Several things I'm not fond of:

• Vote Arithmetic: It's not exactly balanced to the number of players, and I'd like to not sweat those sorts of fine calculations.
• Manfred's Information: Manfred's greatest threats are the other special roles. His knowing them off the bat will allow him to eliminate the most important (and most interesting roles) in the game from the get-go, which, while desirable and dangerous, also isn't very fun for people on the receiving end. Mafia games ought to feel more like some measure of effort was made to get at a person.
• Affiliation: This mechanic only applies to the Wildcards, who, depending on how you look at it, have little incentive or too much incentive to join Manfred. Are investigations supposed to reveal a Wildcard's affiliation? Doesn't tracking this stat defeat the purpose of a "Wildcard" role, that is, one that can only be trusted but never for certain? I will grant that making Wildcards count towards neither body count is a step in the right direction, as it frees them of any motivations other than their own, personal convictions, while making them dangerously disposable.
• Townie Information: This was one of the biggest problems of Round III, in that the Townies get to catch up to the Mafia in terms of investigation. Personally I would like to break down this information power struggle, as it is the main cause of game mechanics issues. Players should more rely on their wits in this game.

That said, I like the concept of tying the Townie vigilante to the existence of another Townie role. If either dies, the Townies lose their extra kill... which, according to some opinions I've heard, shouldn't exist in the first place.

I don't see where the rationale for negative vote scores comes from, other than revealing Furio's activity. We've never tracked zero scores before, why start now? Either way, the number of votes being moved around in large blocks is enough of a giveaway - if multiple targets were allowed for these supervotes, then it would help mask the power a bit, but that would be pointless except for deadlocks.

A big theme of 1-4 was the case of mistaken identities and false assumptions, very much in tune with the very base tenets of the Mafia game. While I would like to add new and interesting roles, I'm afraid that investigation and information is one of the worst ways to go about it, as it destroys those fundamentals.

Hmm.

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Most of the secret roles render the seemingly immense, unchecked power of some of the roles moot or heavily impaired. Other secret roles can only use their special skills at enormous, suicidal risk. That's all I'll say on that for now.

As for Manfred, most people seem to miss that he doesn't get a guaranteed prosecution target at all - he gets to pick from any of three people, and even then Phoenix can simply bring them back the next day. The disadvantage is that a special role gets revealed to the public for certain. I can easily strip that ability, though, which I'll do now. He's still immense... and he could get insane if he plays his cards right.

I've spent a while reworking the roles and secret roles. I'll edit this post with the public roles shortly, which should also clear up your affiliation concerns. I would discuss the secret roles in more detail but by revealing them it obliterates their game mechanics so I can't. :(

---

Past couple days have seen me less than focused/creative. I actually really like Manfred's role now that I see how it aligns with my "fundamentalist" thinking.

I still maintain that one important thing is limiting Townies more to the vote kill, and keeping them in the dark about people's identities.

---

== MAFIA ROUND 4 ROLES ==

[HIDDEN ROLES]

Hidden roles are not disclosed in public until the town has gathered evidence to support their existence in some way. Most hidden roles will not be revealed until they have been killed, although many hidden roles have alternate reveal conditions. If an investigation uncovers a hidden role, the details of that role will be disclosed to the investigator, however, some hidden roles cannot be revealed by investigating.

Von Karmans



Townies



Mafians



Wild Cards



Chances are if there are roles that don't seem to mesh properly, there's a secret role involved somewhere. There is one problem I can see: these game mechanics will work best if the game has over 30 players; the ideal number is 40. :)

I'll edit this post with the general idea behind each role and how they mesh together.
EDIT:

