the game where they'd get "No result." It's not a response unique to you. Okay yeah, that's what I figured. Thanks! Exactly as you said, on two segments. Like an employee file being revealed publicly. First payment will give your sin, and the second will give your role. This is just an optional way to put things on display as like a backstory, that can be revealed in two segments during the game. Riiight, I see, yeah. Cool! I'll see what I can do. I imagine there's situations where only learning part 1 is sufficient, mechanically, so I suppose it's best not to bury too much in the second half. Especially as there's no guarantee I'll be investigated at all.
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Post by Kachu on May 25, 2023 16:04:20 GMT
Yeah but the best part is that it'll all be here just in case! It just seems like a fun way to share info and build backstory.
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Post by Panda on May 25, 2023 16:05:31 GMT
Yup, for sure!
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Post by Panda on May 27, 2023 15:18:35 GMT
Okay, time to write up the ideas I've had so far. None of this is specifically organised into the segments yet: some is already public, some would be part 1, some part 2.
General details
Andrea's a pilot for the Exterior department. She's a skittish, socially awkward mess around others, but relaxes and focuses well while alone (E.g. while piloting her ship). Abnormalities aren’t human so she’s surprisingly calm around them, making her well-suited to extraction missions. So long as she’s alone (even with an Abnormality) she’s very competent, but if another person shows up she falls apart. Because people only ever see her while she's unstable, most assume that's just how she always is, and wonder how on Earth she managed to land and keep a job as prestigious and demanding as Exterior duties.
Her motto is “A clear head is a clear heart!” Interactions with a certain Abnormality enlightened her to the benefits of being bald, so shaving her head became part of her daily routine. Even before this, she was a fan of keeping things clean, orderly and minimal, to maintain a less stressful environment. This made her naturally suited to the Cleaning department, before her promotion to Exterior.
Backstory
Before working for L-Corp, she was a military pilot. There was some big war down on Earth that she took part in, resulting in a fair bit of trauma. Joining L-Corp was her trying to leave it all behind, literally leaving the planet.
Even worse, her husband was in the army and died in the line of duty. She feels survivor's guilt, as he died fighting on the frontlines while she flew around relatively safe in her jet up high.
Her military service is the main reason she's so clean and tidy. However the various traumas it caused also exacerbated her already-existing social anxiety.
After her service she joined L-Corp's Cleaning department. She liked to keep things clean, and her military experience gave her other suitable qualities for the demanding role.
At some point during this, she worked with a certain Abnormality and realised Bald is Best. Despite her preference for being alone, from then on she made a habit of trying to bring people over to her side. She was largely unsuccessful in this particular endeavour. Regardless, management quickly realised she was one of the ones best suited to continuing work with said Abnormality.
Her prior experiences made her suitable for the Exterior team. L-Corp management struggles to find people for this role, so they're quite aggressive when they find good candidates. Andrea was very good at her job (so long as she was alone). She was self-motivated, calm under pressure, relaxed but suitably cautious around Abnormalities, and thorough in everything she did. There was minimal chance of her defecting, or panicking and trying to flee the station. Once she'd gained sufficient experience in the Cleaning department, and proven her skills, she was promoted to Exterior. This was about a year before the game takes place.
However, problems arose after this. Andrea was very good at her assigned piloting missions, but once she returned to the station her productivity took a drastic dip. Until now L-Corp had largely ignored the signs of her PTSD, because it wasn't really affecting productivity, but now it was causing issues. Exterior employees were too important to lose, so they finally assigned her to regular therapy sessions with someone from Welfare. Her counsellor was Josephine, a then-recent hire.
More recently, someone organised a weekly D&D night for a few Employees on the same shift. Andrea joined in. Her character is a (bald) expy of her late husband, though no-one knows that as she doesn't talk much about her past. She's overprotective of him and gets upset if the character gets put in too much danger, which causes issues at the table given that danger is an expected part of the game.
