A Discussion of Themes

This is a bit of a tangent discussion, explaining some of the abnormal aspects of the game while also discussing ups and downs of those, sort of as a combined advice and warning to any mods planning to use some of these. I've sort of been adding to it in no particular order for the last day or so while mood took me and I saw the game was getting near it's end, so it's not an easy read, sort of a mish-mash ramble, and may include errors and lots of misspellings I'm about typed and edited out.

Masons
I suppose the first place to begin will be masons. I would list FT's Cairhien game as my personal favorite, and that featured every last player as a mason of some sort, I've also always liked the option of being able to gain mason abilities with someone, or even convert them, as a game progresses. Back in game 7, once I'd figured out who the SK was (Darth Katie) I asked our mod if it would be possible to convert her. A DF converting a SK to another DF seems proper somehow, of course we could not, it might have de-balanced the game and as our veteran players will recall in the end it was two townies, myself, and DK on the final night, and she and I killed each other that night resulting in a town victory and my only loss thus far and first death... by the way this was the game where Fox claimed to be a Shaido and we include a little tribute to that in Mad Muad by having BlackAdder's character constantly convinced Aiel were attacking him, in a scene that didn't make in, he thinks he's being attacked by Shaido, stops in a brief moment of sanity and says 'Wait, the Shaido didn't invade during the Aiel War!'

So what we saw in this game was numerous people beginning in mason relationships:
The Tower Group – Ranagrande, Talic, and White Flame
The Whitecloak Group – Hobo, Hieshyn then Blaine, and Gher
The Saldaean Noble Group (often in my notes as the SN or SNG) – Yunalesca, Bergioyn, and Fox
The Dark friends – Fox, DK, Kronin, and Artsapat

So 12 of our original 18 players began in mason bonds, with Fox in both the DF and SN groups. FT's first and second characters weren't, nor fistofpainx, beetnemesis, Amys, or BlackAdder. But all but one had the potential to be in one.

The archaeologist – Beetnemesis – Was most likely to end up attached to Gher and the other WCG
The Merchants – Amys, fist, and FT's second characters
The cop – FT's original character, the Arafellian Commander, giving a cop a mason bond just isn't very fair, pre-game I'd considered a pairing with the Wolfbrother and DF Leader, as veterans of the Blight, but when we reached 18 players the Wolfbrother (a tracker role designed for 16-17 player games while I was still finalizing the Questioner's investigatory cocktail) disappeared. It also made the eye color descriptor fairly useless game-wise. I'd liked the idea of the two primary investigative roles being masons with the DF Leader, the intro there would have implied they were fairly unlikely to have a mole since they'd have been bemoaning Tem Lurin's death – who would have appeared to be a pre-game-dead mason mole of that group.
The doc – BlackAdder's character actually had a small hoard of events that could allow him to be recruited by Talic or DK as day masons (a warder) or by Yunalesca, as both were barking mad, in this last one they would have actually formed a new faction, the Madmen, with Yuna as a full-blown vig/SK and BlackAddder as a doc who was virtually immune to NK. We'll get into that in a bit. We also had Bergioyn able to join the White Tower group by faking to be AS, this event never came up, and the Runaway Novice role, which was rolled into Bergioyn's character during draft, one of the other game options, the RN became a Saldaean Noble and I scrapped the RN aspect in favor of the 'Masquerade' Event.

Day-Masons – I was actually quite happy that of the four day-mason roles (AS and warder), two of them went to new players. I'd wanted this role in play for a while just to give it a try, but it wasn't until I saw the matchups that it occurred to me how handy it was for brand new players to have someone to chat with via NB early in the game. What circumstances didn't allow, but would have happened if the game reached 20 players, was the Black-Green AS (DK) having a second warder who was a lightsider and a tracker. Gher's cocktail actually included tracking only on 18-19 players, as at 16-17, or 20, we had a wolfbrother tracker and a warder tracker, and in fact I'd considered making the wolfbrother/2nd warder the same person and with the cop and DF Leader as night masons, inspired by Elyas Machera, a warder and wolfbrother. The idea of a lightside tracker who was night masoned to the cop and the DF Leader, and day-masoned to a Black Sister was very appealing, but we didn't have enough players.