The Triangle of Power - Phoenix, Manfred and Tigre

Manfred's prosecution powers royally screw over Furio's lynch protection and vote-mod trickery. However, Furio is very capable of giving Phoenix a hard time with his vote modding - votes can easily be re-arranged to make sure that Phoenix himself gets the axe at the right time. Without Don Tigre, the Mafia won't be able to get rid of Phoenix until the very late game, if ever. Most importantly though is Townie lynchpin, Phoenix Wright. Phoenix's acquittal cap has been removed - he can bring the same person back over and over indefinitely, which is pretty handy with von Karma nuking the Townies constantly. The only people he can't bring back are the victims of Mafia hits. Phoenix gets two daytime acquittals which allows him to revive both von Karma's victim and the victim of Gumshoe's arrests. Phoenix does get detailed investigative abilities, which seems to contradict the Townie playstyle, but to do it Phoenix has to give up his lynch-res skill.

Here's the big change though, folks: it's not two factions anymore, it's three, and to obtain victory for your faction you may have to risk bringing back your enemies to keep your side in the game. Phoenix's acquittal bombs will have the strongest influence on the game, moreso than any other character. The moves may seem extreme, but each of the powerhouses cancel each other out and actual progress in this game is very gradual. The Townies are the faction with the fastest overall momentum and speed, but they also have the biggest and longest job to do. The Mafia can afford to - and will - bide their time. Phoenix, and the town, will not.

The Townie Investigation Engine - Edgey and the 'Shoe

This time round, the Townies will acquire the majority of their information by killing people at random to find their identities out. To offset this, Gumshoe can continue to investigate the identities of players, although his abilities have been drastically cut back. However, this reckless information gathering will still suit the Townies' lynch-spam tactics down to the ground. Edgeworth is the interesting part - he can empower Gumshoe to give the Townies their sole nightly kill (which Phoenix can undo if necessary) or he can accidentally hinder him by interfering with his investigation. Gumshoe and Edgeworth should attempt to contact each other as quickly as possible.

The Swiss Army Knife - Maya Fey

Maya's all-in-one superskills are offset by her extreme vulnerability. First, let's look at the pros: Maya can bolster the investigative abilities of Phoenix, substituting for him whilst he gets acquittals or doubling his investigative speed. She can only once order an extra ten votes for a specific player, allowing the Townies to guarantee a critical lynch especially if they use the ability craftily, or she can add three extra votes on at any time. This provides a useful counter to the vote-modding employed by Don Tigre and Yogi, making Maya very valuable. The seemingly simplest move of them all is her ability to pre-emptively change two votes during a night phase. This may prove to be the most useful ability of all, as the players will be warned of the vote change before they even get a chance to vote. Voting knowing that your vote has been decided by someone else serves as a masterful mind-screw to enemy factions.

The downside: Maya will die, and die horribly. Keeping the identity of Maya quiet will be a top priority for the Townies.

The Tight-Knit Clan - Mafia Play

The Mafia's greatest strength in round 3 was their ability to move freely without fear of subterfuge; this strength has been carried over to round 4. No matter how many wild cards join the group, the core Mafians will be able to move freely and use the wild cards either as valuable members or as pawns to do their dirty work. The wild cards provide advantages to each faction, but some are best suited to a specific faction, highlighted by their investigation "colours". Others, such as Yogi, are equally useful to each faction, or useless to all three. The Townies have the most to gain from using wild cards, but also the most to lose. The Mafia can be more direct with the wild cards early on and can use this to their advantage.

The most important aspect of Mafia play though is to remember that the special roles have limited importance in the Mafia; what matters is the players behind the roles. Regular goons are equally as dangerous as the Godmother as far as von Karma and the Town is concerned.

The Master of Secrets - Richard Wellington

Richard's role does not seem to make sense initially until you know that there are secret roles in this round; these roles could literally be anybody, and so Richard is free to imitate anyone and everyone. Use his skills to emulate a known secret role or to fake an entirely new bogus role; the Town will never be able to prove that a secret role does or does not exist until it has left the game. Tread carefully, though; be too obvious with your disguises and it will do you no good. Additionally, at great risk Wellington can turn his attention to investigation. The information of most interest to the Mafia is who is allied with whom, so Wellington's investigations focus on this fact. Should it be necessary to conduct an in-depth investigation, Wellington also has this ability, but its potency for the Mafia is limited. Wellington gets four reliable investigations a night at the cost of his disguise skills - choose your methods carefully.

