Something that often seems to be a problem on fluodome and various other places I play mafia is that you can't easily make a viable mafia game with less than ~5 players. It tends to be "every lynch must be perfect" or "mafia have one member, so can't afford a randlynch", basically it is a lot more luck based than large games between the two sides. Introducing power roles to very small games is also fraught with problems. An inspector who checks the only mafia night 1 instantly wins the game, likewise a hooker, rouge, sherrif, or vigilante, can instantly win the game for the village based on a probably random targeting. In fact the only common power role that is not horribly unbalanced against a single mafia is BG, or possibly Mayor but even then the mafia have to be very careful not to leave them to last. And you can't comfortably have 2 mafia in a game with only 3-5 people.

Now, enough of the problems. Lets look at ideas to get round this.

One of my favorites is a "many wolves" game, in which each player is out to kill every other and each has different powers. It has significant differences in how you need to play but can emphasize the analytical skills and lead to interesting deceptions. A setup which seems to work for 4-5 players is:
Fast Wolf with no vote
Standard Wolf
Slow Wolf who on any day other than the first can kill two players
Mayor with a one time BVP (or a one night BVP)

With other options for adding in or replacing roles being things like Inspector Wolf (slower than normal wolf), plain Survivor, one time Rouge Wolf, ect..

Having carefully chosen power roles can make a 2 mafia/3 town game workable, for example:
2 Mafia Grunts
1 Mayor
1 Inspector
1 Villager
Starting with a deathless night.

In this game the village needs to play very carefully, if the mayor goes down they lose control of the lynch. Similarly if the mafia are inspected N1 (as will happen half the time) and lynched by the Inspector announcing it and they then kill the inspector, the game simply depends on who the Mayor believes is villy (mafia claiming Mayor always leads to their death). Still its a game with enough complexity for a good few strategies to be developed, and none to be broken. Unfortunately this type of game is much harder to make interesting with 4 players, with one mafia it becomes very luck based but with two its hard to balance the game without resorting to crazy combined power roles such as Mayor+nonselfBG and (and even then not simple at all).

Then there is the always interesting many cops varient, in which they may have different santies to give the mafia a decent chance of hiding, but gives the village something to work with other than hunches when hunting for then.

So, what very small games have you played in that worked well or not so well? What are your thoughts on the ones I listed? And what theorymafia (think I just coined a term, according to google at least) games can you come up with that seem like they would be fun?

well actually i've started playing/hosting some games similar to the wolf one you mentioned that we've dubbed w5 (like c5 except wolf instead of cop). i know askaninjask made a pretty good version of w5 that ran like this:

priority 1 wolf (no added abilities)
priority 2 wolf with one-time self-protect (?? can't remember if this was it, i'll have to ask aska)
priority 3 wolf with one-time inspect
priority 4 wolf with one-time hook
one-time bpv mayor

sometimes i like this more than c5 (sane/insane/paranoid/naive cops and mafia) because it's more fast-paced and requires less thinking!

I think that someone mentioned the w5 variant to me, but could not remember the specifics, its what gave me the idea for my version. Anyway that looks reasonably good, though the one time self protect wolf should be a much lower priority imo. Its a more helpful ability than any of the others in most situations, and means you can 100% survive n1. One time Rouge ability would be more fair for that priority (though still better than inspect imo), maybe it was that?

edit:
[19:57:05] <askaninjask> yeah the one i made
[19:57:08] <askaninjask> it was
[19:57:13] <askaninjask> wolf 1 had no extra powers
[19:57:22] <askaninjask> wolf 2 could check to see if players were the bpv mayor
[19:57:39] <askaninjask> wolf 3 could check if the user he targets had a higher or lower priority than himself
[19:57:47] <ete> was the mayor one time BVP, all time or one night?
[19:57:52] <askaninjask> (mayor returning a 'lower' result)
[19:57:56] <askaninjask> mayor has a one time bpv
[19:57:59] <ete> k
[19:58:05] <askaninjask> if he is targeted twice in the same night he dies
[19:58:10] <ete> right
[19:58:16] <askaninjask> if he is targeted once, and then another time the next night
[19:58:18] <askaninjask> he also dies
[19:58:23] <ete> mhm
[19:58:26] <askaninjask> and wolf 4 has a one time hook
[19:58:39] <askaninjask> but i tried out wolf 4 having a one time silence and that works pretty well too
[19:58:50] <ete> mhm

In w5, everybody knows what their priority is, its not a mystery like c5. This leads to more fast paced games that can go by in around 3 minutes or so. They're also very prone to host mistakes, :/ you gotta be careful.

my layout was:

priority 1 wolf (no extra powers)
priority 2 wolf (every night, he could check to see if a user was the bpv mayor or not)
priority 3 wolf (every night, he may check and see if a user has a higher priority than himself, mayor returning a 'lower' result)
priority 4 wolf (one time hook)
bpv mayor (bpv breaks after one use)

of course, all of the wolves can kill every night, they can use their other actions simultaneous with their killing, with the exception of wolf 4's one time hook, which goes before everything.

EDIT: AAA beaten by ete

Smaller games aren't good. But If you can think of an idea, testing it will be fun.

Any idea's from me...
Well, an odd player game of Lone Wolf 9.
L9 for short.

9 players.
3 twins.
1 Mafia Pair.
Lone Wolf..

No N0 Kill.
Each twin/eventual group has an inspect. Maf Pair has a kill. Wolf is different than normal.
Each Pair starts off as the village. giving a 6/3 mafia. However, a neat village win isn't likely. If the mafia kills someone from a pair, the other person can either not lynch and join another village group or die instead, forming 2's, 3's and 4's. The mafia is also technically a pair, but simply acts like a normal mafia. If the village lynch a villy, and leaves a villy alone, the latter villy joins a group before sunset.
The wolf is special. During the night, he can break up a group, which causes a huge reaction. He can only use this every other night. He also has a 2 time ability where someone is forced to lynch who he lynches. If that person doesn't, he dies (This includes people who die if they lynch btw). This person cannot be the same person as whoever he targeted to break a group up. Once per night. Appears as normal villager on inspect.

Finally Tie= Double Lynch

For example:







Village have a plethora of options. I won't count. Easiest group.

C5 actually isn't very balanced. The village can win more than 2/3 of the time. The strategy is for every cop to inspect himself N0. Two of the cops, the naive and sane ones, will get good results, and two, the paranoid and insane, will get bad results. This means that the wolf will be in the group with the most people. The village could lynch one of the larger group on Day 1, and then lynch another the next day. This imbalance make it so c5 should have a rule that the players can't inspect themselves.

thats why in c5 you arent allowed to inspect yourselves, SCall. One step ahead of you dude

I've never ever played/hosted a c5 where you're allowed to inspect yourself. That just defeats the point. Nonetheless, in c5 the village generally wins as most people who play it know how to analyse results in a way so that the wolf at best has a 50/50 shot at winning.