In Metroidvania mafia, vonFiedler and polelover44 introduced the Freezer role, which has the potential to become a new standard. For those of you who didn't follow Metroidvania mafia, the Ice Beam item, called the Freezer by the players during the game, made its holder's target unable to communicate outside the main thread for two cycles. Freezing is essentially the reverse of silencing.
Implementing Freezer roles could help solve the "village leader problem" in mafia games with villages. Having one person lead a village is good strategy but is not interesting for the players, because each individual villager who is not the leader has little control over information and has to take orders on night actions. In isn't fun for players to simply follow the leader's orders without knowing why they're supposed to do whatever they're doing. Lack of involvement among villagers makes those villagers less likely to be active, making a game with a village leader less fun for everyone but the leader.
This is where Freezers come in. When a village leader contacts players to get their information and tell them what to do next, that village leader does so outside the main thread. A frozen village leader could still lead the day's lynch, but would be less able to share information effectively and could not be a very powerful leader. Since one person could not lead the village effectively in a game with mafia Freezers, information in such a game would end up being decentralized, and spread between multiple people. When no single player can use an information advantage to order players around, the game becomes more interesting for villagers because they have to figure out their targets for themselves based on what information they have.
The Freezer role introduced in Metroidvania mafia is a promising role and should be used further. Doing so could end up making games more interesting for villagers.
Implementing Freezer roles could help solve the "village leader problem" in mafia games with villages. Having one person lead a village is good strategy but is not interesting for the players, because each individual villager who is not the leader has little control over information and has to take orders on night actions. In isn't fun for players to simply follow the leader's orders without knowing why they're supposed to do whatever they're doing. Lack of involvement among villagers makes those villagers less likely to be active, making a game with a village leader less fun for everyone but the leader.
This is where Freezers come in. When a village leader contacts players to get their information and tell them what to do next, that village leader does so outside the main thread. A frozen village leader could still lead the day's lynch, but would be less able to share information effectively and could not be a very powerful leader. Since one person could not lead the village effectively in a game with mafia Freezers, information in such a game would end up being decentralized, and spread between multiple people. When no single player can use an information advantage to order players around, the game becomes more interesting for villagers because they have to figure out their targets for themselves based on what information they have.
The Freezer role introduced in Metroidvania mafia is a promising role and should be used further. Doing so could end up making games more interesting for villagers.