Diarist

Diarist Alias: none Alignment: Town Mafia Role type: Investigative Choice: Night

A Diarist is a player who investigates other players to learn at what times they are capable of acting.

Standard version

Each night, a Diarist may target a player. Assuming their action succeeds, they will learn the list of all phases on which their target could use an active ability (e.g. "your target can act every Night", "your target can act on odd-numbered Nights", or "your target can act on Day 2 and Day 4 only").

The list contains all past phases on which the player could have attempted to take an action (regardless of whether they did or not); and all current and future phases on which the player's role would normally allow them to attempt to take actions. In other words, it's concerned entirely with the capability to attempt actions, not what the target actually does.

Variations

The original version of Diarist could not see factional abilities, thus would see "cannot act" rather than "can act every Night" for a Mafia Goon. It is, however, probably clearest to implement this version using a modifier, as a Personal Diarist.

Use & Balance

A Personal Diarist (or a Diarist in scum hands) is essentially a weaker version of a Rolecop, or a stronger version of a Vanilla Cop; it confirms the existence of an active role, and gives some hint as to what the role is via the timing, but does not directly state what the role does.

The unmodified version, which can also see factional abilities, is stronger than Neapolitan but otherwise has similar balance considerations; anyone who cannot act every night is very unlikely to be groupscum or a Serial Killer, so they get town confirmation on any townie who does not have an action usable every night. It can be thought of as a version of a Neapolitan more suitable for role madness; role madness games have few Vanilla Townie equivalents, but often have several players who either have no night action or else have modifiers preventing them being used every night, which can serve as a Neapolitan equivalent.

If you're planning to put a role with an implausible schedule into a game (e.g. a Night 4 Vigilante in a 9-player game), a Diarist can additionally or alternatively serve as a way of making the implausible role seem more plausible.

Play Advice

Assuming you're town-aligned, you should treat the full version of Diarist in much the same way as most other investigative roles that are capable of false positives: never scan a player who would be likely to give a false positive, look towards scanning players you have null reads on or who you think may be hiding something other than their alignment, and if a player claims something implausible that your role can verify, assume that your role is in the setup specifically to interact with it.

If using the Personal version, or are scum, you should treat the role in much the same way as you would a Role Cop. The information is less useful, but can still give clues as to the setup balance or disprove a Vanilla Townie claim (or to prove that a claimed Vigilante's action is factional, thus implying that they are a Serial Killer).

Sample Role PMs

The standardized Role PM for "Diarist" describes the action as follows:

• As a targeted action: you will learn on which phases that player is capable of taking actions (regardless of whether or not they actually took an action). (edit)

Example (simplest form)

Welcome to game! You are a Town Diarist.

You have the following active ability:

• Each Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn on which phases that player is capable of taking actions (regardless of whether or not they actually took an 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 Diarist.

You have the following active ability:

• Once in the game at Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn on which phases that player is capable of taking actions (regardless of whether or not they actually took an 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.