My first thought in regards to the performances in this game was poor play was what decided it rather than strong play from the other team. Town were thoroughly beaten in this one, and it's hard to be critical of the Mafia because they wasn't really given an opportunity to play well given that all they had to do was coast on by for two days. On one hand, it was fairly unlucky that things played out like they did for the Town - both investigators dying, the vig lynched, the noble killed - but on the other, these things were mostly a consequence of town mistakes anyway. Activity wise it wasn't bad enough to be detrimental, nor was it strong enough to be notable. Probably what you can expect in these circumstances all told, I think as a whole the game was a success.
The idea behind the setup was mostly to have KeA's role as a centrepiece, to reflect her role in the flavour itself, with the rest of the roles being town having strong preventative and investigative powers but Mafia having strong fake claims and significant ability to interfere with the town roles. Because of how the numbers worked, I knew I needed to give the town the ability to remain in the game even if they're tied on numbers with the Mafia, and all in all I'm actually very happy with how the setup worked. I feel like if I took more measures to allow the town to remain in the game in most cases you'd find the Mafia would be shut out due to the town having a lot of unkillable/untargetable roles in play. I was a bit concerned I'd already overdone it honestly, but I think with the Luciola role it was fair. A week from now I expect ideas will come to me that I'll wish I had included, but this has left me satisfied personally.
If I'm disappointed in one thing, it's the flavour I wrote for the game. I was very happy with how I'd designed the roles in terms of how they related to flavour - with the exception of Sharon's role, which was a concession on my part (I'd originally wanted to include another Jack of X Trades, but with the Vig accounting for killing power and Nadia accounting for protection as well as already having three Jacks in the game, I decided to play it safe and give the town another blocker). But the written flavour itself was fairly mailed-in, I didn't really have much of a plan on where to go with it and I think it shows. It ended up mostly being a summary/commentary on what happened in the game, which I guess is fine, but with a lore as rich and expansive as Kiseki I wish I could have done more with it.
I also wanted to test out a system of restricting voting, hence the CP thing. I'm realy happy with that - it could probably use some fine-tuning to make it less clunky of a mechanic, but I felt like it forced players to think about where they needed to place votes and when, it was exciting to see. I think from Day 2 everyone ended up with so much that it stopped being relevant so I would definitely need to rethink the amount restored after every cycle, but Day 1 worked out like I hoped it would in this regard.
Anyways, onto player ratings.
@Nessos - 4/10
It's pretty unfortunate to be killed Night 1, and you didn't really have much of an opportunity to do anything in the game. That being said, you ultimately placed the target on your own back with your claim. Generally, Town shouldn't claim unless there is a consensus demanding it. You have to remember that to inform the town of anything, you have to also inform the Mafia. And as a rule of thumb, when it comes to claiming, you should ask yourself if the town needs to know that information right now. It's something I struggled with a lot when I started playing, way back in 2013, so I can certainly relate to why you claimed. But when you have strong investigative roles like yours, you're probably better served keeping it secret until you are forced to reveal it, or at least have some information worth sharing. Even if Mafia hadn't killed you, by claiming you invite them to slide a block onto you until protective roles are dead, and with a busdriver in play there really isn't much chance for the town to do anything to save you. It's a shame, though, because had you lived, your investigation results would have been very interesting.
@A famous historian - 5/10
Not much to really say here. You played well enough given the short length of time you were here, and definitely didn't deserve being Vigged off Night 1. I feel like you could have done more to engage the Town early on, but there isn't really anything I can point to in your case that I'd consider to be suboptimal play. Not much that I could say was great, either, but that's how it goes sometimes. It was tough luck.
@oddoddfruit - 6/10
Rating the Mafia is difficult for this game, because while I don't think there was any exceptional play I can point towards, I also think there is credit to be given for not overplaying and simply doing what you needed to do to secure the victory. I guess if there was one thing I'd point to, it was your curious conclusion that town would be restricted in investigative roles, despite your own role being wholly built to counter strong investigations. But that's hardly a major critique. You played fine.
@Rej - 5/10
Firstly, you did your job as a substitute well. You improved the activity of your slot tenfold, becoming one of the most vocal players in the game. And I also don't want to be critical about you being wrong, and siding with scum here, because I don't believe being wrong should be how you're judged performance wise in games like this. From your perspective, I can see why you would suspect Mango to be a Serial, and given that your actions made sense. That being said, I think it's important to make sure you're considering alternative points of view, I feel like you were ultimately too stuck on your theory that counter points to it were dismissed before you'd really thought them through. You were in a difficult position with this game.
