Townie

Townie Aliases: Citizen Townsperson Alignment: Pro-town Role type: not defined Choice: none

A Townie (also known as Citizen, Townsperson, Vanilla Townie, etc.) is one of the most basic roles in Mafia. By definition it is always a pro-town role and is meant to be a part of the uninformed majority lacking any factional abilities. During the Day, the townie may post and vote without any restrictions. During the Night they can't do anything except wait for Day to re-start.

Despite the simplicity of the role, it is one of the most dynamic and important to the game of mafia. Almost all other roles will do their best to try to play like they feel a townie should or does play. Of course, the strategy for how to play a townie will vary greatly according to each player. Some feel that a townie's chief duty is to actively scum-hunt, while others think that they should play in such a way as to attract night-kills (and thereby save power roles). There are also some who feel that receiving a vanilla townie gives them the freedom to try out various gambits that would otherwise attract too much unwanted attention if they were a power role or mafia.

See also: Antrax's Guide to Being a Good Townie

Variations

A Townie is by definition ordinary and powerless. Any alteration causes the role to become classed as a different role entirely.

• If a Townie is given a unique name, then they become a Named Townie.
• If a Townie's ability to post clearly is altered, then they become a Post Restricted Townie.
• If a Townie's ability to vote is handicapped or enhanced, then they become something akin to a Voteless Townie or a Doublevoting Townie.
• If a Townie has any active or passive abilities during the Night, then they become a Power Role (with the exception of temporary powers granted by roles such as Inventor).
• If a Townie's win condition is different from the rest of the majority, then they should be considered a Third Party or even Mafia.

Use and Power

Vanilla townies in setups serve two purposes:

First, since vanilla townies do not have any special powers at night, they have to depend on traditional scumhunting methods -- analysis of actions, intent, voting, previous posts, etc -- to win. In general, the more vanilla townies the setup has, the more the emphasis will be placed on the day game instead of the night game.

Secondly, it is very easy for the mafia to fakeclaim vanilla townie, because, by their nature, they do not have to fabricate any night action choices.

A setup that is classed as Normal on mafiascum will usually have about 1/3 to 1/2 of the players be vanilla townies, with the remainder split between power roles and scum. However, a setup that is a Theme may have fewer vanilla townies, or even none at all.

A setup where the town consists solely of vanilla townies is called mountainous setup, as these setups are considered difficult to win.

Note to Moderators

When all townies have the same wording in their PM, they can use the information to clear each other in a fashion similar to Best Friends. To prevent this problem it is common to either give all the vanilla townies unique role PMs or to give an example of what the townie PM looks like in one of the opening posts of the game.