Thank you. Good to be able to be a bit more active. It was a while due to RL and some medical reasons.
I did get to observe GamezRanker's last game, but stayed out of the observer thread just in case a sub was needed. Quite a game. Almost thought town had pulled it out there at the end.

Hello hello hello! I'll pass along the message!

I'm probably not going to be in any games any time soon. I'm trying to spend less time on the internet in my free time, but I have a bit of downtime at work this week and this is one of my favourite time-killing places. ;)

Thank you.
I understand, but I miss you all the same.

I saw Joe at a party at the weekend and passed on the love. He said (interpolated) "It's hard to imagine how I ever had time to play mafia", but he misses you all.

https://www.mihnews.com/

should I go and host a game because I'm bored and why the fuck not? I dunno

Sure. If betting weren't disallowed, we could also place bets how long it will take to fill up the roster. ;-)

Sign me up.

Actually I do have a setup idea too. But that needs balancing before I run it. A setup consisting entirely of inept cops. I.e. all with some hidden modifier like naive, paranoid, parity, flavour...
I call it 'Police Academy'

Oh, I quite like that idea.

I was thinking of a more mundane idea, still with the idea it'll have pacifist no-death flavor. People at a company who want to return to the office are paid by the boss handsomely to make it so work from home is very unpopular. Problem is, the people who want to work from home are very well knit and know each other (so they're the mafia) but the shills are unorganized, their only motivation is "the boss paid me to gaslight everyone else" (so they're the town).

Okay but the mafia admin problem is... how does the lynch happen in such a context? Maybe if a townie is exposed to be on the boss's payroll, they are lynched. What of the Mafia?

Interesting idea. How about: the entire discussion happens in a union council, trying to decide whether the union should push for more home office or not. Everyone pretends to be impartial and as soon as it becomes clear, that someone already has a fixed agenda (being paid by the boss or being part of the homers movement), they lose their right to participate in the council of Impartials.

You could even combine this with a no death mechanic, where everyone becomes a stump. I.e. they just lose their right to vote, but still can discuss. Now with open and known allegiance.

Oh and the night kill could just be revealing the allegiance of the NK target. So the 'mafia ' has the ability to hack the phone of someone at Night, going through their contacts to prove that they are shills of the boss.

Alternately if you want to completely remove characters from participation in the game thread by a no death mechanic, they're put on Administrative Leave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_leave

Thinking about the police academy one, if I do it I'll also want pacifist flavoring. Yeah I know, historically, police aren't known for being pacifist, but, hmmm... this time it'll be about incompetence more than anything.

So maybe the mafia have left behind a piece of evidence, like maybe a paper plane or something exposing all of their plans to remove corrupt... actually I could take it in the same direction as my work from home idea.

Okay.

So so so... each townie is a cop that has some dirt on them. The mafia might have dirt on them too but they're less "bribed by an official to bully someone out of the academy" or "cheated his grades" and more so "they pick their boogers" and "they bought an expensive anime figurine" kind of thing. The game is set in motion by a paper plane with all the mafia's plan written on it, exposing the horrible things this class has done and all that - it was meant to be a draft plan but one of the mafioso was bored and also very inept.

When the cops are in class, it's the Day. When they leave, it's night. When someone gets pressured into confessing to their crimes and getting expelled for it, it's a lynch. When they come in the morning, an accusation against someone would be written on the whiteboard, representing an instant expel and thus a "nightkill" - interesting thing is, the person being "nightkilled" is physically present in class and has to be expelled kicking and screaming some of the time (I don't think I did that kind of thing before).

That's a nice setup! And the 'bah' post could be the role play of the expulsion!

Speaking of balancing it, the setup should theoretically not be much different from Joe's bizarro game. You know how everyone was a psychoanalyst but couldn't do anything because Town had to do the impossible task of coordinating themselves so only one psychoanalyst does their thing? Same kind of thing but not really.

I'd believe naive and paranoid cops might be bastard territory but I'm not too sure. If you know at the beginning you're a paranoid cop, then sure, you know all your results are dud, but if you're told you're just a cop and get paranoid results, I think that counts as "the mod lies to you". Perhaps the game needs more balancing gimmicks, like even/odd cop? Or confidence chance, for example if you investigate someone and they're Town but for whatever reason you still suspect them, then the result would return as "Mafia with 30% confidence" for example. A "Town with 100% confidence" is the only kind of result you can trust.

Yes, paranoid and naive are verging on bastard, but I think they are OK if everyone knows that useless cops are in the game. I would avoid random cop though. That's just too bastard. I would consider these modifiers:

- inverse
- naive
- paranoid
- amnesiac (takes correct notes that are revealed upon death)
- parity
- flavour
- timid (doesn't visit if someone else is there)

Possibly some more or made up ones, how balance requires it.

Be absolutely certain to include parity cop, and then invite bler to come play!