Gameplay Traditional Mafia

[Dragomir]

'Traditional Mafia' Official Guide
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Welcome to the Traditional Mafia section! The purpose of this thread is to serve as an introduction to the game of Mafia, as well as provide a compilation of all the important informations. It will cover the core fundamentals and mechanics of mafia in general. In this first post, we will cover three major areas: common terms, alignment, and abilities. Please, enjoy the read.

Introduction

Mafia is a game generally played between two teams, the Town and the Mafia. The Town typically represents a clear uninformed majority of the players, with each member of the Town being aware only of their own role. Meanwhile, the Mafia represents an informed minority, with each member of the group being aware of their partners. The game is then divided into two phases: Day and Night. During the Day, the Town tries to identify members of the Mafia and eliminate them through a 'Lynch', while the Mafia tries to remain hidden amidst the Town, and at Night, the Mafia kills one member of the Town. This repeats until one faction is entirely eliminated, and the remaining faction is victorious.

Common Terms
Mafia has a lot of buzzwords and terminology, some of which is intuitive and some of which is not. Below is a compilation of common terms within the game.

Role​

A Role is basically all of the information provided to a particular player. It is generally comprised of three elements: Character, Alignment, and Abilities.​

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Ability - An Ability is a representation of some mechanical interaction the player can have within the game. It can be a Passive Ability, which is always on, or an Active Ability, which the player must consciously direct. The latter is called an 'Action' and there are restrictions on how one may use it. A player can have more than one Ability.​

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Alignment - An Alignment represents the victory condition a player has been assigned. Alignment is also normally indicative of which faction a player is part of.​

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Character - A Character is the flavor name that a player has been assigned. It either calls back to a particular character within a source material, or represents an original character. It is generally accompanied by flavor, which is often the justification for Alignment and Abilities.​

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Role PM - A Role PM is a message sent from a host to a player at the beginning of the game which contains the player's Role.​

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Phase​

The two standard Phases in mafia are Day and Night. The bulk of the game takes place during the Phases.​

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Day - Day phase is a stage, normally of varying length of time, in which all players may discuss the game in the designated game thread. Day is also when the Lynch occurs via whatever means it occurs. Because the Town is typically the single largest faction present, it openly dominates the Day, with Anti-Town factions forced to pretend that they are either part of the Town or Independent.​

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Night - Night phase is a stage, normally of a set length of time, in which players may not discuss the game in the designated game thread. Instead, players with Active Abilities are required to privately contact the host with their Actions for that Night. The host then resolves these Night Actions and posts what occurred during the Night. Because Anti-Town factions tend to have Abilities which can reduce the Town's playerbase, and because such factions are generally aware of who their allies' identities, Anti-Town factions tends to dominate the Night, with the Town left groping in the dark hoping to use their Abilities on the right players.​

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Twilight - The Twilights are Dawn and Dusk. Twilights typically act as buffers between the Phases, allowing players to discuss the game in the game thread, but disallowing the use of Night Actions and Day Actions. Most games won't need to officially recognize the Twilights with their own writeups.​

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Dawn: Dawn is the Twilight between Night and Day. It is the period of time between the end of the Night phase and the announcement of what occurred during that Night phase. In most games, it is entirely absent, as the writeup announcing the end of Night is also the writeup that explains what occurred during that Night.​

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Dusk: Dusk is the Twilight between Day and Night. It is the period of time between the end of the Day phase and the announcement of the Lynch. In a Majority Lynch game, this is the period of time between a majority vote being reached/a hard deadline being hit and the announcement of the Lynch. In a Plurality Lynch game, this is the period of time between a hard deadline being hit and the announcement of the Lynch. In a Monarchy Lynch game, this is the period of time between the King voting/a hard deadline being hit and the announcement of the Lynch.​

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Claim -​

Claiming is the act of revealing information about one's Role, generally at the request of the Town. A Claim, therefore, is the information that is revealed during this action.​

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Ability Claim: An Ability Claim is when a player states only the Abilities they received that game, generally accompanied by the Actions they have taken thus far.​

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Alignment Claim: An Alignment Claim is when a player states only the Alignment they received that game.​

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Character Claim: A Character Claim is when a player states only the Character they received that game, and specifically does not state the accompanying flavor, which may provide clues about the Abilities that player received that game.​

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Counter Claim: A Counter Claim is when a player's Ability Claim and/or Character Claim is the same as someone else's that has already Claimed. The general implication is that one of the two must be Fake Claiming, and therefore is Scum.​

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Fake Claim: A Fake Claim is when a player appears to Claim, but is actually lying about the information so revealed.​

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Flavor Claim: A Flavor Claim is when a player states the only Character they received that game, generally accompanied by the provided flavor. This is sometimes erroneously referred to as a Character Claim.​

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Full Claim: A Role Claim is when a player simultaneously Mechanical Claims and Flavor Claims. This is sometimes confused with a Role Claim, which is less specific.​

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Mechanics Claim: A Mechanics Claim is when a player simultaneously Ability Claims and Alignment Claims. This is sometimes erroneously referred to as a Role Claim.​

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Role Claim: A Role Claim is when a player simultaneously Mechanical Claims and either Flavor Claims or Character Claims. This is sometimes confused with a Full Claim, which is more specific.​

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Safe Claim: A Safe Claim refers to a Fake Claim which is provided by the host. As such, they are generally not at risk of being Counter Claimed.​

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Lynch​

Lynch refers to the process of removing a player from play during the Day. It is a process that is often controlled by the Town, and is normally their primary method of eliminating Scum.​

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Majority Lynch: In a game using Majority Lynch, all players vote for whom they wish to be Lynched during the Day. A player is not Lynched until a number of votes equal to a majority of the living players is placed on that player.​

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Monarchy Lynch: In a game using Monarchy Lynch, only a single player, called a King, votes for whom they wish to be Lynched each Day, and a player is Lynched as soon as they are voted for by a King. The King is generally not a static role; instead, there is typically a role or condition which determines which player becomes the King each Day, and there are normally restrictions in place which prevent the same player from becoming the King twice consecutively.​

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No Lynch: A No Lynch is when a Day ends with no player being Lynched, either because the players specifically voted for a No Lynch, a deadline was reached, or a stalemate occurred due to no one faction constituting a majority of the living players.​

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Plurality Lynch: In a game using Plurality Lynch, all players vote for whom they wish to be Lynched during the Day, as with Majority Lynch. However, in Plurality Lynch, whomever has the most votes on them when Day ends is Lynched. In the case of a tie, Day can end either with a No Lynch, with all candidates Lynched, or with one candidate Lynched at random.​

Alignment
Alignment refers to a player's victory conditions. There are three types of alignment in mafia: Town, Anti-Town, and Independent. Town and Anti-Town factions are inherently at odds with one another, and typically cannot win together. Moreover, Anti-Town factions are typically also at odds with each other, and similarly cannot win together; this is technically also true of Town factions, but is less relevant, as it is exceedingly rare for a game to feature more than one Town faction. The defining difference between Town and Anti-Town factions is that Town factions are represented as an uninformed majority, while Anti-Town factions are represented as an informed minority. Independent factions function entirely outside of the Town vs Anti-Town struggle, and can win alongside any Town or Anti-Town faction, given that certain specific conditions are met.

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Town​

The Town is a core faction in mafia. The Town normally constitutes over half of the players in a game, making it the single largest faction present in most games. For this reason, the Town controls the Day phase, with Anti-Town factions being forced to blend in with the Town in order to survive. Typically, each member of the Town, called a Towny, is only aware of his/her own Role. Thus, while the Town's goal as a whole is to eliminate all Anti-Town factions, each Towny must ferret out which other players are Town and which are Anti-Town in order to achieve this.​

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Anti-Town​

The Anti-Town factions are all very similar, differentiated by relatively minor differences in how they are typically arranged, or what abilities they typically have. Anti-Town factions are normally much smaller than the Town, which necessitates members of Anti-Town factions, called Scum, to attempt to blend in with the Town during the Day phase to avoid discovery. However, Scum are generally aware of the identities of their teammates, if any, which gives them an edge in that Scum are not very likely to accidentally eliminate their teammates, and are allowed to communicate and coordinate outside of the game thread, which allows them to employ more complex strategies of deception against the Town. Each Anti-Town faction's goal is typically to eliminate the Town and all competing Anti-Town factions.​

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Mafia: The Mafia is the eponymous core faction in mafia, but is not quintessential in the same way as the Town; it is the most common of the Anti-Town factions, but is more frequently absent than the Town. Members of the Mafia are called Mafioso. The Mafia is almost always in possesion of at least one Destructive ability, often referred to as a Kill, which is normally utilized during the Night phase. This Kill can be a Faction, where any Mafioso may choose to make it, a Static, where a designated Mafioso must make it, or an Inherited, where a designated Mafioso must make it, but if that designated Mafioso should die, another designated Mafioso can make it. This Kill allows the Mafia to have some measure of control during the Night phase, and is their primary tool for eliminating the Town and other Anti-Town factions.​

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Cult: The Cult is an Anti-Town faction that functions in much the same way that the Mafia does. Members of the Cult are called Cultists. Because the Cult can grow, it normally starts off smaller than the Mafia would in the same general setup. In the place of a Kill, the Cult has a Conversive ability, often called a Conversion, which allows it to recruit members of the Town and sometimes other factions, changing those players' alignment to Cult. The Cult's Conversion, like the Mafia's Kill, can be Faction, Static, or Inherited. However, because of how powerful a Conversion is compared to a Kill, in that it both decreases the size of an opposing faction while increasing the size of the friendly faction, Static Conversion is most commonly used. Likewise, because of how powerful a Conversion can be when used on an informed player, such as one that is part of a different Anti-Town faction, members of opposing Anti-Town factions are normally immune to a Cult's Conversion. A Cult that also inherently possesses a Destructive ability is informally referred to as a Cultafia.​

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Serial: The Serial is an Anti-Town faction that functions as a sort of one-man Mafia. The Serial typically has a Kill, but because the Serial has no real allies, the Serial is normally made to be more powerful than an individual Mafioso might be. Because the Serial is alone, this typically means that the Serial strives to eliminate all other players. However, like other Anti-Town factions, Serials can still win with Independents as normal, and indeed benefit most from allying with an Independent.​

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Independent​

Independent is a catch-all phrase for pretty much any faction which is not inherently Town or Anti-Town. The most common Independents are the Survivor, which wins by surviving until the end of the game, the Jester, which wins by being Lynched, the Lyncher, which wins by participating in the Lynch of a specific player, the Unlyncher, which wins by ensuring that a specific player is not Lynched throughout the course of the game, and the Alien, which wins by surviving until only players it has targeted throughout the game are alive, but there are many more possible factions. The core fundamental of the Independent is that they can win alongside any Town or Anti-Town faction, so long as their own victory condition is met. The victory of an Independent does not end the game in the same way that the victory of a Town or Anti-Town faction does; instead, an Independent that has achieved its victory condition prior to the completion of the game is generally either removed from play as a winner, or remains in play and is announced a winner alongside Town or whichever Anti-Town faction wins at the end of the game.​

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Abilities
One's Abilities refers to a set of terms indicating the mechanical interactions a given player can have on a particular game. They are generally intended to allow ease of understanding as to what an ability does, both for the player receiving the Role and the other players when said player either Claims or dies.

