HanOfTheNekos posted... I think flavor meta and role meta are in the same bucket. If someone is going to be metaing a set-up based on the roles included, then that has the potential to fire back as much as it has the potential to help.
Flavor meta is one of those things where the host has to find ways to work around it. I would argue that in SW&P mafia, flavor meta itself was not a problem and probably would not have been. The issue in that case was using Flavor Cops which I have come around to thinking are a dangerous role given they can just tell if somebody is lying flat-out. They're like Detectives with a single result, in that case.
Then you have stuff like my Percussion Mafia - Flavor matched roles, but there was no inherent split. Without a flavor split, flavor faking is less important, so it has less of an effect.
English Lit mafia had flavor that applied but with enough swerves that it should be understood not to directly lean on it - I mean, I had Voldemort as Town vanilla.
I would even consider games with very clear flavor splits, but in those cases, it becomes important not to leave traps for Scum (like Flavor Cops). I think Role safelists could become a thing that more hosts experiment with that would allow some freedom.
Whatever the case, I find games that don't have strong enough flavor to be completely unmemorable. And without that splash of color, the game is just less exciting to me.
completely agreed with this. i think flavor is one of the most fun parts of the game tbh and there enough ways to get around players attempting to meta flavors that it shouldn't be too much of a problem