Removed Roles
Originally published September 27, 2021
Today I'm talking about removed roles in Wynn Mafia 2.
When I first listed a bunch of NPCs that I thought could make interesting roles back in 2017, I had 54 of them and I was trying to make a role for each of them. Naturally, not all of them worked out, and as of the time I’m writing this (October 2019, though proofread in September 2021) there are 48 roles.
So, you may ask, what roles did I deem unworthy of Wynn Mafia 2? There were seven in total - six removed, one replaced. I’ll list each one, what its powers were, and why I removed them.
Captain Lorias - Villager
“A location-investigative role that can learn things by observing bodies and traces of fights, etc.”
Level 1 - 100 health
Upon visiting a location, you will learn the actions of any players who visited that location in the past four phases during the phase they visited that location, along with any actions performed on them.
Level 2 - Unlocked for 512E - 100 health
You gain the ability to set up an investigation scene at a location you visit, informing you if a player visited that location, and if a player died there, you will automatically collect their body. Only one investigation scene may be present at once, but it may be moved.
Level 3 - Unlocked for 1024E - 100 health
Players’ bodies will no longer take up inventory space. When collecting or investigating the body of a player who was killed, you will learn what other actions the killer performed the phase of the death.
Atisun is an innocent/villager role that exists for the exact same purpose (investigating bodies) as this one. Choosing to keep Atisun over Lorias was largely preference, I’d guess, as the implementation difficulty wouldn’t have been too different between them. At best, it’s an investigative role tailored to Wynn Mafia 2, but there are a bunch of those already.
I made only one note as to why I placed it in the trash can, which I don't exactly agree with now:
“This role is sad. Does it need to exist? Or should it be reworked? Atisun already has more or less the same focus.”
-stlast, pre-October 2018
Dodegar - Villager
“A trolling role that can task players anonymously, with the role getting benefits if the target can’t pay off the required resources in time. This is the only role that can craft The Ultimate Weapon, which allows the role to harness its full power.”
Level 1
100 health
Your retaliations inflict the stunned effect for one phase. Retaliating grants the resistance effect for one phase.
Level 2
Unlocked for 512E
100 health
Being below half-health causes your retaliations to deal triple their usual damage.
Level 3
Unlocked for 1024E
100 health
You gain an additional combat option (after attack and retaliate), “defend,” which reduces damage from all incoming weapon attacks by 75%.
Dodegar’s story is that of passion, loss, and disappointment. As seen in the synopsis, it was originally likely to be tied in with a quest system I was planning in the early stages of development. When that wasn’t working too well, I shifted it over to a combat-oriented role centered around the Ultimate Weapon, which, ultimately, never came to fruition.
Regarding its powers, one of my most persistent worries while making the attack system was that no-one would use it because town players would be strongly incentivized to retaliate; that way, if a mafioso tried to attack, they would at least get some form of retribution, which would then lead to the mafia sitting on their weapons the whole game.
As a result, one of the reasons I removed the role was because it created further incentive against attacking other players considering it granted so many buffs to retaliation. Not to mention that it didn’t fit at all with the original role synopsis I made, and even that I wasn’t so sure about.
“What’s the point of this role again? Right now, its powers are very self-focused, and an instant kill (i.e. main mafia method of harming players) makes this role’s powers completely useless. The most it could do is sorta discourage anti-town players from attacking people, which...isn’t what I’m aiming for.”
-stlast, pre-October 2018
I’m starting to sense a trend in the negativity of my old comments - oh wait, these roles were all removed, that’s right.
Professor Ynnos - Villager
“A role that can create a field of minor gadgets that all have specific purposes. I’m considering making this the joat if I don’t have one of those already.”
“Unfinished role; can’t analyze.”
-stlast, pre-October 2018
And that was all I wrote. The reason I removed it is that I (obviously) had no ideas for it.
Sensei Miyagi - Villager
“A specialization role that can become exceptionally powerful in a certain field, but mediocre in all others.***”
It was a neat coincidence that one of the role names I put down was Miyagi and then Gigavern sent me a role idea of the same NPC. When he contacted me and gave the suggestion, I decided that I might as well see if I could put it to use, but in the end, I didn’t have any ideas for how to convert it best to the WM2 setting, so I scrapped it.
This is what he sent me:
Sensei Miyagi - (Special Mason)
Wincon: Keep you and your student alive until Night 10.
Pick someone to recruit as a student. It has a 50% chance to fail and once you get a student you cannot recruit anymore. You will share a Mason convo with them. When in a Teacher-Student relation you both gain the empowered effect.
