What makes it work?
I think this game might work first because there is a narrator in this game. I mean without any talkative person in this game, as long as everyone got the role (mafia, police and citizen) and the narrator leads the game, the game would still work. The narrator basically leads the game, bring rules, control the clues.
Another thought, this game work because there is a role for each player which require the social interaction on forum. So event someone very quite in this game, at the end he has a role and when someone pointing at him to die, he would try to defend himself.
What is good strategy?
I think the good strategy for mafia is to follow the crowd instead of making a new target, especially when he try to defend the other mafia. This would help the mafia from being suspicious.
For the police, he needs to remember the pattern . Like who trying to help other for being a victim, again follow the crowd as much as possible.
In general, to help friend, i think better to pick the most talkative persons. normally, they are very suspicious.
Could it work as an online game?
yes, but we need some adjustment.
using something similar to msn, but allow everyone in the game only talk during the forum time. and everyone could see what other people write.
We don’t need narator since computer basically could know the roles, set the time limit for forum.
So it would work, but as it would be a text-based, it guess it won’t be as fun as the real one.
