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(although unusual, a third party Cop makes a lot of sense (at least if Multitasking), to help them figure out who they should be killing)
 
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{{role
{{RolePage
|alias= Seer
| Image = T-cop.png
|alias2= Angel
| Align = Town
|align= Pro-town
| Align2 = Third-party
|type= Informative
| Alias = Sheriff | Alias2 = Detective
|choice= Night
| Type = Investigative
}}
| Choice = Night
{{TOCright}}
| Normal = Yes
The '''Cop''' is a role that has the ability to investigate other players in order to discern their alignment at Night.  Players who are investigated are not told as much.


This version of the Cop, and only this version of the Cop, is considered [[Normal]] on mafiascum.net.
| Box2 = Yes
| Box2Name = Seer | Box2Image = T-seer.png | Box2Align = Town | Box2Align2 = Third-party | Box2Type = Investigative | Box2Choice = Night | Box2Normal = Yes


In games with [[werewolf|werewolves]], a cop who can only detect werewolves is commonly called a '''Seer'''.
| Introduction = A '''Cop''' (or in Werewolf flavour, '''Seer''') is a role that has the ability to investigate players at Night to discern their alignment.
| Standard = The standard, Normal, variation of a Cop can investigate one player each Night; the target is not informed of the investigation. This Cop variant will return results of the form "Town" or "Not Town" (regardless of whether it is named "Cop" or "Seer"; both names are acceptable in a Normal); it cannot distinguish between players who belong to different anti-town and third-party factions.


True Cops are virtually useless for Mafiosi, as they already know who is in their faction (it is much more common for Mafia to have a [[Role Cop]]). However, it may still be of value to Mafia if there are multiple scum factions.
The results will be "reliable", i.e. guaranteed to be accurate unless some other player's [[power role]] interferes with the investigation. If the action is blocked entirely (e.g. by a [[Roleblocker]] or due to investigating an [[Ascetic]] player), the Cop will get a [[no result]] PM (which is distinct from the "Town" and "Not Town" results). However, some roles which interfere with Cop results (such as [[Miller]]) will outright produce misleading results (e.g. a Cop will get a "Not Town" result on a Town Miller); interference from a [[:Category:Deceptive roles|deceptive role]] is the ''only'' way in which the standard variant of a Cop can produce incorrect or misleading results.
| Variations = Non-Town players rarely have much use for a Cop, but in [[multiball]] games, it may be useful to find members of the opposing [[groupscum]] faction, and when there is a [[Traitor]], it may be useful to find members of your own faction.


==Sanities==
A very common variation is for a Cop to check to see if a player is a member of one specific anti-town faction, typically the [[Mafia]], rather than checking whether a player is Town-aligned. When checking for a specific faction other than Town or Mafia, the role is normally renamed; "Seer" when checking for [[Werewolf|Werewolves]], "[[FBI Agent]]" when checking for [[Serial Killer]]s or for [[third-party|third-parties]] in general. Slightly less common is a '''Faction Cop''', who learns its target's exact [[faction]] or [[win condition]] rather than simply getting a yes/no answer. Alternatively, some moderators give vague "guilty/not guilty" results, where Town are always "not guilty" and Werewolves and Mafia are always "guilty", but where the reply for third-party roles is unknown.
Since the ability to uncover guilt or innocence regardless of analysis of play is a very powerful ability, some moderators dampen the cop's ability through the use of sanities - alterations to the accuracy of the investigation results. While many moderators are opposed to the use of these sanities, nonetheless Cop is the '''only role''' where it is firmly established through tradition and meta that their results are not guaranteed to be accurate, and if a Cop is not told that it is Sane it is assumed that any of these sanities may apply. Note, however, that non-Sane Cops are rare in smaller games as there is relatively little time for the Cop to deduce its sanity, thus turning results into a useless crapshoot. Sanity may or may not be revealed upon death, according to the mod's discretion.


