Neighbor

Neighbor Alias: Mason Alignment: any Role type: Linked Passive Informative Choice: none

Neighbors are players that can speak to each other. Unlike Masons, there is no guarantee made of any Neighbor's alignment. It is up to the moderator's discretion whether they can only speak to each other at night, or at day as well.

Neighbors, regardless of when they are allowed to speak to each other, are considered Normal on mafiascum.net. In addition, Neighbor can also be considered a modifier under Normal rules, so that it may be combined with other power roles.

See also Neighborizer. In addition, Neighbors have been known to possess other power roles, or even have powers that belong to the group as a whole (though the latter is generally reserved for themed games).

Use and Power

Neighbors are essentially unconfirmed Masons where the moderator honestly acknowledges no expectation of one Neighbor having the same alignment as any other Neighbor. In an ideal world, the alignment of any Neighbor would be as random as the alignment of the player itself. In practice - and especially in Themed games - Neighbor is seen as an excuse to mix scum Neighbors where they would have been called bastard for doing so with a Masonry. An excuse originally coined by PokerFace

To that end, the real power of Neighbors comes from their ability to speak to each other. Scum players, particularly those that do not like playing as scum, will not be able to maintain a pro-Town appearance for very long if engaged in dialogue like if they were a Mason. Thus, in the hands of skilled players a Neighborhood can function either as a Masonry (if both players are town) or a directed Cop investigation (if one is not town). In the hands of unskilled players, Neighbors are virtually useless.

Thus, Neighbor is a fairly low-tier power role that amplifies the skill of its players. This does not mean that you can stuff a game with them while thinking "if the Neighbors deduce that they are all town, they will begin to act like Masons." That likly will not happen especially since Masons are quite powerful in contrast.

Play Advice

If you are one of three Neighbors, chances are reasonable that one of the other Neighbors is scum.

If you are one of four Neighbors, chances are very good that at least one of the other Neighbors is scum.

If there are multiple Neighborhoods in the same game, chances are very good that at least one of them has a scum Neighbor.

If you are one of more than four Neighbors, it is nearly certain that at least one representative of every anti-town faction is in the Neighborhood.