I never have nearly that many neutrals. A serial killer or two, a couple neutral survivors and maybe an alternate win condition.

That's about as many as I would ever have.

Same

I made a more complex version of an early Stan Excel sheet. My first game was shoddily thrown together, mainly because I didn't care about writeups (still don't really) and things like that.

Now I'm super organized and Stan-like. Let's hope it makes a difference.

So I'm ready to give modding another go around. I've got my roles written, but I'd like to have someone go over them to ensure I've got everything balanced. My first game was pro-town and I'd like to try to keep it as even as I can this time around. So, is there another mod who won't be playing that could take a look at my list to make sure it's balanced this time around?

I can try. I seem to be a tad rusty though.

Tip: There is no way to know for sure. No matter how well balanced you think your game is, Night 1 will happen and every player will end up targeting people that completely throw off the balance one way or another. Guaranteed. It's just Murphy's Law.

This is an issues as well. Aside from it being an excuse for me to never take responsibility for my outcomes, it really is true that the human factor can wreak havok on a game. More on this later.

When you guys review each others work what format do you like it to be in? Also would someone want to review the Muppet Show Mafia I'm working on? Someone who wouldn't be a lock to sign up of course.

Perhaps I should ask first: How much of it should be done before you ask someone to review it?

Because I'm a writer in my spare time, I'll be speaking in more of that sense.
But generally speaking, you should do everything possible before asking someone to review it.
Think of different scenarios where landslides can happen, or try to use a positive/negative system to determine how good roles are.
"Well he's a cop so +1, he's a double voter + 1, but he has a 1/3 lynch -1."

Once you think something is completely polished, THEN get someone to read it.
The truth is, you will never be happy with your work but there's a certain point where you say, "screw it."
If that person says, "it's perfect!" then it's good enough, but hopefully they have something to critique with fresh eyes.

So primarily the power balance? I've been wondering if folks do a lot of the write-ups ahead of time or if they just wing it since its hard to predict. So far I've assigned powers for a pretty vanilla game, with a few tweaks. I also wrote the write up for N0.

Stranger is right on all accounts.

Each night write-up must be done after receiving all actions. You can't predict what people will do.

Alrighty, I'm going to go over the power balance several times and try to imagine possible scenarios that would end in a landslide.

Beyond that though my outline should include the following:

1. Role / Power List
2. N0 Write up
3. Ideas from source material for future write ups

I also think I'll be holding off sign ups anyway until there are not so many games going on.

Write-ups can be the downfall of a game, or the most fun part. I love putting write-ups together, but the biggest fear is you'll give one little bit of info to much to sink/save a player.

Number one tip is that a player should never be able to point to a player and 100% give them a role copping power. It's hard, because you want to have fun with it, but if a Roleblocker targets a Nightkiller, you have to avoid saying something like "The short man with the metal claws slashed at Russian with the carbonadium tentacles, halting. His progress"

Next day, "I'm Wolverine and I blocked Omega Red, as seen in the writeup"

Right so like saying "a man in a tie" versus "the British secret agent". I actually learned about that one along with Jerry in his first game.

Is it later now?

But yeah, writeups are hard. Have a general outline in place for how to describe the various characters, and use each description consistently. Ideally, everyone should go "which of you is man with beard?"
Other than that, there's not a whole lot you can do to plan ahead... weird things will happen.
I must say though that writeups for my Eddie Izzard mafia (which had a bunch of strange roles) were actually pretty easy to put together...