During the game
She feels newfound motivation, despite the circumstances. By chance she happened to be on the station during the lockdown, instead of away on a piloting mission. In her mind this is a chance to 'right the wrong' of her military career: this time she's in the thick of it, instead of away on a jet. As such she's quite reckless, a bit too eager to sacrifice herself in place of a fellow Employee. She believes this is a second chance, even though she wasn't actually at any fault the first time. She probably has mild suicidal tendencies, thinking she can join her husband as she 'should have done' back then. (Not to the extent that she'd take her own life, though. More than she doesn't care as much about self-preservation as she should.)
However, all this military and Abnormality experience, combined with her skittish paranoia, means Andrea has a super-charged sense of danger. She might recklessly put herself in harm's way, but then instincts kick in and she manages to survive somehow. Whenever someone approaches her alone, regardless of their intentions, Andrea quickly escapes, often before they've even seen her. However, she's sure to have seen them. If, hypothetically, she was asleep in her room when someone snuck in to try and determine if she was a clown, she would hide somewhere and observe the intruder without being spotted herself; the intruder would likely assume she'd left beforehand. (This is what pertains to her role as The Lamb.)
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Post by Kachu on May 27, 2023 16:37:11 GMT
bald....
I like that story, it's pretty sweet. Pretty sad too, but maybe things will turn around for her if she gets through this game?
Though I will say the department that's locked down likely won't be the Exterior department, so she'll probably find herself somewhere else in the facility for one reason or another. I like the war story too!
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Post by Panda on May 27, 2023 17:02:17 GMT
Yeah I'm sure there's plenty of reasons for her to be in a different department, whether by order or because there happens to be something she needs elsewhere. Old baldy Abnormality probably isn't in the Exterior department, after all.
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Post by Panda on May 31, 2023 20:31:25 GMT
I wrote up some extra details. They're mostly just for me, to fill out the character; I don't expect any of it to come up in the thread or anything. You can freely ignore all this.
[#spoiler=Extra details] Andrea Leroux was born to a fairly normal family, as an only child. She’s not particularly close to her family, but still occasionally talks with them over L-Corp’s various monitored communication systems.
In her school years, Andrea was a nerdy, hardworking girl. She was shy and socially awkward, but not jittery like she is now. She was a fan of D&D, board and video games, and also aviation: she enjoyed reading textbooks on the subject, building model planes, attending air shows etc. In her late teens she started taking recreational flying lessons, falling in love with the feeling of freedom the sky provided.
In her friend group there was a boy named Bairon de Vere. A nerd like her, and a military buff. They were friends for a long time, then eventually became lovers. When Bairon graduated he pursued a military career as a marine; Andrea decided to follow him, not having any other career in mind, so joined the air force. At some point they married, and she became Andrea de Vere.
Andrea didn’t really keep up with the rest of her friend group post-graduation, once she joined the military and they went and got ‘normal’ jobs. Now that she’s up in space, they’re completely separated. She doesn’t particularly mind.
She made a few new friends while in the air force. However in the aftermath of the war, she wanted to thoroughly leave everything behind, and that included them. Other than occasional contact with her family, Andrea cut herself off from everything back on Earth.
L-Corp was a fresh start. Despite all the horror there, she’s actually fairly content. For a while she simply focused on the job, but eventually at Josephine’s recommendation she started to take up hobbies again, in particular finding a D&D group in her shift. It helps counteract the revived trauma now that she’s flying again.
Andrea trains regularly in one of the L-Corp gyms. Always earphones on, keeping to herself. Otherwise, she enjoys escaping reality in video games, which are pretty much the only non-essential item she spends money on. Her minimalism extends to her diet too: she prefers simple meals, and usually only drinks water. She drinks sweet, fruity teas on special occasions though.
