Which is better: Vanilla Setup or Non-Vanilla Setup?

[Fiasco]

That's a problem with (long) night phases, not with vanilla roles.

[Fiasco]

Again, this is a problem with

night phases

. If you force people to pre-send choices and think of some solution for scum night-talking, there's no need to even

have

nights (especially not ones longer than 48-72 hours), even though all the mechanics stay the same. That and eliminating confirmation phases could go a long way toward fighting player apathy.

[Fiasco]

I'm not sure the whole thing isn't zero-sum; part of the fun in having a role might be in having more control over the outcome than you would otherwise, and if everyone has a role, that cancels out. Having too many roles could also take the focus away from voting/speaking behavior.

That said, I agree that making targeting decisions can be a lot of fun. I guess most of the "weak roles" that I've seen don't appeal to me for some reason. Tracker and watcher seem too logic-puzzle-y. Also, I prefer roles that have small/rare effects to roles that have normal effects but can sometimes backfire hard (like weak doctor).

If giving everyone a role is fun, is it more fun to have elaborate RPG-like mechanics that involve multiple choices each night? (Maybe it is; I'm not trying to make a point, just exploring the possibilities.)

[Fiasco]

For these open role things, I guess one interesting thing you could do is start everyone out as vanilla, then let everyone vote on which role is assigned to which player before everyone starts killing each other.

[Fiasco]

PJ, I agree that in vanilla it's extremely hard to get a good read on anyone, but I don't see this as a huge problem. Sometimes you just have to play the numbers and accept there's a lot of luck involved.

[Fiasco]

Then I may as well roll dice to decide who I'm going to vote for in a Mountainous Game. Chances of winning would go up, hunh?

Maybe they'd go up slightly for the average player, I don't know (I'd guess not). If you're experienced, though, you can probably do somewhat better than random... just not

that

much better.

[Fiasco]

Not including cops and other investigative roles and giving the town limited power.

Docs and blockers are investigative in a way; remove them, and what's left?

[Fiasco]

Docs and blockers usually don't give the town any information, but that's mostly because they usually don't have an impact at all. What you want is a role that has an impact without giving the town information.

[Fiasco]

OK, a threatening doc (real or imaginary) could have an impact without generating information. But with no investigative roles, what's there for the doc to threaten to protect?