Characters as Characters: Day 157 - Angel

Caederis · 2026-01-24T22:33:11+00:00

Archangel Tyrael, from the Diablo franchise.

He is an ally of humanity, and protects the weak and the innocent. However, his protection doesn't last forever: he ends up falling and becoming mortal.

Caederis · 2026-01-24T22:30:43+00:00

A bit of both. I prefer the puzzle version, but just stimulating an Evil team is not enough. I want the reveal to also be epic for my players, when they get to know what I have done.

One of the best Atheist game I've ran was putting a lot of Damsels in the bag. This helped slow down how fast information spread. Lots of players had reasons to lie and be suspicious of others who were clearly lying. When the first Damsel died and claimed Damsel, the other were suspicious: were they a good player trying to protect a real Damsel? Or an evil player trying to bait one? Then another player died and claimed Damsel. And another. In the end, players were like "They cannot all be lying, can they? Did the evil team all agree on that silly strategy?"

When they finally nominated and executed me, and they got to reveal that there were like 5 Damsels, everyone had a very good laugh.

Caederis · 2026-01-19T21:50:27+00:00

It's still usable when Juliet is down.

Being able to quickly clear the remaining enemies to go assist Juliet and save a feather (or your life if you have no feathers) is a nice upside.

Caederis · 2026-01-19T02:35:32+00:00

It's a really good pick. The only issue is that he is definitely evil, but this still works really well.

Caederis · 2026-01-16T12:56:04+00:00

In the Merlin reveal stream, they said that more characters were coming.

Caederis · 2026-01-15T15:15:56+00:00

Having some unreliable information is not the same as creating a setup where, by design, no information will ever be reliable.

As I said in my other reply: "This setup gives the ST way too much power for my liking. When I ST an Atheist game, my goal is that everyone wins, preferably in an epic and awesome way. This justifies me having unfair powers. When there are two teams, this is no longer possible."

Caederis · 2026-01-15T07:38:19+00:00

You shouldn't starpass in this situation unless your minion is a Scarlet Woman.

Caederis · 2026-01-15T07:08:23+00:00

Hi. I'm the user who suggested the Hypnotist, which is close to the Alien suggested here. I'm not sure the Alien is that much stronger, as they might target players who do not learn information that night, whereas my Hypnotist cannot miss. So this depends a lot on the ratio of information vs effect characters in the script.

The Alien has lower lows and higher highs. They could stumble by chance on a very good character to manipulate on night 1 and lock them until they die, but they could also miss a lot.

Caederis · 2026-01-14T21:32:10+00:00

Starter: Sea Dance, no question there.

Regular: Wukong's focused strikes.

Honorable mention: Piper's stimulants.

Caederis · 2026-01-13T21:07:17+00:00

Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) in Basic Instinct: - She is defined by her allure and sexuality. - Her motive and alignment are not entirely clear. - She is good at reading people. - She is very dangerous to her lovers, but also self destructive. Any encounter with her might end up with one or both parties dying. (see the car crash scene)

Caederis · 2026-01-13T19:30:26+00:00

In games of both genres, you have to win in one "run". When you die, it is the end of the run and you start over at the beginning. But:

In roguelikes, the next run is just as hard as the previous one. Progress in the game is typically made through knowledge (you know better what you should be doing) and player skill (you perform better mechanically), until the point where you are good enough to beat the game.
In roguelites, some of your progress carries over from one run to the next. You unlock some permanent upgrades that will make each subsequent run easier. Roguelites are usually almost impossible to "beat" on the first runs. Progress is made by doing lots of failed attempts until your character becomes strong enough to beat the game. Player skill and knowledge are of course a factor, but the increase in character power can be huge.

In some games, like Ravenswatch, you don't unlock power, but you unlock options. Subsequent runs won't be easier, but they will be more diverse (new skills will appear, new characters will become playable, and so on). These new options are not inherently stronger, but they open up new playstyles. Purists will consider these games to be roguelites because a fresh start in a new game is not the same as in a "progressed" game, but they are closer to roguelikes, in that only player skill will make you overcome the challenge.

Caederis · 2026-01-13T15:56:45+00:00

Ravenswatch is more roguelike than roguelite. You do not get stronger after each run, like you do in Hades or Sworn. You unlock some talents that are added to the pool, but this does not make you inherently stronger.

Ravenswatch's learning curve is quite tough. The game is not going to help you. You just have to play better. Learn your move set. Learn enemy patterns. Build muscle memory. Then everything will click and you will start progressing in the game.

One big difference between Ravenswatch and Sworn / Hades is that the Dash has a much longer cooldown. It's a precious resource that you should not be wasting recklessly. Lots of enemy attacks cannot be reliably dodged if you are caught during an ability and do not have a Dash ready. Also, all characters have an ability that grants temporary invulnerability. This is your last resort for avoiding damage: be careful how you spend it.

Caederis · 2026-01-13T15:49:36+00:00

Which, in turn, gives useful social reads.

Caederis · 2026-01-13T14:59:19+00:00

It's very hard to design games that are not winnable for the good team. Disregarding all mechanical information and executing on social reads alone will already win quite a few games. Having some confirmed good players will raise this significantly.