What I wish to emphasize, the recurring EMT problem, is that in many ways while mason relations allow for much extra scheming and intrigue, they really do not give much advantage unless you know for sure the other masons our on your side, and regrettably as soon as a mod gives assurance of that, which Gher actually got on beet but not vice-versa, players will assume a mason is a DF or SK unless they get assurance from the mod they aren't. So ultimately the mason role, from the town perspective, is very much a useless role, but a fun one. It can be quite handy to the DFs.

Now for this reason, I also introduced 'group abilities', mostly as a test, but we'll discuss that later.

The Cairhienen Doctor and The Senior Noble
As I mentioned, these two were sort of twinned, both nuts. Yunalesca was the senior Noble. AS you've seen from the role summaries, Yunalesca was the tie-breaker for SNG NK votes, fox was junior so that he couldn't assassinate his way to full control of a NK. Now, for the SN group, they only had their SNG NK as long as they all lived, at two the had a one-shot NK... so what happened there? Yunalesca, as hinted in her PM, didn't think she killed people, not exactly. The Senior Noble didn't view himself as first among equals, but rather viewed the other two nobles as advisors, and anyone he killed as advisors. For flavor purposes, though not specific mechanics, Yuna sent others to kill those she valued little but invited others of value to her room for tea, so she could convert them with the elixir of true seeing. As long as she had two advisors, one alive, she had the NK, but the other Saldeans would proceed as normal. The need for the split-flavor text – though it was also fun to write, was that once she had a single living and single undead advisor, that other SN could carry out the one-shot NK or Yuna could, but they'd be told it was expended, whereas Yuna herself would keep having NK, she lost it when Bergioyn died, having only 1 NK remaining, which was expended when Gher super-docced her, or rather when DK RB'd her – funny there, DK sent in a RB on Gher a few minutes after I'd sent out the first night action – after the deadline – had that happened Gher would have been RB's from RBing Yuna and Yuna would have killed DK, and with a second kill have remained capable of Nking.

Now, if BlackAdder had docced Yuna or Yuna NK's him, they'd have ended up chatting over tea, and crazy as they were BA would have decided Yuna was the Creator's chosen ruler and Yuna would have decided that BA was the Light's appointed Champion to help him purify the world and they'd have become mason buddies and a whole new faction, potentially able to bring Fistofpainx and Bergioyn in on their side, I hinted at this a bit in one Update while discussing crazy cultists converting people. BA also could have been converted by Talic or DK but those options never arose and aren't as interesting, I may discuss them at some later point.

RPS
Rock-Paper-Scissors. We only got one of these in the game, when DK used the FaL NK on ranagrande, but there were a few other cases it could have come up in. This was first hinted in Hobo's PM and I believe Gher knew about it in detail from their night chat. Why RPS? Well, this first came to me back around game's 6 and 7. Often we have roles where their NK or their defense from NK's is partially role-based, like a DF blademaster going after another blademaster, how should that fight turn out? Conventionally in such cases, along with others where there are odds involved, the mod just flips a coin or rolls a dice. I do not like this, I don't like anything where I can't clearly show that I could not consciously or subconsciously effect the results. So I remembered an old LARP trick one of my friends who used to play Vampire: The Masquerade told me of (I've played the RPG but not the LARP, too Emo for my tastes, though Emo wasn't a word back then). To avoid the players having to carry dice with them, contested actions would simply be solved by using RPS. So I adapted this, instead of trying to introduce a chart of who beat who and why. Any given action that might be viewed as contested would get the two involved submitting a RPS each, to decide the outcome. The majority of these were in place on the event, some were listed as RPS but I filled in the exacts as the game progressed and I had the time, and though it never came up I had it ready to use for anything I hadn't thought of. It didn't get much use but I highly recommend it to future mods who find themselves confronted with doubts about how two conflicted actions should result.

