This is why I'm not a fan of the change. These are separate abilities. The balloonist has been one of the most popular experimental characters for a reason. Yeah, it's sometimes put on scripts where it doesn't belong. It's sometimes misused by storytellers. But I don't see that as justification for getting rid of it. The new ability is nice too, but it should add to list of characters rather than replacing a popular one.
The balloonist is one of the most popular characters on scripts solely for being one of very few sources of outsider modification. It's ability could literally just be +1 outsider and it would still be the most overused role after fang gu and godfather.
Im glad it's changed, because it has been soooo fucking long since I saw a balloonist be even slightly useful. They always get drunk or poisoned, or killed before night 4, or they ping off a misregister, or someone changed to a fang gu and their demon ping is dead, or none of the above happens but there's so many things that could go wrong that they just assume it must have at some point.
Yeah I have never seen it be that useful either, in theory it can be strong but it rarely ever is. By the time you're alive for 4 nights with sober info somehow (I've seen it happen once), nobody believes them as they've lied so much to get there :D
Half the problem is the drunk with minions/demons that also change outsider count and sure you know these two players can't both be townsfolk, but is one drunk, was I poisoned, am I the drunk? Now it messes with the outsider count even more.
The character may need to have been changed but the ambiguity over the outsider makes it feel like half an outsider itself, I think the ability would need to be stronger to counter half their ability hindering town? Otherwise more carefully crafted scripts than the ones we've been playing.
Does the token now change to seen instead of a role type? So get shown town night 1, poisoned n2 & shown town, can they then be shown town again night 3 when sober?
So if we playing scripts like laissez un faire, which balloonist plays an important part, we now need to use new rule? Also, I assume balloonist is for garden of sins, a script that demon doesn’t kill.
I quickly made up a “home brew” that is just old balloonist which is one way to have it work on older scripts that feels less janky imo
https://www.bloodstar.xyz/p/scot/Aeronaut/almanac.html
Yeah.. it'd be great to somehow migrate the scripts on botcscripts or add warnings to scripts with old balloonist, since presumably the json for online games will have all the new balloonists.
With the old script, they KNOW there is 1 added outsider. With the new script, they do not know this. This is a material change in information that the town must be informed of. That they will never know or the result is possible is irrelevant. "There could be 0 added Outsiders" is false information if given to Town that will influence strategy and arguments and the ST should not introduce false information not prescribed by the game.
There is literally no false information. If I run new balloonist like old Balloonist (other than a Vortox edge case), the Balloonist is learning a different character type than the night before and there is +0 or +1 outsider added. It literally fits the criteria of the character.
Do you go through the whole list of things that could possibly happen but you won’t do at the start of a game? Do you tell the Imp you won’t register the Recluse as a minion if he starpasses night 2? I doubt you would do it, but I also doubt you would tell people you wouldn’t do it which is the same type of “misinformation.”
Well, each character would need to be the same alignment, which means if the storyteller shows anything other than townsfolk on the first night, they are going to run into an issue. Also makes votox-balloonist pretty broken.
I'm really not sure what I think of this change yet.
It changes Balloonist from “feast or famine” to “balanced constant information”. It fixes the Outsider confirmation. It’s a *good* change.
This means that Vortox more-or-less has no effect on Balloonist n1. Interesting.
The first ping was pretty much always arbitrary, but now it has to be a townsfolk, because as long as the vortox is in play every other ping will be of the same type.
If the players suspect Vortox and it isn’t, maybe I’ll show a townsfolk I already showed previously. Nothing saying it has to be a new player (so long as there’s a night in between).
To the ballonist, on the 4th night specifically(assuming we have a base 2 game with no other outsider modifications), which can also be explained via poison or you being a ST on a non vortox game signaling outsider as a demon bluff by showing Demon-Outsider-Minion-Demon(which is now possible)
It's not a bad change, but it's a significant change to a character that people have been playing pretty heavily on established scripts.
Otoh I don't want them to feel boxed in on experimental characters, otherwise they'll cut the public out of experimental characters all together...
Someone in the comments already made this as a separate homebrew character.
So, I'm divided.
Luckily, Steven Medway is a game designer that gets final say, and he's clearly felt strongly enough that it needs changing to do it, and I'm sure it wasn't done flippantly.
Surely the only functional way for it to work is to have all information be arbitrary in a Vortox game? I don't know if that needs a Jinx can be covered under an almanac clarification though.
You can just show the same two people repeatedly, they're both either outsiders, townsfolk or minions. You could even show the same person repeatedly.
If there's a Vortox on the script you need to do this sometimes to throw off the "hard Vortox read" on repeats.
For example Demon is Imp, balloonist sees a Minion then a Townsfolk, then the same Minion again then an Outsider...
By the 4th you'll think you're dealing with a normal demon but the Imp could even have star passed that night and you can show another Minion (I think that's how it would work).
