Roles that aren't

[DeadMG]

Recently, I've played a few games with essentially pre-determined outcomes, because some roles just aren't their classification.

Neutral Benign:
Survivor/Amnesiac. These guys are less Benign and more AFK until the winner is clear, then vote with them. Amnesiac should have to remember a role to win the game. Survivor should have to survive an attack at night to win the game. These changes more clearly fit in with Exe/Jester who need to perform their Benign function in order to win.

Town Investigative:
Coroner. Unless there's a Janitor, this guy can't invest anybody for crap unless it's a Cult save, and even then, his usefulness is questionable. Plus, he has to wait until Janitor actually sanitizes to use his ability. I feel like having one role whose basically only effective purpose is to counter one other specific role is just a bad idea. The Coroner needs to be reworked.

Town Protective:
Escort. This guy can only protect somebody if it's a killer who isn't immune to roleblocks or kills roleblockers (which isn't that common) and they know who the killer is, and Town haven't lost the game anyway. That's a pretty niche situation. The reality of Escort is that most roleblocks are used for Investigating purposes, e.g. you RB a guy then get killed by SK, or he's immune to RB, or there's no kills that night, etc. If you're Sheriff and you know there's a Protective still alive, and you reveal to kill the Mafia, then Escort can't protect you for shit. This breaks the fundamental tenet of what it means to be a Protective role. Escort fits more of a Power or Investigative role I feel, as roleblocking is essentially self-confirming and quite powerful.

Town Power:
Spy. This guy ties with Citizen and Coroner in terms of effective power. The ability to watch night chat is worthless since virtually all Mafia, even in pub games, are smart enough to avoid identifying each other in night chat in case there's a Spy. His other information streams, if even enabled, don't reveal a great deal about the Mafia. Not to mention that he's worthless against all non-Mafia evils. This guy has the same problem as Coroner that he's built to counter only one specific subset of roles rather than a general category, and he doesn't even do that very well. The Spy is an Investigating role, since all he can do even in the best of circumstances is discover who the evils are. The Spy should lose the ability to read night chat, this is too easily countered by Mafia, and should gain additional powers to reveal them and gain abilities to discover non-Mafia evil roles.

Mafia:
Beguiler. This guy can on occasion Busdrive himself. Except he has no idea when the appropriate time is in most cases, and all the rest of the time, he's just sitting watching. Furthermore, a limited number of hidings is flat out bad. The Beguiler's worth approaches zero as the game continues, as he gets a fixed number of hidings but the number of nights he may need to hide on grows. He should start with 1 hiding and gain, say, 1 hiding per 2-3 nights. Playing Beguiler is just waiting for the GF to kill enough Townies and then maybe hiding if somebody accuses you and you still have a hiding left and you don't get immediately lynched because you didn't psychically know in advance that you needed to hide that night. IMO, this role is just not a good fit for a Mafia role. The Mafia are offensive in nature. The Beguiler is defensive in nature. He would be a better fit as a Neutral Benign, sacrificing others so that he can survive.

Disguiser. Whilst in theory, the Disguiser can be super powerful at the right time, in reality the right time pretty much never comes up and the Disguiser is just a free extra kill for Mafia and thoroughly inferior to something like a Kidnapper, who is strictly more powerful unless you desperately need an extra kill after a lynch. For the rest of the game, the Disguiser just sits and waits for GF to win the game for the Mafia and hopes he doesn't get Sheriffed. Another reason the Disguiser is a lot weaker than he could or should be is because it's pretty obvious to virtually everyone when the Disguiser is used, due to the fact that Mafia cannot otherwise gain more than one kill a night, and he has an obviously different death description. In addition, revealed Town roles are usually protected, and if they're not, then you typically don't need to Disguise anyway because you've already won.
I think a lot of the problem with this role can be solved by simply making Disguisers act before Doc/BG, and he should be given the regular Mafia kill message. It will make Bus Drivers more powerful as they can prevent Disguises of your investigating roles. This makes his skill much more useful as he actually can disguise as opportune targets and reasonably assume their position, even if Town is vigilant. After that, further tweaking may be necessary.

