Hider

Hider Alias: none Alignment: Pro-town Role type: Protective Informative Choice: Night

The name "Hider" describes a set of closely related roles. Each of them are active roles in which the user flavourfully "hides behind" the target of their night choice, typically making the user less vulnerable to actions used directly on them, but more vulnerable to their target and people attacking their target. However, the details vary by version.

Normal Guidelines

The Normal version of the Hider is one of the simplest: the Hider, when they use their ability, cannot be killed by actions targeted at them; however, if their target dies as a result of an active killing action (e.g. a factional kill or Vigilante shot), the Hider will also die. The role is effectively a Babysitter in reverse (and thus sometimes called "inverse Babysitter" to distinguish it from other Hider variants).

As usual with Normals, modifiers can be attached to the role to make it into related roles; the first variant listed below is a Weak Hider.

Variations

It is very common for a Hider to die if they attempt to hide behind scum (presumably, the Mafia or Werewolf being hidden behind takes issue with it and kills the Hider). Many players will take this for granted upon seeing the role name "Hider", but in a Normal game, a modifier must be used to clarify this point.

Some moderators treat kills performed on a Hider's target as being copied onto the Hider, rather than having the Hider's death trigger off the death of the hidee. This would change the result if, e.g., a Doctor was targeting the hidee directly (the variant Hider would die in that situation, whereas a Normal Hider would survive).

Some moderators cause hiding to apply to things other than kills. This commonly happens defensively; instead of being Bulletproof against direct actions while hiding, the Hider would be treated as a Commuter for direct actions. When treating actions as being copied (as in the previous variation), actions other than kills might also be copied; so the Doctor would now protect both targets, but a Cop would (perhaps unexpectedly) get two results. This variant is often difficult to moderate as some interactions can be hard to resolve sensibly; a Roleblocker on the Hider's target would block the Hider if and only if it didn't block the Hider, which doesn't make much sense.

It is easy to accidentally misword a role PM so that it implies that the Hider will die if their target dies due to, e.g., being Suicidal or targeting a Paranoid Gun Owner, rather than due to being targeted for a kill. This could be considered a variant of Hider in its own right, even though most moderators tend to avoid this for flavour reasons.

Use and Power

The Weak variants of Hider are fairly powerful investigative roles due to their ability to investigate and self-protect at the same time. The Mafia can deal with most claimed investigative roles using their factional kill, but a Normal Hider typically requires the use of a power role to stop (and for some abNormal variants, even that may not be enough). Note that your choice of target is somewhat constrained: Weak investigations are often more useful finding town than finding scum – especially as the latter leads to ambiguous results – and you definitely want to avoid hiding behind someone that the scum could plausibly decide to nightkill. A Weak Hider is probably about on par with a Cop; although they have several disadvantages, they also have several unique advantages. Perhaps a good way to think about it is that a Cop is powerful but vulnerable, whereas a Hider is a bit less powerful but a bit less vulnerable.

A pure Normal Hider is, perhaps paradoxically, a substantially weaker role than the Weak variants. The best you're likely to be able to do is to treat it as a slightly imperfect form of Bulletproof by hiding behind players who are unlikely to be killed; the scummiest-looking player is likely the best choice, unless there's the possibility of a Vigilante in the game, in which case dodging both kills may be difficult.

Play Advice

If you have investigative ability (e.g. via a Weak modifier), it's normally a good idea to try to draw the kill via claiming the fact that you can investigate (especially if you're playing a Hider variant that can dodge a Roleblocker shot aimed directly at it), whilst hiding the self-protective parts of the role; note that you should do this in a circumstance in which it would be plausible for a Cop (or whatever) to claim, because being disbelieved due to an implausible claim timing would be fairly bad. This allows you to effectively investigate and protect the Mafia's second choice nightkill target at the same time.