Post Restriction

A post restriction can be an additional attribute of the role assigned by the moderator to a player. A post restriction requires the player to post in a certain way. Some examples of post restrictions include the following: misspelling lots of words, talking like a robot, quoting other people's posts, using Star Wars references, not being able to post at all.

Some games, such as Post Restriction Mafia, use only post-restricted roles.

Post restricted roles

The following roles have abilities that involve posting during the day.

Post Restricted [insert rolename here]

Post restricted roles can only post a specific number of times in a day, or must post at least a specific number of times in a day, or have some kind of rule (Either by threat of modkill or to receive some bonus.) e.g. a clown that must use smileys which gave immunity from the serial killer.

Variations on this theme include things which the role can or cannot talk about, alliteration and the like. The bonus often involves combining this role with some other role, e.g. mafia that must talk with an American accent.

Or the classic abusive role of Shakespeare- You must post in iambic pentameter. Bleck.

Criticism

Most people don't like getting post restrictions in general, as they constitute one more way to hinder their communication, remember when posting, or just get modkilled for forgetting to follow it.

It is strongly recommended that severe post restrictions not be used for balance. Any reasonably clever player can find a way around their post restriction. For instance, suppose you had a Townie who knew who all the Mafia were but could not claim to know this or name the partners inthread. This Townie could instead (fake)claim DayCop and "investigate" every player except the Mafiosi. They're technically within the rules, but still used the full power of their broken role. Of course, the moderator could capriciously modkill someone who toes the line of saying too much, but there's no need to add bad moderation on top of bad setup design.

Games that do not allow roleclaims or nameclaims are similar in this regard.

One trope commonly associated with post-restricted roles is that they also hold stronger-than-average abilities (i.e. a Cop or Vig). However, these roles are not actually seen very often in practice. For this reason, many (but not all) players who appear to have post restrictions are scum faking them.