Framer. This guy is a fun role in principle but like Beguiler, there are just too many stars that have to align for him to actually have an impact on the game. Most Framers never get a single person lynched. The new crime system is more effective for Framers, but they are still too weak. Half the investigating roles in the game can't be deceived by a Framer by their nature, one of the remaining two is only deceived if he visits the same target on the same night, and the last one often knows his target has been framed due to impossible crime combinations. The Framer is only effective against bad players who make themselves suspicious without having already been investigated through bad day behaviour, or to support Jesters/Executioners who implicate themselves or others intentionally without actually investigating them.
Furthermore, the lacklustre nature of the Framer fundamentally takes away an interesting element of the game, IYAM, which is that nobody false claims that another person is guilty except when there's so few players left it would be a winning move for them or they're Jester/EXE. "He was Framed" is such a joke defense that anybody false claiming an Invest role to kill another player is always lynched and virtually always correctly. If the Framer was more of a force to be feared, then false claiming an invest role and lynching a Town might become a viable strategy.

Evil:
Witch Doctor. He's a Doctor but you lose the game if you don't get a heal off in the early stages and everybody wants to kill you instead of just Mafia and you can be revealed by half of the Investigating roles. This guy is more like Disguiser than Beguiler- he's not conceptually broken, he's just way too weak in practice. The most obvious thing to do is give the Witch Doctor the ability to heal multiple targets in a night to increase his chances of success.

Part of the inherent fun of Mafia is the randomness of what roles are assigned and what actions they take. But too much randomness can make a particular role worthless when too many stars have to align for their function to be valuable, or lose the game for a team (usually Town or Cult but sometimes Mafia) before the game has even begun. And some roles are simply not particularly useful for their team in the vast majority of situations.
When a setup designer is designing their setup, they should be able to feel confident that when they decide on two Town Protective, that those roles can actually protect, that Power roles are actually quite powerful, and that Investigating roles can investigate.

[Admiral]

Neutral Benign:
Survivor/Amnesiac. These guys are less Benign and more AFK until the winner is clear, then vote with them. Amnesiac should have to remember a role to win the game. Survivor should have to survive an attack at night to win the game. These changes more clearly fit in with Exe/Jester who need to perform their Benign function in order to win.

That could be an interesting change for the survivor.

Town Investigative:
Coroner. Unless there's a Janitor, this guy can't invest anybody for crap unless it's a Cult save, and even then, his usefulness is questionable. Plus, he has to wait until Janitor actually sanitizes to use his ability. I feel like having one role whose basically only effective purpose is to counter one other specific role is just a bad idea. The Coroner needs to be reworked.

Yep.

Town Protective:
Escort. This guy can only protect somebody if it's a killer who isn't immune to roleblocks or kills roleblockers (which isn't that common) and they know who the killer is, and Town haven't lost the game anyway. That's a pretty niche situation. The reality of Escort is that most roleblocks are used for Investigating purposes, e.g. you RB a guy then get killed by SK, or he's immune to RB, or there's no kills that night, etc. If you're Sheriff and you know there's a Protective still alive, and you reveal to kill the Mafia, then Escort can't protect you for shit. This breaks the fundamental tenet of what it means to be a Protective role. Escort fits more of a Power or Investigative role I feel, as roleblocking is essentially self-confirming and quite powerful.

Don't agree with this one.

Town Power:
Spy. This guy ties with Citizen and Coroner in terms of effective power. The ability to watch night chat is worthless since virtually all Mafia, even in pub games, are smart enough to avoid identifying each other in night chat in case there's a Spy. His other information streams, if even enabled, don't reveal a great deal about the Mafia. Not to mention that he's worthless against all non-Mafia evils. This guy has the same problem as Coroner that he's built to counter only one specific subset of roles rather than a general category, and he doesn't even do that very well. The Spy is an Investigating role, since all he can do even in the best of circumstances is discover who the evils are. The Spy should lose the ability to read night chat, this is too easily countered by Mafia, and should gain additional powers to reveal them and gain abilities to discover non-Mafia evil roles.

This one I disagree with. He can read PMs, night chat and sometimes see visits(I think). It can be pretty valuable being the link to trying together Town investigation results with mafia chat/actions.

