@ Ghug: You are right that my game (M21) was not Vanilla in your sense. I agree that my lynch mechanic was non-standard (imprisonment at a distant location, rather than execution) but that didn't actually have much impact on the game.
There were many *potential* roles in my game, but only three of those were custom roles invented by me, and only *one* of those was actually in play. All the others were existing roles, albeit some lesser-used ones. I also used the "goon" or Vanilla Mafia role which I think should see a bit more use here.
I feel my game was balanced, in terms of the set-up.
The main problem in my game is that due to random drawing of teams, the mafia team was all newbies apart from one player, while the town PRs fell into generally strong hands. One of the Mafia team newbies slipped very early, and another one of them went off on holiday without warning and stopped playing. That left the Mafia team in a really hard position.
But the set-up was carefully balanced.
Chaqa is right. "Vanilla" games with no roles, or very few standard roles, are boring.
@ Brainbomb:
"I dont think scum has ever fake breadcrumbed page 1 since ive begun playing."
Well, I did it on page 6 of the game that just ended. Is that good enough for you? I wasn't present for pages 1-5 due to Real Life.
(I didn't do it on page *1*, Teacon)