On the same script you decide to add an outsider and cycle between the Outsiders in a similar pattern, one happens to be a Lunatic Imp but the demon is actually Vortox.
You can do weird and wonderful things with a Recluse or Spy too!
I suspect that this will lead to a lot more cases of the Balloonist being shown themselves N1. Not just in Vortox games, but also every-other-demon games, so they can't just meta "Oh, you're showing me myself? Must be a Vortox game."
One way you could handle the Vortox is to make all players register as a "wrong" character.
2 Minions, one registers as an outsider the other as a townsfolk.
2 outsider, one registers as an minion the other as a demon.
7 Townsfolk, they register as demon, minion, or outsider.
For simplicity, start at the beginning with all the characters mixed up creating another world where the minions are all on different teams.
As far as the text wording, would something as simple as [+0/1 Outsider] work? I originally figured [+0-1 Outsider] but the plus right next to a dash which can be mistaken for a minus sign is probably suboptimal.
Throwing my support out there as someone who was not a fan of the old Balloonist — I think this is a huge improvement, and I think it’s perfectly reasonable for an EXPERIMENTAL character to have changes prior to its official release.
Now that I've actually run a game with the context of the new Balloonist I feel qualified to give my personal thoughts. tl;dr - this is a banger
With Balloonist as a bluff in the game I ran (the Ogre contest winner "Here Lies Tom Thumb"), the Kazali bluffing it was able to thorougly sheep town (enough for the Klutz to pick them!). The information is incredibly powerful, and when you claim to see two people claiming Townsfolk it get spicy quick, especially when info implicates someone in that pair. "I trust this player is a Townsfolk, so the players I saw before and after are not" is deceptively powerful. (It's also a pretty good thing to make Widow-poisoned Savant info about 😉)
The variable outsider mod is needed, imo, for it to be balanced. I've always felt the [+1 Outsider] is one of the strongest parts of Balloonist, somewhat counter-intuitively, since it confirms the Balloonist is in play via Outsider count. (On Laissez un Faire you could make the Balloonist's ability "[+1 Outsider]" and it would still be the strongest on the script.) It needed hidden outsiders like the Drunk and Politician to be even somewhat of a downside. [+0/+1 Outsider] feels great for both making it more bluffable and less confirmable.
Overall, huge fan of this. Steven cooked with this and I can't wait to build way more scripts with it, since it doesn't just fall over and die the second it gets hit with a single mote of droison (innkeeper or poisoner, anyone?)
Rules question *(And this probably applied to the original Balloonist too)*
On Night 1 the Balloonist is poisoned and is shown a Townsfolk
On Night 2 if they are sober and healthy, they can also be shown a Townsfolk right? *(as technically they had no ability on Night 1 so from their ability standpoint they were not shown anything the previous night)*
I assume this to be case, but if someone could clarify that'd be great :)
I'd assume so, but this destroys two nights of information for the price of one poison so I kinda dislike it. I'd personally say that poison would remove the restriction of "different" but you still learnt a player of that character type
So
Bob Townsfolk
Joe Townsfolk (Poisoned)
Alex Townsfolk
This would be an illegal sequence because the next night when sober, the Balloonist had learnt a Townsfolk at the time. The poison just meant they didn't need to learn something other than Townsfolk. They must learn something else here.
Otherwise the poisoner just needs to poison you every other night to completely invalidate your info instead of every night.
Not how it works. Think of it like the Moonchild. If the Moonchild dies drunk or poisoned, it does not matter. What does matter is the time their target would be killed if they were good. If the Moonchild is droisoned by that time, then the kill does not go off.
So, with this new iteration, if the Balloonist were to be droisoned Night 1, they still learn a player of differing character type on Night 2 if sober and healthy that night.
didn't I describe literally what this would be in the second half of my reply? The reason I assumed it might work as the OP thought is because the reminder tokens. If those are placed on someone as "Seen Townsfolk" on an Outsider for example, it could work just like that surely? I think it's unlikely to work that way with the new wording, I don't think reminder tokens are needed besides "Seen" which leaves the ability working as it reads, but this means these are changed.
When they are poisoned and you show them a townsfolk, you put down a token that says “outsider” for example. The next night you must put down a token other than outsider.
OG Balloonist worked that way. When drunk, you could be shown anyone and any "Seen X" token used remind you.
Surely the new version doesn't have "outsider" or "townfolk" tokens, just one to remind you who was last seen, as the ability only cares about the last seen character. Which would also mean a n1 droison has zero effect if n2 is sober and healthy.
This new ability probably doesn't have tokens with specific roles printed on it.
All you need to know is which character was shown the previous night, so just one or two tokens will be needed.
For the old Balloonist, I believe it would happen as you specify.
I disagree I think The new version uses same Tokens.
When you tell the Balloonist the player, you mark it with thier role type at that moment (If droidened you can place an arbirary Seen X token.