Mafia:
Beguiler. This guy can on occasion Busdrive himself. Except he has no idea when the appropriate time is in most cases, and all the rest of the time, he's just sitting watching. Furthermore, a limited number of hidings is flat out bad. The Beguiler's worth approaches zero as the game continues, as he gets a fixed number of hidings but the number of nights he may need to hide on grows. He should start with 1 hiding and gain, say, 1 hiding per 2-3 nights. Playing Beguiler is just waiting for the GF to kill enough Townies and then maybe hiding if somebody accuses you and you still have a hiding left and you don't get immediately lynched because you didn't psychically know in advance that you needed to hide that night. IMO, this role is just not a good fit for a Mafia role. The Mafia are offensive in nature. The Beguiler is defensive in nature. He would be a better fit as a Neutral Benign, sacrificing others so that he can survive.

I kind-of agree but also kind-of don't. I think the point of the beguiler is to coax killing roles into doing Mafia work.

Disguiser. Whilst in theory, the Disguiser can be super powerful at the right time, in reality the right time pretty much never comes up and the Disguiser is just a free extra kill for Mafia and thoroughly inferior to something like a Kidnapper, who is strictly more powerful unless you desperately need an extra kill after a lynch. For the rest of the game, the Disguiser just sits and waits for GF to win the game for the Mafia and hopes he doesn't get Sheriffed. Another reason the Disguiser is a lot weaker than he could or should be is because it's pretty obvious to virtually everyone when the Disguiser is used, due to the fact that Mafia cannot otherwise gain more than one kill a night, and he has an obviously different death description. In addition, revealed Town roles are usually protected, and if they're not, then you typically don't need to Disguise anyway because you've already won.
I think a lot of the problem with this role can be solved by simply making Disguisers act before Doc/BG, and he should be given the regular Mafia kill message. It will make Bus Drivers more powerful as they can prevent Disguises of your investigating roles. This makes his skill much more useful as he actually can disguise as opportune targets and reasonably assume their position, even if Town is vigilant. After that, further tweaking may be necessary.

I don't agree on this one.

Framer. This guy is a fun role in principle but like Beguiler, there are just too many stars that have to align for him to actually have an impact on the game. Most Framers never get a single person lynched. The new crime system is more effective for Framers, but they are still too weak. Half the investigating roles in the game can't be deceived by a Framer by their nature, one of the remaining two is only deceived if he visits the same target on the same night, and the last one often knows his target has been framed due to impossible crime combinations. The Framer is only effective against bad players who make themselves suspicious without having already been investigated through bad day behaviour, or to support Jesters/Executioners who implicate themselves or others intentionally without actually investigating them.
Furthermore, the lacklustre nature of the Framer fundamentally takes away an interesting element of the game, IYAM, which is that nobody false claims that another person is guilty except when there's so few players left it would be a winning move for them or they're Jester/EXE. "He was Framed" is such a joke defense that anybody false claiming an Invest role to kill another player is always lynched and virtually always correctly. If the Framer was more of a force to be feared, then false claiming an invest role and lynching a Town might become a viable strategy.

I can't comment on this.

Evil:
Witch Doctor. He's a Doctor but you lose the game if you don't get a heal off in the early stages and everybody wants to kill you instead of just Mafia and you can be revealed by half of the Investigating roles. This guy is more like Disguiser than Beguiler- he's not conceptually broken, he's just way too weak in practice. The most obvious thing to do is give the Witch Doctor the ability to heal multiple targets in a night to increase his chances of success.

Haven't played Witch Doctor, but I would say if it is harder that's okay. Some roles should be harder to win with than others.

[deathworlds]

Spy can't read PM's anymore.

[EagleMan]

Yeah, self-confirmables got nerfed. Criers and Spies can't so easily confirm who they are anymore.

I will admit some Mafia roles are stronger than others. Getting a Janitor and Kidnapper is probably the strongest pair.

[Turbonerd]

Survivor and Amnesiac:
Given the nature of these roles, they need to be opportunistic in order to win. Of course, waiting is viable since it narrows the opportunity and provides less room for error. Sure, AFK is common for these roles, but they may need to stay alert (Town knows Amnesiac can only go evil, etc.). Most of the time, they twiddle their thumbs, but the role plays out the way it should, in my opinion.