Point System
Gher and White Flame got to be my experiments with this, I didn't want to just have one unless they got killed off before I had a chance to look at it or fell into the hands of a player who might not grasp it well. Back in game 9 – Cairhien – I'd come up with an idea for a sequel, and some players may remember me discussing how feasible it would be to have 'Houses' that had a few actions they could pick from and 'buy' with a certain initial cash pool that would rise as days passed and dwindle as they spent it. I came to wonder if it might be interesting to have 'events' that might hurt or increase their cash supply. In this game's case, even though I used group actions, I decided to separate the two experiments. Gher gained points for his cocktail of abilities based on surviving allies and on 'enemies' who died, along with events, such as 'New Ally' when he recruited beetnemesis. White Flame used a whole different scale, both to see how the points should be scaled as well as to prevent them from easily confirming the other's ability as real, “I get one point a night for allies” says Gher “White flame says he gets 4, I don't believe him.” etc... WF got his from living allies, four for his AS, two for other AS and warders he knew, initially only ranagrande but had he lived to have DK and Artspat in the group, he would have many more points, a sort of balance to the advantage the DFs would have gained by joining the WT group.

Group Actions
We saw this with DFs, as always, but also with the SN group, right from the beginning. The Merchant's Guild and the Tower group also had group abilities, the Whitecloaks did not, I went a different way there by giving Hobo a one-shot group bulletproof vest. He had an attached event, that triggered by all Whitecloak's surviving to Day 3 and him expending the bulletproof vest that actually allowed it to be refreshed. In one of the drafts of the game, where the Whitecloak Lieutenant was a DF too, it would have been a point-bought group ability, but even with all the extra NKs going around from the lightside I decided this wasn't feasible, and in another version, where we had few players and the wolfbrother-tracker, the Questioner and Whitecloak (no 3rd member) were known to be lightsiders and both had point buy powers, with their 'special' being that they could combine points to buy group protection, I've a list of various group powers with pros and cons for those interested, many could be game-debalancing if not used carefully so 'buyer beware' for any mods considering using such things.

Cocktail Roles
We saw, in the cases of Gher, White Flame, Black Adder, and several others to lesser degrees the combination of roles in whole or part. With the Questioner, Gher, we saw a small arsenal of abilities, by any standard the role might be seen as incredibly over-powered, he was mason, cult leader, tracker, jailkeeper, and paranoid-cop. He began with a small pool of points, enough to use his weakest ability once, and in spite of the early loss of his WC allies (who only earned him one point a day each) he still managed to acquire a fair amount of points. On the whole, his variety of abilities made him strong, but the severe limitations on their use helped to balance him out. On the whole, I'd warn people off from trying to use cocktail roles without placing extreme limits on them, like points or making those abilities all one-shots.

One Shots
We had a bad tendency to see our vigs die off a lot in early games unused, or see vigs go nuts killing people. Also, often one wants more NKs in a large game (else the game can easily take around half as many game days as there are players) but doesn't want to make a SK or a mafia don, so here we had a few different versions of the one-shot or limited use abilities. The DF Leader had his own, which was nearly a one-shot NK since even if he used it at his earliest chance (Night 2) he couldn't use it again till Night 5, and odds weren't especially high he'd live that long or in this case, all his allies would be dead and he'd have two NKs but only able to use one. The DFL NK, his personal NK, actually was unstoppable, which is good for him that he used it on night 5 on BlackAdder, who was virtually unkillable, otherwise they would have had an RPS confrontation. In fact, other than the DFL NK no NK could work on BA with out a RPS or outright failure, in some cases death, or the special with that role and Yunaleca's. This is where his madness came into play, he'd tend to think whoever was trying to kill him was an Aiel or a DF or Red Ajah, etc. Of the DFs, had DK NK'd him, win she did, lose he killed her, tie she bonded him, Artsapat would have died on a lose, fled on a tie, and killed on a win. For Fox and Bergiyon, win he killed him, tie it failed but the NK was kept (one-shot SNG NK only). Yuna formed a new faction with him. Kronin for the DF NK would have killed in a win, tie he'd have been wounded and unable to NK the next night, and lose BA would have stopped dueling him (both were very good with a sword) and simply blasted him with the power. Hobo's revenge NK had it's own rules that superceded, and he was simply immune to beet's ring.

