Question 2: What are your thoughts on mafia setups? Craziness? Roles that impact the day play? Roles that don't impact the day play at all? What is your philosophy on all of this
2. I like standard setups, usually. My weakness as a player is role games. I purely want to scumhunt, so I get caught up with a pure scumhunting path. Example in Vult's PYP mafia. I tried to rush the phase and helped scum get bad roles, and Gheb pushed for my lynch and got it. I wanted to get to RVS, but realized, people just scumread you on how you pushed roles. I played your PYP better, knowing what got me suspected the previous time. I played it more safely there. Even so, I prefer just scumhunting. Now I do like having some role sometimes. I do enjoy OS's setups. Time Travellers anyone? I love reading that game from time to time because it makes me laugh how crazy it was. So I enjoy crazy setups since it is pure fun. I like playing for fun sometimes.
I like roles that enhance day play, like double voters, ... what else is there? I feel like masons seem to not affect day play but seeing my recent game, it probably influences it a bit more. I don't mind keeping it simple though, it's why I gave town masons and scum just a role cop. Nothing negative can happen there, except mason being exposed to scum with a chance of 1/9.
I'm alright with roles that impact night play. Yet they don't really excite me beyond "ooooh I'm an important role of this town, I must play extremely well here." Only a few roles do, and they are based on why I love playing Mafia. Cop is nice, but it's more of a tool that helps me find scum rather than be something 'interesting' to me, since it's basically giving me scum/town. Mason I love because it's oot communication, alignment confirmation, and a pair of two people that have two votes. I guess I didn't realize that I love this because I like to socialize, and I have people I like to play with. Just being robotic and finding scum isn't fun by itself, I'd also like to laugh and buddy (townreads) along the way. Mason helps that, and relieves stress and possible arguments and paranoia. Masonizer/Neighborizer because oot comm basically. Doctor because I can play a guessing game. I guess Cop is the same thing too, but with Doctor there is more pressure to get it right to save someone. I guess another role I wouldn't mind nowadays would be bulletproof, but I'd probably get killled N3 if I was protown looking at all. I think I would like vigilante as well. Killing people is fun. I do like games like Rajam's HunterXHunter, even though I only co-modded for him.
My philosophy on all this... First off, I will say that I find each type of game viable, as long as they are balanced and fair. (Sometimes they can be swingy, but people should know beforehand) I think games should have no twilight, and votecounts on every page. No one wants to post less than the host. I despise Twilight. It drags on and on and we get no where when I'd rather have the flip sooner than later. More discussion is fine but we take it too far sometimes. I will say that quick lynching isn't viable either, no matter how right you feel. (I recently did this in a game on MS, dang me) I like standard games so I can practice and apply my scumhunting skills. I like crazy setups so I can do that but also have more fun with it. I don't prefer pick your poison games since the early game seems more like RQS rather than RVS and I'd rather just get to voting. I prefer no indies. I don't like being indy. I don't like being serial killer.
Do I have roles that I feel should never be used or something? Not really. I have only hosted a few times, so I'm probably not what you'd call an expert on setups. I'm experimenting, but thinking deeply about the roles and how they balance each other. I just try to make sure town and mafia have tools to help them achieve their wincon. Still, can't think of a role I feel shouldn't be used. Well I do but [redacted].
I do like flavor though. I just usually do flavorless setups because focusing on flavor will obviously slow me down. Yet, I DO love doing flavor. I really loved the Upick Nabe and I co-hosted together. I always go back and read the flavor for all that and I think people also enjoyed it. In fact I'd like to do a Upick again. (WITH NABE HOSTING WITH ME OFC BBY) I like writing in general. July and I had a death note mafia we thought about and never got to running. I think I should consider thinking about that down the line. I may just ask her to consider co-hosting it with me, but I think she may be much busier these days.
Maybe as I host more down the line I'll have more of an answer to this question. It's kind of a general question so I didn't know which way to go with it, so I tried multiple paths.