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Role Cop
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A Role Cop is an investigative role that learns the role of its target, e.g. "Cop", "Doctor", "Roleblocker", etc.. There is no indication of the target's alignment; if a Mafia Goon or Vanilla Townie is investigated, they return "Vanilla". Role Cops are actually a somewhat popular Mafia role, but have also been seen aligned with the Town.
Normal version
The Role Cop's ability will let them learn their target's personal (i.e. not factional) abilities, in the form of a role name (or full role PM in the case where the role name would be nonstandard or unfamiliar). However, any alignment details and factional abilities are hidden; the Role Cop will see town-aligned and scum-aligned versions of the same role as identical. This is done by removing any faction-related and win-condition-related information from the role name (and role PM, if necessary) before posting it; "Town Roleblocker" and "Mafia Roleblocker" would just become "Roleblocker", and in a full role PM, the win condition, factional abilities, information about teammates, etc. would all be removed.
Vanilla players have role names that vary by faction; a Role Cop scanning these will get "Vanilla" as the response, again anonymising the win condition. Thus, a Mafia Goon or a Serial Killer should give the same result as a Vanilla Townie (unless they have extra abilities). The Role Cop sees the player's role as of the start of the game; thus, in the case of an X-Shot role, the Role Cop would be told how many shots the role started with, not how many shots currently remain. Role Cops have no special ability to pierce protections against investigations, or role blocks; thus, trying to investigate an Ascetic role would return a failure message like "Your action failed, and you did not get a result".
Variations
In some role madness games or in games with multiple scum groups, the condition that Role Cop does not learn its target's alignment is not necessarily applied. Role Cops have been known to receive the entire role name of their target with their alignment, or even the entire Role PM of its target (with names and chat topic links deleted).
In themed games, the Role Cop has been known to return the target's flavor name (e.g. Pikachu), the target's role name (e.g. 1-shot Thundershocker), or both. The moderator might or might not be willing to explain (immediately or upon questioning) what a nonstandard role actually does.
A Flavor Cop is usually a weaker version of a Role Cop, giving hints to someone's role without explicitly naming it.
A Vanilla Cop only gives results in the form of "vanilla"/"not vanilla".
Any role that gives binary answers based on someone's role (such as Gunsmith) is probably a derivation of Cop instead of Role Cop.
Use & Balance
In Normal games, Role Cops are about on par with Trackers in terms of its power – Role Cops do not learn their targets targeted, but Trackers don't know what kind of action the target used. In Theme games, Role Cops can be a somewhat unreliable Cop (or perhaps Flavor Cop) variant depending on how likely it is that the result they got would be attached to one faction or another. Either way, the Role Cop is obviously good for shutting down fakeclaims if it lives long enough.
Role Cops are sometimes used as an investigative that gets useful results only on specific players, e.g. a Role Cop can know for sure that an Encryptor is scum upon investigating them, but will not make much progress investigating a Goon.
In scum hands, Role Cop is useful for hunting power roles to be killed on future Nights. Its drawback is that it takes an extra Night for the scum to kill someone the Role Cop finds is a power role, meaning that the role is particularly weak in smaller setups.
Play Advice
As Town, it's best to investigate players whose alignment might plausibly be confirmed or disproved via your results. This includes players who have made Role Claims (especially ones you believe are fake, or where the claimed role is inherently attached to a particular alignment), and players who are likely to be forced to claim in the near future. (An excellent example of a good scan choice would be a claimed Miller; if your action is not blocked, the results will be effectively certain to confirm their alignment one way or another.)
As Mafia, you can use the results to help you guide your factional kills, but they may well come too late to be useful. However, they can also help you judge whether a player you are planning to miseliminate would be able to save themself by claiming, which may aid you in planning the Day phase; and they can reduce the chance that you get counterclaimed. If your team does not have daytalk, consider setting up a breadcrumbing system so that you can let your buddies know what your result was without having to wait for the following Night.
Sample Role PMs
The standardized Role PM for "Role Cop" describes the action as follows:
- As a targeted action:
you will learn that player's role (but not their alignment).(edit)
Example (simplest form)
Welcome to game! You are a Mafia Role Cop.
Your team-mates are names. You may talk to them here during night phases and confirmations only.You have the following active abilities, but may use only one per Night:
- Each Night, if no other member of your faction is performing this action, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, that player will die.
- Each Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn that player's role (but not their alignment).
You win if at least one mafia member is alive and all other players are dead (or if nothing can prevent the same).
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.
Example (with modifiers)
Welcome to game! You are a Mafia 1-shot Loud Role Cop.
Your team-mates are names. You may talk to them here during night phases and confirmations only.You have the following active abilities, but may use only one per Night:
- Each Night, if no other member of your faction is performing this action, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, that player will die.
- Once in the game at Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn that player's role (but not their alignment). Your target will learn that you targeted them (but not what action you targeted them with).
You win if at least one mafia member is alive and all other players are dead (or if nothing can prevent the same).
Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.