Coroner:
In Cult saves, he is quite powerful. Sure, he may seem like a mere counter to Janitor otherwise, but he can find out lots of information (Godfather was unable to kill this target on this night/ Godfather didn't attack this night, potentially jailed/role-blocked, etc.). It just depends on how he is used and the circumstances. He is quite powerful if used correctly.

Escort:
This role can be used in an investigative manner as you said, though it isn't completely effective. Nevertheless, in some situations, it is useful to have an Escort. Known role-block-able killers (Mafioso) could be stopped, resulting in less Townie deaths and more investigation time (since Mafia can't kill). Blocking Cultists limits the Cult's ability to spread.

Spy:
Hearing the Mafia isn't useful, but seeing the things they do is useful. If x, y, and z were targeted, they probably aren't Mafia. In three nights, Spy can deduce who is most likely Mafia based on visits. That being said, Janitor and Godfather (target the same person) slows things down.

Beguiler:
Honestly, I don't even know how to use this guy at times. The one technique I do know is to hide behind anyone not in the Mafia if you're likely to be shot or killed. If you know a Vigilante is onto you, hide behind him to asphyxiate him (neat-o). This kind of reveals you, but, hey, they already knew, anyway. I have to agree on the limited number of hidings, since I never know how or when to use them apart from potentially killing.

Framer:
With the new mechanics, Framer is a bit better than before. It is difficult to claim, "I was framed." So, people will tend to lynch those who make this claim, resulting in a wasted, bad lynch.

Witch Doctor:
I agree, a lone Witch Doctor is screwed. However, a Witch Doctor with a Cult following is powerful. It serves as a Doctor to the Cult, along with being able to recruit more people. Witch Doctor is Cult Support, in a way. Also, I think (pretty sure) Witch Doctor recruitment ignores Cult size restrictions, allowing for a bigger Cult.

[Recett]

Town Investigative:
Coroner. Unless there's a Janitor, this guy can't invest anybody for crap unless it's a Cult save, and even then, his usefulness is questionable. Plus, he has to wait until Janitor actually sanitizes to use his ability. I feel like having one role whose basically only effective purpose is to counter one other specific role is just a bad idea. The Coroner needs to be reworked.
Town Power:
Spy. This guy ties with Citizen and Coroner in terms of effective power. The ability to watch night chat is worthless since virtually all Mafia, even in pub games, are smart enough to avoid identifying each other in night chat in case there's a Spy. His other information streams, if even enabled, don't reveal a great deal about the Mafia. Not to mention that he's worthless against all non-Mafia evils. This guy has the same problem as Coroner that he's built to counter only one specific subset of roles rather than a general category, and he doesn't even do that very well. The Spy is an Investigating role, since all he can do even in the best of circumstances is discover who the evils are. The Spy should lose the ability to read night chat, this is too easily countered by Mafia, and should gain additional powers to reveal them and gain abilities to discover non-Mafia evil roles.

Coroner and Spy has the power to know who survived an attack, which might be useful in discover SK/MM/Arson. Coroner can exam dead SK and found GF, who immune to most kind of detection and killing.
Mafia:

Beguiler. This guy can on occasion Busdrive himself. Except he has no idea when the appropriate time is in most cases, and all the rest of the time, he's just sitting watching. Furthermore, a limited number of hidings is flat out bad. The Beguiler's worth approaches zero as the game continues, as he gets a fixed number of hidings but the number of nights he may need to hide on grows. He should start with 1 hiding and gain, say, 1 hiding per 2-3 nights. Playing Beguiler is just waiting for the GF to kill enough Townies and then maybe hiding if somebody accuses you and you still have a hiding left and you don't get immediately lynched because you didn't psychically know in advance that you needed to hide that night. IMO, this role is just not a good fit for a Mafia role. The Mafia are offensive in nature. The Beguiler is defensive in nature. He would be a better fit as a Neutral Benign, sacrificing others so that he can survive.

