Swingy role crazy games vs vanillas?

Author: Lunatic

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Lunatic
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Which on balance do you prefer? Would you prefer a game that's more balance focused with several vanillas, or would you prefer something where every player has a role and mafia have super strong counters to them?
drafterman
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I think each has their place. Role madness is swinging and harder to play, but then again, who wants to be vanilla?
Lunatic
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@drafterman
I think each has their place. Role madness is swinging and harder to play, but then again, who wants to be vanilla?
Right, that's why I am asking. I noticed the vanillas roles in my last game were pretty inactive. Pie for example is usually a bit more vocal when he has a power role or is scum, and he was vanilla and was pretty quiet in my last game.

As much as I prefer playing in less crazy games myself, I hate modding dead games so I am trying to get a feel for what people prefer. I ask this question every so often as the player base changes and I think it's relevant again since we got a new batch of players. I don't mind modding swingy games, but the problem with them I've noticed is they can end really quickly and brutally for one team and I always feel like crap when that happens but it's a bit unpredictable.
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Vanilla is just boring dude. Like I get the reason why they’re there, but I feel useless until the DP3ish 
Bullish
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There can be great depth in an all vanilla game, if the players are willing to put in the pains of methodical psychological analysis, like the original game was meant for. When I was on mafiascum they were very serious about behaviours. DDO and DART are more serious about behaviours than most sites. We have popular  mafia spinoff games like town of salem and among us, where there is basically 0 behavioural analysis.

I prefer more behavioural analysis, but I have to be in the mood to be super serious about it. I also think you can make a rolemad game such that the town and scum roles nearly completely cancel each other out, and you just end up with a game where the roles are as useless as vanilla.
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Personally, I'd prefer to play very balanced games in which every player has a good sense of the game's limits and possible scenarios.  The more PRs, the less confidence players can have in their analysis and the more the game becomes a crap shoot.  I think more VANILLA favors more strategic thinking.
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One solution is to split prs between two people with one being even night and the other being odd night
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@Lunatic
both have their pros an cons but id have to say role madness for it having more variety in my opinion 
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@Lunatic
cant go wrong with vanilla tho 
warren42
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If I had to choose either an unbalanced game where everyone had PRs or a balanced one where everyone was vanilla I'd probably choose the former for live mafia and the latter for forum. I feel like on this site mods are often too trigger happy with PRs and foresake balance in the name of people having fun roles. That's well and good, roles are more fun than vanilla, but then the game itself isn't fun if it ends up being one sided. I think that balance matters a little less in live games for whatever reason so I'm more inclined to pick a less balanced game with roles in a live game.