I spent a lot of time thinking of the best way to setup an interesting and balanced game, and it seems to have paid off. I haven't had a single person say "REPICK!" and gotten many compliments of "good host" or "excellent setup." However, I feel like I'm missing something. It usually always comes really really close, but sometimes wacky things like 3 investigators pop up and I'm trying to find a solution to that problem. I'm trying to eliminate the randoms being so similar, yet still filling all the necessary roles to give Town the advantage they need. I also want to ensure that no matter what role you get, you'll have a way to argue that you're something your not. For example, an Arsonist should always be able to argue Bus Driver, a Witch should always be able to argue Survivor, and a Godfather should always be able to argue Jester or Veteran. Finally, I wanted to give a chance for players to random into ANY role within the game. So without further ado, let me introduce the setup:
The Setup
[1] Investigator
[2] Doctor
[3] Bus Driver
[4] Basic Town
[5] Adv Town
[6] Random Town
[7] Random Town
[8] Random Town
[9] Godfather
[10] Adv Mafia
[11] Random Mafia
[12] Random Neutral
[13] Basic Neutral
[14] Advanced Neutral
[15] Random Any
Ratio:
Town: 8-9
Mafia: 3
Neutral: 3-4
The Random Options & Explanations
Basic Town - Exclude Support: This will always yield either Detective, Doctor, Investigator, Lookout, or Sheriff. Therefore, this is basically a way of saying you either get a second doctor or a second investigative role for sure.
Advanced Town - Exclude Power: This will always yield either Bodyguard, Coroner, Jailor, Spy, or Veteran. Aside from the Coroner and Spy, it provides you with a strong role capable of killing for the town, without being a straight-up Vigilante.
Random Town - Exclude Killing Roles, Exclude Citizen: This will yield anything that doesn't kill. Since the Advanced Town covers the killer side for the Town, there's no need to random yet another one. However, this is where one of my main problems comes in. This can random into more Investigators, Sheriffs, Doctors, etc... which I'm not too big a fan of. This is the problem I'm looking to solve.
Adv Mafia - None: The reason for the Advanced instead of another Random is to prevent a double Mafioso setup. When it's Godfather and 2 Mafioso, the Mafia are too limited in what they can do. By providing an advanced role, it will ensure they can do more than just kill once a night.
Random Mafia - None: This is just to serve up another Mafia member. I find it best to make all Mafia except the Godfather as random as possible, as if the options are too limiting, the roles associated on the other end are far more suspect. For example, if there's always a basic (Consort/Consig/Mafioso) in the game, any legitimate Escort/Investigator/Vigilante/Jailor has a high chance of getting lynched.
Random Neutral - Exclude Non-Killing Roles: This will always yield a Serial Killer or Arsonist. I find this to be the one thing that worries people - "WHERE'S THE SK?" Well, you're either going to get an Arsonist or a Serial Killer from this random, which provides a killing role for the Neutral side to add that aspect to the game. With the Bus Driver as a permanent role, the Arsonist is just as deadly as the Serial Killer.
Basic Neutral - Exclude Killing Roles: This will always yield a Survivor or Jester. This provides a 50/50 chance for an excuse that someone isn't the Godfather if they are investigated as a Citizen... and no one likes lynching a Jester. The other 50% chance provides an excuse for a Witch, as a Survivor turns up as a Loner.
Advanced Neutral - Exclude Killing Roles: This will always yield a Witch or Executioner. The Witch and Executioner are just great to have in a game, enough said.
Random Any - Exclude Killing Roles, Exclude Mafia Roles: I find that having even the chance for more than 3 mafia quite disturbing. Three mafia are able to do some serious damage, four is just overkill. By excluding mafia roles from this random, you don't have that chance. On top of that, if it ends up as a Neutral, you don't risk having a double-SK, double-Arson, or SK/Arson game. One neutral killer is enough to throw the town in for a loop.
Important Role-Specific Options
Witch - Manipulated Player does NOT know they are being manipulated: This is so important. With this on, it takes time to figure out that there's a witch and people can be seriously mislead by a witch without even knowing it. I find that option very important because otherwise you'll likely know on the first day - "I got manipulated!" This pulls out the chance for the Executioner in the game and thus eliminates doubting that someone is Sheriff, even after investigating them.
Arsonist - Immune at Night, Targets do NOT know that they are doused: Some people say that it's stupid to have an Arsonist be immune at night. I think it's absolutely crucial. Whether you're an Arsonist or a Bus Driver, you're a high-priority, advanced target for the Mafia. If you're a Bus Driver, they'll want to kill you in order to prevent their kills from being swapped right back at them. If you're an Arsonist, well... they don't want you burning their Mafia friends. By giving the Arsonist immunity, the Mafia will either need to leave him alone and let him get figured out while their mafia burns... or they need to sacrifice one of their members and tell the town that he's the Arsonist.
Also, you don't want to allow players to know they are doused. One of the greatest things about having them not be doused is that people wont know if there's an Arsonist in the game until he's started to burn people. On top of that, if he douses someone and they get swapped, he can know who got swapped with who, allowing him to make a REALLY solid case that he's the Bus Driver when he's really not.
Godfather - CAN be roleblocked, CAN attack without mafioso Although this isn't the most used option in the world, I feel the Godfather should be capable of being roleblocked. Since he can attack without a mafioso, it's yet another way of finding the deadly Godfather amidst the crowd. It also gives incentive for Escorts and Jailors to play well, instead of just blocking random people and getting murdered by the Serial Killer.
If anyone has any recommendations for how to solve the issue stated, please let me know. Otherwise, feel free to re-create the setup and try it for yourself.