Mafia are offensive in nature, but they are not all about offensive. Beguiler exist to counter Vigilante, Triad, SK. I have seen a game that GF + Beguiler vs Vigil and SK. They lynch Vigil, and when every dead player convinced it's SK's game, turn out it's not. Beguiler is somewhat of a late game role (at that point, he don't need psychic to know when to hide), which require him to lay low and avoid attract Town and SK's attention. In mafia vs triad game, he is a big headache. As mafia, I know that's a Deceiver, but I don't psychically know if he is hiding tonight or not. One wrong shot, and mafia lose.

[DeadMG]

Of course, waiting is viable since it narrows the opportunity and provides less room for error.

It's less that waiting is "viable" and more that waiting is the clearly superior option in virtually every way. There is no reason to take any kind of risk here.

This one I disagree with. He can read PMs, night chat and sometimes see visits(I think). It can be pretty valuable being the link to trying together Town investigation results with mafia chat/actions.

You're still talking about an investigating role, who can only detect people when working in concert with other investigating roles who have to reveal everybody involved, and can only detect the Mafia. Sometimes. And he's a Power role. Also, Spies cannot read PMs anymore.

I kind-of agree but also kind-of don't. I think the point of the beguiler is to coax killing roles into doing Mafia work.

Sure it can work that way- if you know in advance (and you've got too few hidings to pull this off otherwise) you're going to be attacked. And you still haven't been lynched during the day. And if a Vigi tries to shoot you because you were accused but got off and he still thinks you're guilty, him shooting someone else will pretty clearly reveal you as Beguiler unless you can claim you were driven or something.

Haven't played Witch Doctor, but I would say if it is harder that's okay. Some roles should be harder to win with than others.

SK is harder to win with than GF. Witch Doctor is on another level. It's less "harder" to win with and more "Massively completely unproportionally harder, such that virtually every save with WD also has to give a Cultist ally because otherwise the role is beyond impotent".

This role can be used in an investigative manner as you said, though it isn't completely effective. Nevertheless, in some situations, it is useful to have an Escort. Known role-block-able killers (Mafioso) could be stopped, resulting in less Townie deaths and more investigation time (since Mafia can't kill). Blocking Cultists limits the Cult's ability to spread.

I'm not claiming that Escort isn't a powerful support role for the Town- it is. It's simply not very Protective. Jailor can do virtually all of the same protecting and much more. Escort requires too many stars to align to effectively protect anybody. He CAN roleblock Mafioso and he CAN roleblock Cult, but actually DOING so requires knowing who they are, which is highly problematic when the Town usually lynches known evils off the bat. Not to mention the risks involved in roleblocking SK and such. But the role is pretty useful generally and I don't think it needs buffing, just recategorizing. Having Escort instead of Doctor can be a critical existence failure for some Investigative who revealed on the basis that there's still a Protective left.

With the new mechanics, Framer is a bit better than before. It is difficult to claim, "I was framed." So, people will tend to lynch those who make this claim, resulting in a wasted, bad lynch.

It's difficult to claim you were Framed because nobody is ever Framed. If the role was genuinely effective, it would not be a joke defence, it would be a real possibility.

[Cryptonic]

Wow, your views on roles are very narrow. I think you should explore the usuage of roles a little more.

I want to write up specifically what you said that I have problems with, but you seem really set in your beliefs. There are several things that a Coroner, Escort and Spy can do that you don't give them credit for. Not to mention thinking that "stars have to align" for roles like Framer to work lol. Do you think everyone just randomly selects their targets every single night of every single game? x.x

[DeadMG]

I think that Town Invest don't usually choreograph who they're going to investigate, else they get Mass Murdered. If you have solid leads on a guy, he gets lynched; else everybody ignores him or is MORE convinced that he's innocent. And even if they do, you've only got a one in four chance of actually getting off a Frame anyway because only one Town Investigative is reasonably susceptible to Frames.

Maybe this just works differently in private games, but I've been playing Mafia publicly on both America and EU for multiple years now and I have never, ever, seen a Coroner contribute useful intelligence to the Town, and Spy maybe once or twice.

As for Escort, like I said above, I'm not saying that the role is underpowered, it's just not usefully Protective.