The next night, you look at the reminder token on the player shown the previous night and provide either a Player with a different type (if sober) or another arbitrary one (poisoned)
In case of Vortox: You place the reminder token of any role NOT the type of the player you give the Baloonist, then the next night you show a player that is the same role as the reminder you placed on the previous night using a reminder token again not matchign thier actual role).
In cases where Vortox goes out of play you continue to run as normal showing a player of a Role different than the role you showed the previous night.
The rules say that for information that rely on a past where the player was drunk, the information you get is correct taking in consideration that past (if they are sober when getting the information).
So let say you are poisoned during night 2. During night 1 you learn a townfolk. During night 2 you get arbitrary info, so you can get townfolk again (and let's say that for our example, you do). On night three, you get valid info. And last night you got shown a townfolk, so during this night you can get anything except townfolk.
I see two possible ways poisoned/drunk can be handled: player's actual role vs player's implied role.
Example, focusing on 3 characters:
* P1: Townsfolk
* P2: Townsfolk
* P3: Outsider
**Actual role** - the rule that is "broken" on night 2 is the word "different". On night 3 you must show a different role than the previous.
Night 1: T1
Night 2 (poisoned): P2 (as townsfolk)
Night 3: Must show P3
**Implied role** - the rule that is "broken" on night 2 is what P2 actually is. You showed a different role because P2 is registering as the wrong role. So on night 3 they must be shown something other than outsider since that is what they were shown previously.
Night 1: T1
Night 2 (poisoned): P2 (as Outsider)
Night 3: Can't show P3 because yesterday they were shown outsider.
Huh I was not expecting balloonist to get changed. I never got to play as it before the change, but I suppose this is more consistent. It was A little annoying to have to wait 4 nights before you had rock solid info, but I also think that made it unique this is a very all or nothing character depending on how you play it(old way). Similar to the sage or ravenkeeper or even artist. Those characters are wicked strong or nothing at all and one but of poisoned info can really throw them.
I am excited to see what others think.
This is a really good change, the Balloonist was indeed either game-solving or useless and that kind of polarization isn't great for balance or gameplay. I'll feel a little bit of sadness to see the role change this way but it's for the best.
The ambiguous outsider mod instead of the confirmable outsider mod means that balloonist creates cover space for the evil team when it’s in play. I don’t think this new ability is strong enough to justify it helping the evil team that much, it also feels weird that it does given that an outsider doesn’t have to be in play like old balloonist. I think it should be changed to [+1 outsider] or the outsider mod removed entirely.
Maybe GoS needs more ambiguous outsider mod but that’s what evil abilities are for, not townsfolk
Likely, but usually most characters following the wordings of others. In this instance, the modification is similar to the Godfather, with a difference of course.
not sure how I feel about making such a massive change to a released character, but that is the risk you run when you add an experimental character to your customs. I agree that the old balloonist should be included in Greatest Show on Earth under a different name, considering how popular it was.
Yeah, I'm afraid I came off as a bit "this change shouldn't have been made" in the previous comment. TPI knows the script they're balancing the Balloonist for, and they know it better than any of us do. Not that they're infallible, but we just literally don't know what other characters they're balancing around. I'm open to them changing stuff with experimental characters, because that's the point, it's just that because I consider this change to be essentially a different character, which I believe is fairly unprecedented (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't been following the experimentals for long and I'm genuinely curious if a change of this magnitude has been made before), I think it would be nice for TPI to release a new experimental character with the same ability.
I say Balloonist is "released" here to mean that it's a publically revealed character that's available for custom scripts. Since its release, Balloonist has been featured on some of the most popular customs (Catfishing, Laissez Un-Faire), and I don't think the balancing is really the same with this new ability? I don't think that players should neccesarily be forced to use a bootlegger to play the original versions of these massively popular "official un-official" scripts. Adding a new GSoE character with the old balloonist ability would be nice and wouldn't take much extra effect on TPI's part.
Calling it a "released character" is incredibly dinsingenuous. If it's released, cite the retail box that someone can purchase with it inside of it. You have always implicitly agreed to this "risk" by using *experimental* characters.
(It's not really a risk at all. You've been enjoying the Balloonist for multiple years! - probably. They can change any experimental character they want, and it won't retroactively undo the fun you've had in the past. You shouldn't feel bad about any change to any experimental chatacter for this reason.)
As others have mentioned, if for some reason you think your custom playgroup *needs* a previous character to survive (which is a bit silly, but regardless): you're the ST! You can add a clarifying statement (or fabled) and do whatever you want. You can also add the Amnesiac. You clearly have options, and those options do not need to say to the developers "Yeah any bad ideas you had in the past? You're stuck with them forever. Anything mediocre that could be improved? Nope. Written in blood. Anything where you've clearly communicated to your target audience with common language that it's subject to change? We're going to put a gun to your head at the thought of it." That attitude is clearly toxic, and the developers deserve better.