One of Josephine’s counselling techniques is to prepare her patients’ favourite drinks for their sessions together. For Andrea this was tea, so these sessions became her weekly allotted teatime. She’s started to look forward to them now, so maybe the technique works? [/spoiler]
[#spoiler=Character relationships] Fran: Mutual walking disasters. Andrea’s too much of a workaholic to let Fran do any of her share for her; not that Fran would even have permission to go on any of the flying missions anyway. However, Fran’s inability to say “no” means she’s the closest to following Andrea’s advice on baldness… Delta: She finds him scary. She’s competent, loyal and meek though, so it’s unlikely he’s ever had trouble with her. Also, Andrea can respect someone who doesn’t want to talk about their past. Alune: One of the few people Andrea can semi-relax around. Alune’s friendliness is probably overbearing at times, but she seems like the kind of person who wouldn’t prod Andrea too much so Andrea’s likely fine with that. Vincent: She caused a bit of a commotion by expressing a belief that baldness is above even Christian faith, suggesting that Jesus was probably bald (which is a sentiment that just makes sense in her mind; why wouldn’t he be?) As an expert in demonic possession, he quickly realised that You’re Bald had affected her mind in some way, and ensured no other Employees worked with that Abnormality from then on. After that he mostly just pitied her. At some later date they ended up in the same D&D group, which is probably awkward. Debra: She probably finds Debra to be a pretty bad matchup for her, and likely tries to avoid her when possible. Scott: As a former Cleaning team member, she worked with Scott before. Their relationship was bland but professional. Osborne: She finds him freaky. His artistic sense clashes pretty harshly with her preference for orderly minimalism. Not a day goes by without her complaining in her head about one of his design choices for the station. Tangie: She’s the one who ferried Tangie to the station. They talked about cleaning during the trip. After that though, there probably wasn’t much reason for the two to interact. Josephine: Josephine is her counsellor. Andrea was reluctant to do therapy, as she insists she’s fine. Therapy has been slow, but some progress has been made. The two also play D&D together, so are probably reasonably close now. Monty: She assumes he’s supposed to be there, and doesn’t harbour any suspicions about him. He’d prefer not to draw any unnecessary attention to himself, so it’s unlikely they’ve interacted much, if at all. Pliny: She pulled a similar claim about baldness with him, and was similarly unsuccessful. She was a good Cleaning team member, so he probably has some respect for her, but her views on baldness and religion might complicate matters. Finn: She finds him scary. However they’re both serious when it comes to work, so their relationship is likely solid, if exclusively professional. She appreciates that there’s no small talk whenever she has to work alongside him: they both just get on with the job. Enid: They’re probably on reasonably friendly terms, both mutually appreciating the others’ quietness. However the quietness is a bit of a barrier: unlike with Alune, there’s probably less of a push for social interaction between the two of them. Greg: Another bad matchup. He's too bright and outgoing for a loner like her. He also has a bad habit of getting horribly injured, which keeps reminding her of things she saw while serving in the air force. Saber: Mutually competent employees. He's good at calming stressed people, and Andrea's always stressed in company. They likely have a fairly solid working relationship. He's a primary target for bald conversion, as he could then lead by example. [/spoiler]
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Post by Panda on Jun 3, 2023 17:31:20 GMT
[#spoiler=Public Profile] Name: Andrea de Vere
Age: 31
Gender: Female
Department: Exterior
Personality: A jittery, socially anxious mess. Prefers to be alone. Most happy when flying her spaceship. Hardworking, thorough and orderly. Diligent proponent of baldness. Actually very competent, but falls apart in company. People only ever see her at her worst, so they generally assume that's how she usually is.
Known Details: Andrea started in Central Command, before soon being moved to Cleaning as it was clearly a good fit for her. She was a clean, orderly person even before coming to the company.
While working in Cleaning, she was tasked with working on a certain Abnormality, which later came to be known as 'You're Bald' for obvious reasons. She became enlightened as to the benefits of being bald, and advocated for the style from then on (albeit very unsuccessfully). Keeping her head clear came easily to a disciplined person like her. Her motto became "A clear head is a clear heart!" L-Corp management were interested in whether this really did help employees manage their stress, but trial results were inconclusive.
Ever since she arrived at the company, upper management kept a close eye on her progress, hoping she would make the cut for the elite Exterior department. She already had piloting experience, albeit for planes rather than spaceships, and she seemed skilled enough for the position. After working in Cleaning for a few years, management concluded she was completely loyal and certainly up to the task, so she was promoted.