[Cryptonic]

I've only played a handful of private games out of 2000+, but you're right: most of the time people are massive idiots and don't know how to play their roles. A lot of people think that the only way to play Mafia is to gather concrete evidence to get someone lynched. What they don't consider, however, is that confirming people as non-Mafia is just as valuable.

With your description of roles, you're basically saying that a Sheriff is 100% useless if he's only checked town every single night of the game. We both know this is not true, so why can't you extend the logic to other roles, such as Coroner?

If any Mafia dies (excluding Killing & Janitor), then a Coroner can exclude several people of being Mafia, depending on the night (the further in the game = more town cleared). A top choice for a Coroner is Consigliere, as it will never target the same player twice. Using techniques such as this helps clear people as town, narrowing down the list of suspects. Further to this, Coroner now has new added abilities that can be used to make him even more powerful than before. Everyone is just completely narrow minded and think that all Coroner can do is find out someone's role.

Spy is also useful, as it can see who the Mafia/Triads target; this can also be used to confirm people as non-Mafia. Additionally, a Spy can see what the Mafia says. I understand that Mafia doesn't always talk, and if they do they will lie.. However, I think it's naive to claim that the only useful thing a Spy can do is hope that the Mafia calls each other by their names. How have you played for multiple years and still only come up with that as its use? Maybe you're not reading into the chat enough, but you will notice that people will type and talk a certain way & a lot of these players will continue into the day with similar speech patterns/spelling mistakes. Also, have you ever been Spy when there is a Consigliere? Mafia will usually always tell eachother what the role of the Consigliere's target is. This gives Spy a lot of information, and gives him the ability to call out the Consigliere when he reveals any information (to either call out a Neutral or at an attempt to clear themselves as a Investigator). And then you're even forgetting about Kidnapper. I've been Spy before where Mafia has told them not to execute the person, instantly confirming that the Jailor was actually a Kidnapper.

Now Escort. Yes, compared to other Protective roles, Escort is the worst at doing it's job. It is placed in Protective because it has the ability to prevent a kill, just like all the other roles in Town Protective. But I do agree, that Escort often does more harm then good, especially since more and more players are removing Escort finding roleblock immunity. BD also can harm the Town, but they can do much better at preventing a kill than an Escort.


I hope that you reconsider your thoughts on some of these roles.

[DeadMG]

If any Mafia dies (excluding Killing & Janitor), then a Coroner can exclude several people of being Mafia, depending on the night (the further in the game = more town cleared). A top choice for a Coroner is Consigliere, as it will never target the same player twice.

Or Agent or Beguiler, since it's pretty common that they can visit Mafia. Assuming they were never witched or had their targets busdriven. And that somebody else first succeeded in doing their job and finding and killing the Mafia, of which there are less than usual since one of them is the Coroner, and then the Coroner survives to check them the next night, then you get to know that 75% of his targets are already dead, and you hope that Town haven't already lost the game. And that you don't roll more than one Coroner.

Maybe you're not reading into the chat enough, but you will notice that people will type and talk a certain way & a lot of these players will continue into the day with similar speech patterns/spelling mistakes.

They did when Spy was made more common. They don't make that mistake anymore. This is just hoping that the Mafia make a mistake. Night chat only reveals the Mafia if they're silly.

Also, have you ever been Spy when there is a Consigliere? Mafia will usually always tell eachother what the role of the Consigliere's target is.

That's... that's great. So, I'm a Town Power role, and then... if the Mafia happen to roll an investigating role, I get their investigating results, else either they make a mistake or I can't do anything at all.

Spy is also useful, as it can see who the Mafia/Triads target; this can also be used to confirm people as non-Mafia.

It can be. Or they can be an Agent visiting their Godfather to screw with you. Or they visited somebody else but that somebody got swapped with the GF. Heck, a few days ago I was Framer, and I was swapped with my target, so I ended up Framing *myself*. Even if you confirm that somebody is non-Mafia, you can't exactly conclude that makes them innocent and start telling them stuff and co-ordinating with them, since they could still be various evils.

With your description of roles, you're basically saying that a Sheriff is 100% useless if he's only checked town every single night of the game.

