Humor me

The mafia is taking over.
Will it make a better emotional impact if I had humorous aspects to the game, or would a more serious tone be better?
Dropped the digital bit for now, and currently thinking each player could choose his mobsters, each with differing powers and strategies.
Some mobsters would be good at forcing other players out, others at maximizing income or victory points.

As the players run around the boards doing their thing, they would collect "heat" and the cops would eventually show up: the game fighting back as it were. Some player pieces might be better able to handle such events, another strategy to win.

Emotional Connection in Board Games

Currently thinking about what I last wrote about, how I could create a deeper emotional connection in board games, the way a novel, a TV series or a video game might.
I sense I am drifting away from the 4X idea and into newer ground, but that's expected and ok, I think.
Seeing a game idea all the way through isn't the main goal for these.

Back on topic, I think a worker placement game could work for my purposes. Replacing featureless meeples with fleshed out characters that evolve over the course of the game and/or multiple sessions.

One idea is to use a mobile device to tell the story of these characters, while each player moves physical pieces on the board and interacts with other players. This would be an additional layer of the game, which must work just as well without it.
This approach would mean a lot of technological hurdles.

I have also put some thought into theme. Fantasy and Science Fiction seem like the easy choice, so I've been trying to think outside the box.
A mafia theme is the best direction I have so far, as each player will play a family trying to take control of a city. My biggest problem with this theme is that it may be too violent - I don't workers dying off before the emotional connection can be made.