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Active vs Passive​

There are two manners in which Abilities can be classified. The first is by how the Ability is used, whether it actively requires input from the player or is simply passively always on.​

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Active: An Active Ability is any ability which requires input from the player with the ability. The use of an Active Ability is called an Action. Players are typically restricted on when and how often they can use Active Abilities - the norm is once each Night phase. Active Abilities are generally susceptible to Immunity, Prevention, and Misdirection.​

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Passive: A Passive Ability is any Ability which does not require input from the player with the Ability. Passive Abilities are typically always in effect. For this reason, Passive Abilities are generally exempt from Immunity, Prevention, and Misdirection. Some Passive Abilities have triggered effects, however, which are not exempt from Immunity.​

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Nature of Ability​

There are two manners in which Abilities can be classified. The second is the nature of what the Ability does, be it something which informs, defends, kills, etc.​

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Investigative: An Investigative Ability is any ability which informs. The most iconic Investigative Ability is the Cop, but other common Investigative Abilities include the Tracker, Watcher, and Thief. Investigative Abilities are generally more useful for the Town than for Anti-Town factions, because Anti-Town factions are typically already better informed than the Town. The use of an Investigative Ability is typically called an Investigation.​

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Protective: A Protective Ability is any Ability which grants immunity. The most iconic Protective Ability is the Doctor, but other common Protective Abilities include the Commuter, Jailer, and Bodyguard. Protective Abilities are generally more useful for the Town than for Anti-Town factions, because Town are far more likely to be targeted by harmful abilities from which one would want immunity. The use of a Protective Ability is typically called a Protection.​

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Destructive: A Destructive Ability is any Ability which kills. The most iconic Destructive Ability is the Vigilante/Hitman/Killer, but other common Destructive Abilities include the Poisoner and Executioner. Destructive Abilities are generally more useful for Anti-Town factions than for the Town, as Anti-Town factions generally already know which players are friend and which are foe, and so can use Destructive Abilities more precisely without the risk of friendly fire. The use of a Destructive Ability is typically called a Kill.​

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Manipulative: A Manipulative Ability is any Ability which misinforms. The most iconic Manipulative Ability is the Bus Driver, but other common Manipulative Abilities include the Framer, Redirector, and Politician. Manipulative Abilities are generally more useful for Anti-Town factions than for the Town, because misinformation is normally harmful to the Town's ability to identify Scum. The use of a Manipulative Ability is typically called a Misdirection.​

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Preventative: A Preventative Ability is any Ability which blocks. The most iconic Preventative Ability is the Roleblocker/Prostitute, but other common Preventative Abilities include the Jailer and Vote Drainer. Prevenative Abilities are generally about as useful for the Town as for Anti-Town factions, as they can be used by the Town as a quasi-Investigation looking for Destructive roles or by an Anti-Town faction to shut down a Protective or Investigative Role. The use of a Preventative Ability is typically called a Block.​

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Creative: A Creative Ability is any Ability which augments. The most iconic Creative Ability is the Inventor, but other common Creative Abilities include the Eraser, Graverobber, and Kingmaker. Creative Abilities are objectively more useful for Anti-Town factions than for the Town, as there is no chance of accidentally targeting an enemy with a beneficial Creative ability or a friend with a harmful Creative ability; for this reason, such Abilities must not be given to Anti-Town factions lightly. The use of a Creative Ability is typically called a Gift.​

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Conversive: A Conversive Ability is any Ability which facilitates communication. The most iconic Conversive Ability is the Converter, but other common Conversive Abilities include the Mason Recruiter, Motivator, and Psychiatrist. Conversive Abilities are objectively more useful for Anti-Town factions than for the Town, as there is no chance of accidentally targeting an enemy with a beneficial Conversive Ability or a friend with a harmful Conversive Ability; for this reason, such Abilities must not be given to Anti-Town factions lightly. The use of a Conversive Ability is typically called either a Conversion or a Conversation, depending on whether the Ability also alters Alignment.​

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Night vs Day​

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Night Action: Night Actions are Actions that are used during the Night phase. Night Actions are broken up into three tiers, with a higher tier resolving before a lower tier fires. Conversive, Manipulative, Preventative, and Protective Actions are Tier 1, Investigative Actions are Tier 2, and Creative and Destructive Actions are Tier 3. Tier 1 has special self-interaction rules for resolving when one such Night Action would affect another. First, a self-targeting Tier 1 Night Action always resolves before all other Night Actions. Second, if a Tier 1 Night Action is being affected by another Tier 1 Night Action, the former resolves after the latter, unless the former is also affecting the latter. Tier 1 Night Actions that resolve simultaneously, even if they would otherwise affect one another, do not interact with one another.​

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Day Action: Day Actions are Actions that are used during the Day phase. Unlike Night Actions, which are generally sent to the host in private, Day Actions are posted in the game thread; they fire and immediately resolve based on when they are posted.​

 

[Dragomir]

This post will discuss playing a mafia. Its goal is to ensure that players understand common strategies and why they are prevalent. In this post, we will cover strategies for the three major alignment types: Town, Anti-Town, and Independent.

Town
As a Towny, your primary goal is to seek out and eliminate Scum. Because the Town typically controls the Day phase, Scum are often forced to pretend like they are Townies as well. Thus, the key to winning as Town is to identify players who are not what they say.

Logic
Mafia is a deeply complex game, but even in highly situational circumstances, there are some rights and wrongs to be found. Through the application of logic, one can differentiate between these rights and wrongs.

Deduction: Deductive reasoning, generally speaking, is taking a broad truth and applying it to a narrow case. While it is a fundamental of logic, it is not very useful on its own. Proper deduction leads to absolute certainty, but only because it starts with absolute certainty, and absolute certainty is not particularly abundant. It is generally used in conjunction with hypotheticals and other forms of reasoning to reach a conclusion.

Induction: Inductive reasoning, generally speaking, is taking observations and using commonalities to predict future events. This is the bread and butter of logic within mafia. Broadly speaking, induction is used to analyze past events, both within a particular game and within mafia overall, and use those to reach the likeliest conclusion.

Abduction: Abductive reasoning, generally speaking, is considering all possibilities and repeatedly ruling out the least likely until only one remains. That is, it is effectively process of elimination. Abduction is primarily used alongside induction, and is itself a form of induction.

How to Argue: I'm adding this section because, too often, I've found that players use the wrong definition of argument. As a Towny, you are effectively a philosopher, trying to seek the truth. To a philosopher, an argument is not a fight, nor a back and forth of scathing remarks. An argument should be either an assertion or a counter to an assertion, in either case supported by evidence. An argument should be kept civil, and it needs to be understood that the goal of an argument is not to win, but to reach the truth.​

Scum Hunting
Scum hunting is the act of actively trying to identify Scum via a series of observations intended to identify players attempting to blend into the Town and tactics designed to make blending into the Town more difficult.

Observations: The key to observations is to look for Scumtells.
Scum tend to lie about certain aspects of their role, especially alignment for obvious reasons. Being caught in a lie is pretty much the single most damning of all Scumtells, and is where the common Town mantra "Lynch All Liars" comes from. In a perfect world, there are no common false positives of this Scumtell; however, some Townies sadly will lie, typically because they are fearful of revealing their role because it will make them appear Scummy or because their role is powerful and may encourage Scum to target them. There are no exceptions to this Scumtell: all Scum must lie about something in order to blend in with the Town.