The Mafia's Ultimate Trump Card - Matt Engarde

At first glance, being able to spontaneously kill yourself seems to be a very dangerous and overpowered ability. Placed against the huge forces you're fighting against as a Mafian in this round, however, Engarde is a useful tool. It's important to remember that reckless use of the Engarde bomb will probably cost the Mafia the round, so time it carefully. If Engarde's targets are all unkillable (and there's quite a lot of that floating around...), his suicide will do nothing at all, so choose your targets wisely.

The Ultimate Mafian Ruse - The Godmother

You may have noticed this from round 3 - the Mafia were perfectly willing to sacrifice the Godmother to keep the game going, and they'll do it again at a moment's notice in this round as well. The Mafia has a large variety of useful tricks up its sleeve that overshadow the Godmother during the late game - in fact, the Godmother will likely end up being a liability. The Mafia have a large variety of sneak attacks to play this time round, so don't take anything at face value. The Godmother will also no longer reveal her true identity when investigated, which proves useful for the Town and the Mafia, as it gives them an excuse to lynch recklessly all the regular goons they find. Fake Godmothers will be a dime a dozen - maybe even the real deal will turn out to be far from the brains of the outfit. ;)

The Secret Roles and the Wild Cards - BEWARE

Here's the biggest tip for playing this round - don't assume your special roles' abilities are going to work properly, because there's a strong chance they won't. Why they won't work properly is something you'll need to find out on your own. ;)

For the Town, finding out what they're up against is the biggest priority - investigate, investigate, investigate! Don't rely on Gumshoe - take the risks and find out as much information as you can, and track down all the roles, known and secret. The biggest weapons in this round are the ones that have not been disclosed - find them and secure them as an ally and you have secured a significant advantage for your side. If you are one of these secret weapons, however, be careful - if people act like they know too much about your role, they probably do. Be on your guard at all times.

For the Mafia, what's important is who is, and who is not, Mafia. A well-built Mafia outfit will get introduced to each other right from the start, and that includes elements of the outfit that you don't know the whole story about. As the Godmother, it'll be best to try and squeeze information about the special roles from your group from day 1 - you will not have all the information you need at the start of the game, and nor will your fellow Mafians. You need to stick together, and to give your team an incentive to stick together. Don't be afraid to recruit as many trustworthy wild cards as possible, and get them to formally ally themselves with you. If they don't want to do that, you know something is wrong.

Also, don't assume that people will play their roles fairly. Townie by role, player by nature. A player will do what suits them best. If it suits a player to be an asshole and deliberately screw their faction over even if it isn't in their role description, they'll do it, and if they do it, be prepared to get rid of them.

Finally, this brings us to Manfred von Karma. Manfred is powerful enough to win the game solo, but to do so he has to be incredibly crafty. The Townies are the only group that have the raw power to eliminate Manfred early on, so chances are the Mafia will be unusually forthcoming with any information they have on him. Take it in stride and remember: both factions want him dead.

The (un)lucky player who gets Manfred von Karma will be blessed with full knowledge of the roles that will cause him serious trouble... well, that's the theory, but you never know what secrets lurk within the Town this time around. Sharing the knowledge you have without a good cover story is guaranteed to blow your cover, so don't. Act dumb until acting dumb would be suspicious, then change tack. You're one man against the world, and that may be your downfall. Remember, if you die, everyone allied with you dies as well and your faction is defeated instantly, so don't expect wild cards to want to ally with you very willingly.

