1st place: Mafia (Pie, Thoth)
2nd place: Town (Luna, Shining, Kohai, Wryly, Cerulean, Vader, RexFavilla)
Roles:Â https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mdCEiMJmyiKynOr1bjK72cRU5Ye_B_CSK6ONyJ53mXQ/edit?tab=t.0
Night Actions (NP1):
RexFavilla recruited Wryly
Wryly Watched RexFavilla (no visit)
Thoth Janitored/Muggered Lunatic
Pie RB'd Wryly (JK'd by Shining)
Night Actions (NP2):
Thoth Strongmanned Wryly
Pie RB'd RexFavilla
Going to start by owning up to a pretty big goof on my part. You might notice that Lunatic had a flip... despite being Janitored. That was my error, I posted the DP before I realized that I'd forgotten to factor that into the night actions. My focus was on the Mugger aspect and since that didn't do anything with the Informed role, in my head, I must have decided that the Janitor didn't, either. My response to that was initially just to give them another shot of the Janitor, but Pie opted for me to give them a fake character claim they didn't use instead. So the long and short of it is that Lunatic's flip shouldn't have gone up at all, though doing so may have helped scum more since town struggled with the information that Luna flipped with and I think that helped them secure a lynch on Shining.
Oh, and to answer the question I've been asked a few times already, the "greater nuisance than they know" was actually in Luna's own role: he was a hidden Nexus. Back when I designed the Castlevania game, I included a hidden Sleepwalker that also sadly went nowhere, but the idea here was to cause some confusion and paranoia and I guess that ended up happening, just not the way I'd intended. Mharman and I made this change at the final stages of designing this game (I had Sally as the just straight up Nexus, but we didn't want two SOP claims to mess with POE that much and we both still wanted the Nexus). It might have been a little too cheeky looking back at it.
Setting that aside, I think this might have been a little scumsided, particularly with the Mugger which would have been a much bigger deal if it had succeeded in taking a role along with the Janitor hiding that flip. The 3X RB was a little excessive as well, though given that Pie only got one actual shot off (the JK prevented his first), it didn't end up being a factor here. I might be thinking differently about this if town had gotten their Dreamer off, but I do think I shorted town a protective role.
In terms of what went wrong for town, the biggest problem was inactivity. Inactivity up until the closing hours of the first DP led to a hasty lynch on Kohai, who hadn't even claimed and whose results could really have helped town. He might have been lynched anyway if he'd claimed, but I doubt it. Pie probably would have RB'd him, but given the JK stopped his night action NP1, the Dream could very well have gotten off and town could have had significantly more insight than it did. Wryly's Watcher result didn't do anything to narrow the field, and she didn't end up trusting REF enough to discuss it in chat with him.
I found the Shining lynch pretty baffling. He was the sole claimed protective role at that point (there weren't others), so he seemed pretty lock town on that basis. I better understand the decision to lynch REF in the end, but only a little. It would not be a first for a game to include a scum Mason who can recruit town members and pass themselves off as town, but with Pie's unused Hider claim on the table making him entirely unconfirmed, he looked like the obvious lynch to me. Pie was preparing for it too, hoping that his flip would help "confirm" Thoth's Strengthener claim (one of the two roles they asked about - the other was Dreamer).
Game MVP was Pie. Dude domineered through much of the game. I agree with him that that kind of approach is NAI, but whether he's scum or town, I always worry when he's taking control of the game.