Town of Salem Updates

[Gustav 6,428]

Hello to everyone who's been keeping up with and/or playing Town of Salem here in the VHL! Whether you've stuck with it from Game 1 or you've just recently joined the madness, thank you for making it fun for myself, yourself, and others. I'm going to open up this thread as a change log for our forum games, to track what's changing and when...including this bit.

 

BlankMediaGames, the makers of the actual online game of Town of Salem, announced during our last game that changes have been made to said game. Many of these changes simply have to do with streamlining gameplay and have nothing to do with our forum format, but there are many others which have to deal with game mechanics which I am able to (and, as a result, am going to) implement in our games. Here they are:

 

 

-The Retributionist role has been reworked. Previously, a Retributionist was able to revive a dead Town member and bring them back into the game. This is no longer the case. The Retributionist now works like the Town's Necromancer--they are able to "reanimate" rather than "revive" a dead Town member's body, not bringing them back into the game but being able to use their role for a night and perform their action.

• The Retributionist will be seen visiting the person being reanimated rather than the target of the reanimation.
• The Retributionist may not revive targets who have been cleaned or stoned.
• The Retributionist may now be a Town Traitor, though they remain a unique role.
• Here is the role's new wiki page.

 

-Amnesiacs may now remember unique Town roles such as Jailor, Mayor, and Retributionist. This was previously not allowed due to the possibility that the Retributionist might revive such a role as or after it is remembered by an Amnesiac.

 

-Previously, investigative roles controlled by a Witch or Coven Leader would still receive their investigative results, albeit for a person other than who they initially targeted. Now, the Witch or Coven Leader will receive these results while the investigative role will receive none. 

• In addition, the Necromancer previously received no investigative results when reanimating a dead player. They will now receive said results.
• By extension, the Retributionist will be able to receive investigative results from dead investigative roles.

 

-An Ambusher will now receive a message when they attack someone.

 

-Previously, a Hex Master would not attack all non-Coven players if they died the same night all non-Coven players became Hexed. This has been changed--if this happens, the Hex Master's attack will occur.

 

-Defense messages have been standardized! If someone with any level of defense, whether temporary (given by a protective role or a bulletproof vest) or innate (for roles such as Godfather, Coven Leader, a bunch of neutrals) is attacked, their attacker will receive the same "defense is too high" message.

• Heals by a Doctor, or attacks on a Witch while the Witch had basic defense, previously did not return any message to the attacker. This has been changed, and players in these situations will receive the standard message.

[eaglesfan036 4,603]

I like the retri change it was too OP in confirming people 

[Gustav 6,428]

Version 3.2.5 (in effect as of Game 9)

 

-Serial Killer Changes

• A SK will now attack anyone who roleblocks them, and the roleblock will fail unless it comes from a Jailor or a Pirate. The will of the roleblocker is also considered "covered in blood" and is unreadable.
• A SK may choose to be "Cautious" at night and not attack roleblockers.

-Arsonist Changes

• An Arsonist will now passively douse anyone who visits them, and will receive a list of those doused at the end of each night similar to the list received by a Plaguebearer.

-Werewolf Changes

• After Night 4, every night is considered a Full Moon night. This means that from Night 4 and onwards, a Werewolf may attack on every night.
• Because of this, results received by Psychics have been de-linked from Full Moons. The Psychic role will continue to work the same, but the nature of their results will now change every night, regardless of Full Moon status, rather than changing with the moon.

-Juggernaut Changes

• A Juggernaut will now start each game with basic defense, moving their last two abilities up one kill and making them easier to reach. 
• Juggernauts will now also appear in a list of investigative results, with Lookout, Forger, and Coven Leader.

-Lookout Changes

• A Lookout can now see only three people visiting a target at a time. If more than three people visit, the Lookout will know this, but will only know the identities of three visitors.

[Gustav 6,428]

Version 3.3.0 (in effect as of Game 12)

 

DISCLAIMER: The current patch release notes are vaguely worded and potentially misleading. At least most of what is below is correct, but it's possible that some of the finer details might change when the official release comes and the wiki is up to date. Read this now, but check back before the game starts to see if anything is different.

 

-Forger Changes

• A Forger may now choose to change a player's displayed role upon death, in addition to their will. Previously, the Forger could only change a player's will.
• This ability may now only be used twice per game. Previously, the Forger could use their ability three times.

-Framer Changes

• A Framer's frame stays in effect until a target is investigated. This means that if a Framer targets a player on Night 1, and that player is not investigated until Night 8, they are still considered framed and their investigative results will be changed accordingly. Previously, frames were only in effect for the night when the Framer targeted a player.