It's not 100%, but it's not far from it either. First, by the time you've checked enough people to make a dent, most of them are going to be dead. Second, you'll find out later that half your readings were invalidated by the Witch, or you checked Beguiler/GF. This is even if you survive.

Confirming people as non-Mafia isn't useless, it's just that there's more than just checking them or knowing Mafia visited them to actually confirm them and even if you do, they can still be the Cult or Judge or Witch, and even ignoring those possibilities, there are so many people to confirm as non-Mafia, and multiple invests will be confirming the same people as non-Mafia, and not being Mafia doesn't clear them of being numerous unpleasant things, that by the time this approach yields results, you've already lost the game or found the Mafia through role claim. It's not useless, in theory, it's just that it almost never yields practical results. A role claim is a substantially more effective tool for rooting out the Mafia.

[MisterL2]

Recently, I've played a few games with essentially pre-determined outcomes, because some roles just aren't their classification.

Neutral Benign:
Survivor/Amnesiac. These guys are less Benign and more AFK until the winner is clear, then vote with them. Amnesiac should have to remember a role to win the game. Survivor should have to survive an attack at night to win the game. These changes more clearly fit in with Exe/Jester who need to perform their Benign function in order to win.

This would spoil the purpose of the achievements which are really cool, but valid point here

Town Investigative:
Coroner. Unless there's a Janitor, this guy can't invest anybody for crap unless it's a Cult save, and even then, his usefulness is questionable. Plus, he has to wait until Janitor actually sanitizes to use his ability. I feel like having one role whose basically only effective purpose is to counter one other specific role is just a bad idea. The Coroner needs to be reworked.

Coroner should be Clue-only

Town Protective:
Escort. This guy can only protect somebody if it's a killer who isn't immune to roleblocks or kills roleblockers (which isn't that common) and they know who the killer is, and Town haven't lost the game anyway. That's a pretty niche situation. The reality of Escort is that most roleblocks are used for Investigating purposes, e.g. you RB a guy then get killed by SK, or he's immune to RB, or there's no kills that night, etc. If you're Sheriff and you know there's a Protective still alive, and you reveal to kill the Mafia, then Escort can't protect you for shit. This breaks the fundamental tenet of what it means to be a Protective role. Escort fits more of a Power or Investigative role I feel, as roleblocking is essentially self-confirming and quite powerful.

Agreed

Town Power:
Spy. This guy ties with Citizen and Coroner in terms of effective power. The ability to watch night chat is worthless since virtually all Mafia, even in pub games, are smart enough to avoid identifying each other in night chat in case there's a Spy. His other information streams, if even enabled, don't reveal a great deal about the Mafia. Not to mention that he's worthless against all non-Mafia evils. This guy has the same problem as Coroner that he's built to counter only one specific subset of roles rather than a general category, and he doesn't even do that very well. The Spy is an Investigating role, since all he can do even in the best of circumstances is discover who the evils are. The Spy should lose the ability to read night chat, this is too easily countered by Mafia, and should gain additional powers to reveal them and gain abilities to discover non-Mafia evil roles.

Spy is a really really cool role with lots of mindgames! NEVER REMOVE SPY! But make him read PMs again!

Mafia:
Beguiler. This guy can on occasion Busdrive himself. Except he has no idea when the appropriate time is in most cases, and all the rest of the time, he's just sitting watching. Furthermore, a limited number of hidings is flat out bad. The Beguiler's worth approaches zero as the game continues, as he gets a fixed number of hidings but the number of nights he may need to hide on grows. He should start with 1 hiding and gain, say, 1 hiding per 2-3 nights. Playing Beguiler is just waiting for the GF to kill enough Townies and then maybe hiding if somebody accuses you and you still have a hiding left and you don't get immediately lynched because you didn't psychically know in advance that you needed to hide that night. IMO, this role is just not a good fit for a Mafia role. The Mafia are offensive in nature. The Beguiler is defensive in nature. He would be a better fit as a Neutral Benign, sacrificing others so that he can survive.

