This setup is OPEN, and has PRECISELY 16 SLOTS.
BALANCE is... WELL, I DID MY BEST.
There are nine of the noble Crow! Perhaps you aren't that impressive on your own, but many crows together can do great things! If only you could tell who your friends are!
(No powers. The Crows win by having two Shiny Things in their possession at the end of Day 8)
Four Ravens make up the conspiracy! You Ravens have your own little hideyholes, where you can talk in secret!
(The Ravens have a QuickTopic, and know each other's identities. The Ravens win by having two Shiny Things in their possession at the end of Day 8)
The two Jackdaws! What loud birds! Surely, such a noisy bird is worth listening to?
(During day, Jackdaw votes count thrice. Each Jackdaw knows the other's identity. The Jackdaws win by having two Shiny Things in their possession at the end of Day 8)
The Magpie- you tricksy bird! So smart! Finding the Shiny Thing will be so easy! But nobody likes you, because you are a notorious sneakthief.
(The Magpie knows what everyone's role is, but has NO FRIENDS. The Magpie may make two theft attempts each Night.
The Magpie wins by having two Shiny Things in their possession at the end of Day 8, OR by having all three Shiny Things in their posession at any point.)
So let's talk some theory.
The magpie is the biggest threat to literally everyone. Especially the jackdaws. He steals twice, and he launches those thefts while knowing who has what roles and what role types have shiny things (since that's announced at start of night). More importantly though, it's the only role that can win early. It's in our best interest to try to make sure the magpie dies early, unless one is themselves the magpie.
The Jackdaws sound dangerous, due to having multi voting etc, but they... actually aren't. Don't get me wrong, every team can win, but the Jackdaws have a collective two steals per night, and can't coordinate them. Most likely, they'll only rarely manage a steal. The big threat of the jackdaws is the day game, where they have disproportionate influence... but of course if we see anyone lynched 'wrong' we learn that one of the votes on them is a jackdaw.
and incidentally that cluster will probably be mobbed for thefts if the night reveals the jackdaws have shiny things.
The Ravens are the closest thing to a maf we have. They're the next biggest priority after the magpie. They make up 1/4th of the game at the start, and can each steal once, making sure they all steal from a different player. What this means is that going into n1, if the Ravens aren't the d1 lynch, they can simply carpet 4/11 not them players, and then 4/10 the next night, and so on if they keep not getting lynched. This means they're extremely likely to accumulate early shiny things, and will be basically unstoppable if they keep being missed.
We Crows (but of course i'd claim crow, we're the majority) get nine thefts, and nine votes. But we're facing a coordination problem. We can't coordinate thefts, so we're likely to waste a random percent each night, and we can't be sure who even is on our side at each step.
Incidentally, we should look to the wisdom of any crow myslynches, since we can know for sure they were in fact a crow and not some perfidious other bird. Especially if we at some point myslynch comiturtle and he puts out a scum team guess, he's alarmingly accurate. Assuming he's a crow anyways.
I'll be honest, this isn't the kind of theory discussion I'd make post game, this *is* affected by my alignment. That's true whether I'm town or not, but I am not gonna point out a strategy that hurts my team/personal chances if you assume I'm magpie/whatever mid game.