• Scum tend to use fallacies, statements that appear logical at first glance but which are actually inherently flawed, in order to try and mislead the Town. Fallacies are a powerful tool for any Scum, because they can be used to subtly control the Town's actions and obfuscate the actual facts while simultaneously making it seem as though the user is contributing. See the section on Anti-Town strategy for a proper breakdown of fallacies. In a perfect world, there are no common false positives for this Scumtell; however, some Townies sadly will use fallacies in an attempt to get their way, usually out of pride or incompetence. There are no specific exceptions to this Scumtell: Scum will almost always rely on a fallacy at some point in a game, as they are the easiest way to support the lies necessitated by being Scum.
• Scum tend to avoid contributing to discussions, especially early in the game. This is because the more Scum say, the more they can be held to later in the game, when more information has been revealed. By committing to a side in a discussion, they allow the Town to analyze their statements in light of information learned after the fact. Moreover, Scum will, at least on some level, be worried about appearing to side with or otherwise agree with other Scum too often. Scum do not want the Town to identify them, and contributing to a discussion may inadvertently lead the Town in the right direction. Finally, Scum do not want to draw attention to themselves, and being the first to suggest something new tends to draw attention. Thus, Scum tend to be wishy-washy. This can take the form of frequently posting meaningless or irrelevant content, only posting cursory agreement to something already suggested, or posting very infrequently. In a perfect world, there are no common false positives of this Scumtell; however, some Townies sadly will lurk, parrot, or otherwise appear wishy-washy, often because they are either unhappy with their role or overly fearful because their role is important, though this can also be borne of laziness or incompetence. The primary exception to this Scumtell is the Serial player, who will often contribute with zeal as though they were a Towny. It should be noted that Serial players sometimes display this Scumtell in the very earliest parts of the game if they are unaware as to which group of characters is the Town in the game.
• Scum tend to be more defensive of one another than Town are. This is because Anti-Town factions are considerably smaller, and so the loss of even a single member can greatly cripple an Anti-Town faction. Moreover, Scum know the identintities of their partners from the outset. Thus, on a subconscious level, Scum tend to be more defensive of their partners than is normally expected because they have no uncertainty regarding the alignment and value of said partners. While this can manifest simply as overdefensiveness, its most common manifestation is actually that Scum are normally among the last players to vote for their partners in a lynch, if they even vote at all. The most common false positives for this Scumtell are the Mason, which has a partner or partners of which they may be excessively defensive as Town, and any Investigative role, which may have special knowledge which exhonerates a player that has not been shared with the rest of the Town. The primary exception to this Scumtell is, once again, the Serial player, which has no partners to defend; indeed, the Serial player will often display an indifference towards which player is lynched, because, on a subconscious level, they recognizes every other player as an enemy.
• Scum are more prone than Townies to try and deflect suspicion onto other players. When pressed, Scum are more likely to try and distract their accusers by pointing out another player that might be suspicious than they are to actually respond to accusations leveled against them in the hopes that these accusations will be forgotten. In a perfect world, there are no common false positives of this Scumtell; however, some Townies sadly will deflect suspicion onto others when pressed, typically due to laziness or incompetence. It should be noted that pointing out a better lynch is not necessarily the same as deflecting in and of itself; the key to deflecting is to use suspicion of another player to ignore addressing accusations made against one's self. There are no exceptions to this Scumtell, but it should be noted that a Serial player will only ever deflect for themself, while other Scum will also often deflect for their partners.
• Scum are more likely to vote with the flow than Townies. This stems from a desire to not stand out or go against the Town consensus, especially early in the game. In a perfect world, there are no common false positives of this Scumtell; however, some Townies sadly will bandwagon, normally as a result of laziness or incompetence. It should be noted that voting with the consensus is not necessarily bandwagoning in and of itself; bandwagoning is voting with the consensus without contributing anything to the discussion regarding the potential lynch. There are no specific exceptions to this Scumtell, but Scum won't always bandwagon; they are just more likely to.
• Scum have a tendency to become overly focused on opportunities to mislead the Town, which will sometimes manifest as tunnel vision. This comes from the fear that, at any moment, some new information can come to light and the tides of Day can turn on a dime against an Anti-Town faction. Moreover, certain Mislynches benefit an Anti-Town faction moreso than others, and sometimes Scum will allow their desire for that perfect moment to overrule their otherwise cautious behavior. As such, Scum will sometimes become overly committed to a specific suggested Lynch, even if a better Lynch is identified. A common false positive of this Scumtell is any Investigative role or Preventative role, which may have special knowledge which condemns a player that has not been shared with the rest of the Town. There are no specific exceptions to this Scumtell, but Scum won't always tunnel; they're just more vulnerable to allowing greed to cloud their judgment.
• Scum will often attempt to promote Townies revealing information. This stems from the fact that, while most Anti-Town factions are informed in the sense that they know one another's identities, their greatest weakness is that they don't know very much about any other player's role. Thus, Scum tend to fish for this information, usually with subtle posts that can be interpretted as a call for information but that they can later be claimed as benign and misinterpretted by whomever offered the information. Any Towny can appear as a false positive for this Scumtell, as some information is needed to fuel the Town's discussions. There are no exceptions to this Scumtell, though an Anti-Town faction that has already gathered what it deems to be sufficient information will often stop fishing for further information.
• Scum will sometimes claim things late in a game which contradict their behavior early in the game. This is normally due to carelessness, but is still important to watch for. This is especially the case with Fake Claimed investigations. Late in the game, when making a fake Full Claim as an Investigative role, Scum will often select players that are currently dead as the alleged targets of their investigations earlier in the game, so as not to provide the Town with any useful information, as well as because dead players cannot speak up if lied about. However, by looking at how the claimant interacted with these players in light of this claim, contradictory information can be identified. When caught in a contradiction, Scum will typically attempt to backtrack, claiming that they made a mistake and that the contradictory information was incorrect. There are no common false positives for this Scumtell: this is a symptom of Fake Claiming, and members of the Town should pretty much never Fake Claim. The are no exceptions to this Scumtell: if Scum are careless and Fake Claiming, they are prone to lie in a manner that contradicts past behavior.

Tactics: There are a myriad of different scum hunting tactics out there, but we're going to talk about some of the most common ones.

• The most tried and true scum hunting technique is simple observation. Being on the lookout for common Scumtells is the most paramount tenet of scum hunting.
• It is traditionally accepted that if a player claims to have information that condemns another player, the accused must make a Full Claim before the accuser reveals the information they may have. This is because, once condemning information is revealed, a Fake Claim can be tailored to explain away any information. If the accused knows that the accusations against them are based on their having targeted whomever died last night, they can claim that they targeted that player and lie about the ability they have, while if they know that the accusations against them are based on their having a Destructive ability, they can claim to have said Destructive ability and lie about whom they targeted with said ability, etc. By forcing the accused to claim before the accuser presents their evidence, the chances of Scum correctly guessing what the accuser has discovered and tailoring their Fake Claim to combat it are significantly lowered.
• The Town's most potent weapon against Scum is information, and so it is of the utmost importance that information only be released on an as-needed basis. Thus, it is fairly standard for the Town to agree to a maximum number of claims they will pursue during a Day before they buckle down and lynch one of the claimants. The exact number can vary based on how many players are in the game, how far into the game they are, and how many players have already claimed, but it is generally a fairly small number. This helps prevent an overflow of information that can aid Scum in crafting Fake Claims.
• It is generally accepted that some consensus should be reached before a player claims. A single player's demand for a claim is rarely sufficient. Typically, true consensus is shown via votes. A player may refuse to claim unless a certain number of votes is placed upon them, and some players may seek to expedite this by preemptively voting for a player they wish to claim. However, Anti-Town factions may attempt to take advantage of this to "accidentally" Speedlynch a player. Generally speaking, votes placed to prompt a claim should never exceed half the majority needed to lynch. If votes are placed in excess of half the majority, players should remove their votes to prevent an accidental Speedlynch. Townies should not place votes in excess of half majority unless the intent is to lynch the player being voted for, and should be wary of players that break this rule of thumb.
• Outlining a plan for how various players or roles should behave at Night is a delicate procedure. While it might be tempting to outline a large and specific plan, it is these that are most easily abused or worked around by Anti-Town factions. It is better to leave some variability to any plan for Night Actions. Rather than demanding that a specific player be targeted by a specific role, provide a small list of candidates for that role to target. This will not only help prevent Anti-Town factions from abusing or working around a plan for Night Actions, but may also reduce players with similar roles from redundantly targeting the same player.
• It is fairly common for the Town to require any player that investigates guilty to a sane Cop to say so before the end of Day 1; any player claiming to investigate guilty after Day 1 risks being policy lynched. This often forces Millers and Independents out of hiding, which saves any Cop that might be present from wasting an investigation on them, but also serves to deny the common reactionary tactic used by Scum cornered with a guilty investigation of claiming to be a Miller or Independent after the fact. While it is fairly common for one or even two Scum to join the Millers and Independents in claiming to investigate guilty on Day 1, the Town grows suspicious if there are too many such claims, and those who do try to take advantage are often scrutinized more heavily than those that do not, which is still an overall benefit for the Town.

Power Roles
There are a variety of roles with active abilities, commonly called power roles, which the Town can have. However, in order for these roles to be effective, there are certain things that must be kept in mind. Below, the expected behavior for the most common roles from each type of ability are outlined. Other roles can model their behavior after those with the same type of ability.

Cop: A Cop should never investigate a player that has claimed to investigate guilty, because whether they are telling the truth or lying, the result is the same, and is thus a waste of an action. Generally speaking, a Cop should not claim during the first couple of Days if it can be helped, and should avoid claiming if they do not have a guilty result on someone. A Cop should attempt to push a lynch against a player that has investigated guilty without revealing the investigation initially, revealing only that they has condemning evidence if the lynch is not supported, and revealing the actual evidence (the guilty result) only after the player investigated has Full Claimed.

Doctor: A Doctor should never protect a player that has claimed to be immune to kills, because an Anti-Town faction is unlikely to risk a shot against a player that may be immune to kills, or that investigates guilty, as an Anti-Town faction will rarely waste a kill on a player that may serve as a fallback lynch for the Town, not to mention that a player claiming to investigate guilty may be Scum themself. Generally speaking, if it can be helped, a Doctor should be among the last players to claim, as they are one of the most important roles for Anti-Town factions to eliminate. A Doctor should try to prioritize protection on a claimed Investigative role, if possible, but should not be afraid to occasionally stray from an outlined Night Action plan to try and keep Anti-Town factions on their toes.

Roleblocker: A Roleblocker should never block a player that has claimed an Investigative or Protective ability, unless Town consensus dictates otherwise, because such abilities are the most important to the Town. A Roleblocker should use their ability every night, and should prioritize players that either claim to have no Night Action or that they won't use their Night Action, because blocking such players has the least potential to harm the Town while still having the potential to harm Anti-Town factions. A Roleblocker should not block the same player twice consecutively, unless a kill failed the same Night said player was blocked the first time, in which case, the Roleblocker should always block that same player again; if a kill fails on both Nights the same player is blocked, this should be considered condemning evidence against that player, and the Roleblocker should continue to block them until they are either lynched or a kill does not fail without the total kill count being reduced.

Vigilante: A Vigilante should never shoot a player without a consensus from the Town the previous Day indicating that a Vigilante should shoot said player. This is because the Vigilante is potentially one of the most harmful roles to the Town. While a Vigilante can make their own judgments if consensus is not explicitly stated, such as a Mislynch after a Counter Claim, they should always treat their action with the utmost care. The exception to this is players that have claimed to be immune to kills, which Vigilantes can shoot in order to test such claims without Town consensus.