Yeah, weird guy

Disguiser. Whilst in theory, the Disguiser can be super powerful at the right time, in reality the right time pretty much never comes up and the Disguiser is just a free extra kill for Mafia and thoroughly inferior to something like a Kidnapper, who is strictly more powerful unless you desperately need an extra kill after a lynch. For the rest of the game, the Disguiser just sits and waits for GF to win the game for the Mafia and hopes he doesn't get Sheriffed. Another reason the Disguiser is a lot weaker than he could or should be is because it's pretty obvious to virtually everyone when the Disguiser is used, due to the fact that Mafia cannot otherwise gain more than one kill a night, and he has an obviously different death description. In addition, revealed Town roles are usually protected, and if they're not, then you typically don't need to Disguise anyway because you've already won.
I think a lot of the problem with this role can be solved by simply making Disguisers act before Doc/BG, and he should be given the regular Mafia kill message. It will make Bus Drivers more powerful as they can prevent Disguises of your investigating roles. This makes his skill much more useful as he actually can disguise as opportune targets and reasonably assume their position, even if Town is vigilant. After that, further tweaking may be necessary.

Disguiser = 1-time kill, later turning into mafioso, I really like disguiser as a role

Framer. This guy is a fun role in principle but like Beguiler, there are just too many stars that have to align for him to actually have an impact on the game. Most Framers never get a single person lynched. The new crime system is more effective for Framers, but they are still too weak. Half the investigating roles in the game can't be deceived by a Framer by their nature, one of the remaining two is only deceived if he visits the same target on the same night, and the last one often knows his target has been framed due to impossible crime combinations. The Framer is only effective against bad players who make themselves suspicious without having already been investigated through bad day behaviour, or to support Jesters/Executioners who implicate themselves or others intentionally without actually investigating them.
Furthermore, the lacklustre nature of the Framer fundamentally takes away an interesting element of the game, IYAM, which is that nobody false claims that another person is guilty except when there's so few players left it would be a winning move for them or they're Jester/EXE. "He was Framed" is such a joke defense that anybody false claiming an Invest role to kill another player is always lynched and virtually always correctly. If the Framer was more of a force to be feared, then false claiming an invest role and lynching a Town might become a viable strategy.

Partly true, but Framer is really viable and quite fun to see wrong people lynched!

Evil:
Witch Doctor. He's a Doctor but you lose the game if you don't get a heal off in the early stages and everybody wants to kill you instead of just Mafia and you can be revealed by half of the Investigating roles. This guy is more like Disguiser than Beguiler- he's not conceptually broken, he's just way too weak in practice. The most obvious thing to do is give the Witch Doctor the ability to heal multiple targets in a night to increase his chances of success.

Yup, just had 2 games as witch doctor where my cultist died n1 or there was none. Got no heal off in 6 nights and stayed alone. Witch Doctor is the LEADER OF CULT, he should be allowed to convert or turn into a cultist if there are none left!

Part of the inherent fun of Mafia is the randomness of what roles are assigned and what actions they take. But too much randomness can make a particular role worthless when too many stars have to align for their function to be valuable, or lose the game for a team (usually Town or Cult but sometimes Mafia) before the game has even begun. And some roles are simply not particularly useful for their team in the vast majority of situations.
When a setup designer is designing their setup, they should be able to feel confident that when they decide on two Town Protective, that those roles can actually protect, that Power roles are actually quite powerful, and that Investigating roles can investigate.

See direct reply LIKE THIS

[Witness Protection]

@ DeadMG I don't know where you've played Mafia, I don't want to know.

I'm new here, and I play elsewhere. This place is like a strange new world to me. If I find, in time, it's not for me, I'll quietly go back to playing where I now play. Until then, I'll be respectful of how things are done here, (though I wish some things were better explained) and try to learn how things are done here.

Maybe it's me, but your tone comes off as snide. You sound like you're preaching facts, instead of giving opinions. Please respect that they don't "do like we do at home".

Here's my thought. When I found out about Mafia, the place I learned to play doesn't emphasize PR play, but concentrates on Day play. The few Power Roles have to be damn lucky in getting it right. But when they do, it's a beautiful thing. If a game comes down to all Night Action, I'll lose my interest and leave. I'd rather have Day discussion and lynches be more the determining factor in the game. It is, after all a psychological game. It sounds like you want everything to be PR play, and Day Talk takes the back seat?