Please read the post as I think it will be useful not just for mafia, but just overall conducting yourself. If you don't, fine, but that's your loss.
Okay, let's analyze the game and mafia generally as objectively as possible (btw I'm in general agreement with Matt and Yoshiman's comments):
>Mafia is meant to be a game focused on observing social interactions between players, and observing patterns or other traits of others to formulate arguments as to their innocence/guilt. Naturally, beginners won't be as skilled in directing conversation and scumhunting, but just expecting everyone to direct the flow of game for you, or jumping on one person and no-one providing any further arguments for OR against and bandwagoning, doesn't really allow this crucial aspect of the game to come out.
>Mafia pits a generally uninformed town majority against an informed mafia minority; i.e. the town do not know (excluding investigative power roles) who is mafia, but mafia most certainly do. This was achieved reasonably okay in this game with 8 vs 3.
>The existence of power roles of any sort on the town should offset the mafia's ability for consistent kills, but not to the point where mafia can get walled out by protection and then outed through investigative roleclaim/reports.
In this game, we have:
Town: a cop, a character who is effectively a mason with the cop, a doctor, two 1 hit bulletproofs, and a 1-use unkillable, and two vanilla townies.
Mafia: two vanilla mafia, one who finalizes kills, and a random mafia aligned serial killer-like role (one-shot only) that does NOT have a certain kill if they use it, AND for some reason cannot vote for that day phase.
Town have up to 4 characters who can block a kill, mafia have up to 2 but their kills can all be blocked. In addition, every day, two characters can confirm the identity of a town/mafia, and on the chance a Bowser uses the kill move, they automatically cast suspicion on themselves because they can't vote to set up a kill.
To me this means that town are power heavy and as long as cop and mason/cop claim early, doc can continue to protect them and the mafia will probably be all killed off.
How I would change the roles:
Get rid of Luigi, replace with either a Toad or perhaps an Insane Cop (reversed town/mafia reads) but tbh one investigative role is enough
Lose one Super Toad and replace with a Toad
King Boo should be a godfather character (appears innocent to Mario)
Bowser should have a kill that cannot be healed/blocked, and they should not lose their vote penalty
>Unless the events do not impact on gameplay, they should be disclosed before the game even starts.
I'll elaborate on clones, hosts joining in the game, and revivals later, but for a game focused on social interaction and pattern recognition is significantly hurt when random factors like this appear. "Twists" to the game make it deviate away from mafia to the point where this isn't mafia, but a game inspired by mafia but is actually "host determines what they feel like for the rules and players will have to adapt". This isn't fun (I'd argue that the players in this game simply don't understand what mafia is MEANT to be about and thus didn't really mind, but from the perspective of those who play mafia as it's meant to be run and enjoy it, it's painful to see).
Also, it's only boring when no-one talks. =P
>A host should never join their own game in any playable capacity.
I don't care if the clones are supposed to not know other players' alignment. The host behind them does, and can manipulate results at will. For all I know, Clone 1 and Clone 3 could both be mafia, but once Clone 1 gets majority, the host could say "actually you killed a town player!"
>Adding player numbers into a game will distort the probabilities for determining LYLO/MYLO scenarios.
In most cases, adding a mafia player, even if a townie is added as well, will greatly favor mafia as they can now kill less people before gaining 50%+ of the player count. Even with clones.
>Revival is dangerous, even if the player's role is changed, as their existing knowledge of previous events can be potentially abused, and also contributes to player count issues as above.
The most extreme examples can be when an ex-investigative role (especially detective) becomes mafia. If they have a good index of suspicion as to which player has what role when they were town, they could tell their now mafia buddies this and secure a crucial power role kill. Also, players in game generally don't change their opinion of a recently revived player in enough time in the case that said player has changed alignment. You should never continue reviving players because the reality of mafia is not everyone will be able to be involved from start to finish - if you want that, go play The Resistance or something.
