Noir: Killer vs Inspector - Citizen Arrest variant

[Een]

[French version below / Version française plus bas]

Hi Noir: Killer vs Inspector players!

Following previous discussions on the forum, we asked the designer D. Brad Talton, Jr. if he had devised a rule change to make the inspector more powerful, and he got back to us with the following reply:

We have tested giving the Inspector a 'Citizens Arrest' option. Instead of questioning everyone adjacent to a suspect he exonerates, the Inspector can choose to arrest one adjacent character instead. It's still not heavily tested, but if you'd like to implement it and give me some feedback, that would be cool!

So we contacted the developer ch huang, and he implemented this option! When creating a new game, if you select the 'Citizen Arrest' variant, after exonerating a suspect, you will now be able to either "canvas" around that suspect (as before) or to arrest a character adjacent to the exonerated suspect. That really improves the reach of the inspector's arrest

We'll give some statistical feedback to the designer after two months, so please play a lot with this option so that there is a lot of data

You can also let us know your thoughts or suggestions about this option in this thread.

Have fun playing the inspector

[French version / Version française]

Bonjour à tous les joueurs de Noir : Killer vs Inspector !

Suite à plusieurs discussions dans le forum, nous avons demandé à l'auteur D. Brad Talton, Jr. s'il avait pu rajouter une règle pour rendre l'inspecteur plus puissant, et il est revenu vers nous avec la réponse suivante :

Nous avons testé de donner à l'inspecteur une option 'Arrestation citoyenne'. Au lieu d'interroger tous les personnages adjacents à un suspect qu'il vient d'exonérer, l'inspecteur peut choisir d'arrêter l'un des personnages adjacents. Cette option n'a pas encore été très lourdement testée, mais si vous voulez l'implémenter et me faire des retours, ce serait cool !

Nous avons donc contacté le développeur ch huang, et il a implémenté cette option ! Quand vous créez un nouveau jeu, si vous choisissez la variante 'Arrestation citoyenne', après avoir arrêté un suspect vous pourrez soit interroger tous les personnages adjacents pour savoir si l'un d'entre eux est l'assassin (comme avant) ou arrêter un des personnages adjacents au suspect exonéré. Ce qui améliore grandement la capacité d'arrestation de l'inspecteur

Nous transmettrons des statistiques à l'auteur après 2 mois, donc nous espérons que vous jouerez beaucoup avec cette option pour disposer de beaucoup de données pour ces statistiques

Vous pouvez aussi nous donner vos impressions ou suggestions en réponse à ce message.

Amusez-vous bien à jouer l'inspecteur

[Heisenberg85]

What a coincidence, just today I wrote to D. Brad Talton, Jr talking about the balance between the two characters, without having noticed this new variant was implemented I played just 3 games on this variant, and I rather liked it. The inspector now seems very, very, very powerful. Too much? Well, what I can say is that the inspector has often an high probability to arrest the killer for each kill made. And this probability increases as the game goes on. So the killer has to choose the victim very carefully and can't change identity too often, and this is an improvement since he was the overpowered character. The two possible actions of the killer need some attention by the player, so well done.
On the other side, the inspector can try a lot of arrests without compromising his identity. And since he has 4 possible characters with whom he can try an arrest, targeting almost all the characters on the board, maybe this power is too strong. So two possible actions of the inspector need some attention by the player, but not the third, that is the citizen's arrest: it can be used repeatedly without any limit or detriment. Maybe this is now the point of imbalance.

To settle a limit on the possible citizen's arrests (3?) can be probably a more balanced solution. As well as to settle a limit, in the standard variant, on the possible consecutive changes of the killer's identity (2?).

Thanks to ch huang and D. Brad Talton, Jr for the efforts they put on this beautiful game, I hope my considerations can be useful.

Best regards!

[Een]

Thanks your comment Heisenberg85!

It actually looks like we didn't get correctly the full rule for Citizens Arrest from our exchanges with the designer, and there was indeed a limit to set on the number of possible citizen arrests. So your comment was really spot on

We'll be updating the game and this thread once the change has been made to implement this.

[Een]

The full rule for "Citizens Arrest" has now been implemented:

• when proceeding to a "Citizens Arrest", you don't draw an extra card like for "Exonerate". So your hand of evidence cards gets smaller, and the number of "Citizen's arrest" is limited to 3.
• In the game interface, you now have an extra "Citizens Arrest" button under the evidence cards to use instead of the "Exonerate" button.

Without this part of the rule limiting the number of "Citizens Arrests", from the statistical data we gathered, the balance was tipped too much in favor of the inspector (winning about 2/3 of the games). We'll see how it goes now with the full rule for this option

[Shaq Jenkins]

Thank you for making these changes! I just played as the Inspector, and the Citizens Arrest variant made the game more balanced and fair.

For the standard version, I agree that it would be nice if the killer had a limited number of identity changes.

I am going to play this game more often now that the rules changed.

[nraw]

So having played 3 games in a row as killer and losing all three of them feeling pretty much helpless I got the impression that the game got balanced on the opposite side. I love the new version, but I think it lacks the fact that dead people shouldn't be able to arrest.

[tamtam12345]

I agree.Dead citizen shouldn't arrest killer.

[evisceror]

Salut,

Je suis d'accord avec nraw, le jeu originel était mal équilibré avec un avantage net pour l'assassin. Avec cette extension l'inspecteur retrouve du pouvoir, trop de pouvoir et maintenant le jeu est déséquilibré dans l'autre sens. Peut être qu'en empêchant l'arrestation citoyenne à partir d'un personnage mort rééquilibrerais un peu mieux le jeux

Dans tout les cas cette nouvelle règle redonne beaucoup d’intérêt à ce jeu et nécessite juste un petite modification pour être parfaite je trouve.


Hi,

I agree with nraw, the original game was poorly balanced with a net benefit for the assassin. With this extension the Inspector finds of power, too much power and now the game is unbalanced in the other direction. May be preventing the citizen's arrest from a dead character a little better rebalanced the game

In all cases this new rule gives a lot of interest in this game and requires just a small change to be perfect I think.

Evisceror

[Een]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll wait until there has been one month of games with the updated correct "Citizen Variant" rule, then gather some win/loss statistics to send to the designer along with your feedback. Keep on playin'

[Level99Games]

Thank you guys so much for playing and helping me to work on this game!

It's very interesting to see the statistics, and with a small game, such small tweaks can have a large impact on the relative strength of the players! The data you've provided is very useful, and I agree that we just need a little nudge to make things perfect.

We are trying out a few new rules locally. I'll post them again for your discussion when they are ready to share!