Ascetic

Ascetic Alias: Action-Immune Alignment: Town Mafia Serial Killer Role type: Manipulative Choice: none

An Ascetic is a player who is immune to all actions at Night except kills; in effect, the player is permanently rolestopped.

Normal version

An Ascetic role cannot be targeted by anything other than a kill. A role attempting to target an Ascetic should be seen doing so by Trackers and Motion Detectors, even though they would not be seen if they were directly roleblocked. Investigative roles (Cops, Role Cops, Watchers, etc.) should receive "no result" if attempting to investigate an Ascetic role.

Variations

Sometimes, an Ascetic killing role, such as an Ascetic Goon, Vigilante, or Serial Killer, forgoes its protection on a night when it is performing a kill.

Use & Balance

In Town hands, the ability is normally seen as a secondary ability on a player who has a power role; this makes it immune to manipulation, but also prevents it combining usefully with other power roles. For example, an Ascetic Cop cannot be Roleblocked, but also cannot be protected by a Doctor. This usage plays out something like a mix of Miller and Macho, as the player cannot be investigated or protected, and thus typically acts as a downside (but one that makes the setup less swingy).

Non-Town Ascetics get much more out of being Ascetic, as they generally have no need for protection from kills but very much value immunity to investigations, roleblocks, redirects, and so forth. Their main worry is that someone will figure out they have an unclaimed Ascetic modifier and wonder why.

Play Advice

As an ability that's much stronger in scum hands than town hands, an Ascetic will sometimes claim at the start of Day 1, just like a Miller typically would. That said, there's rather less downside to staying quiet about it, because a no result investigation on you is much less suspicious than a guilty investigation, and even if you don't claim to be the reason for the failure, town might not figure it out until a massclaim at Elo (likely a good thing in this case, as it reduces the chance of being mislimed due to the false positive!). It is probably a bad idea to claim your modifier if you have another power role, as doing so has a tendency to draw unwanted nightkills.

If you're a Mafia member, there is little reason not to perform the factional kill yourself, unless you fear a Watcher, Paranoid Gun Owner or similar role; players will get the same result investigating you whether you kill or not, so you may as well prevent any of your allies being caught killing.

Sample Role PMs

The standardized Role PM for "Ascetic" describes the passive ability as follows:

• As an unmodified passive ability: actions that target you, other than kills, will fail as if roleblocked. (edit)

• As a passive ability with a modifier: the nth action that targets you, other than a kill, will fail as if roleblocked OR actions that target you, other than kills, will fail as if roleblocked on day n. (edit)

Example (unmodified)

Welcome to game! You are an Ascetic Townie.

Actions that target you, other than kills, will fail as if roleblocked.

You have no active abilities.

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 (modified)

Welcome to game! You are a 1-shot Ascetic Townie.

The first action that targets you, other than a kill, will fail as if roleblocked.

You have no active abilities.

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.