>Big big one: NEVER allow players to reveal any information they know on death (unless you are on EpicMafia and have Wills on, but those are night only, lol)
This just breaks the game. Cop dead? "I know x y z are town and a b c are mafia" Doc dead? "I healed l m n"
>Remember, the more information is known via power roles or host deciding to reveal them, the more likely town will win. Consider roles that confuse information received for a more complex but less broken role setup.
Town are balanced despite superior numbers because they are uninformed. Don't have too many investigative roles unless mafia can counter that with killing ability, blocking ability or investigation of their own (the latter is absurdly powerful). Throwing a godfather and a miller in already makes cop less powerful, so consider that for another game.
Subjective comments:
"Mafia relies on creativity" - it relies on players being willing to talk, question each other, and generally interact on a deeper social level than what this game demonstrated. It's not really an activity where you can no-brain it and go 'today I vote x, tomorrow y'. Creativity should be limited to a different role setup or starting on night instead of day. It shouldn't depend on day-to-day events just to make it seem interesting.
"8 roles for 13 people" - quality and not quantity of the roles is important. As I stated above, dumping loads of defensive power roles on town really shuts mafia out and they have to work extra hard and just hope town kill themselves. Adding new players, presumably to further town's advantage, is poorly thought out.
"make the game more interesting than a typical mafia game" - imo this game isn't mafia any more because we have these dummy roles, host imvolvement in the game itself, and revival which doesn't appear balanced to the town/mafia numbers. Role info reveal is probably a lesser crime but it's the nail in the coffin.
"If everything is just doctor, nurse, townies, and mafia, it is extremely boring" - please refer to Matt's comment about player participation. Which for the record is NOT "oh I vote x" "yeah I vote x too" "cool". To me, that is boring.
"the clones were there for a reason. They don't affect the actual game except that they are extra people" - see above. People make the mafia. Adding more people, including dummies, changes the outcome because there are simply more people and more variables involved.
"I have seen flaws in other previous mafia games, but nobody decided to point them out, such as a certain # of percent of people confirming their role" - this isn't a flaw. It's called discussion. People are allowed to challenge role claims, and in fact higher level play even in the standard 2 maf vs 5 town (with doc and cop as part of town) counterclaiming is really important as a good mafia counterclaim can sway people into voting wrongly and giving mafia victory. Mafia is not a game of just accepting everything that happens and then not thinking about the alternative scenarios.
"If I have to delete comments, I will for being rude/disrespectful" - I don't know if the viewpoint of a single person is the appropriate measure by which to measure what is rude or disrespectful, but okay
@SputnicK "Seriously as moderators I would expect you to have a level of care towards other peoples feelings" - VIP is not a mod, and this is the internet. Feelings be damned. In seriousness, to quote Bowser himself, people are entitled to their opinions regardless of how hurtful, and like Bowser said himself, don't like it? Ignore. (Ignore doesn't mean delete btw Bowser) Also, I have enough faith in the mods here to recognise an actual hurtful comment and deal with it appropriately.
On that note @Bowser: a comment like "No, Mafia relies on good game balance and role playing and problem solving from the participants. None of that has been demonstrated in this game and all you did on Day 6 was make it even more convoluted. You have too many roles, you're not following your own rules, you keep interfering and adding stupid and unnecessary crap, you decided to add yourself into the game on both sides, and to top it all off you just let Robin ruin the game entirely. Great work." is nowhere near grounds to cry out as being hurtful or disrespectful (unless 'crap' somehow hits your radar like it does LFan's - sorry LFan). Rather than trying to puff yourself up and reject everything, how about challenge each point in a meaningful discussion, without pushing your fixed agenda at the same time? e.g. "Why have I made the game convoluted? Please explain." "In what way was my addition of x 'crap'?" "How did I let Robin ruin the game? Shouldn't he be allowed to because I said so?" Open yourself to questioning. A wall of answers and general resistance to hear others looks incredibly arrogant. Also your definition of harsh complaints is... vague at best.
