Vi's Unique Roles

This page is intended as a companion to Vi's chronicle of modded games.
They're not popular or general enough to warrant a separate page, so I'm putting them all here for easy reference. Of course, if you have an excuse to use one or two of these roles, have fun!

Note that I'm not going to bother with the games that have a ton of unique roles based around unique mechanics, particularly Mafia at the 11^th Hour, Mafia Holographica, and Mafia MetaMafia. You should just read those on your own.

Mafia ViPod

Mentor

Original flavor: Tarhalindur, Cthulhu over Mafia (Haruhist Cult aligned); Michael Jackson (Zombie Cult Aligned)

This role already has a page. In brief, it was designed to be a balanced Cult, although one of these could be of any alignment.

At Night one of two actions is available to the Mentor: If the Mentor does not have a Mentee (recruit), the Mentor can recruit one. If the Mentor DOES have a Mentee, they share a night-kill (like their own Mafia). If the Mentor dies, the Mentee automatically commits suicide.

A Town Mentor is a weaker version of a very enjoyable - but very powerful - role combination: Mason+Vig. In addition, if used on scum it forces a "hostage" situation where the scum cannot kill the Mentor without sacrificing one of their own.

A Mafia Mentor and Independent Mentor works the same way, but in reverse - even if the Mentee realizes that their Mentor is not Town-aligned, they would have to sacrifice themselves to kill them.

A Cult Mentor is more like the Mason+Vig concept, except that upon recruitment the Mentee gains the Mentor's Win Condition, becoming a miniature scumgroup.

This is not a role to bring out in games where the players' competence is not guaranteed. (Can you imagine being forced to keep a VI alive, especially as your Win Condition?) On the other hand, the bussing and distancing generated from a Mentor-Mentee relationship are all kinds of fun to watch.

Mafia of Order - Game-specific

Setup note: This game placed a cap on the number of posts each player could make. A cap was also placed on the number of words per post. Most of the time games like this end with people lurking to avoid wasting posts. If you want to run a game with these mechanics, please review what I did in this game, noticing that I set the limit for how many posts each player could make fairly high. These roles should be applicable to any other conservation-based mechanic as well though.

Sacrificer

Original flavor: Micaiah

A player who can target a player at Night to raise their post cap by however much they like. Their own cap will go down by that much to compensate. This player should start with a high post cap for obvious reasons.

Cap-Immune

Original flavor: Shinon

A player that is not affected by any and all of the game's post restrictions. This one is self-explanatory.

Post Fountain

Original flavor: Rafiel

A player that passively adds 7 to each player's post cap each Night. Because this role can be vastly overrated, you should ensure that this player's flavor is not obviously Town.

Mafia of Order - General

Neighborizer

Original flavor: Bastian
Seen again: Nitori Kawashiro; Border of Touhou and Mafia
Seen again: Dark Eminence; Mafia Reverberation

Another name for a Mason Recruiter. However, as Masons are generally assumed to be Town (if not expected to be Town), Neighborizer is a better term for it. Essentially, this player can target a player to open communication with them. When they can target this player, how many players they can target over the course of the game, and how long they can communicate for is entirely up to the moderator - but it should not be too often.

I seem to be the only person who thinks this is a really useful power role =(
(Full disclosure: None of my Neighborizers have lived beyond Night 1 so far. But theoretically, it's amazing. Please use it.)

Seraph Knight

Original flavor: Tanith

A protective role where the player prevents all factional or active abilities used by anti-Town players toward their target. The player may be able to choose their target or may have a target assigned to them, but cannot switch targets once they are assigned.

This is a very strong role even with the restriction on changing targets. Do not include one of these unless there is a lot of anti-Town power to combat.

The name for this role is held over from the original game's flavor, but as "Seraph Knight" sounds much cooler than "Guardian" or "Ward" I would rather it stayed as it is.

Mafia Saboteur

Original flavor: Tarhalindur, Bastard Operator over Mafia

A Mafia Traitor and JOAT at the same time. The Traitor role is intended to sway the game toward the Mafia without the Mafia's direct awareness of what's going on. The JOAT aspect amplifies this effect, making it as or possibly more powerful as a normal Mafioso. This is best used in a game where the formal Mafia is not powerful by itself.

As the Traitor JOAT's role is designed to sway the game toward the Mafia without revealing itself, most of the good ideas for what the Saboteur can do are cosmetic, designed to lead discussion away from scumhunting.

Mafia of Order ability list (JOAT from Hell):

• Roleblock a player. This ability persists until you die.
• Role Cop a player to learn their full role title.
• Delete all existing posts of one player.
• Restrict a player to 200 words per post. This ability persists until you die.

Border of Touhou and Mafia

Ambiguous Godfather

Original flavor: Koishi Komeiji

Have you ever wondered as a Mafia Godfather whether you are kill-immune or investigation-immune? This one can choose to be one or the other at Night!