* '''Sane Cop''': Always gets correct results (i.e. "{{color|dred|guilty}}" for anti-Town roles and "{{color|green|innocent}}" for pro-Town roles)
Historically, as a form of weakening the role, it was very common for Cops to be a '''Cop of unknown reliability''', a Cop possessing a [[Hidden]] aspect to their role that affected their results as follows:
* '''Insane Cop''': Always gets incorrect results (i.e. "{{color|dred|guilty}}" for pro-Town roles and "{{color|green|innocent}}" for anti-Town roles)
; Reliable Cop
: ''Once the player realizes they are insane, they can generally produce effective results by reporting the opposite of what they discover.''
: Results are accurate (unless another player's power role interferes with them).
* '''Paranoid Cop''': Always gets "{{color|dred|guilty}}" results
; Inverse Cop
: ''Once the Cop discovers their sanity, they may stop investigating, as all results are equally useless.''
: Results are the opposite of what they should be. (Once the player realizes they are Inverse, they can produce effective results by reporting the opposite of what they discover.)
* '''Naive Cop''': Always gets "{{color|green|innocent}}" results
; Cynical Cop
: ''This may be the most common variant sanity used, as it masks Scum even if the Cop dies early.''
: Sees everyone as non-town (or as a member of an anti-town faction). (Once the Cop discovers their reliability, they may stop investigating, as all results are equally useless.)
* '''Random Cop''': Gets a randomized result without regard to who is investigated
; Naive Cop
: ''This is a [[Bastard Mod|bastard]] role and almost never used.''
: Sees everyone as Town-aligned. (This variant was more common than the Cynical Cop, as its results were less disruptive.)
; Random Cop
: Results are randomized. (This variant was abandoned more quickly than the others, due to being considered [[Bastard Mod|bastard]].)
The name "Cop" would be used to describe all these roles interchangeably (and players who got a "Cop" PM might need to consider the potential that they might not be Reliable, although they usually ''were'' Reliable, especially in smaller games). Nowadays, non-Reliable Cops are rarely seen, Cops are assumed by most players to always be Reliable, and a moderator who wants to keep the possibility that a cop might not be Reliable will nearly always explicitly say "your reliability is not guaranteed" or "you are a Cop of unknown reliability" in the [[Role PM]]. Moderators differ on how non-Reliable cops interact with roles like [[Godfather]] that produce false results to Cops.


Moderators' judgment varies as to whether roles that falsify investigative results ([[Godfather]], [[Framer]], [[Miller]], et al.) affect non-Sane Cops or in which order passive investigation alteration and Cop sanity resolve.
Because the Cop is a very powerful role, it is frequently used together with a [[role modifier]] to reduce its power; in fact, some role modifiers, such as [[Macho]], started their life as a Cop variant before being generalised to other roles. Modifiers like [[X-Shot]] and [[Odd Night]] are also commonly used to temper its power. (Of course, sometimes a modifier can increase its power, as with the [[Day]] Cop.) Some modifiers that are still mostly specific to Cops exist:
* An '''Amnesiac Cop''' functions as a normal Cop, but does not receive the results of its investigations. Those investigation results are sent to another (unknown) player.  This has been commonly subverted by making the unknown recipient a Mafioso or a Serial Killer.
* A '''Publishing Cop''' functions as a normal Cop, but its results are presented anonymously by the moderator to the game as a whole.  This has been subverted by allowing the Mafia to publish fake results as if they were coming from a Publishing Cop. 
* A '''Methodical Cop''' is told that they are Reliable and provides the moderator with an ordered list of all the players when confirming their role. Each night, the cop will investigate the next living name on the list.


==Derivations==
The Cop has also inspired a large number of weaker variations (so many that it's probably best to look at the [[:Category:Investigative roles|list of investigative roles]] rather than write them all out), and roles intended specifically to confuse its results:
* A '''Daycop''' investigates players during the Day instead of the Night. Depending on the format of the game, they may receive their results immediately or at the end of the Day.  
;[[Godfather]]
:A Mafia role that looks, to a Cop, as though it were Town.
;[[Miller]]
:A Town role that looks, to a Cop, as though it were Mafia.
;[[Framer]], [[Lawyer]], [[Tailor]]
:Roles which, if targeted at the same target as a Cop, will cause it to produce results as though it had different reliability (Cynical, Naive, Inverse respectively).
| Use = Cops provide a way for a member of the Town to confirm someone as a certain alignment. A Cop that lives to Day 3 of a 13-player game can have up to two living investigation results; on top of knowing that it is itself innocent, that makes for three persuasively alignment-confirmed players in a situation where only nine players are alive. Unlike positive results from other investigative roles like [[Tracker]] and [[Watcher]], it is notoriously difficult to [[False Claim|fakeclaim one's way out of a Guilty result from a Cop]].  