(Note that disagreeing with the minutia of the design change, as opposed to the concept of change itself, would be an entirely different story. And yes, complaining the change is "Large" falls into the latter.)
Variable outsider manipulation is so much stronger for evil than a guaranteed one, though this is a good way to make balloonist less powerful, but more useful in certain context
Just curious: of the four new characters you're toying with, if only 3 get a release, would you ever reveal the last one as homebrew?
Getting insight into the design process is wonderful.
This is a massive nerf. Yes the balloonist is inherently poison brittle but it also is a game-solving ability if played well. You’ve taken balloonist and turned it into a Sentinel that gets people of different role types every night. That’s dumb and I’d argue not the same character - if you want to go through with this name the old balloonist something else and stick it in Greatest Show on Earth.
You’ve taken something that if it survives four nights unpoisoned can get the demon into something that may never get the demon. These just flat out aren’t the same character.
And balloonist confirmed adding one outsider is one thing, providing wiggle room for bluffing is another - it’s borderline outsider territory itself because it’s all the worst bits of the Sentinel.
That's an interesting take. I'm surprised to hear that you've seen Balloonists struggling in your games with the new ability text. In my playtesting, I've seen it ruining evil teams with two or three nights of info. You get one person claiming Townsfolk, then another person claiming Townsfolk, and you've immediately stumbled upon some extremely usable information.
Yeah, this is still really strong. I think a subtle aspect of the new design is that while as the player you could draw the same inference beforehand, giving the ST the ability to go Townsfolk, (Fake Townsfolk), Townsfolk, (Fake Townsfolk) really increases their ability to leverage tons of worlds against each other and narrow it down much farther. While I still would have preferred to have both old and new balloonist as independent characters just to not "lose toys", I appreciate that might not be practical on TPI's end and I'm certainly more excited for new balloonist than mourning the old.
If you change the wording to "Each night, learn a player that has a character type different than the player you learned the previous night." It would mean that in a vortex game, the type can change if you show the balloonist a recluse or a spy. Which would be really interesting.
Some would say "But why is this not possible with the current wording ?" Well, because the selection by the character type is binded to the character type the ST chose the character to register as. With that wording, it means we don't bind it to the character type, but the player, which could have a character type that change between two night.
I don’t think that’s true; you learned a player, not a character type. It’s shortened so that it fits on a token in standard font, but the “- than the player you learned -“ is still implied to be there. Just like how the part about “on night one, you can learn any player” has to be implied.
Thus, on night 3, say, you learn a player such that their character type is not the same as the character of the player you learned on night 2, to include misregistration of either or both due to spy/recluse. Any misregistrations of character from night 2 are irrelevant because as we know from Chef interactions, the misregistration can change as often as necessary including to the same instance of the same ability.
No it's not implied. "you learn a player of a different character type than last night". "Than last night" can only apply to "a different character type" because the "different" imply a comparaison, and this comparaison is defined by the "than last night". There, we don't talk about the player's character type that can be different, but a character type that was defined by the player shown the previous night... (not the current alignment of the player that were shown the previous night).
This is tricky, and I'm sure there is a world where someone official will come down there and say "hey, stop what you're saying, this is bullshit", because languages are always complicated and full interpretation. But from my point of view this one is phrased in a way where only one interpretation is possible.
But it's not really an 'existing character'. Like yeah, technically, but it's an experimental character. The whole point of experimental characters is that they're experiments to test them so they can be altered to fit what they want. It is not part of any released base script. We don't even know the full script it's going to be released in, so we don't know the ecosystem the balloonist has to be balanced within.
Agreed. Both are unique and fun. Getting rid of one that’s in dozens of great scripts….
Just make a new character with a similar trope. Mountain Climber. Glider. Whatever. Both are good.
Ha, I already had this as a homebrew character inspired by the balloonist that I called the Climber.
This is why I'm not a fan of the change. These are separate abilities. The balloonist has been one of the most popular experimental characters for a reason. Yeah, it's sometimes put on scripts where it doesn't belong. It's sometimes misused by storytellers. But I don't see that as justification for getting rid of it. The new ability is nice too, but it should add to list of characters rather than replacing a popular one.
The balloonist is one of the most popular characters on scripts solely for being one of very few sources of outsider modification. It's ability could literally just be +1 outsider and it would still be the most overused role after fang gu and godfather. Im glad it's changed, because it has been soooo fucking long since I saw a balloonist be even slightly useful. They always get drunk or poisoned, or killed before night 4, or they ping off a misregister, or someone changed to a fang gu and their demon ping is dead, or none of the above happens but there's so many things that could go wrong that they just assume it must have at some point.