Bit of a digression there, but with one-shots I tend to feel you can push a lot more role into a game without as much risk of over-powering and debalancing the game, so I'd definitely recommend it to mods who want to go more role-heavy. Great for NKs, using a heavy form, recharge by event or prolonged wait, also works well, but keep in mind that an ability that can only be used say, every three nights, is not twice as strong as one which can be used only once. Players die, hold off for a good opportunity, and still have much power simply by being alive and able to vote, so non-consecutive use powers are more powerful than one-shots, but not by much.

Clues
Always tricky, too obvious or to clear in showing someone else's role, and the game goes bust, too obscure and no one sees them, make them red herrings just to get people talking and the next mod who wants to use clues gets stuck with players ignoring them because they figure they are false leads. I like them because they give players something to talk about on Day 1, which is often insanely boring and empty unless some player deliberately starts raising chaos just to get people talking – insofar as at RAFO this tends to be me and always puts me at a greater risk of death I obviously prefer clues to stimulate talk instead of waiting for some player to make a huge mistake or someone to say something that initiates a in-depth examination, clues are easier. Some were specific in this game, and appeared in NBs, others were aimed to the whole group, but let's focus on the descriptions for a moment.

Eye Color – This actually served no purpose other than completeness in this version of the game, obviously if the wolfbrother-tracker had been in play it would have meant more.

Hair Color – With the exception of ranagrande, the 'leader' of various groups tended to have gray hair, sometimes the second in command, but this was not too big a factor. Our Tinker-AS had red hair to indicate the Aiel bloodline the tinkers have, most people's hair was just random, so were most eye colors, unless I had a clear visual image of the character in my head.

Weapons – Definitely a big factor though it didn't play too huge a role. Beet's ring, the various people with swords (harder to kill for some RPS NKs) and so forth, served as a warning to those who had RPS NKs they might want to avoid trying a NK on someone. Similarly raised doubts why someone who was not visibly armed, but were listed as highly dangerous – as mentioned in the initial game post – might be risky to attack or hint at their role. Most of the clues were role-hints, not so much telling people what someone's role power was – that would be over-powered for most clues – but giving an idea what sort of role someone might have or what their mechanism for that role would be.

Nationality – First, this could trip up people who lied, as outside of the Saldaeans – which was the country we were in – people mostly came from different places. Ranagrande and Kronin both hailed from Shienar, but Kronin was Malkieri – a little nod and wink toward Reyn, Lan's New Spring friend. It also gave an obvious clue to the Whitecloaks, and a false lead on Amys, a banker from Tar Valon. Kronin and Gher, along with some of the Tower, were born in one place then moved to another. Which could serve as both cover and a give away, a gruff man originally from Ebou Dar (Gher) who lives in Amadicia.

Clothes – This was the big one. Every darkfriend in every version of the game either wore black or explicitly dark clothes, in this case the Green Sister and her warder wore dark green. No one else was described as wearing dark clothes, some were listed as wearing light clothes or merely the color, but never 'dark'. But others wore black? Yes, of course just having black clothes for the DFs would be unfairly obvious, but it was not actually a false lead. The Questioner was a paranoid cop, and of course anyone who played that role would think instantly they were as would anyone who heard the RC. So what was done was to strongly imply he'd get false positives on anyone he got points from if they died. This was not the case. A paranoid cop in the game serves little purpose if the only time the hit is in doubt is rather obvious, for a whitecloak that's a well-known list. Gher's character would actually find anyone guilty in the game who wore either black or dark colors. This included all the DFs, but also included BlackAdder – a male channeler, the cop – a known close friend of Tem Lurin, a confirmed Darkfriend, and Ranagrande – an Aes Sedai with the ageless face. The clothing color was clue to Gher, who's role message was dripping in references to clothes as important, and to beet, who spied on him, figuring out who he was by his clothes, and this was hinted at too. Gher did not explicitly find AS and warders guilty, he found AS who had the Ageless Face guilty, he'd have been willing to believe a young AS (Talic) or wilder or warder or Runaway Novice was not a definitely DF, except for a certain maid he couldn't investigate anyway, though still happy to see them dead to be on the safe side, hence their deaths 'inspired him' which was the flavor mechanism for his points.