Being an Exterior pilot proved to be perfect for her. While piloting she was completely alone, cut off from the rest of the station, which allowed her to focus. Abnormalities didn't trigger her social anxiety, so she was a capable extraction specialist. She has performed well in this position for over a year now, leading up to the events of BF5. [/spoiler]
[#spoiler=Background Segment 1] Before L-Corp, Andrea was in the military, as an air force pilot. There was a long, protracted war down on Earth a few years back that she participated in. She was always socially awkward, but trauma resulting from the conflict heightened this and caused her to become the jittery mess everyone knows her as today.
It's understood that she joined L-Corp to try and leave her past behind: quite literally leaving the planet and cutting herself off from everything. The only contact she has with Earth now is the occasional conversation with family members; they're not particularly close, so these are infrequent.
Recently she joined a D&D group with some others from her shift. She plays a bald, male fighter who wields firearms, named Bairon Verde. It's been a good way for Andrea to finally start reconnecting with other people; however, progress is rocky. She's overprotective of her character, and gets upset if he's ever put in too much danger, which can be frustrating for the other players. [/spoiler]
[#spoiler=Background Segment 2] Andrea Leroux had a childhood friend, later lover, eventually husband, named Bairon de Vere. While she was an aircraft geek, he was a military geek, and readily joined the marines once he graduated. Not having any dreams of her own, Andrea followed him and joined the air force, making use of the piloting lessons she'd been taking.
Unfortunately, like so many others, Bairon perished in the war. Andrea felt survivor's guilt, as she was relatively safe flying high in her jet while he was down on the front lines.
Her resulting trauma was generally kept in check during her time at L-Corp, as she could devote herself to the job and push other thoughts aside. However, once she joined the Exterior department, flying caused frequent PTSD flareups as she relived moments from the war. She was always calm, even happy, while flying her spaceship, but after returning to the station she would become unstable. L-Corp management were finally forced to stop ignoring her issues and assigned her to regular therapy sessions with Josephine. Progress has been slow, but Josephine feels there have been clear improvements. [/spoiler]
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Post by Kachu on Jun 3, 2023 21:31:23 GMT
Aww poor Andrea...
A nice profile, though!
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Post by Panda on Jun 10, 2023 9:18:26 GMT
I'll visit Saber, let's see who this mfer visits!
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Post by Kachu on Jun 10, 2023 14:18:16 GMT
Keep your eyes peeled, Andrea...
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Post by Kachu on Jun 11, 2023 3:28:45 GMT
You survived the Dusk! Wow! Unexpected!
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Post by Panda on Jun 11, 2023 8:45:16 GMT
Saber's looking pretty sus...
I don't think this got answered before: if an information-gathering role gets killed, do they still learn their info?
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Post by Kachu on Jun 11, 2023 14:45:19 GMT
Ah no, they won't. Like in BF4.
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Post by Panda on Jun 11, 2023 15:03:43 GMT
Ah, sure, alright then.
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Post by Panda on Jun 11, 2023 16:11:21 GMT
You know, there's an awkward hypothetical situation where we kill all the Apostles, but there's still a round left so we have to lynch someone, and we accidentally lynch the Keyholder.
Lynching 'Witches' is no longer a direct town wincon, but the theory is we want to stop them from killing because they might kill the Keyholder. Thus, if we manage to lynch all the Witches, we stop that. However the possibility of lynching the Keyholder afterwards feels wrong.
Then again, with 5 Apostles I guess we're unlikely to be lynching all of them anyway, unless we have a lot of rounds per cycle.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 11, 2023 17:14:31 GMT
You don't have enough chances to lynch them all, unless they start killing themselves.
Though that's actually something I didn't at all consider when thinking about this game, whoops!
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Post by Panda on Jun 12, 2023 9:09:44 GMT
Saber's role seems interesting... I'll visit him and do the ole switcheroo.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 12, 2023 14:27:10 GMT
back to your old tricks huh.
You know I was really thinking it'd be super funny if you could make people bald instead of stealing noses but I think we missed that train
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Post by Panda on Jun 12, 2023 14:37:19 GMT
😔
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Post by Kachu on Jun 12, 2023 16:42:32 GMT
don't make that face :[
okay fine MAYBE you can do it only on the last dusk
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Post by Panda on Jun 12, 2023 17:39:24 GMT
No, it's fine XD Doesn't really feel like something Andrea has the power to do anyway. Besides, she wants people to see the benefits, become enlightened, and then willingly shave off all their hair!