Bus Driver: A Bus Driver is a difficult role to play as Town. The primary use of a Bus Driver for the Town is to switch an important player, such as a claimed Cop or Doctor, with a player of lesser value, such as an inactive player, acting in the place of a Protective role. It is imperative that a Bus Driver be open with the Town, should their action lead to confusion, especially regarding condemning evidence. A Bus Driver should never be afraid to claim to clear up a situation affected by their actions.

Inventor: An Inventor is a role that must be played very carefully, as it can just as easily benefit an Anti-Town faction as it can the Town. Inventors should try to only send their gifts to players that are very likely to be Town, such as players that have been investigated innocent or players that have confirmed abilities that are traditionally Town.

Mason Recruiter: Depending on the host, a Mason Recruiter can act as a weak Cop by announcing whom they intend to target each Night, as Mason Recruiters traditionally either die or fail to recruit members of Anti-Town factions. However, Mason Recruiters need to be keenly aware of the possibility of Chaotic roles, and should always query the host as to what occurs upon targeting a member of an Anti-Town faction.​

Anti-Town
As Scum, your primary goal is to seek out and eliminate Townies and Scum from competing Anti-Town factions. Because the Town typically controls the Day, Scum are often forced to pretend like they are Townies as well. Thus, the key to winning as Anti-Town is to blend in with and mislead the Town.

Fallacy
Mafia is a complex game, and while there are sometimes rights and wrongs in many situations, they are not normally very clear cut. Fallacy is the bread and butter of Scum, because it appears to be logic on the outside, but actually serves to mislead the Town.

• Appeal to Common Sense: The user makes an assertion and acts like it should be common sense rather than providing specific evidence. The user hopes that others will be too afraid of looking stupid to ask for evidence. See also: Appeal to Ridicule.
• Appeal to Flattery: The user compliments others rather than offering any evidence for an assertion. The user hopes that those receiving compliments will feel obligated to support the assertion despite the lack of evidence.
• Appeal to Force: The user explicitly or implicitly threatens to do something if an assertion is not supported. The user hopes that others will support the assertion out of fear of whatever was threatened.
• Appeal to Majority: The user insists that an assertion must be correct because most people support it. The user hopes that others will support the assertion out of fear of standing out or going against the flow.
• Appeal to Ridicule: The user acts like an assertion made by someone else is so ridiculous as to not need specific counterpoints. The user hopes that others will be too afraid of looking stupid to ask for evidence. See also: Appeal to Common Sense.
• Appeal to Tradition: The user insists that an assertion is correct because it has always been accepted in the past. The user hopes that others will feel obligated to support the assertion out of a false sense of obligation to tradition.
• Argument from Repetition: The user continues to make an assertion, even after it has been countered, without providing any new evidence. The user hopes that, eventually, everyone else will get sick of the discussion and just disregard it altogether, treating the assertion as equally valid to any alternatives.
• Bait and Switch: The user subtly alters an assertion previously made such that it looks the same but is fundamentally different, and then offers evidence supporting the altered assertion as though it supports the original assertion. The user hopes that people won't notice the difference and will assume that the evidence is valid for the original assertion. See also: Straw Man.
• Cherry Picking: The user points only to favorable specific events or statistics as evidence for an assertion while outright ignoring relevant events or statistics that do not support the assertion. This is used to give false weight to the assertion.
• Circular Reasoning: The user supports an assertion with evidence that only applies if the assertion is assumed to be correct. This is used to give false weight to the assertion.
• Correlation Proves Causation: The user points out a correlation between two things and then treats this correlation as proof that one thing causes the other thing. This is used to give false weight to an assertion.
• False Analogy: The user offers an analogy for an assertion which is inherently flawed or otherwise doesn't fit the current situation. This is used to give false weight to either the assertion, or a counterpoint of the assertion, depending on the nature of the analogy's flaw.
• False Compromise: The user suggests a compromise between two assertions purely on the grounds that compromise is inherently better than choosing one or the other. Alternatively, the user can first suggest an infeasible alternative to an assertion, and then offer to compromise, once again purely on the grounds that compromise is inherently better. The user's suggested compromise is often designed to negate the pros of one or both suggested assertions.
• False Dichotomy: The user insists that there are exactly two possible assertions, and then shows one to be either false or undesirable. The user hopes that others will support the other assertion without considering alternatives to the two suggested assertions.
• Hasty Generalization: The user points to specific events or statistics as evidence for an assertion when the events or statistics represent too small of a sample size to come to any conclusion. This is used to give false weight to either the assertion, or a counterpoint of the assertion, depending on the nature of the generalization.
• Kettle Logic: The user offers multiple statements in support of an assertion, and while any single statement might be valid, the individual statements contradict one another. This is used to give false weight to the assertion.
• Loaded Question: The user asks a question, typically a yes or no question, that assumes something that has not been proven, such that, regardless of how it is answered, it implies an assertion the user has made. This is used to give false weight to the assertion.
• Non Sequitor: The user offers evidence which may be correct, but which is wholly irrelevant to the assertion or counterpoint it allegedly supports. This is used to give false weight to the assertion or counterpoint.
• Poisoning the Well: The user ignores counterpoints made against an assertion, and instead verbally assaults the person offering the counterpoints. The user hopes that others will call into question the credibility of the person being insulted and ignore the offered counterpoints.
• Red Herring: The user makes a contentious assertion which is ultimately irrelevant. The user hopes that everyone else will be too busy arguing about this new assertion to remember whatever they were previously debating.
• Slippery Slope: The user insists that if a certain course of action is taken, a chain of events will follow leading to an ultimately unfavorable result. The user hopes that others will be too concerned with the stated potential end result to notice that the suggested chain of events leading to it are actually unlikely. Alternatively, the user offers a seemingly innocent course of action which, if taken, may lead to a chain of events which are ultimately unfavorable. The user hopes that this seemingly innocent course of action is taken without considering the consequences.
• Straw Man: The user subtly alters an assertion made by someone else such that it looks the same but is fundamentally different, and then offers counterpoints against the altered assertion as though they counter the original assertion. The user hopes that people won't notice the difference and will assume that the counterpoints are valid for the original assertion. See also: Bait and Switch.

Blending
Because the Town controls the Day, Scum must blend in with the Town out of necessity. This means that Scum must appear as though they are Town to an uninformed player, while working against the Town in actuality. This entails several things.

First, Scum must be careful about contributing to discussion for a number of reasons. For one, taking a side on issues can lead to problems for an Anti-Town faction. If Scum take the "correct" or Town side of an issue, they risk assisting the Town, which may ultimately lead to the Town catching other members of the Anti-Town faction. On the other hand, if a member of an Anti-Town faction takes the "incorrect" or Anti-Town side of an issue, they risk Town identifying that they are Anti-Town later. The best type of contribution for a member of an Anti-Town faction is information that appears to be helpful but is actually misleading. Misinformation is a very powerful tool for members of Anti-Town factions, but it must be used wisely. Obvious misinformation can draw the attention of the Town, after all. The use of fallacious reasoning can be very helpful both in obfuscating which side of an issue is "incorrect" and in distributing misinformation.

Second, by necessity, members of Anti-Town factions must lie. While the Town will seek to minimize the lies that can be told and identify the lies that are told, members of Anti-Town factions must lie in spite of this. The truth is the Town's most powerful weapon, and so members of Anti-Town factions must seek to obfuscate it as best they can, both surrounding themselves and the Town. The key to lying believably is to lie about as little as possible to get the job done. Lying is necessary, but that does not mean that members of Anti-Town factions must lie about everything always. Half truths are much easier for the Town to swallow, and thus will be easier to sell as truths. The same can be said of fallacies, as well. A subtle fallacy is always preferable to an overt fallacy.

While it is the goal of Anti-Town factions to eliminate the Town, one must recognize that it is also the goal of Anti-Town factions to eliminate other Anti-Town factions. In games that feature more than one Anti-Town faction, an opportunity is presented wherein members of one Anti-Town faction can gain clout with the Town by hunting for members of another Anti-Town faction. This is a very powerful tool, as it allows members of an Anti-Town faction to actually contribute and otherwise behave like members of the Town without risking themselves or their teammates.

Finally, and most importantly, one must seek to minimize any idiosynchrasies or quirks that easily differentiate one's normal Town playstyle from one's normal Anti-Town playstyle. If one is always active as Town, one must also be active as Anti-Town. If one always takes a front role in scum hunting as Town, one must appear to take this same role as Anti-Town. This is another place where fallacies can be of assistance. Through the use of fallacy, one can ostensibly seem to be playing in the same manner that they always play, while actually corrupting their normal playstyle. The key is for the difference between one's Town playstyle and one's Anti-Town playstyle to be as subtle as possible. Alternatively, if one frequently changes how one plays as Town, so long as they do not have a set manner in which they play as Anti-Town, they can get away with more.​

Power Roles
There are a variety of roles with active abilities, commonly called power roles, which Anti-Town can have. However, in order for these roles to be effective, there are certain things that must be kept in mind. Below, the expected behavior for the most common roles from each type of ability are outlined. Other roles can model their behavior after those with the same type of ability.

Investigator: An Investigator's primary goal is to identify important Town power roles. If possible, a Investigator should avoid investigating players claiming to have no active abilities. Moreover, Role Cop can prove to be a good fallback Fake Claim for a Investigator.

Doctor: A Doctor's primary goal is to keep important faction power roles alive. Priority should be given to a Hitman or Converter when they are present. Moreover, Doctor is a great fallback Fake Claim, as the Town will almost always hesitate to lynch a claimed Doctor, and if the real Doctor Counter Claims, the trade is almost worth it.

Prostitute: A Prostitute's primary goal is to shut down Town-aligned Investigative roles. A Prostitute should block players at random until a player with an Investigative role claims, and then attempt to shut down that player.

Hitman/Killer: A Hitman/Killer is the mainstay of a Mafia or Serial player. They should prioritize killing Town power roles, but need to care for Town protection and kill immunity. They should never fire on a claimed Iron unless there is serious reason to suspect the claim, or unless they have the ability to kill through immunity. If possible, eliminating Town protective roles is ideal.

Bus Driver: A Bus Driver is a very powerful ability for an Anti-Town faction, because it not only allows the Anti-Town faction to manipulate set night plans and mess with Investigative roles, but it also allows the Anti-Town faction to kill or convert through protection.