* A '''[[Gunsmith]]''' investigates roles to determine if they have a gun in flavor or not.  Exactly which roles have guns in flavor is not standardized, but generally the list includes [[Vigilante]], [[Cop]], [[Gunsmith]], [[Paranoid Gun Owner]], and all members of the Mafia capable of performing the factional kill.  [[Serial Killer]] notably does ''not'' return a positive result to a Gunsmith.
Thus, Cops are very powerful as long as they are alive. Because (assuming there are no doubts about reliability) they receive unambiguous results that simplify decision-making, they can be used to prop up otherwise weak Towns. As a result, a multitude of roles designed to weaken or replace the Cop (including the reliabilities and derivations listed above) have come forth. If a game contains a full (unmodified) Cop, there will frequently be some counter role on the Mafia side to reduce its power; either something that gives inaccurate results, or a [[:Category:Manipulative roles|manipulative role]] that can be used to prevent it gaining results at all.


* An '''[[FBI Agent]]''' investigates if someone is or is not a [[Serial Killer]], but makes no distinction between Mafia or Town.
If a game contains both a full Cop and a full [[Doctor]], there will almost invariably be something in anti-town hands to temper the power of one role or the other, because otherwise the strategy of [[Follow the Cop]] is likely to take over the game. Alternatively, it is possible to break up this strategy with a modifier (such as [[Macho]] or [[Ascetic]] on the Cop, or [[Simple]] or [[Indecisive]] on the Doctor).


* A '''[[Role Cop]]''' (or [[Scout]]) investigates roles to determine their role title as it would appear in their flip (i.e. [[Cop]], [[Doctor]], [[Role Cop]], [[Vanilla]]). It does not discern alignment; [[Goon|Goons]] investigate as "Vanilla". While these can be Town, these are more known for being the Mafia's adaptation of the Cop role.  
| Advice = From least forgivable to most forgivable:
* Do not get eliminated Day 1 while trying to gambit.
* Do not investigate anyone who has claimed a role that you would not get a reliable result on (e.g. [[Miller]] or a third-party role).
* Do not prematurely claim, particularly Day 1.
* Do not investigate obviously Town players unless you are out of other options.
* Do not investigate players who are probably going to get eliminated the next Day unless you plan on claiming during the next Day anyway.
* Do not look so scummy before you claim that people will not believe you when you ''do'' claim.


* A '''Macho Cop''' is one such that all protective actions fail when made on it.  This role is the source of the [[Macho]] modifier.
It is generally best to investigate players you have null reads on, and let the Day game sort out the players that are very scummy or very Townish.}}
 
* An '''Amnesiac Cop''' functions as a normal Cop, but does not receive the results of its investigations.  Those investigation results are sent to another (unknown) player.  The subversion of this unknown player being a Mafioso or a Serial Killer has been done to death.
 
* A '''Methodical Cop''' is told that they are sane and provides the moderator with an ordered list of all the players when confirming their role. Each night, the cop will investigate the next living name on the list.
 
==Variations==
The exact wording of the Cop's result is not standardized, with the following options being most common.
 
*Mafia/Not Mafia - This only checks if the target is Mafia-aligned.  Serial Killers or other third-party members thus have implicit investigation immunity.
 
*Town/Not Town - To contrast, all third-party players will return an alarming result, even if they are benign in practice (i.e. [[Survivor]]).
 
*Guilty/Not Guilty - This splits the line between the two.  The moderator will decide in advance which third-party roles are considered "guilty".
 
==Use and Power==
Cops are, quite simply, an easy-to-use and powerful role for the Town.  A Cop that lives to Day 3 of a 13-player game can have up to two living investigation results; on top of knowing that it is itself innocent, that makes for three very persuasively alignment-confirmed players in a situation where only nine players are alive.
 
Unlike positive results from other investigative roles like [[Tracker]] and [[Watcher]], it is implausibly difficult to fakeclaim one's way out of a Guilty result from a Cop.  Any targeting role can be made up as a fakeclaim to explain away suspicious Tracker/Watcher results, but [[Chainsaw_Defense_%28old%29|conveniently timed Miller claims are not believable]].  Thus, scum who are caught by a Cop are inevitably doomed without any recourse, though they can buy a Day by arguing that the Cop is fakeclaiming in some cases.
 
On the other hand, receiving Not Guilty results as a Cop can be even more powerful.  A group of players who are confirmed Town without scum's knowledge that are only revealed late in the game can spell disaster for an entire scum team as they get winnowed away via process of elimination.  One benefit to this approach is that there is considerably less pressure for a Cop to claim early if they do not get a Guilty result.
 