-Disguiser Changes

• The Disguiser role has been completely reworked. Previously, a Disguiser could visit another player every night, and that person's role would display as the Disguiser's role when the Disguiser died.
• A Disguiser now selects two targets, disguising any one player (usually a member of the Mafia) as any other player. If the Mafia member visits a target who is also targeted by a Lookout. the lookout will instead see that the Disguiser's other target performed the visit. For example, if Player A kills Player B while disguised as Player C, and a Lookout is watching Player B, the Lookout will see that Player B was visited by Player C instead of Player A. If Player A visits a target, a Spy will not see that a member of the Mafia visited that target.
• Player A will also have Player C's investigative results for the night, appearing as Player C would to a Sheriff and Investigator. The Tracker's results will not be influenced.
• A Disguiser's visits are considered Astral, but will be seen by a Spy.

 

FOR NOW, a Retributionist's ability will fail when targeting a dead player who has been Forged. I will make an update on this when information becomes clear for this scenario.

Edited October 23, 2020 by GustavMattias

[Gustav 6,428]

To make one very minor change, but to provide notice of it nonetheless...

 

-Slight Medium nerf that actually complies with how things are supposed to work, per the official ruleset

• Rules have always said that a Medium may only talk at night, but forum games across multiple leagues have allowed the role to work differently, not bothering to cut off access to dead chat during the day. This has become a slight issue in recent games, with a Medium able to become confirmed virtually instantly during day phases and with lots of information going public one day earlier than it otherwise would have. 
• So, for now, I'm going to start actually only allowing dead chat to be active during night phases, in accordance with official rules. 

[Gustav 6,428]

Some notes from last game and a cool new stat update:

 

MEDIUM CHANGES:

• Dead chat, moving forward, will only be usable during Night phases. This is to reflect the real game's mechanics more accurately and to prevent multiple exchanges of info between dead chat and the game thread during the same Day phase. I hope this will also cut down on some metagaming.
• Speaking of which, I'm going to start disallowing non-game-related modes of confirming a Medium. Any game-related info is 100% OK to use, but personal info (i.e. "Eagles knows what my middle name is; if you can tell me my middle name from Eagles in dead chat I'll believe you're Medium") is not--it is simply beyond the spirit of the game and outside the role's intent. I am not sure yet what I'll do to enforce this, but please just make that part easy on me by not participating in that.

 

GENERAL CHANGES:

• This was also Medium-related in the last game, but it applies to any role. Please don't directly copy-paste Discord messages. If you'd like to copy the words of a message...I don't like it, but I don't really care. This crosses the line, though, if the copy-paste contains names and time stamps (and this is especially so if everything is still in Discord rich text formatting). At the very least, I will delete your post for this (even if you're taking the time to fake it), and I reserve the right to modkill over this if it's game-swaying enough.

 

On the cooler side, I updated the role sheet! It now has a cool overview tab at the start that will make asking (and answering) some trivia questions a lot more convenient--and is also just cool to look at in my opinion. Did you know that Jailors have recorded over double the number of kills to any other Town Killing role, but have a lower winning percentage than two of the other three? I didn't before today. Also, if you're assigned a Mafia role, your chance of winning is slightly higher than with a Coven role (so far). Plus, Guardian Angel is the only role that's still active that has never lost. The more you know!

 

Have fun with this update, and I'll see you in Game 30!

[Gustav 6,428]

Noting a change after Game 30:

 

On Night 1, @jhatty8 investigated a Juggernaut and I realized that this was a potentially big issue because we were playing an Any All game with a Witch. The Coven expansion removes Witch from the Juggernaut's investigative results entirely, showing Lookout, Forger, Juggernaut, or Coven Leader. The Witch, on the other hand, is only present in the real game's Classic mode, and will show up as Lookout, Forger, or Witch.

 

I chose to give Hatty the Coven results--because that's what the rules say--and pray that he wouldn't investigate the Witch. If he didn't, no one would ever know this was weird until after the game. So, of course he goes and investigates the Witch on N2. I also decided to give the proper role list, knowing that nothing I did at that point wouldn't make it look weird.

 

 

To avoid this in the future:

• Witches will appear to an Investigator as Lookout, Forger, Juggernaut, Coven Leader, or Witch. 
• Other roles in this role list (Lookout, Forger, Juggernaut, and Coven Leader) will be affected in the same way. 

 

I will note that enforcement of this update is subject to my remembering to enforce it. I will kindly ask two things of you as players:

• Remember that if someone gives a role list that is on the wiki as opposed to the one I just provided, I very well could have screwed it up and you shouldn't be too hard on them for doing so.
• On the flip side, please don't metagame that. Don't report a default role list and claim I gave you weird results to be deceptive--not only does it call my ability into question (I do that enough myself), it's outside the scope of what the game is supposed to be and makes it less fun for everyone else.

 

Thanks for your patience in dealing with this, and hopefully we won't come across this issue in the future!

[Gustav 6,428]

Another change to go into effect starting in Game 31:

 

The roles of ESCORT and CONSORT in original Town of Salem are now known as TAVERN KEEPER and BOOTLEGGER, respectively. That name change will be adopted here as well, for consistency across our forum and the wiki--I'd imagine that a new player looking for the Escort page may have a tough time.

 

No mechanics of either role will change; this is just a name switch.