Inventor: An Inventor effectively further augments an Anti-Town faction's abilities, as an Inventor knows the identities of his allies. An Inventor can prove his ability by sending items, which makes Inventor a decent fallback Fake Claim.

Converter: Conversion is incredibly powerful for Anti-Town factions, as it allows them to simultaneously reduce the number of the Town and increase their own number. The best targets for conversion are claimed power roles and players that have been "confirmed" as Town, whether via investigation or other means.​

Independent
The various neutral third-party factions have a myriad of unique ideal playstyles, depending on their exact win conditions.

Survivor
Survivor is one of the most common Independents. As a Survivor, one must be careful not to anger either the Town or any Anti-Town factions that might be present, because a Survivor's victory is very much in their hands. Moreover, it is key for a Survivor to come forward as soon as possible.

To placate the Town, a Survivor should appear cooperative and provide any information requested. Naturally, if information is requested that might anger an Anti-Town faction, a Survivor should lie to the Town so as not to anger said Anti-Town faction. So long as the lie is believable, the Town will be none the wiser. A Town will normally only lynch a Survivor if they believe the Survivor to actually be Anti-Town, because it is a waste of a lynch otherwise.

To placate Anti-Town factions, a Survivor need only be aloof and distant in discussions. If the Survivor has an active ability that could be useful to the Town, it is important that the Survivor either lie and say they do not have such an ability, or lie about how they are using it. An Anti-Town faction will normally only shoot at a Survivor if they believe that the Survivor poses a greater threat to them than the Town's major power roles, or if the Survivor refuses to cooperate during an endgame Gambit.

When a Survivor is present, it is fairly common for an Anti-Town faction to come forward and demand support from a Survivor in what might otherwise have been a Lynch-or-Lose situation for the Town. This is a type of endgame Gambit. If the Survivor cannot rely on the Town for protection, has no means of self-protecting, and cannot reasonably guarantee that the Anti-Town's kill is either lynched that Day or blocked that Night, a Survivor should always cooperate with the Anti-Town faction in this situation. However, if the Survivor can either rely on the Town for protection, self-protect, or otherwise reasonably guarantee that the Anti-Town faction's kill will be a nonissue, they may choose to side with whichever faction they feel treated them better.​

Jester
Jester is a rare Independent, because it is incredibly difficult to balance. Getting lynched is pretty straightforward, and a Jester almost always ends up harming a Town. Still, they are sometimes used. The key to winning as a Jester is to get one's self lynched without the Town realizing that they are lynching a Jester. A Town will always opt to shoot a Jester at night rather than waste a lynch if they recognize it for what it is. Thus, the key is to instead be "caught" as scum. There are many ways to achieve this. It is also generally wise to very lightly hint at being Iron; the key is to hint lightly enough that the Vigilante doesn't bother to test it, but overtly enough that the Mafia is hesitant to test it as well.

The first is for the Jester to act generally scummy, and then claim an important character or role in the hopes of being Counter Claimed. Being on the wrong end of a Counter Claim is almost always a guaranteed way to get lynched. The Jester should fight the lynch, so as not to draw suspicion, but shouldn't fight it effectively enough to turn the lynch on whomever Counter Claimed him, as this will normally result in being shot the following Night by a Vigilante.

The next is for the Jester to Counter Claim a player that has recently claimed. This should only be employed if a Vigilante is likely not to be present, because it is likely that whomever has been Counter Claimed will be lynched first, meaning that a Vigilante may eliminate the Counter Claiming Jester the Night after rather than the Town lynching him the Day after.

Another effective method is for the Jester to claim to have condemning evidence against a specific player. Like the previous method, care for Vigilantes while using this. Moreover, the Jester should be careful not to accidentally get real scum lynched in this manner, as that will cement the Jester as "Town" and may draw Anti-Town kills.

Finally, a Jester can act generally scummy, and when asked to claim, "botch a Fake Claim". Effectively, the Jester lies in their claim, but intentionally makes some mistake that the Town identifies and uses as justification for a lynch. This can be difficult to pull off correctly, however; if the mistake is too obvious, the Town may grow suspicious that a Jester is in play, while if the mistake is too subtle, the Town may miss it altogether.​

Lyncher
Lyncher is a fairly common Independent. Unlike a Survivor, a Lyncher should try to remain unknown for as long as possible. The key to winning as a Lyncher is to ensure that one's target is not killed at night, while casting enough suspicion on them that they will eventually be lynched.

Ultimately, a Lyncher needs to cast as much suspicion on a player as possible. Constantly calling into question their motives or picking apart their arguments is a good start, but one must be careful not to appear to have tunnel vision. So long as the target is under suspicion, it is unlikely that the Mafia will waste a kill on him.

If a Lyncher can't seem to get a Town to commit to a lynch, or finds himself under suspicion because of how hard he is pushing against a specific player, the best way to proceed is to claim as a Cop or similar investigator with incriminating evidence on the target. This will normally be just enough to convince the Town to lynch the target, and once the target is lynched, the Lyncher has won and doesn't care about any consequences.

The primary drawback of the investigator claim Gambit is the threat of Counter Claim. In the event that a Lyncher is Counter Claimed while fake claiming as a Cop or similar investigator, they should push to lynch the target on the grounds of "proving" their investigation. Once again, once the target is lynched, the Lyncher wins and is immune to consequences, and the Town should go along, considering that, for Anti-Town, this would be a 1:1 trade, which is only ideal in a Lynch-or-Lose situation.​

Alien
Alien is an uncommon Independent. It is a difficult role to win with simply because games are normally too short for an Alien to have sufficient opportunity to saturate their ability. There are a couple of strategies that an Alien can employ to attempt to achieve victory.

First, an Alien can try to keep whomever they have already targeted alive. This can be pretty difficult, but if at all possible, an Alien cannot afford for anyone they have already targeted to be lynched or killed. On principle, an Alien should probably oppose plans that involve lynching or killing someone they have already targeted. Still, this can be very difficult to effect.

Ultimately, an Alien wants a game to drag on for as long as possible, and wants the game to end with as few as possible players left alive. To this end, an Alien should try to take steps to delay the game without giving advantage to any particular faction. Lynching claimed Independents and supporting No Lynches are both decent ways to slow the game down, but these can also lead to an Anti-Town advantage.

An easier method is for the Alien to figure out who the Anti-Town are, target all of them, and then try to work against the Town, acting as a sort of secret ally for the Anti-Town faction. Even if the Alien is eventually killed, so long as the Anti-Town achieve victory, the Alien has also won (provided the Alien targeted all of the Anti-Town players that survived to the end). While this is somewhat easier than trying to keep previous targets alive or delay the game, especially if the Alien manages to identify a Serial, it is still fairly difficult, and requires a mixture of luck and skill to achieve.​

Savage
Savage is an uncommon Independent, and is a bit more loosely defined that other Independents. A Savage wins by killing other players. Sometimes, it is specific other players, while other times, the Savage simply has a quota. Exactly how many and which players must be killed are determined by the host, but generally a Savage should need to kill more than one, and unlike a Lyncher or Unlyncher, a Savage never knows which players they have to kill, just which characters (or from which factions) they must kill.

Playing as a Savage is, in many ways, similar to playing as a Serial. Savages usually have some manner of kill, and generally have no explicit allies. Savage is simultaneously more difficult and easier to play than a typical Serial Killer. On one hand, a Savage can win with other players, which is generally easier than having to kill everyone. On the other hand, the game does not wait for a Savage the way it does for a Serial: if all that is left is a single main faction and the Savage, the game is over whether the Savage has achieved their win condition or not.

The fewer players a Savage need kill, the more tactical and less like a Serial the Savage will want to play. This is because, the more players a Savage kills, the more likely the Savage will be identified by the Town as a Serial Killer, which makes it increasingly difficult to win alongside the Town.

Another important difference between Savage and Serial is that a Savage needs to be responsible for the requisite deaths, while a Serial does not. This means that a Savage cannot rely upon the Mafia's kill or the Town's lynch to eliminate a target, and indeed is threatened by these methods of elimination, because a Savage will generally lose if it fails to eliminate its target. A Savage wants to identify a target and be directly responsible for that target's death.​

 

[Dragomir]

This post will serve as a glossary of general terms as well as abbreviations of game-related terms that are commonly used in Mafia games. They are the most common terms you'll see thrown around.

Traditional Mafia Glossary

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Alignment : The Victory condition (Town, Anti-Town, Independent).​

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Angle-shooting : A hypothetical scenario in which you have to give a quick read on x player(s) with a gun to your head. It's supposed to be short and quick, like a simple good or bad.​

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AtE - Appeal to Emotion: Trying to sway others by appealing to their hearts and not their logic​

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Bait vote : A vote made on someone to see how the rest of the player will react to it.​

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Bandwagon : The act of "hopping on a wagon" or in other words placing your vote on a lynch candidate after other players have done so without stating your own reasons for doing so.​

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BP : Bulletproof, a role that allows the player who has it to escape a kill if targeted by a killing ability.​

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Buddying : The tactic used to subconsciously become perceived as less of a threat by another player. This is typically accomplished by the buddying player acting unnaturally friendly to its target, either subtly or outright.​

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Bussing : abbreviation of "throwing someone under the bus" meaning sacrificing your teammates as scum in order to improve your position among the townies​

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CFD - Chinese Fire Drill : the act of multiple players moving their votes from a leading lynch to another one in order to prevent the leading lynch from being lynched​

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Chainsaw Defense : Defending a player by attacking their attacker. If Y player scum reads X player and B player attacks them for this. It's a chainsaw defense. This is exactly what SBS did D1 against me.​

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Claim : The act of revealing one's role or character openly, thus role claiming or character claiming respectively.​

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Counterclaim : The act of claiming the role someone had previously claimed to have in order to disprove their claim.​

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Deepwolf : Wolf is a synonym of mafioso since the Mafia Game was originally called Werewolf. A deep wolf is someone who has played in a way that has separated him/her from his/her scum-mates in order to reach the endgame and bring victory to them.​

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Distancing : The act of a scum appearing to suspect or pressure on one of their teammates in order to not get connected with them.​

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EOD : End of Day​

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Fake claim : a claim of a role that is not actually true and is usually provided by the host as cover for the scum. Could also be the scum's own invention.​