One thing I kind of miss getting a chance to put in, because Blaine died early, was his encounters with the Wilder Serving Girl, Sara Notblack, who I cruelly alluded to in Gher's RM while laying the foundations to make him a genuinely paranoid cop, sort of as an homage the Runaway Novice I didn't get to put in. I dislike saying anything not actually true in a RM. It told him he'd 'regard' anyone he got points from as a darkfriend, but did not tell him explicitly that he'd get a hit of DF back on them, instead I referenced “If you investigate a random kitchen girl and she can channel, you will be returned a hit saying 'darkfriend', when she dies you will get a point for a dead channeler, but you will not get the two points for killing a darkfriend.”. The Wilder Serving Girl was a plot interactor with the WC LT. Much like Kal Redder was for the merchants. Young, light-hearted WC officer flirting with kitchen girl... who wore black and 'dark red'. In theory Blaine (well, Hieshyn at the time) would have communicated this to Gher, along with some hints and clues in there. She also had the chance to appear in the Tower Group Mass Messages.

Quick Side note: 'Kal Redder' was a vague reference 'redder' to ranagrande actually, with the serving girl being 'Sara Notblack' being the serving girl. He was actually the guard who BlackAdder healed after Artsapat broke his arm on the way to the gallows, but with Blaine dead it seemed rather pointless to insert him by name. Nor the scene where Sara Notblack would have been identified as the maid who screamed when she found FT's first corpse and Yunalesca was complaining about being a lazy wench, and later would have screamed at for laziness if Yuna had killed anyone and allied with BA. Ah well, lots of plot never got to make it into the game, others did.

Back to the clothes clues. They had other indicators too, nationality was often indicated by clothing or weapons. Two swords? What country comes to mind? Silk? Must be wealthy, noble or merchant or both for the Andoran. I'm sure others will come to mind. Some even meant to draw similarities, both warders wore green, WF wore light green, Artsapat dark green, one was a light sider, the other a DF.

The major secondary purpose of the clothes was as a warning to DFs and those who might want to fake an RC, that descriptions were important and likely to be revealed, and that it might be very easy to sniff out a fake RC because the RC did not fit the flavor of the character, I assumed Talic would have a near perfect RC from the obvious tinker-dom and Actor Role, thus leading to a battle between DK and ranagrande to convince people who was the mole in the group. I was a bit surprised there wasn't more analysis of the descriptions and a greater effort by the DFs to twist it to their advantage, but if nothing else it did help stimulate discussion, which was its primary purpose.

Titles
The chair role is merely a reprisal of the 'sheriff' role that appeared in game 8, I like it but wish I hadn't included any other role-effecting abilities into the game, including the Advocate role, which was never used and was really in play just to show that double-voter wasn't the only possible title. I must say, keeping track of the votes for it was a royal pain in the arse, I'd originally stipulated that players keep track of it on their own but that wasn't to practical. It's very handy, especially with the small-number expiration, in stimulating talk and debate and making some of those early day lynches possible. I'm toying with other titles but for now, the Chair Title is the only really good one. It gives players something else besides NKs and lynch votes to try to decipher motives from.