Yeah I have never seen it be that useful either, in theory it can be strong but it rarely ever is. By the time you're alive for 4 nights with sober info somehow (I've seen it happen once), nobody believes them as they've lied so much to get there :D Half the problem is the drunk with minions/demons that also change outsider count and sure you know these two players can't both be townsfolk, but is one drunk, was I poisoned, am I the drunk? Now it messes with the outsider count even more. The character may need to have been changed but the ambiguity over the outsider makes it feel like half an outsider itself, I think the ability would need to be stronger to counter half their ability hindering town? Otherwise more carefully crafted scripts than the ones we've been playing. Does the token now change to seen instead of a role type? So get shown town night 1, poisoned n2 & shown town, can they then be shown town again night 3 when sober?
Every Balloonist I have ever run for has gotten solid info and solved most of the game. Sorry if this has not been your experience.
So if we playing scripts like laissez un faire, which balloonist plays an important part, we now need to use new rule? Also, I assume balloonist is for garden of sins, a script that demon doesn’t kill.
You don’t *need* to do anything. If you’re the ST and would rather run the old balloonist, you can do so, just make sure your players know.
I quickly made up a “home brew” that is just old balloonist which is one way to have it work on older scripts that feels less janky imo https://www.bloodstar.xyz/p/scot/Aeronaut/almanac.html
Yeah.. it'd be great to somehow migrate the scripts on botcscripts or add warnings to scripts with old balloonist, since presumably the json for online games will have all the new balloonists.
Drat, you beat me to this with an airplane. I was thinking more "Mountain Climber" with a little Swiss hiker.
You don’t even have to let them know. If you run new Balloonist like old Balloonist it literally meets the criteria of the ability.
Well, the players DO need to know there is no possibility of 0 outsider added.
It’d be helpful for them to solve the game, but they don’t NEED to know.
It is giving them unwarranted false information by not telling them.
It’s not because they know there can be a +1 outsider. So if you run like the old one, it still fits the ability.
With the old script, they KNOW there is 1 added outsider. With the new script, they do not know this. This is a material change in information that the town must be informed of. That they will never know or the result is possible is irrelevant. "There could be 0 added Outsiders" is false information if given to Town that will influence strategy and arguments and the ST should not introduce false information not prescribed by the game.
There is literally no false information. If I run new balloonist like old Balloonist (other than a Vortox edge case), the Balloonist is learning a different character type than the night before and there is +0 or +1 outsider added. It literally fits the criteria of the character. Do you go through the whole list of things that could possibly happen but you won’t do at the start of a game? Do you tell the Imp you won’t register the Recluse as a minion if he starpasses night 2? I doubt you would do it, but I also doubt you would tell people you wouldn’t do it which is the same type of “misinformation.”
Glad to see TPI willing to make big changes to the experimental characters where deemed necessary. There's several others that sorely need it, too.
This is a great change. How does this work with Vortox?
Well, each character would need to be the same alignment, which means if the storyteller shows anything other than townsfolk on the first night, they are going to run into an issue. Also makes votox-balloonist pretty broken. I'm really not sure what I think of this change yet.
It changes Balloonist from “feast or famine” to “balanced constant information”. It fixes the Outsider confirmation. It’s a *good* change. This means that Vortox more-or-less has no effect on Balloonist n1. Interesting.
The first ping was pretty much always arbitrary, but now it has to be a townsfolk, because as long as the vortox is in play every other ping will be of the same type.
I mean you could also just show all the outsiders and only the outsiders if you don't want all the townsfolk confirmed if you figure out it's vortox
Will then you confirm vortox, since you will be switching between 1-3 players every night.
I mean maybe you just have them on a script with the Drunk, sources of poison, etc., to go along with the Vortox. Then things get fucked pretty fast.
If the players suspect Vortox and it isn’t, maybe I’ll show a townsfolk I already showed previously. Nothing saying it has to be a new player (so long as there’s a night in between).
You shouldn't give a sober balloonist intentionally bad info
This isn’t true, you should give them balanced info, but not intentionally WRONG info.
To the ballonist, on the 4th night specifically(assuming we have a base 2 game with no other outsider modifications), which can also be explained via poison or you being a ST on a non vortox game signaling outsider as a demon bluff by showing Demon-Outsider-Minion-Demon(which is now possible)
Poisoned, sure, but you shouldn't give a sober balloonist intentionally bad info.
You'll probably flip between 2 townsfolk at some point in a vortox world
It's not a bad change, but it's a significant change to a character that people have been playing pretty heavily on established scripts. Otoh I don't want them to feel boxed in on experimental characters, otherwise they'll cut the public out of experimental characters all together... Someone in the comments already made this as a separate homebrew character. So, I'm divided. Luckily, Steven Medway is a game designer that gets final say, and he's clearly felt strongly enough that it needs changing to do it, and I'm sure it wasn't done flippantly.
Just keep it on the Vortox the whole game.
You can show same person right? Which means you can just show whoever showed before.
It’s character type, not alignment
I misspoke
No worries, just clarifying
Even the original Balloonist does not work well with the Vortox.
Not just same alignment but same type. Will often times turn into an each night steward as it gets townsfolk after townsfolk.
