As with the idea of Smooshing, Alignment switching still requires a level of thought. Sadly, it’s not as quick as saying “Evil dreamer, whoopee, let’s get to the next role.” A perfect example that is found adorned on the WereWiki is the Enchanter role. If you look at the Enchanter’s powers, you’ll notice a striking resemblance to the Malicious Hypnotist, who uses another player’s list to kill with. The Enchanter does the same, except it uses another player’s list to dream, protect, double, etc. So that is an incredibly basic alignment switch to create a nice innocent role. Not much thought was needed to adapt the Malicious Hypnotist to innocent form, because the hypnotise kill is an evil power and once changed to an innocent power (dream, protect, etc) then it’s a role of its own.
The Enchanter has been used in games before and I’ve never seen a problem with it. If the Enchanter wants to dream specific people, it needs to find someone with a list and get them to target who they want to dream, thus exposing a very useful role. So something as simple as that can prove a challenge for the Enchanter and goes to show that even the mildest change in a role’s power can affect how it plays a game.
Another example that I have used before was the Evil Cupid. The Evil Cupid would make two people fall in love nightly and would perform its kills by introducing a third player into the mix and rejecting another. The rejected player would suffer from a broken heart (a.k.a. they would be attacked). The Evil Cupid would create a new couple and reject/attack one of its players in the same night if no couple was linked (because the game required that a kill be present each night). In addition to that kill style, the Evil Cupid had several one use powers that related to the couple which included making them target each other, stopping their night lists and making them target the Evil Cupid.
As per a normal Cupid, what affected one player would affect both, but this was rarely something that people exploited for some reason (e.g. no couple was ever attacked by another team). The one speed bump in this role was that it was publicly announced who was in love (as should be) and this alerted the Protector of that team to who would be attacked in the next night, because by protecting one member of the couple, both were protected. This was a huge problem, so a change was necessary. The Protector could only stop people entering the love triangle, but once a person was in the couple, all the Protector could do was act as a Custodian for them (the shields of the couple would be raised slightly against the Evil Cupid’s attack).
I know that kill system may sound a bit over the top, especially since the Alignment switch method is meant to be simple, but I’ll list my thought process when I thought of it:
Evil Cupid. What makes it a Cupid that’s Evil?
Strings two people together like a normal Cupid. How can this be a kill?
Breaks one of their hearts by introducing a new Lover. What complications arise from this?
The Protector knows who will be attacked. How do I get around this?
Easy, the Protector doesn’t protect those already in the love triangle, it stops people from entering it entirely
It may not be as simple as the Enchanter’s train of thought (which was, ‘Malicious Hypnotist that’s innocent and uses innocent powers… cool’), but there’s a few key points that you can follow to help create a good template. In the end, it’s down to how far you can bend a role or a power to suit a new alignment.
To change a role’s alignment, the things to think about are ‘What makes this role special?’, ‘How can I change this innocent/evil power into an evil/innocent power?’, ‘What complications will arise from this?’ and, most importantly, ‘Is it balanced?’ Again, balance is the final decider to whether the role you’re thinking of will work or not. If the Evil Cupid broke the hearts of both the Lovers then it would be equal to two night kills every night. Also, by giving it day-kills the Evil Cupid would simply use them on their Lovers and get two kills for the price of one. I found it to be a balanced role and it actually won the game it was in, but not because its powers were grossly overpowered. It won because the player played well.
And that’s how to do an Alignment switch. The more complicated the role you’re trying to meddle with, the harder it will be to create a counterpart for it. Just like other role creating techniques, not everything is going to work. Personal experience will tell you how horrific some ideas can turn out with these formulas. Still, it’s worth a try if you want to create some chaos with yourself and if you’re lucky you’ll spawn a good role from your alignment fiddling fiascos.
I know that kill system may sound a bit over the top, especially since the Alignment switch method is meant to be simple, but I’ll list my thought process when I thought of it:
Evil Cupid. What makes it a Cupid that’s Evil?
Strings two people together like a normal Cupid. How can this be a kill?
Breaks one of their hearts by introducing a new Lover. What complications arise from this?
The Protector knows who will be attacked. How do I get around this?
Easy, the Protector doesn’t protect those already in the love triangle, it stops people from entering it entirely
It may not be as simple as the Enchanter’s train of thought (which was, ‘Malicious Hypnotist that’s innocent and uses innocent powers… cool’), but there’s a few key points that you can follow to help create a good template. In the end, it’s down to how far you can bend a role or a power to suit a new alignment.
To change a role’s alignment, the things to think about are ‘What makes this role special?’, ‘How can I change this innocent/evil power into an evil/innocent power?’, ‘What complications will arise from this?’ and, most importantly, ‘Is it balanced?’ Again, balance is the final decider to whether the role you’re thinking of will work or not. If the Evil Cupid broke the hearts of both the Lovers then it would be equal to two night kills every night. Also, by giving it day-kills the Evil Cupid would simply use them on their Lovers and get two kills for the price of one. I found it to be a balanced role and it actually won the game it was in, but not because its powers were grossly overpowered. It won because the player played well.
And that’s how to do an Alignment switch. The more complicated the role you’re trying to meddle with, the harder it will be to create a counterpart for it. Just like other role creating techniques, not everything is going to work. Personal experience will tell you how horrific some ideas can turn out with these formulas. Still, it’s worth a try if you want to create some chaos with yourself and if you’re lucky you’ll spawn a good role from your alignment fiddling fiascos.
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