However, securing the known wild cards could prove to be a tremendous advantage. Be suspicious of everything and everyone, because unless they join you, THEY MUST DIE. You've drawn the hard job, but you've got the guts to see it through to the end. Good luck. :)

Here's the final tip: as you might have noticed, Pearl's investigation enhancement ability is extremely useful to each faction. However, the full extent of Pearl's power is something to be feared - only Pearl can see everything in this game for what it really is, and as this round unfolds, you will see how incredibly invaluable that skill is. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE PEARL FEY.

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Last edited by Velotican on Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ok... let me see if I have a few things straight:

So long as Gumshoe is alive, he has the power to completely dictate von Karma's prosecution actions, correct? Meaning that as long as Gumshoe sends an arrest warrant each night, von Karma is helpless? Or does he have to get a request from Edgeworth to put out a warrant? If that's the case, then unless the two make sure to do that every night, von Karma is sure to kill Gumshoe as soon as possible (although I guess having the three to choose from could help.) Still... it seems a little too easy for von Karma to eliminate the threats against him (unless there's something else going on here), plus if Gumshoe sends out arrests every night he won't get to investigate (will he?).

I do like very much that it is in the Mafia's interest as much as the Townies' to keep Phoenix alive until Manfred is gone. In fact... they MUST do so or the possibility of winning is gone, correct?

The hidden roles are interesting, although I see why you can't tell us anything about them. However, they're all various characters from the AA series, right? Which means that they'd have abilities related to their character? So, that means that if Wellington wants to make up a role, and then to masquerade as that role to someone who investigated him, he'd have to have a good explanation for what the role actually does. He'd also have to be careful, because he's liable to be found out by a real role. Cool... I like that version of the role better than the one in this last round (choosing disguises is more interesting than random ones.) Can he wear the same disguise for multiple day/night phases in a row?

I can see this adding and subtracting of points becoming a little confusing. I guess they'll be ok if we have a really large amount of players next time, but if we're around the same size we were this time, you may need to lower some of the amounts that they can add or subract a little bit.

I can't think of anything else I have to say on this at the moment. This is sounding very good, I must say.

No. That's my fault for mentioning von Karma in Gumshoe's role description. I'll have to correct that later. Neither Gumshoe nor Edgeworth have any control over Manfred von Karma's actions, however Edgeworth can partially control Gumshoe's investigations with an arrest warrant. If Gumshoe does not receive a warrant from Edgeworth, he cannot arrest anyone; he can only investigate. Therefore, if either Edgeworth or Gumshoe die, the Townies lose their nightly kill. Gumshoe cannot investigate and arrest in the same evening, no. :)

Manfred's role may yet need balancing. I may dial back the ability to receiving the true identities of two random known special roles at the beginning of each day phase. What do you think? :)



Should Phoenix Wright die before Manfred von Karma, it's an automatic win for Manfred because he can no longer be voted out nor killed. The existence of Phoenix is essential to both a Townie and Mafian victory. However, Phoenix has to be voted out to die, so Phoenix strongly benefits in this round from disclosing his identity in public from day 1, because everyone will need to know his identity, Mafian, Townie and Karman alike, and the controllers of the lynch vote are the Townies. Manfred on the other hand can very easily lose if his identity is found out, but that's why he's so difficult to discover. A common theme in this round is that a player who constantly uses their special skills at full power will get found out for certain, whilst a player who paces themselves is more likely to last the entire length of the game. The key phrase is "up to [X] players" in the role descriptions, and note that it's missing from Gumshoe's ability.

Because the Mafia needs Phoenix alive as well, chances are that any fake Phoenix Wrights that spring up are affiliated with von Karma, so it wouldn't be a wise move. ;)



Wellington can indeed wear the same disguise indefinitely, and yes, should he try to imitate a special role, he must have a good idea of what they can do, or a very good idea for a bogus role. The secret roles' special abilities often rely on the fact that you don't know they exist - if I were to reveal them before the game started, they'd go into the game woefully underpowered. Some of the roles wouldn't work if they weren't secret.

