AWKWARD ZOMBIE

The point of anonymous messages are to sow confusion, making the game more interesting.

That's really it as far as I can tell.

The only way an anonymous message would sow confusion, though, is if multiple sources were responsible for those messages. It makes sense for the spy/crier combo, but the agent would just be a slight annoyance on the mafia if anything else, nothing more than a fly who keeps buzzing around their poker/murder meetings. Then again, OP did say he was considering removing the agent. My opinion, though, is that he doesn't remove the agent, only that it gets tweaked. I'd explain how but I already did so in my other long winded comment pertaining to this matter.

Oh wait I see, the Agent only talks to Mafia. That's different. I'm not sure what would be a good thing to say to the mafia, "oh hey you should kill this person"

now I'm a bit more confused but we'll see what happens??

Edit: I mean maybe you could say "Okay I see what your plan is, you're trying to use this strategy, I'm onto your shenanigans" or whatever, maybe try to make the mafia change their plans? That'd be hard to pull off I think, and its really situational. Unless I'm missing something?

Unless it's an anonymous message, the Mafia would know exactly who it is and just pick him off to be rid of the annoyance, and if it is an anonymous message they'd know just to ignore it because it'd just be the ramblings of a non-mafia amounting to white noise. Sure, the Agent could reveal potential shit about the villagers which could help the mafia, but the Agent isn't a "mafia" type role so he would only be hurting the cause he's supposed to be a part of, of course, that ignoring the fact that he wouldn't know anything aside from what goes on during the day that the mafia wouldn't be able to just read themselves. And if the Agent WERE switched to be a part of the mafia, he'd be no different from any other regular mafia since his anonymous message would just be another addition to the mafia talk on who to and who not to murder. The idea I had was that the Agent is able to discreetly get a part of the mafia action/discussion which would then have to be relayed to the crier, who would then put it out to the public, the catch being that the agent isn't allowed, under any circumstances, to reveal himself as the agent. When pressured, he'd have to say that he's just another villager. Of course, the crier can reveal the agent as the agent, but why that would ever be a good idea I have no idea. So basically, the agent would be better served as an investigative role, the difference between agent and cop being, of course, that the agent might have more access to what the mafia does at the cost of not being allowed to reveal himself as the investigative role in the village. In previous threads, people where putting out that they were the cop and presented evidence, which would be replaced by the crier presenting his information during the night, which the townsfolk would then have to apply the following day. If the agent is killed, then the crier could just say whatever he sees fit ("the raven's feathers litter the swingset" or some shit like that). If the crier is killed, then the agent would just have to make due, pulling the strings from the sidelines somehow while keeping suspicion off of himself.

i think i'm gonna drop b/c i really do not understand this anonymous message stuff. it just seems really confusing and pointless to me.

good luck dudes.

Well Spam did say he was thinking about changing some stuff.

An interesting investigative role would be an agent that gets to hear a random snippet of mafia talk. But determining what snippet to reveal would be difficult to generate randomly, I think.

Make each line or quote in the snippet a number, and then put it through a random number generator. For example, a conversation between two people lasting 5 lines:

Person A: *something*
Person B: *something*
Person A: *something*
Person B: *something*
Person A: *something*

would get 5 distinctions where you have a random number generator spit out a number between 1 through 5 and the agent gets to see whatever *something* corresponds to that number.

Yeah, but there would be a decent chance of getting something like "haha lol good idea" that doesn't tell you anything. Which is fine every so often but if there's enough of those it makes that class pretty useless.

An idea to fix that could be making entire sections of the conversation into a number, which is then put through a random number generator. That way you get the message(s) before and after the useless sentence. The separations between each snippets of the discussion would be at the discretion of the OP.

Okay, I have an idea. I want the theme of this game to be "Gathering information, without having a strict investigative role." I think it'll be good training for this forum. So: no role reveal on death. There will be a mortician, that can reveal one dead person's role every night. And here's my idea for a replacement for the Agent.

The Jailor
- Can choose to jail one person each night
- The jailed person does not know the identity of the jailor
- The Jailor and jailed are put into a chat together
- They ARE allowed to reveal their own identity
- They must keep discussion about the game
- The jailor may choose to kill the jailed person
- The jailor and the jailed may vote, but only to end the meeting.
- The jailed may not participate in any other meeting they may have.

Turns out typewith.me isn't anonymous when you join a room, so I'll look for another platform. I guess I could make a unique irc channel.

e: I could make a tinychat room, people could join that as a guest.

Yes, I like this idea. I do have some ideas as a tweak though:

Maybe instead of "jailor", it's "interrogator". Jailor sounds like the guy should be keeping people from doing any actions, which would be what the hooker does. The interrogator is allowed to ask, and know the identity of the person he interrogates, but only if the individual gives him their identity. That individual is allowed to lie and claim to be someone else. Proper identification would be up to the interrogator and how perceptive they are. Amongst all of this, that individual also doesn't get an action that night, since they were up all night playing cops and robbers with the interrogator. I see the role not having much sway in the beginning, but near the end might have more influence. Another idea I'm going to keep bringing up will be that any role that is indirectly related to the investigation must relay information through the crier. That gives some added importance to the crier and adds a little complication to the game that would make it more interesting. Of course, any final changes are completely up to you.

EDIT: Anything not directly related to what I suggested you can assume I like. The jailor being allowed to kill the interviewee is a rather nice touch.

I do like the Crier as a mouthpiece. Jailed already doesn't get to participate in their meeting, cause they were in jail. I would like the jailed to be anonymous, but the jailer has to actually choose who to interrogate.

And the jailor being able to kill the jailed is to put pressure on the jailed to not just immediately try to end the meeting.

Interesting. I like the jailor/interrogator idea, puts some pressure on the jailed person, especially if the jailor is good at picking suspects.

Passcodes...oh dear god we need passcodes!

OK, the challenge and password is cool, and breeze. We need to practice, I'll go.

Mighty cool out today, no?

I feel like either I am missing the point of the Agent, or everyone else is.

The Agent is a role which is only useful so long as the Crier is still alive. As is the Spy.

Crier sends anon message: "Hear ye, hear ye! Supaaku for the lynch!" Received by everyone.

Agent sends anon message: "Hear ye, hear, ye! Reyo for the lynch!" Received by Mafia

Spy sends anon message: "Hear ye, hear ye! Oracle for the lynch!" Received by... let's just say Vanilla Townies.

Both the Agent and the Spy are there to cause confusion to the opposing side.
Am I correct, spam?