Yes, I finally got off my arse and finished it. Precisely three months after the last time someone posted is, of course, the perfect time for me to reveal it unto the world.
First, some very simple stats:
Players: 25 (7 female, 18 male)
Deaths: 12 (not including The 804 Incident)
Total Incompetent players: 2
Total Wanted players: 2
Total police officers: 7 (including DrAlex and myself)
And now a list of Things For Which Change May Be Good based partly on observation, partly on experience and partly on ordinary pondering.
1) Having a separate Assassins email account, probably on Hotmail or Gmail. I consider this pretty much essential for both simplicity and security.
2) More emphasis on filing reports, and doing it promptly. Sounds a bit strict but it's necessary: in the trial run there were several occasions where we never got confirmation from the victim, leading to a kind of organiser apathy in which we accidentally killed 804 (sorry about that!) when really it had been a case of mistaken identity. We still don't know who it was Dakota actually killed, although he said that the individual did seem aware of the game and possibly involved.
3) Multiple organisation roles and thorough definitions of what they are: not essential, but it would be nice. Having re-read the Cambridge rules I think my role (mostly acting as a soundboard for rule queries) was what DrAlex was supposed to do as Chief of Police, so I would like to offer my apologies for effectively stealing his job. It really wasn't my intent.
I think it needs at least three roles:
Umpire (must be non-player): in charge of rules and rule queries, final judge on disputed kills
Chief of Police (must be non-player): soundboard for the above, also co-ordinates the police force, possibly could be in charge of assigning targets
Report-writer/head of report-writing (could be player if appropriate precautions taken): writes the reports or, if multiple writers, decides who writes what and possibly edits. This role could technically be done by either (or both) of the above but in a big game there might be too much to do.
4) More participation on The Sinner Assassins messageboard. There's no real way of making this happen - if people don't want to chat and get involved then they won't. I'm not sure how many participants in the trial run were even aware that there was an Assassins messageboard in existence, how to get there or what went on there. I know we mentioned it in e-mails but I don't recall how explicitly or how often.
5) Keeping nicknames secret. I kept going on and on about this during the trial, especially to swerg (sorry), but I think it would help maintain atmosphere and mystery and so on. I'm wary of someone else's suggestion to tell assassins the nicknames of their hunters but accept that it would be a way of rewarding involvement and detective-work. Possibly it could be saved for a later stage in the game when things get a bit tougher.
...and that's it for now. Most if not all of the suggestions have their own possible downsides which I've typed about at length in a Word document that I am too nice to inflict upon an innocent and unsuspecting Internet, because it's all very wordy and doesn't actually say much. If any brave souls would like to read it they only need to ask.
In related news I also rejigged the rules, but that will (assuming I get around to it, obviously) go in a separate post as this one is already too long.