As for them all being characters from the Ace Attorney series, this is pretty much true... but technically it isn't. You definitely will not see any characters from different series, however; all of the roles either exist in the Ace Attorney series explicitly or implicitly. That's all I'll say there. ;)



If we have an undersized player base, certain roles, both secret and public, will be withdrawn.


*bows* ^_^

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Gah,this seems complicated.The votes seem to come in bulk.

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I'm making it sound more complicated than it is because I'm going into detail about the roles of multiple people. No one person could do all this nor would I expect them to. It's a game meant to be played by a large group, after all. I'm just going into detail because people aren't sure why I've designed the roles the way I have. :)

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I have another project that needs my attention, and as such, I am handing over CR Mafia Round IV to Boss Velotix. I will continue to run CR Mafia Round III.

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...I'm sorry, but I really don't like the idea of the entire game being dictated by two players. I know what you're going for trying to stick to the story and all, but social games shouldn't have "main characters", that just makes everyone else more or less expendable. It's really not a good feeling being stuck as a regular townie when whoever gets Phoenix and Maya and Manfred and so on get five billion special powers.

I don't know how I feel about "secret roles", either. Part of the strategy of Mafia is knowing what special roles are out there and how they can be used. Having completely unknown abilities out there makes it impossible to plan for them and essentially makes the game random.

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Those were the kinds of issues I wanted to deal away with in my next Mafia game, but I just don't have the energy. May as well save my epic plans for my favorite (read: has Ema in it) case.

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And that makes it more fun! It's that element of the unknown. Something for you to discover. Something to keep you on your toes and watching every move on the off chance that you may catch something.
That sounds like an interesting thing to me.

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One Mafia member down, one to go!

In regards to secret roles in the next game, I don't much like the idea of not knowing what I'm looking for.

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Don, how are you supposed to "catch" something when all the special powers are activated behind the scenes through the GM?

I stand by my previous statements. If Round 4 is going to be played using the roles mentioned in this thread, I'm going to have to sit the game out.

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In the end it's just your willingness to try new things that is going to hold you back.
I'm talking about if you try this round or not. I'm not afraid to try this, it's different, and there is allot that we still don't/can't know about, but that's no reason to just skip this round completely. Who knows, you may try it and like it! I took that chance with CR. Heck, I took that chance with PW! If you don't like the round you can always leave, but I say give it a chance.

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Rounds 1 and 3 were wrecked by overpowered roles. I don't need to play Round 4 to find out making the roles even more powerful isn't going to work well.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Mafia is supposed to be a game where the most cunning players win, not the ones who are randomly assigned the best super powers.

---

That's harsh, Franzise. To say that everything we did in Round 3 was meaningless, that we won completely on luck rather than on cunning? Sure, it's true to some extent and we did have a somewhat unfair amount of information coming in, but it's not right to devalue everything we did figure out. After all, our biggest victory was seeing through Velo's ruse, and (as far as I know) that was based entirely on intuition.

Velo's plan has a lot of roles yes, but even in this last game which had many powerful roles, some of the most important players did not have roles at all. I don't see the problem in the next round as being too many powerful roles. The powerful roles will have to be careful, as there are many ways for them to be found out.

However, I do see one glaring problem: with the current rules it will be impossible for Manfred to win. As it is in both the Town and the Mafia's interest to keep Phoenix alive until Manfred is dead, there is no way he'll get voted out. But, Manfred also cannot kill him. This means that there's no way for him to get rid of Phoenix, which he must do in order to win.

Edit: And yes, I know that saying "we won" is a bit pre-emptive, but with one Mafian left, I really can't see this round turning out any other way.

I'm not saying you guys didn't play well or anything. I'm just saying when the Townies have six roles that can investigate, there isn't much the Mafia can do to prevent being found out.

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o_o

I figured this was going to come up sooner or later. Hah, I have a habit of overkill.

