Tracker

Tracker Aliases: none Wolfstalker Alignment: Pro-town Role type: Informative Choice: Night

Tracker Aliases: Wolfstalker Scout Alignment: Anti-town Role type: Informative Choice: Night

The Tracker is an informative role that can target a player at Night and learn who, if anybody, that player targeted the same night (but not the action the player performed). If that player did not target anyone, the Tracker receives a result of "did not target anyone" or similar.

Trackers have been seen as each alignment.

Variations

Some moderators return no result when the Tracker's target does not go anywhere at Night; this is indistinguishable from the message that would be received if the Tracker was Roleblocked. However, this is not Normal and tends to be seen in role madness games as a means of introducing more confusion.

The Tracker has very few variants; however, there are many related Roles:

• The Tracker learns who a player targeted, but not what action that player performed.
• The Follower learns what action a player performed, but not who that player targeted.
• The Watcher learns who targeted a player, but not what actions were performed on them.
• The Voyeur learns what actions were performed on a player, but not who targeted them.
• The Motion Detector learns if any actions were performed by or on a player, but not what they were, or who else was involved.

In Two-fold C9 the Wolfstalker is a variation which can only track Werewolves and Town players with the Tracker only capable of tracking Mafia and Town Members.

Normal Guidelines

A Tracker that learns who a player targeted during the night is considered Normal on mafiascum.net. If a Tracker is somehow blocked from their action (by Roleblocker, Jailkeeper, Rolestopper, Ascetic, or Commuter), they should receive a "No Result" pm, rather than a "did not see anything" pm. A Tracker would not see a Ninja committing a kill, however, and would receive a "did not see anything" pm in that case.

Use and Balance

A Tracker is a weaker investigative role than a Cop. Whereas a Cop can tell if someone is a member of the Mafia (unless they're a Godfather), the Tracker can only tell if someone visited the person who died on the Night they were being tracked.

This opens up two possibilities for error:

• They may investigate a member of the Mafia, but on a Night that another Mafia member performs the kill
• They they investigate another Power Role who coincidentally also visited the player who died that Night

On the other hand, a Tracker can learn whether someone is a Power Role by whether or not they visit someone, and can occasionally use their reports to circumstantially clear someone (if they tracked Player X and found they visited Player Y, if Player X later flips as a Mafia Roleblocker, it is a good bet that Player Y is not a member of the Mafia).

Play Advice

If you track someone and find that they visit, you know they are a Power Role of some sort. Try to figure out based on who they visited if they are a protective role, an investigative role, or an anti-Town role.

If you track someone to a player who died that same Night, try to get a claim out of your target before revealing that you are a Tracker.

In games that have sparse power roles, some players believe that getting a negative result ("saw nothing") on someone makes them more likely to be Town, as you know the scum performed a Night-kill and thus the pool of players who you would have gotten No Result on is slanted toward Town. This becomes much more useful when there's only one Mafia member left; if the Mafia don't no-kill (which is usually obvious), a player who didn't act must belong to a different faction.

Sample Role PM

• Welcome, [Player Name], you are a Town Tracker.

Abilities:

• Each night, you may investigate one player in the game and you will discover which player they targeted (if any).

Win condition:

• You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated and there is at least one town player alive.