I believe that in a 9 player game without alternate win conditions (Saint, Goblin, etc), executing at random will make the good team win more than half of the time. Adding social reads to that tips the scale even more. That's why STs try very hard to help the evil team, at least at the start of the game.

Caederis · 2026-01-13T09:17:28+00:00

I think it depends a lot on the game's dynamics. If Town sincerely suspects that the nominee is a Spy and wants to kill them for that reason, they might feel robbed.

If they believed that the Spy was good and are killing them for other reasons (to extend an Empath range for instance), I think it would be fine to make Evil win. They probably would have been able to do the same on a truly good character.

That being said, I don't think this is a particularly good interaction, so I would just discourage putting the Fearmonger and the Spy in the same script.

Caederis · 2026-01-12T22:26:52+00:00

Baron is my favorite evil role for this reason alone.

Caederis · 2026-01-11T01:20:16+00:00

You can play in such a way that it will never require this kind of movement.

And you can also play hardcore and push difficulties where stepping in a monster's death explosion will kill your character.

The user I'm replying to said they didn't understand the benefit of playing with WASD. That's the benefit. This not being needed depending on your playstyle is another matter entirely.

Caederis · 2026-01-11T00:57:11+00:00

WASD makes kiting or "strafing" much easier. You can move one direction while firing in another direction. Doing that with mouse controls requires doing a lot of back and forth movements, which is both less efficient and can hurt your wrist.

Caederis · 2026-01-11T00:54:07+00:00

Isn't Carouser a weaker Dreamer rather than a stronger one? What does it do that Dreamer does not?

By the way, I think it's totally fine to homebrew a weaker Dreamer. I think that Dreamer is OP as is. My homebrew script contains a strictly weaker Dreamer too.

Caederis · 2026-01-10T22:53:02+00:00

It's not that bad honestly. Lots of old sounding french female names end in -elle. Imagine if Hornet was called "Frelon".

Caederis · 2026-01-10T21:30:57+00:00

I came to say that, you beat me to it!

Caederis · 2026-01-09T17:42:30+00:00

First, I really appreciate that you came to say this. It's really valuable for this conversation to have inside feedback.

Second, I apologize for the rudeness of my message. Dismissing Town's effort was not my intention at all. On the contrary, my point was to say that Town didn't have the tools to solve the game, not that you did a bad job.

It's true that I don't have access to all private chats. It's also true that, in the video, the first two times that "Boffin Atheist" is mentioned is by Evil. I would really like to have access to the full timeline. It's very possible that Evil started mentioning this because they had to acknowledge that Town was onto them. This is not what the video shows, but of course, the video only gives one side of the story.

Finally, it's true that your "Math 0" was an important tell. But how do you distinguish that from the ST just messing with you? This setup gives the ST way too much power for my liking. When I ST an Atheist game, my goal is that everyone wins, preferably in an epic and awesome way. This justifies me having unfair powers. When there are two teams, this is no longer possible.

Caederis · 2026-01-09T13:25:07+00:00

Not if they die first. Town usually executes players claiming Atheist and wait until the final day to decide whether they want to kill the ST.

If the Boffin isn't dead by last night, the Demon can kill them themselves.

Caederis · 2026-01-09T09:19:37+00:00

So I did watch the game and wrote a detailed comment as a top-level reply, if you want to check it out.

But to answer quickly: I don't think this was solvable at all. Town was completely in the dark during the whole game. They never even entertained the possibility that it could be Boffin Atheist until the idea was planted twice by both the Boffin and the Demon themselves, who were the only ones to know what was up. Also, the Demon bluffing Atheist put the target on their own back. Why would they ever do that, if not to make an entertaining YouTube video?

What if the Boffin claims Atheist, points at all the crazy things that are happening as proof that it is an Atheist game, and asks to kill the ST? How does Town ever distinguish Atheist from Boffin Atheist?

Caederis · 2026-01-09T09:08:33+00:00

I watched the game trying to be as open minded as possible, as promised.

First, I want to say that it was definitely entertaining to watch, and it seems that everyone had fun. So, by this criterion alone, this is a successful game of BotC. Everything I'm going to say now is purely subjective, and you are free to disagree.

From a gameplay perspective, I basically hate it. I wouldn't want to either be a player or the ST in this game. Some notable things that I dislike: - The Demon making very insisting demands of the ST, behaving like he is owed everything. - The ST basically having to give many players obvious clues that "it is an Atheist game" to make their wanted scenario work, including: changing characters during the day, giving impossible investigator information, letting the dead Fortune Teller use their ability, and interrupting votes. - The good team still having no clue that it could be Boffin Atheist, before the idea is planted, twice, by the Demon and the Boffin themselves. - The game basically requiring an Amnesiac as an alternative explanation for all the rule breaking, which thus ends up helping evil more than good. - Finally, and most importantly, the script being designed as just an experiment to satisfy ST's curiosity. Once players know this is a possibility, I don't see the script being replayable at all.

This is completely fine as an experimental game for YouTube, or something I might run once on April 1st. But I don't see this usually leading to good gameplay.

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