I'm going to give these a re-write. I'm definitely onto something with the design of the roles, but it looks like everything's too heavy-handed at the moment, plus some of the roles are broken. :P

I think the best thing to do is to strip the roles back and get back to basics. Kinda like Advance Wars. :O

OK, here's an idea. Although I won't reveal the hidden roles, I will reveal how you find out who they are. I'll edit this post with the revised roles I'm re-writing now. The most awkward element is Manfred von Karma... :/

EDIT: Here we go. A large portion of the previous version has been removed and other elements have been stripped back, so disregard the analysis of the previous version, in particular anything related to von Karma, who has been completely reworked. :)

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A note on [HIDDEN ROLES]

Hidden roles are not disclosed in public until the town has gathered evidence to support their existence in some way. Most hidden roles will not be revealed until they have been killed, although many hidden roles have alternate reveal conditions which are disclosed below. If an investigation uncovers a hidden role, the details of that role will be disclosed to the investigator, however, some hidden roles cannot be revealed by investigating.

Von Karmans




Townies



Mafians



Wild Cards



FYI, all but two of the roles removed were public roles. :)

---

So, to make sure this is right, you've gotten rid of Maya, Engarde, and Pearl and changed von Karma and Phoenix's roles somewhat. You've also taken away Tigre's vote changing powers and changed Yogi's role a little. Correct?

I like the fact that now the number of hidden roles is known as well as how to reveal them. The rest sounds good, but I'm still concerned about von Karma. It seems like some delicate balance is still missing. I just have a hard time seeing him managing to kill off everyone else all on his own, with just a night double investigation and a night double kill. After a while, they're going to figure out who he is. Also, with the investigation deflection thing, won't that immediately give him away if he is investigated and someone elses info is returned?

Regy, ever heard of the mafia role 'Werewolf'? Manfred's just a werewolf with investigation powers.

von Karma is the only real problem at this point, unless there's something I've missed. First off, he doesn't have a double kill. Should he? I thought that was too powerful. Also, his kill ability will keep getting cancelled until something's found out. If you think about 1-4 it's pretty obvious, but you still won't know the details. ;)

All of the vote manipulation skills have been withdrawn. Yogi has been given a role previously assigned to a cut hidden role, although I tweaked it slightly. Yogi should be of equal use to both the Mafia and the Townies and he can serve as a fake von Karma if necessary.

The investigation deflection is a very important point - it will simply change the target of the investigation without informing the investigator. The accuracy of the information sent back is as good as it would have been had von Karma been investigated. In practice, it shouldn't be easy to work out that the investigation was deflected - in fact, it probably won't be possible to find him out until it's too late. The counter to this is that everyone's looking for him.

I gave von Karma a disabled single kill because I figured people would die too quickly otherwise. You're also overlooking the fact that the Townies and the Mafia will be killing each other and doing von Karma's dirty work for him. ;)

Welcome back, Aokage. ^^

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Yeah it'll probably work out then.

On another note, it appears that my brother's gotten tired of this game's dragging on. I hope he consulted the others on his team first...

FAILURE

Still, at this point it hardly matters, I suppose. :P

...itsaqua is Penny.

OH, GODDAMMIT!!

...ROFL

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And I gave you so many little hints when I trusted you too... ha ha! When we realized the truth, I was TERRIFIED that you'd figured it out already, which is why my Penny claim was such a risk.

...I'd like to put that embarassing blip of retardedness behind me if you don't mind. XD

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Fine with me. Consider it forgotten. You still can rest easy knowing that you fully and successfully had me fooled for... what... two full game days and part of one night phase? And that translates to some very lengthy period of real-time. In fact, if my brother hadn't counseled me to be cautious, after Night 2 I was ready to tell you everything.

The irony of course, is that by Night 3, when R_Bond and I had started to be really suspicious of you, it was my brother who didn't want to believe it was true. Heck, he kept telling me to call R_Bond off until you got us to kill Allan, which finally convinced him. So, at various points, you had us all completely fooled. Good show, Velo.

