I think it's worth reiterating what silverspawn said in the other thread, that in general, you should prioritize mechanics over flavor. Because basically no matter how good you are at writing flavor, what people will remember at the end of the game is the actual gameplay, which sure, is made in large part by the discussions and arguments and people that make up the game, which you can't control, but it's also largely made by the set-up, which you can control. My recommendation is to come up with a good set-up first, without giving any consideration to flavor, and then only when you're pretty sure that the set-up is good, figure out what flavor you can fit to it.
Also, Jesters are considered bastard usually. In a closed set-up, they feel unfair, like town gets punished for doing the right thing. In an open set-up, the effect that they have on the game is so warping that the rest of the set-up hardly matters in comparison. It's sort of like if you're designing a really cool Dominion kingdom, you wouldn't throw in Possession because hey it's always fun. It might warp the game so much the rest of the kingdom doesn't do what it was supposed to anymore. Except I think Jester in this context has a much, much bigger impact because it just totally flips the whole game on its head. With really deliberate design, you can maybe make it work (see Paris Mafia), sort of like how you can design a kingdom where Possession actually makes things interesting. It just takes a deliberate effort to design things around that particular role (which in the case of Jester, I don't think you can really do noticeably better than Paris Mafia, which was somewhat controversial anyway).
By the way, I hope you don't get discouraged by people who keep saying they don't like your set-ups. Set-up design is the only real interest I have in mafia anymore, so I get a little excited any time I see any new open/semi-open set-up, even if I don't actually like the set-up. You can always PM me with any ideas or questions you have if you don't want to post them publicly. I'm sure other mods would be happy to help too, but if you PM me you have the added advantage of knowing that you're not losing a potential player (if you end up going through with the idea and making it a closed game), since I don't intend to play mafia again anyway. Or if you (or anyone else) want ideas, I've got a bunch of set-ups/mechanics with varying degrees of fleshed-out-ness that have been sitting around in a spreadsheet for a while, not doing anything. But if you're like me, coming with the ideas is the fun part anyway.
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Topic: Cornucopia Mafia (Read 4470 times)