Although I can't play in the next game, I would like to participate in the future, so here are some thoughts on the ideas raised on rule changes etc.
I agree that, given the trend of our first three games, any rule changes should favour the Villagers. I am not sold on the Scribe idea, as he or she would be in no different position than any other normal Villager during the game, and so the death letter is just as likely to be wrong as it is right (if not more so), which might simply end up confusing the daytime discussions (which the innocent Villagers are perfectly capable of doing themselves, thank you
).
I like the Mason idea, since having two Villagers who trust each other and can bounce ideas off each other will go some way towards mitigating the Villagers' lack of knowledge (and therefore the random accusations). I agree that these players should only be able to PM each other during the day, whereas the Werewolves should only PM each other at night. I still think that the Werewolves are powerful enough wothout letting them coordinate efforts during the day too.
Does the name of the role have to be specifically Tolkien-orientated, given that the others are not? Something in keeping with the medaeval/folklore atmosphere of the game that suggests a connection between the two should suffice. Although all I can come up with at the moment is the "Twins". Or how about Tweedledum and Tweedledee?
I am edgy about killing people off for non-participation. At most, players should only be summarily killed if they don't post at all during a day without good excuse, rather than forcing them to make a positive assertion or to vote. Otherwise, this compromises the "quiet" strategy that worked so well in the last game. And there might be perfectly good game-related reasons (for both innocents and Wolves) for not voting on a day.
I agree that players should not post on this thread while playing the game, even to raise questions about the rules (which can be done by PM to the moderator). The reason that I posted a warning about this earlier in the thread was that I felt some posts were getting dangerously close to possibly influencing the game. I don't have a problem with people making a short post following their death (there is quite an urge to do so
), provided that they avoid giving any indication of their thoughts on who might be guilty or innocent. I think that people can be trusted to stick to this proviso.
Finally, someone mentioned the possibility of starting a thread to set out all the rules. I suggest that this is best addressed by the moderator including all the applicable rules in the first post for a game. This is probably best done by cutting and pasting rather than by giving links (as I did), since earlier rules can be superseded in subsequent games (such as the tied voting rule).