Thus, Cops are very powerful as long as they are alive.  Because they receive clear results that simplify decision-making, they can be used to prop up otherwise weak Towns.  In fact, the infamous breaking strategy of [[Follow the Cop]] relies on using an outed Cop and a hidden Doctor (or equivalent protective role) to sort the game out with relative impunity.
 
As a result, a multitude of roles designed to weaken or replace the Cop (including the sanities and derivations listed above) have come forth.  Games that include a Cop may have at least one of these; games that include a Cop and a Doctor almost certainly have at least one of these.
 
*[[Framer]] or Tailor - A role that can target a player each Night; if the Cop investigates the Framer's target, they will get an incorrect result.
 
*[[Godfather]] - A Mafia role that investigates as Not Guilty (or whatever would be least incriminating).
 
*[[Miller]] - A Town role that investigates as Guilty (or whatever would be most incriminating).
 
*[[Roleblocker]] - When given to the Mafia, this allows the scum to block the Cop's investigations, neutering the Follow the Cop strategy.
 
Another means of including a Cop but limiting its power is the [[X-Shot]] modifier.
 
==Play Advice==
In order from least forgivable to most forgivable:
*Do not get lynched Day 1 while trying to gambit.
*Do not prematurely claim, particularly Day 1.
*Do not investigate obviously Town players unless you are out of other options.
*Do not investigate players who are probably going to get lynched the next Day unless you plan on claiming during the next Day anyway.
*Do not look so scummy before you claim that people will not believe you when you DO claim.
 
It is generally best to investigate players you have null reads on, and let the Day game sort out the others.
 
[[Category:Normal Roles]]

Latest revision as of 03:51, 24 July 2022

Cop
T-cop.png
Aliases:
  • Sheriff
  • Detective
Alignment:
Role type:
  • Investigative
Choice:
  • Night
Seer
T-seer.png
Alias: none
Alignment:
Role type:
  • Investigative
Choice:
  • Night

A Cop (or in Werewolf flavour, Seer) is a role that has the ability to investigate players at Night to discern their alignment.

Normal version

The standard, Normal, variation of a Cop can investigate one player each Night; the target is not informed of the investigation. This Cop variant will return results of the form "Town" or "Not Town" (regardless of whether it is named "Cop" or "Seer"; both names are acceptable in a Normal); it cannot distinguish between players who belong to different anti-town and third-party factions.

The results will be "reliable", i.e. guaranteed to be accurate unless some other player's power role interferes with the investigation. If the action is blocked entirely (e.g. by a Roleblocker or due to investigating an Ascetic player), the Cop will get a no result PM (which is distinct from the "Town" and "Not Town" results). However, some roles which interfere with Cop results (such as Miller) will outright produce misleading results (e.g. a Cop will get a "Not Town" result on a Town Miller); interference from a deceptive role is the only way in which the standard variant of a Cop can produce incorrect or misleading results.

Variations

Non-Town players rarely have much use for a Cop, but in multiball games, it may be useful to find members of the opposing groupscum faction, and when there is a Traitor, it may be useful to find members of your own faction.

A very common variation is for a Cop to check to see if a player is a member of one specific anti-town faction, typically the Mafia, rather than checking whether a player is Town-aligned. When checking for a specific faction other than Town or Mafia, the role is normally renamed; "Seer" when checking for Werewolves, "FBI Agent" when checking for Serial Killers or for third-parties in general. Slightly less common is a Faction Cop, who learns its target's exact faction or win condition rather than simply getting a yes/no answer. Alternatively, some moderators give vague "guilty/not guilty" results, where Town are always "not guilty" and Werewolves and Mafia are always "guilty", but where the reply for third-party roles is unknown.

Historically, as a form of weakening the role, it was very common for Cops to be a Cop of unknown reliability, a Cop possessing a Hidden aspect to their role that affected their results as follows:

Reliable Cop
Results are accurate (unless another player's power role interferes with them).
Inverse Cop
Results are the opposite of what they should be. (Once the player realizes they are Inverse, they can produce effective results by reporting the opposite of what they discover.)
Cynical Cop
Sees everyone as non-town (or as a member of an anti-town faction). (Once the Cop discovers their reliability, they may stop investigating, as all results are equally useless.)
Naive Cop
Sees everyone as Town-aligned. (This variant was more common than the Cynical Cop, as its results were less disruptive.)
Random Cop
Results are randomized. (This variant was abandoned more quickly than the others, due to being considered bastard.)