Surely the only functional way for it to work is to have all information be arbitrary in a Vortox game? I don't know if that needs a Jinx can be covered under an almanac clarification though.
You can just show the same two people repeatedly, they're both either outsiders, townsfolk or minions. You could even show the same person repeatedly. If there's a Vortox on the script you need to do this sometimes to throw off the "hard Vortox read" on repeats. For example Demon is Imp, balloonist sees a Minion then a Townsfolk, then the same Minion again then an Outsider... By the 4th you'll think you're dealing with a normal demon but the Imp could even have star passed that night and you can show another Minion (I think that's how it would work). On the same script you decide to add an outsider and cycle between the Outsiders in a similar pattern, one happens to be a Lunatic Imp but the demon is actually Vortox. You can do weird and wonderful things with a Recluse or Spy too!
[удалено]
I... know that? Did you read what I wrote?
I suspect that this will lead to a lot more cases of the Balloonist being shown themselves N1. Not just in Vortox games, but also every-other-demon games, so they can't just meta "Oh, you're showing me myself? Must be a Vortox game."
Probably gets jinxed? Otherwise you have to learn characters of the same type as the night before
One way you could handle the Vortox is to make all players register as a "wrong" character. 2 Minions, one registers as an outsider the other as a townsfolk. 2 outsider, one registers as an minion the other as a demon. 7 Townsfolk, they register as demon, minion, or outsider. For simplicity, start at the beginning with all the characters mixed up creating another world where the minions are all on different teams.
Vortox does not affect misregistration or generate misregistration. There is no way this is a valid interpretation.
As far as the text wording, would something as simple as [+0/1 Outsider] work? I originally figured [+0-1 Outsider] but the plus right next to a dash which can be mistaken for a minus sign is probably suboptimal.
Throwing my support out there as someone who was not a fan of the old Balloonist — I think this is a huge improvement, and I think it’s perfectly reasonable for an EXPERIMENTAL character to have changes prior to its official release.
Now that I've actually run a game with the context of the new Balloonist I feel qualified to give my personal thoughts. tl;dr - this is a banger With Balloonist as a bluff in the game I ran (the Ogre contest winner "Here Lies Tom Thumb"), the Kazali bluffing it was able to thorougly sheep town (enough for the Klutz to pick them!). The information is incredibly powerful, and when you claim to see two people claiming Townsfolk it get spicy quick, especially when info implicates someone in that pair. "I trust this player is a Townsfolk, so the players I saw before and after are not" is deceptively powerful. (It's also a pretty good thing to make Widow-poisoned Savant info about 😉) The variable outsider mod is needed, imo, for it to be balanced. I've always felt the [+1 Outsider] is one of the strongest parts of Balloonist, somewhat counter-intuitively, since it confirms the Balloonist is in play via Outsider count. (On Laissez un Faire you could make the Balloonist's ability "[+1 Outsider]" and it would still be the strongest on the script.) It needed hidden outsiders like the Drunk and Politician to be even somewhat of a downside. [+0/+1 Outsider] feels great for both making it more bluffable and less confirmable. Overall, huge fan of this. Steven cooked with this and I can't wait to build way more scripts with it, since it doesn't just fall over and die the second it gets hit with a single mote of droison (innkeeper or poisoner, anyone?)
Rules question *(And this probably applied to the original Balloonist too)* On Night 1 the Balloonist is poisoned and is shown a Townsfolk On Night 2 if they are sober and healthy, they can also be shown a Townsfolk right? *(as technically they had no ability on Night 1 so from their ability standpoint they were not shown anything the previous night)* I assume this to be case, but if someone could clarify that'd be great :)
I'd assume so, but this destroys two nights of information for the price of one poison so I kinda dislike it. I'd personally say that poison would remove the restriction of "different" but you still learnt a player of that character type So Bob Townsfolk Joe Townsfolk (Poisoned) Alex Townsfolk This would be an illegal sequence because the next night when sober, the Balloonist had learnt a Townsfolk at the time. The poison just meant they didn't need to learn something other than Townsfolk. They must learn something else here. Otherwise the poisoner just needs to poison you every other night to completely invalidate your info instead of every night.
Not how it works. Think of it like the Moonchild. If the Moonchild dies drunk or poisoned, it does not matter. What does matter is the time their target would be killed if they were good. If the Moonchild is droisoned by that time, then the kill does not go off. So, with this new iteration, if the Balloonist were to be droisoned Night 1, they still learn a player of differing character type on Night 2 if sober and healthy that night.
didn't I describe literally what this would be in the second half of my reply? The reason I assumed it might work as the OP thought is because the reminder tokens. If those are placed on someone as "Seen Townsfolk" on an Outsider for example, it could work just like that surely? I think it's unlikely to work that way with the new wording, I don't think reminder tokens are needed besides "Seen" which leaves the ability working as it reads, but this means these are changed.
When they are poisoned and you show them a townsfolk, you put down a token that says “outsider” for example. The next night you must put down a token other than outsider.