I guess you're lucky I'm operating as the revenge-obsessed GM this time around, huh? ;)

By the way, the revised roles will work fine with a group of 25 or more, which is about as big as the last game. I'd like to play it with 30, though.

And if MSOB doesn't participate as a player, I will cry manly tears. :(

In other news, the roles have been revised to a point where, should people really hate the idea of secret roles, I can reveal the roles without it screwing up the round. However, doing so will definitely give von Karma more of an edge at the start. The choice is yours.

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HI EVERYBODY!!!!!!!
I love how koolkevk killed the one person who doesnt have any affiliation with anyone so it didnt actually help him at all...
but hes gonna die anyway.
Im just glad i get to be in the dead thread before its public!
Now to read through many pages of joyfulness...

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I have so fucking much on my mind right now.

I can't go into this further though because people will see it as personal offense no matter how you put it.

____

Velo, I would very much like to assist with moderating the round instead of playing if you need a helping hand.

*e-hugs?*

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So i read everything and all the plans for next round. And it looks like its gonna be great.

Ethed....whats on your mind?

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I don't see the point of the Hidden Roles >>

Now I'm concerned for Ethed too! She's my second favorite forum member who's name begins with the letter "E"!

... first being Elriel, naturally.

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I asked first.

But nah, I've fully decided that I'd rather play now. Also, Velo, I have a new idea for Manfred: perhaps if he gets to kill some of the people who vote him off. Maybe 2 or 3? Or perhaps the subtraction thing with Engarde from the last round? That would make his destruction require a little more coordination and carefulness, and give him that little extra edge I still feel that he's lacking.

And Aqua, m'boy, although your final tactics were a bit... tactless? blunt? well done and all that. I'll congratulate Sklarvv as well once this is done. You two and R_Bond did a good job carrying on without me. I'm especially glad you didn't get all hung up on DXK. Good work.

It was either post it on the thread or pm it to everyone I knew to be a townie. And seeing as i knew everyone was a townie save one, why not be blunt?

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Last edited by itsaqua on Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Can we please stop with the Engarde crap already? I don't see the point in an ability like that. If Manfred dies, his entire "team" loses, so what would the point be in taking out random people with him? I think there's enough risk of hurt feelings in a game like this without adding "spite kills."

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The idea was that it would keep people on their toes and be careful when trying to get rid of him. Both the mafia and the town would have to orchestrate it so he wouldn't be able to kill their key players. But I guess you have a point... it would just amount to spite kills. I just still think that his one player faction doesn't have that good of a shot of winning.

And I personally love the Engarde type role, but I guess he could use a break.

Rar. Many of the people I want to participate in this round are asking to help me mod it. I should be able to handle the whole thing solo, but in the back of my mind I can sense a meltdown approaching. I've developed a sixth sense for this kind of thing from my guild GM tenure.

Whether I request a co-GM or not depends on how many people sign up for round 4. If we get a very big group, I may have no choice.

For the record, that modification to Manfred's roles sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen. Engarde's speed-kills have been done to death, it's time to give it a rest. The Mafia has a much nastier but more subtle arsenal this time around, including the potential assistance from the wild cards.

It's interesting to point out that the Mafia don't get as much out of investigations as the Town does, because to act on the information they get, they have to risk a lot more. At this point I am seriously considering dropping the secret roles idea - it'd be great, but with the roles as they are, they'd work fine either way now. I'd like a formal vote on the issue: do we or do we not keep some roles secret?

Note that if all the roles are revealed, the secret weapons used to screw over von Karma will be exposed. With von Karma knowing what he's looking for, he'll be able to press an advantage very quickly, particularly against one role. This is even more apparent when some of those secret weapons could end up working for Manfred. If that happens, you'll all be in serious trouble.

I think the round would be fun either way, but this choice will seriously affect the game's pace. Think it over carefully.

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"It seemed like a good idea at the time!" Ok, I see why my idea was bad.

Anyway, I vote: Make the roles public. Perhaps that will give Manny the edge I think he needs.