Re: #mafia Mafia [Day 1]
res pretty much doesn't exist in #mafia, no; it plays super-occasionally? And then usually dies. I don't know much about how it plays in forum mafia, but I don't think it's a strange target to choose, anyway!
I don't think there's anything indicative about this, either, really! Well, I mean, we could guess that res was probably not mafia don or mafia goon. Probably. And also probably not Magician or Sergeant. Or alien! (since those are shield roles, and therefore mafia targeting res wouldn't have killed it. But if something else had helped the mafia to kill res, then it still could have happened.) But it still could've been any of those. It's just less likely.
We have twelve people and 27 possible roles, so, there are going to be some missing, and also possibly some duplicates of roles (since some mostly call for duplicates, like doctor or goon), so there might be even less than twelve potential roles.
As this is #mafia mafia, I think we can pretty safely assume that Inspectors don't exist - they're just not a very good role. If they happen by random chance to find mafia, they tell about it, mafia dies, innocents get a huge advantage suddenly. In games with just a mafia don (of which this is probably not one), that means Game Over. Which is just boring. It's possible that Chalumeau decided ve had a good way to balance Inspector, since this is a bigger game than what we have in #mafia, but I think it's more likely that ve threw it out in favour of more interesting things. Researcher (good Scientist) could be considered a way more interesting and useful Inspector, I guess. There's probably a Researcher! They're really good and cause harm to the innocents sometimes while having a tricky way of figuring out who the mafia might be without it being a super-definite thing like with Inspector.
Spies (mafia version Inspectors) might exist instead of Inspector? There are more interesting half-mafia roles, though. I do kind of like the idea of Spy, since it can figure out the mafia and then has to try hard to defend them! In practice, though, I think the Spy ends up not thinking of any defense and just quietly sits without trying at all while the mafia gets lynched. :| Good job, Spies. Since it's a forum, though, a Spy might be a better idea! They wouldn't just freeze up. So maybe there's one??
Alien, Magician, Ninja, and Sergeant all have some good level of likeliness (sergeant less so, probably) - shield roles are a really good way to keep the game going longer while giving some people information, since you know when your shield poofs! And aliens and ninjas are in theory really good since they want to defend the mafia to win while also being bad to the mafia. If there's a good alien or ninja, then it's a really neat game! Maybe that could happen. Then it would be really exciting. If you're out there do a good job. >:((((( Magicians are good because they have information for the innocents and then if they tell the information they might get left alone by mafia in favour of more promising targets, so that's an innocent who could live! (a mafia might decide to kill Magician just to have an innocent dead, though, too, since otherwise they might run into some other problem with the death.) A really good information is if the magician lost a shield, and res died. Then we know there are two methods of death happening! That's exciting!
Out of all the half-mafia (non-don non-goon) roles that exist, Terrorist might be the least likely? I don't know. Maybe I just think so because I never GM with Terrorist. But it seems like Terrorist is really hard to balance out, because it can only help the mafia a bit (it's just guessing! Sometimes one never explodes because guessing is too scary and hard. Mafia, help your halfs out by talking more it's a good idea), and only once! It's neat because it can kill during the day, though, so it can interrupt discussion and cause confusion and chaos and hopefully kill an innocent! (Hopefully for the terrorist, not hopefully for our side. Obviously.) Voodoo Artists are increasingly neat as more people roleclaim - the power to direct the mafia away from yourself is really, really useful to the mafia side if you can guess who the mafia is, and redirecting other roles is interesting and helps a lot with guessing things and figuring out! Mafia Scientist has some of those same elements. Rigger is kind of neat??? Delaying actions is a useful skill that sometimes causes confusion and discussion. I don't know, I never see Rigger happening in games! Annnnnd presumably there's at least one mafia goon. Half-mafias are great and everything, but if you only have the mafia don then that's super-unbalanced in favour of innocents because e could just keel over any time (lynch, overdose, whatever, you know the drill).
Vigilante might be likely because it's a bigger game than #mafia; it's possibly more likely if the innocents have a bit more defense (so, doctors? Doctors can be okay in big games, I guess. Maybe especially okay if Drug Dealer because neat.). Lover could probably exist because Lovers are exciting! Although sometimes they kind of take over the mafia if they happen to pick a mafia person and then whoops. Though I guess that's also balanced by like they can't immediately kill the mafia since the mafia are currently (they think) on the mafia lover's side and the lovers don't want the game to be over.
Um I don't have as much to say about the other roles right now and all of this is so ingrained into everyone who actually plays #mafia that it's probably entirely worthless, but, oh well. Maybe it'll incite an exciting discussion about the likeliness of different roles.