The following roles have no place in Mafia...

[Seol]

I wouldn't put Survivor in the same category as Jester, Scum Mason or Unknown Miller - it's pointless as opposed to disruptive, and therefore considerably less egregious.

Also:

Cults (or more generally speaking, any mutable role mechanic)
Non-sane cops in minis and insane/random cops in any game
Paranoid gun owner

[Seol]

I think that Cults and non-Sane cops in Minis can be made to work with a lot of care. I have run two minis with non-Sane cops (211 and Methodical Mafia) and I think that everyone would agree that they worked (You were in 211, Seol). I have also run a cult based game (a mini, no less) that worked (Town won).

I should probably have been a little more explicit - I have a fundamental problem with cults (yes, cult-based games can work, but my issue isn't one of balance or functionality but an issue of the fairness of role mutability itself), but cops and PGOs are a lesser objection, albeit still one of fairness.

I'm of the opinion that if your role does not work as advertised, then it should be either reasonably viable to determine the true functionality of your role, or the game should not punish you for not determining the true functionality of your role. My objection to non-sane cops in minis is that most of the time, the player doesn't have sufficient information to accurately determine their non-sanity, and the extent of how the role punishes you for assuming it works as advertised is disproporionate. Furthermore, the rarer non-sane cops are, the truer this is, and as their popularity appears to have fallen compared to eg four years ago the requirement for sanity testing is reduced. Basically it's a role that punishes you excessively for playing as cop in the manner most effective in the current metagame, and as such I feel it's a bastard role. I wouldn't be surprised if many feel I'm over-reacting here, though, that's just my personal opinion.

If every other game included a non-sane cop, I'd have much less objection to them.

A similar issue is true with PGOs, in terms of how the game deals with them. Dying simply because you targetted someone who you (in all likelihood) had

no potential way

of determining the danger is too close to a random effect to me. Yes, there are aspects of PGO which can reflect and reward skilled play, but not enough to compensate for the base issue IMO. Also, like many roles, the objection is mitigated significantly by knowledge that the role is in the game.

Note I only consider cults as belonging in the same class as jesters and scum masons, the other two are

considerably

lesser objections.

edit: Iammars - I meant mutable alignments, mutable roles can be fine (mutable role functionality where the player has some control over the mutability are a particular favourite of mine, actually) - it's a specifically win condition related issue.

[Seol]

I agree with all of that and have applied it. For example, in Mafia 211, a little Googleing by the Cop based on his role PM would have determined that he was probably paranoid.

True, the reasonability of determination can be ameliorated via other channels (than just results) such as flavour. I'm not a fan of using flavour in such a way, but again that's a personal style issue.