"Like I said, being a hidden role is a known bastard variant on miller, and the game is explicitly bastard, and I was looking for an explanation for my apparent role in the role madness game being vanilla anyway. Condemnee is also named in the role list here despite being usually a hidden role."Baraz tilted his head. "'If' you were a miller? Your letter would have read 'Xe, the Poor Unfortunate Soul' if you were a so-called 'miller'. Why are you speaking as though you don't know?"
"It's only a near-guaranteed win in the standard version, the one where they don't end the game! When there is a role that can win and end the game, you can generally expect players to respond by adjusting their behaviour to take that into account. With my friends we used to have this alien role that wins instantly and ends the game if eliminated after being shot in the night, and that makes you constantly paranoid about aliens and that's the point! The alien doesn't always win, because if people know there's an alien or there's likely to be an alien, they will act like there's an alien in the game.""Remember what our host has said of this game. We were promised chaos. She has obviously taken such pride in crafting this game. Would she really have designed it to end in such an anticlimactic way? Such a boring way?"
This role, the condemner, was regarded to be a near-guaranteed win. Including a version that would end the game was tantamount to ensuring that every other aspect of the setup would fail to show its teeth. Their host wanted to see chaos, and designing the game this way would impale the chaos before it might ever begin.
Including it in the list would certainly breed paranoia, however.
He took a breath. "Consider - look, consider jester. That's also on the role list here. Jester is a less complicated alien, just automatically wins if eliminated during the day, no prerequisites, way too powerful if you ask me. Like with condemnees, the 'standard' way for it to work today if it's used is they win but don't end the game. Could've created even more baseless paranoia by just listing jester as ending the game, right? But nope, there's no note like that on jester. Just condemnee. You sure she galaxy-brained putting that note in there on just one particular role she didn't plan to use? In the game advertised as bastard and making us want to fill her sinuses with concrete? Even if you don't believe me, which, fair enough, you all are dismissing this way more easily than you should."
Gabriel squinted at the role list again. "Huh. You're right, there is nothing like strongman in there, either as a role or modifier. It's so common for balance in these games that I didn't even question it. I guess that means either no healers or multiple healers with healer clash? Best outcome for Morgan is there's healer clash but only one healer goes for her, or the possibility of healers psyches the mafia out of going for her?Baraz's instincts were telling him that presenting the first and simplest solution as eliminating the claimed cop was never, never a good sign. In this realm, there had once been a game in which a doctor's claim was suspect, and the mafia had oh-so-helpfully suggested that the easiest way to determine her truthfulness was to simply eliminate her. If she flipped town (which she of course would have), this would mean that the other doctor would then also end up on the sacrificial altar. So helpful!
"You also forget that the enemy does not possess a so-called 'strongman.' Morgan's death is not as sealed as you claim."
"Anyway, obviously from where I'm standing she looks like probably a third party about to win the game and not actually a cop of any kind. Suggesting eliminating a claimed power role to resolve a conflict from the outside is bananas; suggesting eliminating a claimed power role that with your knowledge almost certainly isn't actually that power role is normal, see every time someone counterclaims someone. But obviously I knew it was a long shot you'd actually want to go for it without having seen my role card, hence the alternative."
He exhaled, peering warily at Morgan. "I mean, once she offered to just unvote me I did start giving more credence to the miller theory again? But then again maybe she does get to win even if she's not on the wagon? But would she have explicitly brought it up if that was the case? I'm not 100% sure what to think at this point and my head hurts, but it doesn't sound like you all are likely to budge, and I definitely can't fault anyone not trusting a vanilla town claim in a role madness game. Cross fingers I'm just a secret miller, I guess, and I will die mixing that concrete."