Events
I like them, they require a lot of effort to design and track, so I have to say that I'd warn any first time moderator not to use them at all, except maybe 'Lunch Interlude' types, and even those who have modded before should be wary. First off, you have to design them pre-game, you can maybe tinker or clarify triggers or effects early in the game if you see you were a bit vague but they have great game-breaking potential if not used very carefully, and if modified during game it raises the specter of mod cheating. In my own case, I gave myself until the first lunch interlude to sort through all of them and make sure the triggers and conditions were fine, and I made none after the roles were assigned. As an example, the FaL NK (given to DK if her warder was lynched) had a vague notation of 'usable with other action, but greater risk' and I clarified the scale for that while waiting for the day 1 title vote deadline to occur, so safely outside the realm of mod-based bias, but many others I had to discard from the game because their trigger or result was simply not clear enough and I felt it would be wrong to tinker with them once the game was fully underway, though of course I edited grammar, misspellings and poor wording freely throughout. As with the description clues given during lunches, these all had to be made pre-game so that they could fall equally, and often had bizarre random factors like 'random number down from elected chair on alphabetical roster, use a random letter a-c to decide whether clothes, weapon/item, or nationality would be described, and so on. So as much as I liked them and as basically necessary as they were to this game, I'd advise future mods not to use them, and in fact few of my designed games make use of them, and none to the scale this one did. I was hesitant to run Mad Muad for that reason, but the desire for a WoT-themed game limited my options. IT worked, which is the important thing, no game-breakers happened and the game went from 18 to 4, always a good indicator of decent balance, when it turns into a bloody game of attrition.

Ter'angreal (Items)
Not too much here, to a degree they were just plots elements, reasons why someone could do something in the flavor of the game, and bulked out the Saidar-detecting roles. However, there was an event that transfered the amulet, if its user died, effectively a 'Deputy' role, this was not triggered. It was available by undisclosed trigger a short time after the cop's death if no DFs had died, Fox's lynch killed that. The ring, which beet had, would recharge if it had been used to kill a female channeler. If a townie other than Yunalesca got the amulet they'd get the option of using it or their role power, except for beet, whose kills would have left the amulet buried in a heap of blood and gore later found by Sara Notblack, who would have given it to the WC LT because she had a crush or otherwise kept it for herself since she was also a bit, er, inclined to a loose interpretation of property rights.

No vanillas at all?
In fact, even by my own strict interpretation that considers no player a vanilla if they have so much as a flavor clue about their own appearance that others don't, there was nothing even vaguely approaching vanilla in this game. Twice in the opening day 1 message I strongly hinted at the absence of vanilla. Now, to me masons aren't really roles, unless paired with some sort of investigator, the mason has little advantage to the town, and much like the miller role is likely to be killed just to be on the safe side. I've noticed a trend – which I don't entirely approve of – for ever-increasing percentages of non-vanilla, nor even chocolates (mafia with no role power beyond the group NK) in our games. I figured it was just a matter of time before we had one, and I decided since I had so many role-experiments to try out that I might as well do it. Loosely speaking I prefer games with 50% vanilla, give or take, and only 2 factions, good and bad.

To me the SK is an interesting role, but one we've had too much of recently and also greatly disadvantaged. I tend to feel each faction in a game should have roughly equal odds as the others to win, so if I do bring one in, I want them to have a good chance. A lone player with a NK who is otherwise not augmented has little chance of winning, even in the most capable hands, few games end with less than half the players alive, and only one has ever ended with more than half surviving and a non-town victory (Game 9, Cairhien, 8/15 players survived by voting for a DF as king), an SK must avoid being lynched or NK'd all the way to the end, with the SK as one of only three or four players alive come the final day, in large games (and a SK shouldn't be in small ones usually unless you specifically want a short game or are not giving the DFs a NK) this is just not likely.


Book references and Homages
Finally, in this already incredibly long game analysis, no themed game is ever complete without references and homages. This one had a lot of New Spring ones, since it's set parallel to it.

Muad Cheade – Well, of cours ehe got the name of the game, I was secretly saddened and horrified no one got that right away, I cna't remember if I finally told someone by NB or if someone got it on their own.

Kronin – The DF Leader was modeled on Reyn, as well as Isam and Ingtar. A Malkieri and Shienaran, a true defender of the blight-border turned dark.