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Fearmongering: the act of trying to scare other players off of doing something because of how bad the potential consequences might be.​

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Fingerpointing : The act of accusing someone of being scum but not backing it up with enough or any proof.​

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Fishing for roles : The scum tactic of actively trying to identify who has a role and which role.​

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Flip : The revelation of one's alignment by the host of the game after the player's death.​

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Fluff : Posts that have little to do with the game or consist of roleplaying one's character. Usually at the start of the game there is the "fluff phase" until all players gather and start playing the game seriously.​

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FoS: Finger of Suspicion. A way to show that you suspect a player without voting for them. E.g. "FoS on AL."​

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Hammer : A player is said to hammer when they place the last vote on the leading lynch, breaking a tie or reaching majority in this way​

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Hint : The act of implicitly revealing one's role or character.​

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ISO : The act of looking through a player's posts in isolation to get a better read on them.​

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L-1 : The state where a player needs one more vote to get lynched.​

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LaL - Lynch all Liars : The policy of lynching anyone who got caught lying no matter the reason because a townie shouldn't lie​

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Lolcatting : The act of a scum starting to post memes or trolling after getting caught in order to avoid giving any more info.​

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Lynch Pool : The players that one is willing to lynch during a day phase.​

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LYLO - Lynch or Lose : the situation of the game where the town needs to lynch correctly or the game ends in favor of the scum.​

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Maj - Majority : Used in games that follow the majority voting system to indicate when we are close to or want to reach it to end the day.​

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Meta : Short for "Metagame". A term for the knowledge of how a player or moderator usually acts based on previous experience.​

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Mind-meld : When two players have the same exact thoughts on something. A good tell of the other player (from pov of the mindmelders) being town.​

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Mislynch : When a townie is lynched rather than a scum.​

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Modkill : When the host executes a player and removes them from the game due to them breaking the rules.​

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MYLO - Mislynch and Lose : similar to LYLO, the difference being that in this case the town can decide to lynch No One and still not automatically lose.​

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NL - No Lynch : When the town decides to lynch No One during a day phase. Not advocated unless under special circumstances because lynching No One normally doesn't work towards the town's win-con and gives the scum a free kill.​

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OMGUS - Oh My God You Suck!! When a player scum reads or votes Y player just because Y player scum read or voted them. Don't do this. It's bad practice. Another way to call it is a No U.​

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Pocketing : Getting on a townie's good side and getting them to trust you.​

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PL - Policy Lynch : The act of lynching a player not because they are the most suspicious in the thread currently but because they are playing in a way that will make it difficult or impossible to identify their alignment later on. Usually these players are consistently playing like that so they become part of the town policy.​

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POE - Process of Elimination : A strategy which attempts to identify townies instead of scum and conclude that the ones that remain should be scum.​

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Powerwolfing : The act of a mafioso being very active and actively trying to throw the town off track by being one of the players that direct the flow of the game.​

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PR - Power Roles : Used to denote a non-vanilla townie but most commonly used to refer to the roles of Cop, Doctor and Vigilante​

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Pressure vote : A vote a player places on someone not because they suspect them but to push them further or bring attention to them and force them to act.​

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Progression : The way one has reached a certain current read on someone.​

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Scumhunting : The act of actively trying to identify the scum in the thread​

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Scummate : A teammate of a scum.​

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Shadowing : The act of a scum following the opinions and stances of the most prominent townies to appear townie.​

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Sheeping : Following one's opinions blindly. Similar to shadowing, the difference being that sheeping might not be ill intended.​

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Shitposting : Posting fluff instead of actual game content​

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Speedlynch : The act of one or multiple mafiosi quickly reaching majority to end the day phase with a mislynch after the townies had placed enough votes on a player to allow this to happen. Usually implemented in the endgame to end the game in the mafia's favour.​

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Spew : Used to denote when a scum has inadvertently given information about who their teammates are or are not.​

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SK : Refers to "Serial Killer", by far the most popular implementation of Serial. Not to be confused with SniperKing or SoulKiller, both members of the Mafia Community that are referred to as SK.​

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Tell : A term originating from poker where players will subconsciously or involuntarily reveal how good their hand is and the other players can act accordingly. Similarly in mafia a certain behavior coming from a particular person can be interpreted as evidence of their alignment. Usually based on Meta.​

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Throwing shade : Getting someone under suspicion or drawing the attention onto them.​

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Throwing mud : Accusing someone for unfair reasons by misrepresenting their activity.​

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Tinfoil : A theory that is highly unlikely given the data one has at that point but still possible, but viewed more as a conspiracy theory.​

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Tunneling : The act of focusing a single player and throwing everything you have at them while paying little to no attention to other possible suspects and showing no willingness to reevaluate.​

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Too Scummy to be Scum : A controversial theory suggesting that someone is being too suspicious to actually be a scum, based on the assumption that the the scum usually make effort to be careful and not ask for trouble compared to a townie who can be more careless in their innocence.​

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Town Leader : A player who through the content they are providing is directing the flow of the game by deciding who should be suspected, lynched etc. Be careful, the town leader is not always town!​

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Twilight : The phase of the game after the Day Phase has ended but the Night Phase hasn't begun yet. Players can post in this phase but votes don't count anymore. May also be referred to as "Dusk".​

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UTR - Under the Radar : Used to denote a player who is not participating much and has thus managed to avoid drawing attention.​

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VCA - Vote Count Analysis : The analysis of the voting pattern of players throughout the game to try and identify the possible scum involvement in the lynches that have happened so far.​

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Wagon : Every player with at least some votes on them is said to have a wagon on them.​

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WIFOM - Wine In Front Of Me : An infinite loop of reverse psychology when trying to analyze someone's actions and motivations, in regards to whether or not they had considered that said actions and/or motivations would be so analyzed. If you watched the Princess Bride, you know what I'm talking about.​

 

[Dragomir]

The Role List
​

This post will serve as a glossary of alignment and passive abilities in traditional mafia. Its goal is to ensure that players and hosts have a set of terminology on which they can fall back on as well as better understand the capabilities of specific roles, so that everyone is on the same page as to what a particular term means. While this is not going to be 100% inclusive, and it goes without saying that one should not limit one's self only to terms listed below, it has been made as expansive as possible. This post may be expanded in the future. intents and purposes of this list is to provide mafia players a ground in which they may fall back on and check the roles in here to better understand the capabilities of specific roles.

Most roles may have either alignments, however some are pro certain alignments. Roles will be defined by bullet points. The first bullet point is to reveal nature of the ability, active or passive. The second is to give a general description of the role. Third, or more, are for any other additional information.

Abductor -

• Active
• The user chooses a player during the night and abducts them. That player will be “removed from the game” for the following day phase and will be stated as abducted in the write-up. The player may not speak, perform any action, and cannot be lynched

Absorber -

• Passive
• Copies all active abilities that target it(may be modified)
• May use the gained ability x-times or permanently
• The visitor may lose their ability for a specified amount of time

Activated -

• Active
• It essentially turns a passive ability into a choice for the player as in whether or not they’d like to use it
• Commonly x-shot. Examples: 1-shot bulletproof vest

Alarmist -

• Active
• May target a player to protect them from being converted by any role with a conversion ability, such as: cult leader, and mason recruiter
• Sometimes, hosts may have the doctor act as an alarmist within their role in which they not only stop kills but stop converts as well. Usually, this isn’t the case.

Alternating -

• Passive
• Makes a certain active ability only available on certain phases.

Arsonist -

• Active
• Targets a player and kills them using fire instead of a knife
• Bypasses a traditional Doctor’s protection but can be stopped by the Firefighter
• A host may choose to have the Arsonist “collect” its targets by dousing them and then igniting them all on fire at once

Ascetic -

• Passive
• The player is immune to all actions except night kills. They are considered to be rolestopped
• Although they can’t be affected abilities that don’t kill, its visitors will still be tracked visiting the target or watched visiting the target

Assassin -

• Active
• This role has 2 uses. It may simply grant the player day kills or it can receive a target from the mafia each night and it has to get that player lynched

Babysitter -

• Active
• Targets a player at night to protect them, but if the Babysitter is killed, the target being protected will also die

Backup -

• Passive
• The player is vanilla until a certain role dies, then they gain the exact role
• Can be x-shot or permanently
• A player can be a backup for literally anything, as long as it’s specified what role it is
• Doesn’t gain any new information from the previous role

Banker -

• Active
• Targets a player to bribe them. If the target happens to be an investigate role, then the player will have their actions be redirected to the Banker, thus getting an incorrect result
• Always scum-aligned but you can make it town

Beloved -

• Passive
• If the player dies, the next day phase will be skipped
• Usually a pro-town role but can be scum-aligned
• Sometimes, the day skipping will only occur if the player is lynched

Bodyguard -

• Active
• Targets a player to protect them, if that player is attacked, the bodyguard will be killed instead alongside the attacker
• Protects from only one kill, so if multiple players attack its target, then both the bodyguard and player die

Bomb -

• Passive
• Kills the killer if attacked at night. The player with the bomb will die too.