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Post by Kachu on Jun 12, 2023 18:21:36 GMT
Okay but I won't forget this idea.
Perhaps something will come out of this that might just be very entertaining. We'll have to see next cycle.
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Post by Panda on Jun 12, 2023 19:08:26 GMT
Oh boy
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Post by Kachu on Jun 13, 2023 15:20:38 GMT
You've survived the dusk! I can hardly believe it!
You also learn that you've had two visitors. Greg and Tangerine both stopped by. I wonder what they were doing?
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Post by Panda on Jun 13, 2023 16:01:10 GMT
Oooooh!
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Post by Panda on Jun 14, 2023 9:12:17 GMT
After thinking about it, I've realised BF5 unfortunately has the opposite problem BF4 had.
In BF4, Witches weren't incentivised to kill Town. In fact, they were incentivised to minimise deaths, and to kill their own faction, in order to make it harder to pin them down.
In BF5, Town aren't incentivised to lynch people, and in fact are incentivised to volunteer for lynching if they're not the Keyholder. Like in BF4, the correct play ends up being the opposite of what it should be. Killing Witches isn't part of Town's win-con, and we don't have enough kill power to kill all the Witches, so it's not even a way to guarantee the Keyholder's safety. The best bet is to keep as many people alive as possible, to make it harder for the Witches to pin down the Keyholder.
Ultimately what's missing is an incentive to kill Witches. Managing to kill even one Witch out of the 4 lynchings we do should be good for Town in some way. As an example, maybe we gain energy by killing a Witch. This however has the side-effect of confirming that one of our lynches was correct, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad for game balance: this was just an example. Just as another example, if Witches make use of the energy they steal during Noon Phases, then lynching witches could deplete their energy pool.
These example incentives still don't take away the fact that we might lynch the Keyholder, and that by lynching other Employees we make it more likely the Apostles kill the Keyholder by chance. But some kind of benefit would at least help counteract that risk and hopefully make it worthwhile. (Besides, the Keyholder being voted for is classic Mafia. That's the point at which the Keyholder tries to argue that they're too important to lynch, without revealing what their role actually is, just like if Town are trying to lynch the Seer or something. Those sorts of debates form the foundation of what Mafia even is.)
On a separate note, a hidden role list means the Keyholder doesn't know what they're dealing with. They don't know if there's a Doctor on their team who they could subtly signal to protect them, for instance. Their only viable tactic is to just stay quiet and avoid Apostle attention. However, counteracting this is the multi-arc structure. As the game goes on, we learn more of the role-list, by having parts of it be revealed or by having players claim roles themselves. So maybe in arc 1 the Keyholder stays quiet, but in arc 2 they can be a bit more bold. That might actually be a good thing: it makes the game more dynamic, as tactics change as it progresses. (In any case, maybe the Keyholder wants to stay quiet even if they know there's a friendly Doctor, so it might not even really be an issue at all.)
Edit: Thinking about it some more, maybe the "gain energy by lynching witches" idea does have some merit. My concern was that this confirms some of our lynches were correct, giving us a way to round down Apostle suspects. However this isn't the same as what BF4's problem was. BF4's problem was that Town learned some information about Witches by looking at the final distribution of Witches vs Town, hence Witches were motivated to manipulate that distribution by avoiding killing; it went against the ideal flow of the game. Here the information is gained via lynching only, so Witches aren't disincentivised to kill Town at night. Instead they're incentivised to avoid being lynched. This goes with the ideal flow of the game, as everything Mafia should incentivise is incentivised.
Balance-wise, Town gets 12 lynches total. I'm not sure if that's too strong, with regards to rounding down Apostle suspects. That's just a number thing, which can only really be learned by playtesting. But maybe it's an option to consider at least.
(If a future game goes the Keyholder route, this idea still works even without an energy mechanic. At the end of an arc, it could be revealed how many Witches were lynched. Same idea, really. Heck, if gaining energy is imbalanced BF5 could just go this route instead.)
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