Silencer

Silencer Alias: none Alignment: Mafia Role type: Communicative Voting Choice: Night

Silencer is a role that chooses a player at night. That player is then unable to speak for the following day. Whether they can still vote is unstandardized.

Silencers are usually scum. There's nothing prohibiting Silencer from being town, but they're arguably negative unility if so.

Standard version

A Silencer makes a player unable to post for the next Day phase. They may or may not be able to post naked votes.

Variations

A Silencer can alternatively make a player unable to vote but still able to speak. This variant is seen in Great Idea Mafia.

Use & Balance

Silencing a player effectively prevents them from participating in the game for a day. This makes them rather unfun to play against, even for players who are normally lurkers. When used in lategame, they can stop a player from claiming their role and/or results, which can be especially infuriating for a town that may otherwise win if the results can be outed.

Town Silencers can silence scum, but this isn't particularly helpful, as no one will be able to refine reads on them for the day (which is necessary to get them eliminated).

Overall, Silencer is not very useful for town, arguably overpowered for scum, and not fun to play against in either case.

Keep in mind that, depending on the way that the forum is set up, there are ways around being silenced, such as putting information in one's forum signature or profile or by "liking" posts that they agree with. A host should always consider these potential loopholes before using this role.

Additionally, in games that have rules against inactivity (such as making someone post a certain number of times each day to stay in the game), it would be necessary to give silenced players fake warnings for inactivity, otherwise it would be confirmed that they were silenced. For this reason, most hosts consider it better to announce outright that a player is silenced.

Sample Role PMs

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

• As a targeted action: that player will be unable to post for the next Day phase. (edit)

Example (simplest form)

Welcome to game! You are a Mafia Silencer.

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, that player will be unable to post for the next Day phase.

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 Silencer.

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, that player will be unable to post for the next Day phase. 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.