Bonded -

• Passive
• If one player is removed from the game, the other is killed as well
• Comes in pairs
• Identical to a lover, they just don’t love each other

Bookie -

• Active
• The player guesses the following day’s lynch and if they guess correctly, they gain a reward(an ability of some sort)
• Usually can’t do anything N1

Bulletproof / Iron -

• Passive
• Allows the player to survive kills
• Usually x-shot

Burst -

• Passive
• If the player uses a certain ability, then they can’t use it again for one night
• Similar to cooldowns
• Likewise to Alternating, Burst is attached to an active ability

Bus Driver -

• Active
• Chooses 2 players to target simultaneously, X and Y. Their positions will be switched. If player C targets X, they will visit Y instead and vice versa
• Common role for both town & mafia

Captain -

• Active
• Is given certain roles that are in the game by the host which the player can control. If they choose to control X role, the receiving player with X role will be asked whether or not they want to obey or disobey. If they choose to obey, then the action occurs, if they choose to disobey, the action fails
• Submits their action during the day phase
• How to submit action: order X to target Y

Commuter -

• Active
• May choose to “leave town” each night making them unable to be visited by a player as well as unable to perform any other action themselves.
• Hosts may make a Commuter be able to target other players aside from themselves; however, they can’t target another Commuter
• Even Strongman kills, role blocks, and Ninja fail on a commuted target
• Players that visit a commuted target are essentially role blocked. An investigative role would receive “action fail”
• Most hosts make this an x-shot because it is overpowered

Compulsive -

• Passive
• The user will have to send an action every single night. He/she cannot abstain unless forced to by some other role. In some cases, the punishment for not abstaining may be a mod-kill
• A popular role that this passive is attached to is the Vigilante. Makes a great recipe for chaos and a solid nerf for town

Cop -

• Active
• Each night, the user can investigate a target of their choose, receiving innocent or guilty/town or anti-town results
• The most common role in the game
• The only direct counters to this role are the Godfather, Miller, or detection-immune Serial

Coroner -

• Active
• The user targets a dead player and learns information about them
• Usually they learn either the true role or alignment
• Useful in setups containing death millers or janitors

CPR Doctor -

• Active
• The user protects its target from a single kill but if the patient is not actually saved from a kill(meaning that a killing role didn’t target them), then the user kills the patient

Cultist -

• Passive
• A player that has been converted into the cult
• A host may choose to allow the converted player to keep their abilities, lose them and be vanilla, or gain a new one in return. In all depends on the how the game is setup

Cult Leader -

• Active
• The user can convert a target of their choice to the cult each night
• There is either an x-shot amount of converts or a size limit that they can’t go over
• They can NEVER convert a mafia to cult. Occasionally indies, but it depends on the type(probably not serial). Some townies might have immunities to nerf cult a little bit more

Day -

• Passive
• The user may use their active ability(ies) during the day phase

Death Miller -

• Passive
• The user’s alignment or role is revealed to be a different one in the write-up than the one the user had in their role PM
• This is generally considered to be bastard

Deathproof -

• Passive
• The user may not be killed nor lynched

Delayed -

• Passive
• The action of the user will happen the following night/day phase instead of the current one

Deprogrammer -

• Active
• The user can target a cultist to revert them back to their original role
• As a cultist going back to a townie could break the game due to the possibility of them revealing the entire cult, you would only on add a Deprogrammer in the game when the Cult doesn’t know each other

Deputy -

• Passive
• Flavor name for a backup Cop

Detective -

• Active
• The user may find out if another player has killed a dead player
• Can be on that same night or a previous night

Disloyal -

• Passive
• The user’s actions fail when used on another player of the same alignment
• Preferable to make this a hidden mechanic and not let the player know
• Could be used as a buff or a nerf. Examples for buff would be a Disloyal Vigilante. Examples for nerf would be a Disloyal Doctor

Doctor -

• Active
• The user targets another player to stop them from being killed
• Depending on the game, the host may choose to have the doctor protect the target from one kill or all kills

Doublevoter -

• Passive
• The user may have a vote power of 2
• Depending on the host, a doublevoter may be able to cast 2 separate votes or cast one vote in which that player has 2 votes on them

Enabler -

• Passive
• If the player is killed then another role in the game loses its ability
• Usually doesn’t have any active abilities of their own
• Can be linked to a specific role, meaning if the Enabler dies, that other role dies as well

Firefighter -

• Active
• The user may target another player and protect them from being killed by fire based attacks
• Essentially a doctor who’s sole purpose is to stop the Arsonist

Flagbearer -

• Passive
• When the player is lynched, it causes everyone in its faction to die alongside with them, effectively losing the game
• A rare role but if it appears, it shall be in open setups and either for a wolf or cult team to weaken them

Flavor Cop -

• Active
• The user investigates a player and receives a certain amount of flavor concerning their role
• They don’t learn anything specifically about the role like the character or alignment

Follower -

• Active
• The user targets another player and learns what type of ability they performed that night. Check the Claiming and Abilities section to see what possible results they receive
• If the target performed no action, then they will get a “No Results” from the host

Forensic Investigator -

• Active
• The user targets a dead player and leans the names of everyone that targeted him/her
• The fact that this role is guaranteed to find scum(except if the killer was the vigilane), it’s quite overpowered and should be used with either a restriction or a game where the scum team is very strong and town would need their own strong role

Framer -

• Active
• The user targets a player each night and alters their investigative result to ‘Guilty’

Gladiator -

• Active
• During the day, the user may target another player to Challenge them. At that point forward for the phase, all votes are reset and the town may only vote for two players: the Gladiator and the target

Godfather -

• Passive
• The user investigates innocent to cops and is generally the only one to do so in their scum team
• Serial killers can have the same immunity but they are not called Godfather SK but simply detection/investigation-immune SK

Governor -

• Active
• The user may stop a lynch
• Some hosts may only allow the player to use this ability during the Dusk phase. As it is overpowered, this is almost always an x-shot

Grave Robber -

• Active
• The user targets a dead player to gain their abilities. The user will lose all its current passive/actives except for Grave Robber

Gunsmith -

• Active
• The user targets a player to see if they have a gun in their flavor
• Roles that generally have guns are the Mafia(excluding mafia doctor), Cop, Vigilante, Paranoid Gun Owners. Serial Killers have knives(or in the case of the Arsonist, a flamethrower) so they don’t count

Hated -

• Passive
• The user will need one less vote than required to get lynched
• Usually occurs in a Hammer or Majority lynch

Hero -

• Active
• If the user is lynched by the King, the lynch fails. The user has to kill the King
• This role is reserved for Kingmaker setup

Hidden -

• Passive
• A part of the player’s role that is not revealed to the user

Hider -

• Active
• The user chooses a target to hide behind. If the user is attacked, it will fail. But if the user’s target is attacked, then user will die alongside their target

Indecisive -

• Passive
• This ability limits the player from using its action two times in row on the same target

Informed -

• Passive
• The user has greater knowledge about the setup than most other players
• Examples: knowing a certain power role exists or knowing the alignment of another player

Inhibitor -

• Passive
• If the user is killed then another player would receive a predefined ability

Innocent Child -

• Passive
• The user may have the host mod-confirm their alignment as town at any given time

Inquisitor -

• Active
• The user operates like the Serial Killer and Cult Leader at the same time. They can each night choose to kill a target, if that kill fails then the target will have their alignment changed to the Inquisitor’s. Essentially, a Serial Killer that can gain allies

Insane -

• Passive
• The user’s results deviates from that of the normal role
• For example: the Insane Cop receives guilty for town and innocent for scum
• Typically, the user doesn’t know

Inventor -

• Active
• The user may choose a predefined item and give it to a player of their choice
• Those items are usually a 1-shot version of a power role

Invisible -

• Passive
• The user is immune to all investigative actions

Isolator -

• Active
• The user isolates a player making them immune to every other action that may occur to them but also role blocking
• Strongman kills do not bypass this effect

Jack of All Trades -

• Active
• The user has several abilities under its disposal in which they are only 1-shots
• Generally there are only 4 abilities for the user and those abilities are almost always a cop, vigilante, role block, and doctor. However, a host doesn’t have to their JOAT have just those 4 abilities

Jailkeeper -

• Active
• The user may target another player to protect them from all kill actions but the target will also be role blocked

Judas -

• Passive
• When the user dies or is lynched, they will instead be converted into mafia
• The town is told that the lynch/kill failed
• This role is generally considered to be bastard

King -

• Active
• In a Kingmaker setup, the user is the only person in the game that may lynch a player. They vote in their role PMs and that player will be lynched no matter what
• In Assassins in the Palace, the King is central to town. If the King ever dies, the game is over and the Assassin(s) wins
• In War in the Palace, the scenario is the same but the King may kill at any time if certain conditions are met
• In Rebels in the Palace, the King is now central to scum. If he ever dies, the game is over and the Rebels win
• In Execution in the Palace, the King is still central to scum but has a killing ability

Lawyer -

• Active
• The user targets another player and makes them appear innocent to a Cop’s investigation
• Typically mafia-aligned for obvious reasons

Lie Detector -

• Active
• The user may select a post from the day phase and check to see if what the player said was true or not
• The user must select a post that the moderator can mechanically state to be truthful or a lie. It has to be related to a role or the game mechanics. It cannot be an opinion made by a player

Lightning Rod -

• Active
• The user activates this ability making all actions that night phase target him instead of the intended target

Loved -

• Passive
• The user requires one more vote than normal to be lynch
• Essentially the opposite of Hated

Lover -

• Passive
• An ability that makes 2 players linked to each other(usually due to their characters loving each other in the theme). If one player dies, the other also dies
• Can be of any alignment. 2 lovers can share different alignments as well

Loyal -

• Passive
• The user’s action will not succeed on a players of a different alignment
• Can be made to where the user’s action may not succeed on only one player instead of all

Lynchproof -

• Passive
• The user may not be lynched
• Often a 1-shot ability as it is overpowered

Macho -

• Passive
• The user may not be protected from kills in any way as, well, they’re too damn arrogant to deserve it
• Usually used for a Cop, as in Macho Cop

Mailman -

• Active
• The user may send a message to another player each night

Mason -

• Passive
• A group of town-aligned players that may talk to each other outside the game thread
• Every single member is always town

Mason Recruiter -

• Active
• The user targets another player to become Masons with them. However, if the target is not town-aligned, the action will fail

Mayor -

• Active
• The user chooses a target makes them unlynchable for the next day phase
• This is generally a one-shot as it is overpowered

Miller -

• Passive
• The user always investigates Guilty to a Cop
• Almost always town-aligned
• Watch out for scums fake claiming this role

Mind Flayer -

• Active
• The user strikes a target of his choice, preventing them from performing an action. If the user strikes the same target from the previous night phase, the target will be killed instead

Motion Detector -

• Active
• The user targets a player during the night and learns if any action was performed on that player
• Doesn’t learn any names or abilities that were used

Motivator -

• Active
• The user targets a player and boosts their action for the following night, allowing he/she to perform an action 2 times in one night

Multiple User Personality -

• Active
• The user targets a player and randomly performs a 1-shot ability on them
• Very similar to a JOAT but the user just can’t choose what action they want

Naive -

• Passive
• The user’s results are always benevolent
• For example: the Naive Cop receives innocent on both scum and town