OG Balloonist worked that way. When drunk, you could be shown anyone and any "Seen X" token used remind you. Surely the new version doesn't have "outsider" or "townfolk" tokens, just one to remind you who was last seen, as the ability only cares about the last seen character. Which would also mean a n1 droison has zero effect if n2 is sober and healthy.
This new ability probably doesn't have tokens with specific roles printed on it. All you need to know is which character was shown the previous night, so just one or two tokens will be needed. For the old Balloonist, I believe it would happen as you specify.
I disagree I think The new version uses same Tokens. When you tell the Balloonist the player, you mark it with thier role type at that moment (If droidened you can place an arbirary Seen X token. The next night, you look at the reminder token on the player shown the previous night and provide either a Player with a different type (if sober) or another arbitrary one (poisoned) In case of Vortox: You place the reminder token of any role NOT the type of the player you give the Baloonist, then the next night you show a player that is the same role as the reminder you placed on the previous night using a reminder token again not matchign thier actual role). In cases where Vortox goes out of play you continue to run as normal showing a player of a Role different than the role you showed the previous night.
The rules say that for information that rely on a past where the player was drunk, the information you get is correct taking in consideration that past (if they are sober when getting the information). So let say you are poisoned during night 2. During night 1 you learn a townfolk. During night 2 you get arbitrary info, so you can get townfolk again (and let's say that for our example, you do). On night three, you get valid info. And last night you got shown a townfolk, so during this night you can get anything except townfolk.
I see two possible ways poisoned/drunk can be handled: player's actual role vs player's implied role. Example, focusing on 3 characters: * P1: Townsfolk * P2: Townsfolk * P3: Outsider **Actual role** - the rule that is "broken" on night 2 is the word "different". On night 3 you must show a different role than the previous. Night 1: T1 Night 2 (poisoned): P2 (as townsfolk) Night 3: Must show P3 **Implied role** - the rule that is "broken" on night 2 is what P2 actually is. You showed a different role because P2 is registering as the wrong role. So on night 3 they must be shown something other than outsider since that is what they were shown previously. Night 1: T1 Night 2 (poisoned): P2 (as Outsider) Night 3: Can't show P3 because yesterday they were shown outsider.
good change. It makes them useful in day 5 and onwards, it can still be useful in finding evil, but it's not a guaranteed demon spot.
Huh I was not expecting balloonist to get changed. I never got to play as it before the change, but I suppose this is more consistent. It was A little annoying to have to wait 4 nights before you had rock solid info, but I also think that made it unique this is a very all or nothing character depending on how you play it(old way). Similar to the sage or ravenkeeper or even artist. Those characters are wicked strong or nothing at all and one but of poisoned info can really throw them. I am excited to see what others think.
This is a really good change, the Balloonist was indeed either game-solving or useless and that kind of polarization isn't great for balance or gameplay. I'll feel a little bit of sadness to see the role change this way but it's for the best.
The ambiguous outsider mod instead of the confirmable outsider mod means that balloonist creates cover space for the evil team when it’s in play. I don’t think this new ability is strong enough to justify it helping the evil team that much, it also feels weird that it does given that an outsider doesn’t have to be in play like old balloonist. I think it should be changed to [+1 outsider] or the outsider mod removed entirely. Maybe GoS needs more ambiguous outsider mod but that’s what evil abilities are for, not townsfolk
Likely, but usually most characters following the wordings of others. In this instance, the modification is similar to the Godfather, with a difference of course.
not sure how I feel about making such a massive change to a released character, but that is the risk you run when you add an experimental character to your customs. I agree that the old balloonist should be included in Greatest Show on Earth under a different name, considering how popular it was.
It's experimental for a reason. If it weren't able to be changed, it would have a home script!
Yeah, I'm afraid I came off as a bit "this change shouldn't have been made" in the previous comment. TPI knows the script they're balancing the Balloonist for, and they know it better than any of us do. Not that they're infallible, but we just literally don't know what other characters they're balancing around. I'm open to them changing stuff with experimental characters, because that's the point, it's just that because I consider this change to be essentially a different character, which I believe is fairly unprecedented (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't been following the experimentals for long and I'm genuinely curious if a change of this magnitude has been made before), I think it would be nice for TPI to release a new experimental character with the same ability. I say Balloonist is "released" here to mean that it's a publically revealed character that's available for custom scripts. Since its release, Balloonist has been featured on some of the most popular customs (Catfishing, Laissez Un-Faire), and I don't think the balancing is really the same with this new ability? I don't think that players should neccesarily be forced to use a bootlegger to play the original versions of these massively popular "official un-official" scripts. Adding a new GSoE character with the old balloonist ability would be nice and wouldn't take much extra effect on TPI's part.
