Hey, this is slander! Or libel I guess! But certainly bullshit!
This never happened. :-)

You will hear from my lawyer, Joe, very soon and you will not be pleased what he will have to say to you.

Thanks for the notification but I'll pass on this.

:O

Habeas corpus! My client demands habeas corpus!

I'm issuing you with a decree of sub... dew... dee. Subjudy! You are under legal subjudy to stay in that chair until such time as, erm... until Simon says stand up!

What do you think of the following role/mechanic?

I like the idea of a busdriver, but the problem is, it can make the game too swingy and chaotic (which might be a good thing I suppose), since no results can be trusted. This effect is especially noticeable in small games. And even more so in a closed setup.

So, in order to make the busdriver less chaotic but still useful for Mafia, I thought of the following: any PR targeting the busdriver's targets get informed that their targets were driven. The targets themselves do NOT get informe.

e.g.
Cop investigates A
Busdriver targets A and B
Cops gets result: Your target has been busdriven and you investigated B. B is Town.

Neither A nor B know they were busdriven nor that they were targeted by Cop.

This way the busdriver is still useful in thwarting Town's plans (Cop wanted to know A, but got something else), but there is no chaos involved: Cop can still trust his result, even if it's not something he wanted.
Note that all roles who targeted A or B will be informed; even non-investigative ones. So if a Doctor targets A, he will be told he ended up targeting B instead.


I was thiking of the following rules:

_ Mafia get a busdriver team action. The busdriving is decided by consensus and happens in addition to NK and other PRs they have. It is not done by a particular member but by the team as a whole and as such cannot be blocked or affected in any other way.
_ Any PR targeting the busdriven players get informed their targets were busdriven. The busdriven players do NOT get informed. As explained above.
_ The busdriving is resolved first and is not affected by anything. Basically imagine the PR's PMs were hacked and instead of "I'd like to target X", the mod received "I'd like to target Y".
_ Passive abilities like bulletproof or Godfather are not affected. However active abilities that allow self-target are affected. e.g. if a Watcher watches self and gets busdriven, he may end up watching someone else.
_ To make it more fun: Make the busdriving compulsive.
_ The above is public knowledge, so erveryone knows such a busdriver exists.

Thoughts?

Sounds too powerful for Mafia to have, since it helps secure their actions against Town actions. Want to kill someone? Target someone else and bus drive the kill over to your intended victim. Especially effective if you target the kill at someone that isn't going to be protected. Worried about being cop checked? Bus drive the concerned player with the Innocent Child.

Want to play some mind games? Bus drive a suspect town with a lock town.

But this is weaker than the normal busdriver. For example

Normal busdriving allows you to do that and on top of that the Cop won't know what happened, so he'll think you're Town.

In fact, compare to a Mafia Rolestopper who can completely block the investigation. The bus driver above is weaker because he will still give the Cop a useful investigation result (unless Innocent Child also present).

And on top of that for the above to work, Mafia have to guess who will be cop-investigated, and then when they use the ability on themselves still risk that it will backfire.

ADD:
In fact consider this: In the scenario you described, Town knows that the busdriver is present. So instead of guessing which of the Mafia to target he can actually target the Innocent Child, hoping Mafia do what you said and the IC gets busdriven. Would Mafia take that risk?

*shrug* I think I've only ever seen Town or Neutral bus drivers, not a Scum Bus Driver. I've always had the impression that it was a Town or Neutral role, but the wiki lists it as alignment neutral.

You are correct in that it is weaker.

That's a very valid point; there's room for mind games all around.

I think it would depend on the game state, but you might be right.

Interesting. I always thought busdriver an anti-Town role.

Why? It offers Town the lucky chance to switch the NK to a scum target. Not very likely, but possible.

But more likely to create chaos for investigative/defensive roles.

Yes. It depends on the number and alignment of other PRs if the Busdriver is more useful or more confusing.