Name Cop -

• Active
• The user investigates a player and learns about their character name

Neapolitan -

• Active
• The user targets another player to find out if they are a Vanilla Townie

Neighbor -

• Passive
• Similar to Masons, Neighbors are a group of players that can talk to each other outside the game thread
• Unlike a Mason, Neighbors can be different alignments

Neighborizer -

• Active
• The user targets another player to recruit them to the Neighborhood, effectively becoming Neighbors with each other
• Can speak to each other day or night or both

Nexus -

• Passive
• Players that target the user will be redirected at random to another player in the game
• Most of the time, kills can’t be redirected. This is done to prevent the user from being unkillable

Night Specific -

• Passive
• The user may only perform their action on specific nights

Normaliser -

• Active
• The user targets another player to change their role into the standard variation
• For example, an Insane Cop would be turned into a Sane Cop. If the original role is already in its standard form, then the target will be turned into Vanilla

Novice -

• Passive
• The user will not be allowed to use their ability(ies) during night 1 or day 1

Nurse -

• Passive
• Flavor name for a backup Doctor

Oracle -

• Active
• The user may ask the moderator about any information regarding the setup of the game
• Must be restricted in some form so it isn’t overpowered(i.e. Can’t ask certain questions or x-shot)

Paranoid -

• Passive
• The user’s actions or results are always unfavorable
• For example: the Paranoid Cop receives guilty for both mafia and town

Paranoid Gun Owner -

• Passive
• The user passively kills any player targets it during the night
• At times they may be bulletproof

Parity Cop -

• Active
• The user investigates a player to see which faction they belong to. But the results aren’t innocent or guilty but something else in order to let them guess
• For example: apples for town, oranges for mafia

Personal -

• Passive
• The user cannot be affected by a factional ability

Phantom Queen -

• Passive
• While the user is alive, all roles become haunting(they may only use their abilities when they die). If the user dies, the roles go back to normal
• Dead power roles can target each other
• A neat way to use this would be to make it an active ability where the user targets a player and turns them haunting

Poison Doctor -

• Active
• The user targets a player and protects them from being poisoned that night

Poisoner -

• Active
• The user targets a player to poison them. The target will not die that current night but the next night. This kill cannot be stopped by a normal doctor

Politician -

• Active
• The user selects 2 players to manipulate. The primary target has their vote stay on the secondary target at all times for the following day phase regardless of attempts to change their vote

Priest -

• Passive
• The user may not cast a hammer vote during the game. Meaning, if the lynch is a hammer lynch then whatever number the hammer is, the user may not be that predefined vote
• For example: the hammer is 5, so the Priest can’t be the 5th vote
• A variation of the Priest is the Semi-Priest. The user isn’t restricted from hammering in general but restricted in who they can hammer

Prostitute -

• Active
• The user flirts with their target, preventing them from using an action that night
• Always mafia-aligned

Psychologist -

• Active
• The user investigates another player to check if that player can kill. However, if the player has already killed someone, then the user may no longer discern whether he/she has a killing ability or not

Quitter -

• Active
• The user can voluntarily leave the game. They can’t come back
• Can still win with the faction

Redirector -

• Active
• The user may change the target of another player’s action

Reporter -

• Active
• There are 4 different variants of this role
• Variant 1: the user targets another player to see if they are at home. If they target did anything during that night, then they are not considered to be at home
• Variant 2: the user can do exactly what variant 1 does but can also choose to hide in the newsroom, effectively becoming a commuter. This is called a Cowardly Reporter
• Variant 3: the user may write the write-up instead of the host, typically as if it were a newspaper. They receive the report of who died and other details in advance and make their own write-up out of it
• Variant 4: the user wins the game when all power roles are dead

Restless Spirit -

• Active
• The user is allowed to vote after death

Reviver -

• Active
• The user may bring back a dead player into the game
• Some variations require the Reviver to die to use their resurrect

Role Cop -

• Active
• The user investigates another player and learns the role of the target
• There is no indication of the target’s alignment. For example if a Cultist or Mafia Goon is investigated, it returns as Vanilla

Roleblocker -

• Active
• The user prevents another player in the game from using their action that night
• When a role with an x-shot is blocked, the shot is typically not refunded

Rolestopper -

• Active
• The user prevents all other actions from affecting their target in any way

Saulus -

• Passive
• When the user gets killed, they will stay alive and become a townie
• Obviously, the user was originally an anti-town member
• The town is simply told that the kill or lynch failed
• Generally considered to be a bastard role

Sensor -

• Active
• The user may choose a lynch wagon to detect how many wolves were in it

Seraph Knight -

• Active
• The user chooses only one target to protect at night during the entire game. That target is protected from all kills until the Seraph Knight dies

Shapeshifter -

• Active
• The user targets another player that may die that night and they effectively switch roles. The target that dies will appear as X in the write-up, while the user appears as Y for the rest of the game.
• This will not work if the target doesn’t die
• Does not stop a Cop from finding the user guilty in investigations

Sidekick -

• Active
• This role has 2 variants to it
• Variant 1: the user chooses a player to protect for the night. The Sidekick will redirect any action that targets their target onto themselves. However, it doesn’t redirect kills. This is called the Decoy Variant
• Variant 2: the user is given information about several roles that may or may not be in the game. The user has to pick one of these roles at the start of the game. Every night after that, the user chooses a player to see if they are the role they picked. If the player is that role as well as town-aligned then the Sidekick will get a positive result. This is called the Confidant Variant

Silencer -

• Active
• The user chooses a player at night and silences them from speaking in the following day phase
• This role can be town-aligned but that would be pretty weird

Simple -

• Active
• The user chooses a player and modifies their action to make it fail on roles that aren’t Vanilla or Mafia Goon

Singer -

• Passive
• Upon being night killed, the Singer will reveal a random town role to the mafia

Strengthener -

• Active
• The user chooses a player each night to prevent their action from being blocked, redirected or protected against(as in stopped by a Doctor, Bulletproof, or Alarmist)
• This role, however, cannot affect the Commuter

Strong-Willed -

• Passive
• The user’s abilities cannot be roleblocked or redirected

Strongman -

• Passive
• The user’s killing action cannot be blocked in any shape or form. Not by a Doctor, Bulletproof, Roleblocker etc.
• However, it can’t kill a Commuted target or the Hider
• Usually scum-aligned and x-shot. Can appear on a Vigilante, in that case, it will be called a Juggernaut instead of Vigilante

Suicidal -

• Passive
• The user commits suicide when a time-based trigger occurs

Suicide Bomber -

• Passive
• The user may kill another player during the day while also killing themselves
• A town-aligned Suicide Bomber is called a Kamikaze

Switch -

• Active
• The user may choose whether or not to disable or enable a certain role
• For example: a Doctor Switch can choose to enable the Doctor’s action, allowing it to work for a given night. Otherwise, the Doctor’s action will fail
• If the Switch dies, the given role will be considered enabled for the remainder of the game

The Flying Pumpkin That Shoots Laser Beams Out Of Its Ass -

• Passive
• Troll role, given just for fun

The Oracle -

• Active
• The user chooses 2 targets. The secondary target will receive a dream that reveals the alignment of the primary target. The Oracle may not choose themselves

Thief -

• Active
• The user steals an item from another player’s role. They are told what they stole(like a musical instrument from a musician for example)
• Essentially, the Thief is a Flavor Cop

Tracker -

• Active
• The user tracks another player allowing them to find out who they visited

Traffic Analyst -

• Active
• The user chooses a player and checks to see if they can privately communicate with other players outside the game thread

Traitor -

• Passive
• The user is a member of the Mafia who is not included into the private chat nor does he./she know the other mafiosies
• The Traitor does not have to actually betray their team. They still win with Mafia
• A variant of this role is the Mafia Spy. They show up as town to Cops but the Mafia can call them back at anytime, making them full members. They will lose their detection immunity

Tree Stump -

• Passive
• The user is considered for all intents and purposes dead. They may not vote, nor perform any action, just vote.

Universal Backup -

• Passive
• When the first power role in the game dies, the user will change into that role

Usurper -

• Passive
• The user wins the game if it outlives the Godfather
• Always mafia-aligned. The win condition is in addition to the normal mafia wincon, meaning they have to complete both in order to win. Basically, the user has to work on achieving the normal mafia wincon while trying to bus one of his/her buddies

Vampire -

• Passive
• The user starts out as a townie but upon being lynched or night killed, will be a member of the mafia instead of dying. But the Vampire may choose whether or not they’d like to be resurrected and on what night as well. If they choose to stay as dead then they will retain their town-alignment

Vanillaiser -

• Active
• The user targets a player and removes their power role, effectively turning them into a Vanilla Townie or Mafia Goon

Vengeful -

• Passive
• When lynched, the user is given the ability to kill and get revenge on another player
• This is usually town-aligned but can appear as mafia-aligned as well

Vigilante -

• Active
• The user may kill a player at night
• This is a pro-town role. The Mafia version of this is called Hitman

Virgin -

• Passive
• If the Virgin is night killed, all night kills the next night will fail. However, if the Virgin is visited by the Prostitute/Hooker, then they will lose this ability

Vote Thief -

• Active
• The user may target another player during the day or night and steal their vote power for themselves

Voteless -

• Passive
• The user isn’t allowed to vote

Vote Locker -

• Active
• The user targets a player and locks their vote for the following day phase, preventing the player from unvoting or changing their vote

Voyeur -

• Active
• The user investigates a player and learns what type of action happened to them that night, but not who did it.

Watcher -

• Active
• The user investigates another player and learns the names of those who visited the player

Weak -

• Passive
• The user dies if they target a mafia-aligned player
• This is big drawback but the underlying side of it is that whoever the user targets and doesn’t die from is pretty much confirmed town. Essentially the user is automatically a Cop alongside their other role. So ironically, it is a strong role

X-Shot -

• Passive
• The user has a limited number of uses for their ability

Zombie Lord -

• Active
• This role is a variant of the Cult Leader
• The user may target a player to role block them. The user may also target a player to bite them and turn them into a Zombie. This bite fails on power roles

Do note that these roles aren’t set in stone. A host can modify these roles however they wish. They may combine two roles into one and it isn't necessary to use the role name in the PM with the players, if the game is themed.