Reporter

Reporter Aliases: Motion Detector Cowardly Reporter Alignment: any Role type: Investigative Communicative Choice: Night

Reporter is a name that has been given to four completely different roles, none of which took off.

If you were redirected here from Cowardly Reporter, see Variant 2.

Reporter nowadays will likely be used for a role that is an easily confounded variation of a Tracker - they only learn if someone has acted or not, like the first half of the Motion Detector.

Variant 1

A Reporter can check a player's house to find out if they are home. Anyone doing something during the night is not home, so they get a positive result if they do not target anyone and are not targeted by anyone, and a negative result otherwise.

This is a highly specific and easily confounded variation on Tracker or Watcher. It does not necessarily need to be either alignment.

This variant is more commonly known as a Motion Detector.

Variant 2

A Cowardly Reporter is a variation on Variant 1. At Night, it can either choose to investigate a player like Variant 1, or it can hide in the newsroom (functioning as a Commuter) for that Night. Due to the potential for hiding to be a dominant strategy, the ability to hide is usually restricted via Even/Odd Night or Non-Consecutive Night modifiers.

Despite the terminology this role has nothing to do with Hider.

As the above would imply, this variant is stronger than Variant 1 due to having access to the Commuter ability.

Variant 3

A Reporter can be responsible for posting some of the flavor in mod scenes while they are alive, often in newspaper style. This sometimes means they receive the details of who dies overNight and what other relevant details should be included in the mod scene in advance.

This role is usually just an interesting way to add a flavorful role to the game. It does not necessarily need to be either alignment. However, this version of the Reporter may also be given a power role like Role Cop to aid in making what it reports relevant.

Variant 4

A Reporter can be a self-aligned player who wins when all power roles in the game are dead (regardless of their alignment), at which time it leaves the game. To give it a chance of fulfilling such a Win Condition, the Reporter's Night Action is that of a Role Cop, and it can anonymously publish messages at will through the mod.

This incarnation of Reporter is not intended for role madness games, as it does not have a factional kill and thus has no real way of directly killing power roles.