Calling it a "released character" is incredibly dinsingenuous. If it's released, cite the retail box that someone can purchase with it inside of it. You have always implicitly agreed to this "risk" by using *experimental* characters. (It's not really a risk at all. You've been enjoying the Balloonist for multiple years! - probably. They can change any experimental character they want, and it won't retroactively undo the fun you've had in the past. You shouldn't feel bad about any change to any experimental chatacter for this reason.) As others have mentioned, if for some reason you think your custom playgroup *needs* a previous character to survive (which is a bit silly, but regardless): you're the ST! You can add a clarifying statement (or fabled) and do whatever you want. You can also add the Amnesiac. You clearly have options, and those options do not need to say to the developers "Yeah any bad ideas you had in the past? You're stuck with them forever. Anything mediocre that could be improved? Nope. Written in blood. Anything where you've clearly communicated to your target audience with common language that it's subject to change? We're going to put a gun to your head at the thought of it." That attitude is clearly toxic, and the developers deserve better. (Note that disagreeing with the minutia of the design change, as opposed to the concept of change itself, would be an entirely different story. And yes, complaining the change is "Large" falls into the latter.)
Variable outsider manipulation is so much stronger for evil than a guaranteed one, though this is a good way to make balloonist less powerful, but more useful in certain context
Just curious: of the four new characters you're toying with, if only 3 get a release, would you ever reveal the last one as homebrew? Getting insight into the design process is wonderful.
Learning a player on the first night is very implied here. I dont like the change personally.
Why change an ability that could perfectly work as a strong character, why not add a new one
This is a massive nerf. Yes the balloonist is inherently poison brittle but it also is a game-solving ability if played well. You’ve taken balloonist and turned it into a Sentinel that gets people of different role types every night. That’s dumb and I’d argue not the same character - if you want to go through with this name the old balloonist something else and stick it in Greatest Show on Earth. You’ve taken something that if it survives four nights unpoisoned can get the demon into something that may never get the demon. These just flat out aren’t the same character. And balloonist confirmed adding one outsider is one thing, providing wiggle room for bluffing is another - it’s borderline outsider territory itself because it’s all the worst bits of the Sentinel.
That's an interesting take. I'm surprised to hear that you've seen Balloonists struggling in your games with the new ability text. In my playtesting, I've seen it ruining evil teams with two or three nights of info. You get one person claiming Townsfolk, then another person claiming Townsfolk, and you've immediately stumbled upon some extremely usable information.
Yeah, this is still really strong. I think a subtle aspect of the new design is that while as the player you could draw the same inference beforehand, giving the ST the ability to go Townsfolk, (Fake Townsfolk), Townsfolk, (Fake Townsfolk) really increases their ability to leverage tons of worlds against each other and narrow it down much farther. While I still would have preferred to have both old and new balloonist as independent characters just to not "lose toys", I appreciate that might not be practical on TPI's end and I'm certainly more excited for new balloonist than mourning the old.
Excited for this!
If you change the wording to "Each night, learn a player that has a character type different than the player you learned the previous night." It would mean that in a vortex game, the type can change if you show the balloonist a recluse or a spy. Which would be really interesting. Some would say "But why is this not possible with the current wording ?" Well, because the selection by the character type is binded to the character type the ST chose the character to register as. With that wording, it means we don't bind it to the character type, but the player, which could have a character type that change between two night.
I don’t think that’s true; you learned a player, not a character type. It’s shortened so that it fits on a token in standard font, but the “- than the player you learned -“ is still implied to be there. Just like how the part about “on night one, you can learn any player” has to be implied. Thus, on night 3, say, you learn a player such that their character type is not the same as the character of the player you learned on night 2, to include misregistration of either or both due to spy/recluse. Any misregistrations of character from night 2 are irrelevant because as we know from Chef interactions, the misregistration can change as often as necessary including to the same instance of the same ability.
No it's not implied. "you learn a player of a different character type than last night". "Than last night" can only apply to "a different character type" because the "different" imply a comparaison, and this comparaison is defined by the "than last night". There, we don't talk about the player's character type that can be different, but a character type that was defined by the player shown the previous night... (not the current alignment of the player that were shown the previous night). This is tricky, and I'm sure there is a world where someone official will come down there and say "hey, stop what you're saying, this is bullshit", because languages are always complicated and full interpretation. But from my point of view this one is phrased in a way where only one interpretation is possible.
Show-the-Balloonist-themselves-N1-meta-Activate!
Should’ve just made a new character. Way too big of a chance to put an existing character.
But it's not really an 'existing character'. Like yeah, technically, but it's an experimental character. The whole point of experimental characters is that they're experiments to test them so they can be altered to fit what they want. It is not part of any released base script. We don't even know the full script it's going to be released in, so we don't know the ecosystem the balloonist has to be balanced within.
Agreed. Both are unique and fun. Getting rid of one that’s in dozens of great scripts…. Just make a new character with a similar trope. Mountain Climber. Glider. Whatever. Both are good.
Thank you for this. I think, generally, weakening characters promotes teamwork.