Never heard of the latter, but unfortunately my "to see" film stack has grown rather big these last months...
I've never seen it either, to be honest, but I've read about it, and I've seen The Departed, enough to have sufficient information to run a theme on. Although I was 16 when I wrote it, it is a bit contrived. Although then again, most themes are by their very nature, we are talking about a society where a person is lynched every night to try and find hidden werewolves.
I'm more concerned with the set-up. I've noticed that generally when GM's put up a list of possible roles on the front page, the majority of the roles end up in the game. I want to have a vast selection of
possible roles available in my game, a load of ones listed on the front page. Most of them will
not be used - it won't be a role-fest by any means. The purpose is that I don't want people to be able to guess the set-up quickly, or anticipate what roles will exist. I want the game to focus more on working with scraps of information to build a patchwork to analyse with, rather than an arms race where both sides have tons of information but need to keep finding out more to stay ahead.
For the same reason, the wolf packs will be similar in strength, but not perfectly symmetrical.
What I absolutely want to avoid is powerful JLs. This shouldn't surprise anyone. I'd like to encourage similar dynamics to what happened last game, where several people were in contact with other people in a vast web of uncoordinated information, and the attendant result of people being able to infiltrate it. It also involves more people if it's like that, rather than seer+priest+spokesperson giving out orders to a few other people.
Although what I don't want to see from last game is repeated outings. However, last game that happened due to extraordinary circumstances which couldn't really have been prevented. Still, in general outings should be quite infrequent, as involving ordinary villagers not involved behind the scenes is absolutely crucial. Old-school voting: irrational bandwagons, counter-bandwagons, last-minute switches, rabid accusations, people trying to save themselves, elititist types like Kiwi and randakar sipping tea, laughing at the unwashed masses, and pondering where to cast their decisive votes. That's what I want to see in at least 2/3 of the days, although not every day - if there was no outings, or astonishing revelations, it wouldn't be complete. But I'd like for these to be limited in the opening few days of the game and only become a real feature mid-game.
I also want to see a fast paced game with a high death count, of ~2.2 per day-ish - the last game, for instance, although it remained interesting towards the end IMHO, was still really quiet for the last few days. And that was one of the very best; many other games die out after the first half. This will mean obviously slightly more of you will die quickly, but overall the effect on the game will be invigorating I feel. If the pace of the game keeps moving, it will avoid the feeling that the village is just waiting around. I want the village/scanners/wolves to be struggling to catch up with events, not sitting around waiting for events to catch up with them.
Another thing that is crucial is that no-one will be safe. There will be some protection in the game, but not very much. I don't want a game where a GA and doctor can contact the JL spokesperson and set up a protection ring. Basically, if the wolves want to kill someone badly, he will die pretty quickly. Therefore, if scanners want to try run a JL without dying, they most do so with the utmost discretion and secrecy.
To help create a good atmosphere to the game, I will also try to add 'in-character' elements as much as possible and try to create a theme where people will be encouraged to RP even in a small way.
All criticism, constructive or vitriolic, is welcome. This is only a very vague outline of the some of the ideas I'd like to implement. It will still be a mostly standard game. Although if Rendap wants to GM the next one he can do so. If anyone would be interested in co-GM'ing a game with me, or even just offering some suggestions, they could post it in this thread.
Would be interested in at least acting in a consulting capacity to someone else in a co-operative process. SoL and EUROO7 just showed everyone the way to co-GM a game well.
