Suggestions for my phaseless, irl mafia variation?

[xAeris]

I’ve created a custom mafia variation my friend group plays by, and it’s proven to be really really fun! We’re bringing in a bunch of new members and I’m trying to think of new roles to add, just to make things more interesting with a larger group.

Rules
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Basically, there is no night phase, no narrator, and no investigative roles. To set the game up, someone shuffles a deck of cards with the following roles: two gunsmiths (ace), one or two jesters (jack), one mafia (king), and the rest civilians. They do not look at the cards while they shuffle. They then place the cards face down on a table, everyone grabs a card, and the game begins.

Players die by either being lynched or being shot. The jester wins by being lynched, and upon their victory can choose one person to kill. The gunsmith is with the civilians and can choose when to reveal that they are a gunsmith, and then gives their card to another player. That card now works as a gun with one bullet and can be used to kill any player at any time. The gun can also be passed to another player, and can in fact be handed back to the gunsmith. The mafia wins by being one of the last two players alive. The civilians win when the mafia player is lynched.

Lynching requires two players to first “vote up” a player, who then has an opportunity to defend themselves. After they make their defense, players vote “guilty” by raising their hands. Every player, besides the accused, must vote guilty in order for the player to be lynched. They then reveal their role, step out of the game, and the game continues.

What We’ve Tried
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This obviously isn’t as intricate as regular mafia, but as a seasoned mafia player I’ve actually been enjoying this more. The game is mostly about reading body language and anticipating how specific individuals might behave depending on their role, rather than relying on concrete information. No narrator/night/investigation makes it so there is always action, the game isn’t ruined by a poor narrator (and no one has to volunteer to narrate), and it’s way easier to teach to new people.

We have tried increasing the number of gunsmiths (pretty fun but only with large groups) and increasing the number of jesters (makes the game a little *too* chaotic). We have also tried having multiple mafia members. This adds a brief phase at the start of the game where everyone puts their heads down, the mafia raise their heads briefly to see who their team is, everyone puts heads back down, and we begin. Most of us like just how challenging having a lone mafia is, though. If you get the mafia card, you’ve got the hardest role in the game, which adds lots of tension. It also means that the game isn’t ever overly in the mafia’s favor (example: there are 4 players left and 2 of them are mafia). That way there are no “town has already lost” moments. Since there are jesters and no investigative roles, the mafia member actually almost always makes it to the final 4 so it’s not like mafia is an impossible role.

So, any suggestions? The roles we have so far have actually sprouted so many strategies that we have a list of the ones we have discovered (I could post some if you’d like!). Because of that, we’re looking more for new roles than to modify our old ones. We’re trying to avoid adding a night phase given our success without it, but if an idea is good enough we’ll try it.

Thanks a bunch!

[xAeris]

Thank you for your reply! Apologies for my stupidity, I forgot to mention that if a player shoots a jester, the jester and player both die immediately and the jester does not win.

The gunsmiths must reveal themselves by handing their gun to someone. You can’t reveal, wait, and then hand it off afterwards, so the first gunsmith to give away a gun won’t know if they’re handing it to another gunsmith or not. You can claim without revealing, but if someone claims gunsmith and doesn’t give their gun away, they are almost always voted to be lynched. If they’re lying, then town is glad they lynched. If they aren’t lying, then the gunsmith will be forced to give their gun up to a player. Since everyone wants the gun, this happens fairly often.

Also, players are more interested in self-preservation than the grander goal of winning the game. We say “town won” if the living towns win the game, yeah, but dead townies never feel like they’ve actually won. This is encouraged, because it prevents methodical strategies like the one presented from working out. Players will still suggest them, and the conflict that ensues over who will be the first to be lynched, or “hey this guy wants us to lynch everyone, must be mafia, lynch him” is always fun.

I’m not sure your gunsmith systematic killing strategy would work. How will you avoid lynching jesters? How can you be sure that gunsmiths will get their guns back, instead of a player keeping it for themselves? In these circumstances players will often say “I’ll shoot the first person who votes to lynch me”, and town figures it isn’t worth the risk of potentially ending up with two dead town or a dead town and a dead gunsmith. Also, gunsmiths almost always want their guns back, or want a player who will shoot who they say to shoot. For this reason they will frequently hold off on revealing themselves until they feel they can trust someone 100%.

I do see what you’re saying about two revealed gunsmiths being way too powerful for town. But if a jester gets a gun, they might shoot the gunsmith just for the hell of it or shoot themselves and win the game. Or if a mafia gets a gun, they might refuse to shoot anyone “for fear of shooting a jester”. Then, if there are three players left with one mafia and two gunsmiths, the mafia can shoot a gunsmith and win the game instantly. I guess the resolution here is systematically killing jesters, which is a strategy we’ve discovered, but no none wants to risk being killed. Or if they do, it’s possible mafia gets the fast track to victory since you’re more likely to get towns killed then the mafia.

Edit

: As for no night phase, it’s more about not having to interrupt the game with phases. It’s nice to keep the action going. Second, while there isn’t much concrete information, we like to have at least a tiny bit. Having confirmed innocent players (revealed gunsmiths) helps keep the game going, since town now has someone to lead them. Then, if mafia was able to kill, they would surely always kill the gunsmith. This would scare gunsmiths into not revealing, and the gun leads to the most fun strategies in the game! Restricting it solely to the endgame would kinda kill that.