Note that this role does not necessarily have to imply that there are non-Mafia killing or investigative roles in the game.

False Inventor

Original flavor: Kaguya Houraisan

An Inventor; that is, a role that can give abilities away... but they don't do anything. This is a bastard role to be sure, and only intended for scum. Aside from making people look bad, the primary purpose of this role is to act as a pseudo-Roleblocker by convincing the recipient of the false invention to use it instead of any other abilities they may have. This works best when there are actual Inventors in the game, as the False Inventor can instill distrust in the real inventions and thus make people less inclined to use them.

Only false active abilities should be distributed by this role. False passive abilities or false win conditions can lead to player-made bastardry far beyond what the moderator may like.

Action Determinant

Original flavor: Sakuya Izayoi

Another modified Roleblocker. This one doesn't block its target's ability outright, but instead chooses to delay it by one Day or redirect it to someone else. If an investigative role's ability is delayed, it will return No Result that Night.

Inverse Lyncher

Original flavor: Suika Ibuki

Whereas a Lyncher's goal is to kill another player, an Inverse Lyncher's goal is to keep another player (or set of players) alive. It would be nice if you gave someone with this role some kind of ability that would help them do this.

Please let the Inverse Lyncher choose their targets pregame. Selecting them at random can lead to bad things happening, not the least of which is their targets dying through no fault of the I. Lyncher's own (via the Mafia night-kill or just being a VI).

Lightning Rod

Original flavor: Tarhalindur, Megumi Kitaniji over Mafia

A role that passively redirects all abilities that target anyone of the same faction as the Lightning Rod toward itself. Generally not a pleasant role to have as Town, as it effectively disables the Night game until it is dead and killing it could and possibly should be seen as pro-Town. As a scum role it's much more effective, but DO NOT reveal the role as a Lightning Rod on death. If a scumpartner is targeted by a kill and it is redirected to the Lightning Rod, as soon as it is revealed that the dead scum was a Lightning Rod there will be an obvious connection to make between the person targeted by the kill and the dead scum.

Role Thief

Original flavor: Marisa Kirisame

Whereas an ordinary Thief is a flavor Cop, a Role Thief in this game steals Inventions before the original recipient knows they got one. Whether you tell the Role Thief what kind of invention they stole is up to you.

I'm sure you can think of another possible interpretation of "Role Thief", but it should have a cooler name.

Mafia Reverberation

Modposter

Original flavor: Various

A role that can submit an (optionally anonymous) message through the moderator. Aside from freaking people out in Theme games, one good use for this ability is to proclaim information from investigative abilities without outing oneself.

Being able to post through the mod is almost never a role's ONLY ability (at least, as Town), so this can be better thought of as an ability label than a complete power role.
Further, this is hardly an original role - it has been used several times before in Theme games; often on independent or pseudo-independent roles - but it isn't anywhere else on the wiki, so it landed here.

Ward

Original flavor: Various

A role that selects two targets; all actions targeting the first target instead target the second target. Another name for this would be One-Way Driver.

Again, not an original role, but one that's not seen often enough to warrant its own page.

Moychendiser

Original flavor: None

A twist on the Inventor role. This player can hand out moychendise (flavor items) each Night and wins when everyone in the game is in possession of an item. Thus, this player has to predict who will survive to the end of the game. If a player is in the possession of moychendise at the time of its death, the moychendise will be included in the flip, thus alerting the other players to this role's presence.

This is, again, not an original role. However, this variant comes with a few interesting deviations. One, having the ability to give out moychendise does not necessarily imply that that player is a Moychendiser (but instead more of a weaker Inventor). Two, some of the flavor items may come with ingame abilities (like Inventions), although many do not. The Moychendiser would have to consider which of its items may have added effects before giving them away.

Mafia on Holy Orders

Seraph

Original flavor: None for one, the other was Tarhalindur, Emperor Dogbert over Mafia

A twist on the Inventor role. Seraphs actually stay outside the game, unable to post or vote normally. However, they are able to influence the game via various mod powers - for instance, they can use flavor to express approval or disapproval of a post or player, they can grant power roles to players, and they can even do things like extend the deadline. This is moderated by attaching a price tag to each power (flavored "Holy Order") and establishing a means by which the Seraph can earn points they can spend on these Orders. Thus, Mafia meets economics.

In Mafia on Holy Orders, there are actually two Seraph slots - one working for Town, and one working for scum. Because they have different goals and different teams working for them, they have different Holy Orders and slightly different mechanics working for them.

Because to many people being a Seraph doesn't involve "playing the game", it's important that the person chosen to be Seraph is fine with both the responsibility and the inability to directly influence the game. In addition, ensuring a sound economic system to moderate their abilities is crucial as well. It may be easier to simply point the interested reader to the game itself to show how I made it work.