Ok! noted. 

Only stefl knows for certain, but the general rule is that every faction is supposed to have an equal shot at winning. So if there's just a town and one mafia, the golden ratio is 1 mafia for every 3 townies. If there's a town and two mafia, each of the mafia will be smaller, etc.

It's EXTREMELY unlikely that more than half the players are scum, though. It's not impossible, there was a game several years ago where almost everyone was a serial killer, and a more recent one where nearly half the players were scum (one of whom could create additional scum), but those tend to be the exception rather than the rule, and I would think those set ups are harder to pull off without having more players than we do.

Because we are only a dozen, I think it's safe to expect there to be only one mafia faction, probably three players big; having multiple scum factions, and thus multiple night kills, would make this too short a game, and having more than three scum would make this unbalanced. That said, don't automatically assume it's just one mafia of three: we'll get more information as the game progresses, and it's not unheard of for games to have curveballs thrown at the players.

It's usually one mafia for every 3 townies.

This lends to well balanced games of multiples of 4. 4,8,12,16

When the total number is off, you simply take the discrepancy and boost the opposite site site by an amount that should even the players.

If there is a third party serial killer, there is usually only one, although multiples have been known to occur, it's very hard to balance because 2 SKs plus mafia could result in three townie kills in one night, effectively sealing off townies ability to win. Thus, multiple kills and some powers often have limitations, "every other night" is a popular one, as well as "even/odd nights" (and before you ask, yes there is a difference between every other night and even/odd nights).

Generally if there is an SK, then the number of mafia should stay the same and additionally have a protective role. If you remove a mafia for the sake of an SK, and the SK kills a mafia, well, it's pretty much game over, town wins....

SK should generally be included in games that are slightly over balance. ie; games of 13, 17, 9.

A balanced round in which an SK appears indicates there should be a greater variety of town roles, as well as some way for the mafia to protect itself.

At the risk of being ridiculed for not noticing something obvious; is there a reason for your sudden change in vote Rol?

Aww, that's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me. ^_^

Oh yes, you answered my question.  I'm just saying your answer went beyond my question, to a place I never expected or wanted it to go, and it's all your fault. 

In fairness, folks are suspicious of you this game because you've tended to hop onboard with what others are saying, but you haven't been particularly proactive, unless you count defending yourself.

On a broader note, I believe we've cut down on the lurking-lurkers since Monday: the only person who'd still qualify for that morenoingrato. It doesn't help that he's been logged on for the past hour at least, but hasn't answered the question I put to him over an hour ago. Perhaps he's answered a similar question earlier, and I missed it in my prior browsing?

Mario isn't posting much, and the bulk of that has been in defending himself from prof's questioning, but I don't quite put him at "lurking" status.

Unvote spurgeonryan

OK, we only have a limited amount of time here, but I really want to put together a lynch of morenoingrato.  His participation has been beyond awful, and Day 1 is the best possible time to weed that sort of thing out. 

Here he pops in, for the first time in days, to say nothing of consequence, vote for a time limit, and leave without responding to any of the people who immediately called him on it and asked for his thoughts on other things. 

Here he pops in, for the first time in days, to reveal that he DIDN'T EVEN READ the post that quoted him, which I know because I made that post and his "answer" is irrelevant to what I said.  ("And what about what was ON topic?  Nothing to say?  And you also have no opinion about all the people going off topic?")

Admittedly, he's stuck around a little more, probably to ride out the end of the Day trying to give people the impression he hasn't been horribly lurking. 

Now, I'd be lying if I said I felt very strongly that he was scum.  But frankly, my dears, I don't give a damn.  Lynching him is what's best for town regardless. 

Vote morenoingrato. 

RolStoppable, I don't know exactly how confident you are that noname is mafia, but I think that moreno has decent chances of being scum and ALSO has extremely high chances of being a detriment to the town even if he's not, while I think you'd agree that if you're wrong about noname then he'd be a great asset in later days.