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Mailman
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A Mailman (or Courier or Messenger) is a role that can send a message to other players at Night, via the moderator.
Normal version
As their Night Choice, a Mailman chooses a message to send, and a player to send it to. At the end of the Night, the moderator will then send the message to the player in question.
Mailman messages should be formatted in such a way as to make it clear that the message is not mod-confirmed information. However, the author should not be confirmed by the moderator either (it's legal for a player to claim an identity in the message, but also to lie about their identity in the message).
Variations
A Mailman does not have to be anonymous. (Using the Loud modifier is one way to de-anonymise the Mailman, although it's possible that someone could be simultaneously targeted by a (quiet) Mailman and a Loud action from somebody else.)
Mailman is one of the few roles that can reasonably be used more than once per Night (or during the Day) without unbalancing a setup, as the ability to send messages has diminishing returns. Thus, variants have been seen that aren't limited by the normal rules for action timing.
A Modposter is a variant of this that can send posts to the moderator, who will publicly post them for all to see. Compare Reporter.
Use & Balance
If the communication aspect is utilized to its fullest, this role can be conditionally considered a fair bit weaker than Neighborizer. Since the power of Neighborizer itself is dependent on the player's skill, a Mailman's value is even more dependent on the player's skill or the value of the information the player has at its disposal.
With inexperienced players or if you fear confusion, making a Mailman Announcing is a good idea, because it serves as an unambiguous way to clarify the mechanism via which the message was sent.
Play Advice
In town hands, this role is most useful for co-ordinating night actions in a way where the Mafia can't see them. That said, you'll either need to be using one of them yourself, or in communication with someone who is, because co-ordinating one action is not very useful.
Mafia can use such a role to attempt to spread WIFOM, or just confuse the other players. In theory, this strategy should be pointless, but it has occasionally produced results in practice. Pick someone to send the message to that's likely to overestimate its importance; you may want to consider lying about your identity in the message, rather than sending it anonymously.
Sample Role PMs
The standardized Role PM for "Mailman" describes the action as follows:
- As a targeted action:
the moderator will anonymously send that player a message of your choice (specified when you submit this action).(edit)
Example (simplest form)
Welcome to game! You are a Town Mailman.
You have the following active ability:
- Each Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, the moderator will anonymously send that player a message of your choice (specified when you submit this action).
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 Mailman.
You have the following active ability:
- Once in the game at Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, the moderator will anonymously send that player a message of your choice (specified when you submit this action). 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.
See also
On the topic of its origin, Mr. Flay has stated:
"Mailman goes back to 2003, and AniX claims to have invented it. Dranko used it in 2005 in a Large Normal as if it were a "standard role, standard rules", but never explained what it did. Skruffs used it as flavor for an Insane Cop in 2005, but that seems to be an outlier. AniX's 2003 quote seems persuasive to me, and gslamm's usage."