Being wise, your vote counts for 2 points.
When your student is attacked, you will take the damage for them if you are alive
You will automatically die on Night 10(if you are still alive), but you may choose to take down someone as you die (but only if you survive to Night 10).
I also had this written down, I guess:
“A defensive role that can punish players for being too aggressive via boosted retaliation and status effects? Nah”
And no, I don’t know what I put the 3 stars in the synopsis for.
Oh, and then there’s this:
“Unfinished role; can’t analyze.”
-stlast, pre-October 2018
Elrund - Elf
“This role essentially acts as a gatekeeper protecting the Sol Embassy.”
Yes, another role without anything in it. I think I had some power ideas, but I removed them after not liking them.
“Unfinished role; can’t analyze.”
-stlast, pre-October 2018
(Haven’t seen that before.)
Trunan - Mafia
“Trunan is the glass cannon player in the Mafia that’s geared towards role upgrading - its base health doubles between levels 1 and 3. Besides its massive health detriment, it’s quite powerful.”
Level 1
60 health
You’re able to strike one player, dealing 60 damage. If you do this, you will not be capable of executing a nightkill that phase, but you may perform a normal attack. That ability has only one use. Additionally, when taking damage, you have a 25% chance of avoiding all non-instant-kill damage done to you that phase. Lastly, you are able to diminish a player on odd-numbered nights, making them take 50% more damage the next phase.
Level 2
Unlocked for 512E
60 health
You are now able to visit two locations in one phase. This does not allow you to search both locations simultaneously, however.
Level 3
Unlocked for 768E
60 health
Your strike ability can now be used on all nights that are divisible by 3 (3,6,9,12…).
Oh, finally, one that actually has content.
I never really knew what to do with Trunan. I mean, I did, but it never felt quite right. Most of Trunan’s powers were very scattered and they didn’t feel like they fit anywhere. The strike power was difficult to balance because I didn’t want the mafia to essentially gain another instant kill, and as a result it’s a little underwhelming.
The level 2 power actually would have been interesting, apart from the fact that in the final location system it would have wound up doing nothing.
“It’s kind of a compilation of weak and redundant abilities. A medium-damage one-shot strike power can be pretty useful but still negated fairly easily (especially when Jack is involved). The diminish helps with that, but the damage avoidance power feels out-of-place with the otherwise pseudo-offensive base role (and Ernold already has more-or-less the same ability). The level 2 isn’t that useful, but the level 3 is probably worth it when paired with diminishes on nights 9 and 15. In the end, the role is kinda weak, and should be touched up a bit to be more specialized; give it a purpose. That, or remove it.”
-stlast, pre-October 2018
Guess which one I did!
Sherk - Independent
“This role is a tough one that’s fairly solo-centered. The role is designed to be resistant, and with penalties towards working with other players. Eliminating this role is difficult without instant kills (lynches and nightkills, primarily - high damage strike roles like Trunan won’t cut it).”
Level 1
100 health
At the end of every phase, the total damage you take is reduced by 20 (minimum of 0).
You will return as mafia if checked.
Level 2
Unlocked for 640E
200 health
Your maximum health is increased by 100.
Level 3
Unlocked for 960E
200 health
You now have the additional combat option “defend,” in which you take 75% less damage from weapons, gain immunity to all status effects, and any spell directed at you will deflect back to its user at reduced (-2) power.
This one lasted a lot longer than the removed roles you’ve seen so far. Skip forward about a year from the fabled October 2018 (when I started compiling this list) and this was one of two independent roles I still hadn’t figured out (Marshlyn being the other one).
The “survive” goal conflicted greatly with my vision of the role; how was I to make it thoroughly independent when its goal biased it so heavily towards the town? If you can firmly establish yourself as a town-aligned independent, then the town has little reason to kill you (no threat) and neither does the mafia unless you’re one of the town leaders because your death wouldn’t further their own win condition.
Also note that I included a reference to Trunan in the synopsis (I removed it some time after writing it) and the level 3 power came from Dodegar (which I ported the ability from after I removed that role).
Unlike all the other removed roles, I don’t think I wrote down any explanation directly onto the deleted roles doc.
Alright, it’s September 2021 now and I’ve officially quit. Now I kinda want to try remaking these roles to see if I can come up with something half-decent. Except maybe Lorias, because he’s actually ok in retrospect, though he’s still too similar to Atisun to include both.
Also, wait, I mentioned that one of the 7 roles above was replaced by another one. I legit don't remember which one, and what replaced it with.