The Two Senior Aes Sedai – Ranagrande and DK's characters were designed with the killing off of old and powerful Aes Sedai during NS in mind. Two very old and powerful AS, during a time when Cadsuane and Romanda were about the only old and powerful AS to survive the Black Ajah's murder spree. Ranagrande would make references to the young lady who died at the end of NS too, when speaking of Bergioyn. Ranagrande is also a reference to Galina Casban, who had black hair, and she never made it into the game but would have if the Trio of AS had been a group longer, and might appear in a tower victory scenario.

The Noble Wilder – Modeled mostly on Iselle Arrel (who I think I misnamed with another book character's last name in a message), the afore-mentioned noble wilder who plummets to her death while Moraine tries to grab her at the end of NS.

The doc – Beyond the obvious Ashaman and Aiel War references, also a little wink and nod at my first game modding, where the doc was a male wilder and the sole light-sider to live post-game. A little hint to, by his tie to the Yellow sister (Talic) who healed him, as the Yellow was not the doc, and had a bodyguard primarily to protect her from the wave of NKs one might expect to descend on anyone thought to be a yellow sister, the obvious doc.

Fox – Yeah I did pick his color scheme of black and Red with Moridin in mind, I know I claimed a foggy memory on the matter to whoever NB'd me after he died asking that. Partially because one of the scenarios had the DF Leader as a male channeler who dressed in red and black.

Talic – I generally feel the Tinkers don't make it into the WoT-RAFO games much, and I really wanted to see the Priest role, who can't hammer, brought into a game. I'd always had it on my list of potential fake roleclaims to use if I'd wanted to avoid bussing an ally, but Tinker-turned-AS seemed so appropriate for it. In this case, we've heard of tinker AS, and how they send their wilders off to the tower, but never gotten to really see one, and I always felt one as a moral conflict for Egwene in the way Aram and the tinkers in general were for Perrin would have been nice, during Egwene's transformation from “Don't hurt anyone Rand” to full scale war with the tower and lopping off a couple hundred AS's heads at the end of tGS.

Andoran Noble – Pretty much from the get-go, Andor always had a much less cruel rulership and law going on, I wanted the character from there not to be as callous and scheming as everyone else, so their flavor is full of horror at the lynchings and rigged to make the player less likely to vote for any unsure lynch.

The Tar Valon Banker – Besides being a bit of a false lead for an AS or Warder, a little nod towards NS, on the first night Amys and fistofpainx discuss Mistress Dormaile, who is the banker Moraine visits, and was a hint to both that the other was involved in mercantile affairs.

The Whitecloaks and the Red Sister – I've always felt they get an unfair rap from the fans. They are organizations designed to find DFs, so it's supposed to be shocking yet unsurprising that the DFs infiltrated them, like a mobster getting into the FBI. There's a scene in book 7 or 8 IIRC where Morgase is led the 'short way' to see Niall and sees her would be rescuers executed as DFs. She thinks they got caught trying to help her and hung as a cruel threat, but in reality it was just as her guide said, they were caught praying to the Dark One, quite a few fans miss that the young man in question was the same one talking to Rand and Mat in the first book who gets punched in the face and tells them how the DO will get them. They're so obviously likely to have a DF infiltrator that I thought it would be interesting not to have one, or to have it be the youngest one. I also liked wrapping the blood relation between the two into it, and having the one person least likely to vote for a lynch be a WC, Blaine as the actor role. The big nod for the WC's toward the book was to have been Jaichim-Bors, who age-wise would likely have been a junior questioner at this time, as Gher's underling. Hobo died to soon for this to come up in his flavor text, and Gher didn't make it to the end to have a end scene talking to him. Similiarly we would have (or will have, I'm writing this on Day 6 expecting Kronin likely to be lynched and end the game) a scene at the end with Ranagrande speaking to Galina Casban.

I'm sure there are others, but this is long enough and there is plenty of other material to post for the post game, which as mentioned earlier is quite long already.