Leash

Leashing a player or role refers to the practice of having the players collectively agreeing, during the Day, what that role's night actions should be. For example, if it becomes clear that a Vigilante is present in a game, it is not unknown for the players to decide who the Vigilante should kill, rather than leaving it up to the Vigilante's judgement.

Although leashing is sometimes used simply to help townies make the right decision, the town will occasionally try to leash a suspected anti-town player; for example, if a Serial Killer is caught, they will sometimes allow themselves to be leashed as an alternative to being voted out of the game; being eliminated would make it impossible for the Serial Killer to win, whereas if the town temporarily leaves the Serial Killer alive to deal with the Mafia, there is a chance that the game will end up in a kingmaker ending (which town will normally decide in favour of the leashed player if they cannot win themselves). In this case, the leashing would be enforced via the threat of eliminating the Serial Killer immediately if they ever kill the wrong player (as they would have proven themself to be a liability).

Leashing players is also common when their role is known, but their alignment is unknown; normally highly scummy players are simply just voted out, but if their claimed role is too valuable to risk, a town may instead leash the usage of their role in order to reduce the amount of damage they could deal if they turn out to be anti-town (whilst giving a pro-town player with that role a chance to survive and use it in the dictated way).