Weak

Weak is a role modifier that causes the player to die if targeting a mafia-aligned or otherwise anti-Town player. While this seems like an obvious drawback, this inherently makes all Weak roles investigative abilities with power akin to Cops - if a Weak role survives targeting a player, that player is confirmed Town.

It is common wisdom that if a Weak role dies in the Night in addition to the normal number of killed players, the Weak role targeted scum. However, it is not easy to determine who the Weak role targeted that Night, especially as scum favor killing claimed Weak roles specifically to obscure their last "result".

Some roles commonly given the Weak modifier include:

• Cop (in this case, the Cop aspect is redundant)
• Doctor (see Weak Doctor)
• Tracker
• Vigilante (note that if the Vigilante shoots scum, both the scum and the Vigilante die)

Note that if a Weak action is blocked, the majority of moderators rule this as blocking the Weak part of the role too, and thus the Weak role user can survive targeting an anti-Town player in this situation. (This resolution of the situation is required in a Normal game.)

Variants

Some mods have the Weak modifier apply if the target appears as anti-Town, instead of if the target is anti-Town, so targeting a Miller would result in death while targeting a Godfather would not.

Normal Guidelines

This role modifier is considered Normal on mafiascum.net. It should only be used on active abilities. A Weak role dies upon targeting anyone without a pro-Town wincon (this includes Mafia Godfather and Serial Killer, but not Town Miller), unless their action is blocked by, e.g., a Roleblocker or Ascetic. If a Weak role dies, its actions still occur (e.g., a Weak Neighborizer would still add scum to its neighborhood if it dies). Unless it would otherwise receive a "no result", a Weak role should not be told if it was blocked or targeted an Ascetic role.

Play Advice

Weak roles play similarly to Hiders, but are simpler to moderate and understand. (They are a little less powerful, because they do not become effectively Bulletproof against kills aimed directly at them the way Hiders do; in particular, a Weak role should never claim if they can help it, whereas a Hider can profitably claim an investigative role.) It is considered standard practice to, while unclaimed, breadcrumb your targets in a way that will be found after your death by someone looking for it, but not be noticed by someone who has not been tipped off by your flip. (And on the other side of that: if you see someone flip with a Weak role, look at their last few posts to see if you can find a breadcrumbed target.)

Although dying and finding an anti-town player is nearly always worth it (unless it causes you to lose the game due to insufficient town numbers in of itself), note that (in a game with only one player/faction that kills) if there were an odd number of players at the start of the previous Day, this will cost the town a mislim. Protective roles like a Doctor are thus much more valuable when there is a Weak role in the setup; although they do not help when protecting the Weak role itself, they only have to stop a kill once, rather than the usual twice, to regain the lost mislim.