The name "Cop" would be used to describe all these roles interchangeably (and players who got a "Cop" PM might need to consider the potential that they might not be Reliable, although they usually were Reliable, especially in smaller games). Nowadays, non-Reliable Cops are rarely seen, Cops are assumed by most players to always be Reliable, and a moderator who wants to keep the possibility that a cop might not be Reliable will nearly always explicitly say "your reliability is not guaranteed" or "you are a Cop of unknown reliability" in the Role PM. Moderators differ on how non-Reliable cops interact with roles like Godfather that produce false results to Cops.

Because the Cop is a very powerful role, it is frequently used together with a role modifier to reduce its power; in fact, some role modifiers, such as Macho, started their life as a Cop variant before being generalised to other roles. Modifiers like X-Shot and Odd Night are also commonly used to temper its power. (Of course, sometimes a modifier can increase its power, as with the Day Cop.) Some modifiers that are still mostly specific to Cops exist:

  • An Amnesiac Cop functions as a normal Cop, but does not receive the results of its investigations. Those investigation results are sent to another (unknown) player. This has been commonly subverted by making the unknown recipient a Mafioso or a Serial Killer.
  • A Publishing Cop functions as a normal Cop, but its results are presented anonymously by the moderator to the game as a whole. This has been subverted by allowing the Mafia to publish fake results as if they were coming from a Publishing Cop.
  • A Methodical Cop is told that they are Reliable and provides the moderator with an ordered list of all the players when confirming their role. Each night, the cop will investigate the next living name on the list.

The Cop has also inspired a large number of weaker variations (so many that it's probably best to look at the list of investigative roles rather than write them all out), and roles intended specifically to confuse its results:

Godfather
A Mafia role that looks, to a Cop, as though it were Town.
Miller
A Town role that looks, to a Cop, as though it were Mafia.
Framer, Lawyer, Tailor
Roles which, if targeted at the same target as a Cop, will cause it to produce results as though it had different reliability (Cynical, Naive, Inverse respectively).

Use & Balance

Cops provide a way for a member of the Town to confirm someone as a certain alignment. A Cop that lives to Day 3 of a 13-player game can have up to two living investigation results; on top of knowing that it is itself innocent, that makes for three persuasively alignment-confirmed players in a situation where only nine players are alive. Unlike positive results from other investigative roles like Tracker and Watcher, it is notoriously difficult to fakeclaim one's way out of a Guilty result from a Cop.

Thus, Cops are very powerful as long as they are alive. Because (assuming there are no doubts about reliability) they receive unambiguous results that simplify decision-making, they can be used to prop up otherwise weak Towns. As a result, a multitude of roles designed to weaken or replace the Cop (including the reliabilities and derivations listed above) have come forth. If a game contains a full (unmodified) Cop, there will frequently be some counter role on the Mafia side to reduce its power; either something that gives inaccurate results, or a manipulative role that can be used to prevent it gaining results at all.

If a game contains both a full Cop and a full Doctor, there will almost invariably be something in anti-town hands to temper the power of one role or the other, because otherwise the strategy of Follow the Cop is likely to take over the game. Alternatively, it is possible to break up this strategy with a modifier (such as Macho or Ascetic on the Cop, or Simple or Indecisive on the Doctor).

Play Advice

From least forgivable to most forgivable:

  • Do not get eliminated Day 1 while trying to gambit.
  • Do not investigate anyone who has claimed a role that you would not get a reliable result on (e.g. Miller or a third-party role).
  • Do not prematurely claim, particularly Day 1.
  • Do not investigate obviously Town players unless you are out of other options.
  • Do not investigate players who are probably going to get eliminated the next Day unless you plan on claiming during the next Day anyway.
  • Do not look so scummy before you claim that people will not believe you when you do claim.

It is generally best to investigate players you have null reads on, and let the Day game sort out the players that are very scummy or very Townish.

Sample Role PMs

The standardized Role PM for "Cop" describes the action as follows:

  • As a targeted action: you will learn whether that player wins with Town. (You will get "no result" if this action is blocked.) (edit)

Example (simplest form)

Welcome to game! You are a Town Cop.

You have the following active ability:

  • Each Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn whether that player wins with Town. (You will get "no result" if this action is blocked.)

You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Example (with modifiers)

Welcome to game! You are a Town 1-shot Loud Cop.

You have the following active ability:

  • Once in the game at Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn whether that player wins with Town. (You will get "no result" if this action is blocked.) Your target will learn that you targeted them (but not what action you targeted them with).

You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.