In post 2764, Vecna wrote:So yes, my strong preference is, we run up some dodgy person that wont be missed if scum kill them later on as a townclear, have Mastina gladiate them (or finally form a spine and give her own input/preference maybe, but whatever this also works), and either get a scum caught or lynch Mastina and proceed with two townclears if she flips town that both really wont be missed if scum is forced to kill them.
No.
First of all:
Already addressed to some Extent
Second of all: Let us consider the three avenues of balance.
1: Town gets ridiculous power, so scum gets ridiculous power to compensate. In this case, this would probably be something along the lines of a scumvig, an extra member, 2 godfathers, etc.
2: Town gets ridiculous power, so scum gets a direct counter to said power. In this case, there's a bunch of options I've considered. Hidden day rb, day lawyer, day tailor, full strongman etc.
3: Town gets ridiculous power, so is disincentived from using it. In this case possibly something like a macho modifier on mastina, a lack of town protectives, or a cult.
Okay, so here it becomes obvious that it is in fact possible to balance mastina's role.
Third of all: Balance fail. We cannot discount it because it does happen, even to the best of mods. It is even more likely here than in normal circumstances because this is A. a UPick which are annoyingly hard to balance at the best of times because of their very nature. B. a role madness large, meaning lots of moving parts to design and fit together, and C. RC had limited time to come up with the setup. As evidenced by Page 1.
Fourth of all: The Fakeclaim. Unlikely, because scum tend to avoid fakeclaiming into expiration dates. Additionally unlikely because mastina doesn't like fakeclaiming. Additionally Additionally unlikely because even if mastina did decide to fakeclaim, she would do so in a game that wasn't likely to have a bunch of moving parts she couldn't control to catch her. + part of her claim is confirmable.
Fifth of all: The Scum Realclaim. More likely than 4, but if so mastina has played this claim in the most protown manner someone possibly can.
Now, we put it all together.
It is possible the game is balanced and mastina's role exists. It is further possible that town's chances of winning rely heavily on said role. Therefore we run a risk/benefits analysis.
Scenarios:
Game is unbalanced: Best course of action: who gives a shit.
Mastina is central to our chances: Best course of action: milk her role for all that it can give us.
Scum counter to town mastina: Best course of action: play around possible counters.
Mastina is scum realclaiming: Best course of action: Leash mastina and milk her role for all that it can give us.
Mastina is scum fakeclaiming: Best course of action: Lynch mastina.
Lets look at the worst case scenarios:
Tailor/Lawyer: I'm going to leave discussion on how to play around this til tomorrow because it's too late in the day to do anything about it now.
Cult: The only thing we CAN do is hunt for cult leaders. Which... fuck cult.
Scum Fakeclaiming: We lose x days of lynching, but we don't lose any time with PR's. assuming x is 5 clears, that means we are at 16 alive assuming 1 KPN before we lynch mastina assuming scum don't . mastina dies, meaning one less scum and we have five days of PR results. If scum choose to kill in the 'clear' pool to keep mastina alive longer, they are literally shooting people we would've lynched anyway. If they shoot mastina, it resolves the situation. If mastina is scum, then there is more town power hiding in the wings to make catching her/other scum more likely.
Today, lynching mastina is possibly the stupidest choice we could make, and I think I'm well within rights to BoP you wanting to lynch her today given what I remember of Lynch the Wolves.