@Pepper - 5/10
I don't really have much to say here either. I think your decision to abstain Night 1 was a curious one, and not very well-conceived all told, but that was hardly the difference in the game. You were mostly a bystander I feel, which is going to happen because not everyone can lead the town, but I think you'll agree when I say your performance was an apathetic one. We all have those games, and by itself it's not an issue, but too much apathy will lead to results like this. One thing I will say is your decision not to claim Miller was a strange one, and it was fortunate that it didn't hurt the town in the long run. There are reasons not to claim Miller, but given the nature of your role I feel like they didn't really apply here (that, and the investigative roles mitigated the false positives Miller creates to a degree).
@Mango Senpai - 3/10
I think what I'm going to say is pretty obvious. As a Vigilante, you typically never want to shoot without a clear consensus, and doing so night 1 in a game this size was a very risky move. If you'd hit scum, then you'd probably be the game MVP, but alas it means when you misfire you end up harming the town at large, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say your misfire was probably the single largest factor in contributing to the Town loss. But it wasn't the only one, and your activity was good, just next time if you have a role like this you should think through the risk/reward of blind shooting before doing so. You may have the lowest score, but let me be clear - this does not mean that I want you to feel like you had cost your team.
@Trustworthy Liberal - 8/10 - MVP
I think you were the best player in the game for this round. Your play was proactive enough to ensure that you had a foothold in discussion, and you were the one keeping the Mafia on task action wise. You played pretty well. I do think you were lucky Day 1, in fact the Mafia as a whole were, because none of you were very involved, but you fixed that Day 2 and pulled off the win. Not much more to say, the best team and the best player won the game.
@~UwU~ - 6/10
This was probably the hardest rating in the game. I really, really liked how when you saw the fake claims, you moved to assigning types of roles they would fit - I don't see this enough, and it's really important for the Mafia in a full claiming game to brainstorm what their fake claims could be if they need them. And flavour-wise your insight was pretty impressive. In terms of your presence in the thread, though, I felt it was lacking in comparison. You didn't really need to do more, so I can't be too critical about it, but I really hoped you'd take a more proactive role given your obvious ability to play Mafia. But, like Odd, you played fine all told.
@Man in the Box - 4/10
I'll be honest, I really don't know why you subbed in to this game. The reason I subbed you in during the Night Phase was so you had time to read over the thread, which really wasn't very populated with posts. Day 1 went to page 11 with 20 posts per page, so catching up typically wouldn't take a long time. It just felt like you didn't really play this game, you were simply accounting for numbers. This hunch was kind of proven for me when, at the start of Night 2, you asked if you had reached 10 posts in the Day, because that told me your reading hadn't gone as far as even the OP, which is why I pointed you towards it. Mafia is a game that you get out what you put in, and I really don't see you getting much enjoyment from it if you don't try to engage yourself more with it. It can be facinating and complex at its core, which is why people play it, but if you don't invest time and energy into it you'll end up mostly bored and confused. It's not for everyone, and I don't know your experience level so this could simply be an outlier, but I really hope that if you do try Mafia again, you throw yourself into it more. Because that's the only way you'll get more from it.
@Udell - 7/10
I think you were probably the best Town player. Obviously, I'd be remiss not to mention that I was disappointed to see you give up at the end, especially because you had Oddoddfruit at 1 vote from majority at one point, but I can empathise that sometimes you just get frustrated with games, and that's just being human. Ideologically I prefer playing until the very end, but honestly I don't think the Town had much of a chance from that position anyway. The only other thing I would mention critique wise is that, as Noble, you were exempt from the penalty of not having 50 CP to take a Night action. However, being exempt does not mean you need to demonstrate this, because you doing so clued in the Mafia that you were the Noble. You probably could have voted like you had an active role, if only to throw scum off the scent. But, this is mostly nitpicking on my part, and not doing so isn't straight up poor play. Your activity was good, your reads were good, your reasoning was solid, just unfortunate that it played out like it did. It's a shame you didn't really seem to enjoy the game, but I'm glad if you got something out of the roles and whatnot.
Parting Comments:
That concludes the post game stuff. I invite questions or complaints about the setup if anyone has them, I'm fairly confident I can explain most of my creative decisions for this one but we don't learn without other points of view, so by all means ask away. I'm not sure what is going to happen next after this Mafia community wise, but certainly I'm glad I could finally host a game here after years of promising one, and I'm satisfied with how it ended up turning out as a whole. Thank you all for playing, and I hope you all had fun in some capacity.