[ROLE SUGGESTION] Sleuth / Dirty Sleuth

[Kromos]

Role Name: Sleuth (town) / Dirty Sleuth (mafia)

Alignment: Town / Mafia

Game Size(s): FM / M-FM / S-FM - the bigger the better

Abilities: Can read the current last will of a living player at night. If he tries to read the last will of a sleuth or dirty sleuth, he will be informed that his target's last will cannot be deciphered.

Intended Purpose: A potentially very useful role for town to gather information and a potentially informative / disruptive role in the hands of the mafia as the town will be very wary of what they put in their last wills. It is a weaker type of investigative role that can be fooled. The sleuth could also receive secret messages to him, left in people's last wills. Makes last wills more important and a bigger part of the gameplay.

Meta-Game Implications: Players will be much more careful of what they give away in their last wills and may be afraid to put anything in it all which could harm town if they die.

Mafia members might create fake last wills in order to fool a town sleuth while town members might do the same in order to look like a cit or a PR to a dirty sleuth.

Those who don’t leave a last will could be suspicious of being scum to the sleuth as they would normally have no need in making one. Scum could either make a last will to make them seem town or could wifom by leaving no last will. Town could leave hidden messages to the sleuth in their last wills to give information to him without revealing themselves to the whole town. This can also be abused by the mafia.

Possible Cons: Is a bit similar to the lawyer / janitor. Probably thought of before?

[Goremancer]

Well honestly the role sounds a bit weak. Since last wills will be read when they die anyway. How about having the ability to rewrite their last will to trollolol them?

[Kromos]

Well honestly the role sounds a bit weak. Since last wills will be read when they die anyway. How about having the ability to rewrite their last will to trollolol them?

The whole point of this is to see people's last wills early, which can be used by the players to give the sleuth / dirty sleuth information (false or true). I'll give some examples of how it can be used.

Sleuth checks sheriff. Sheriff's last will: "Goremancer is scum, please reveal this to the town". The sleuth reveals instead of the sheriff to lynch Goremancer while the sheriff remains hidden. This message could also have been faked by a mafia player in order to get an innocent player lynched and to reveal the sleuth.

Sleuth checks mafia. Mafia's last will: "lol good job killing a cit". Sleuth can determine that this last will is probably fake and lead a lynch on this mafia or believe a mafia is innocent due to being fooled by their will.

Dirty sleuth checks the investigator. Investigator's last will: "Goremancer is the doc / sk". Mafia kill Goremancer thinking he is the doc / sk which was revealed through the inves's will. However the inves could have lied and sent the mafia after a cit. The inves would also have to weigh up whether to leave any info in his lw at all in case the mafia get's their hands on it.

Dirty sleuth checks town. Learns their role through what they say in their lw.

[Kromos]

How about having the ability to rewrite their last will to trollolol them?

That's the lawyer's ability. The sleuth / dirty sleuth can read people's last wills an unlimited number of times. The sleuth is town friendly so probably wouldn't want to change people's last wills.

[Kromos]

In a setup with only the sleuth in it then the focus will be for town to very honest in their last wills and to even leave messages for the sleuth. In this setup the mafia could be using their last wills to convince a sleuth of their innocence or go full out by lying to the sleuth in order to get someone lynched / cast suspicion on other people.

In a setup with only the dirty sleuth in it then the town would be very worried about their last will's being found by the mafia. They will be less likely to put the truth in their last will so if they die that information will be lost. The town could also lie in their last wills to give the mafia false information on people. This could be used to trip the mafia up if they say something that only a dirty sleuth would know. However they run the risk of giving false info to the town when they die so last wills can no longer be trusted and taken as fact.

In a setup with both the sleuth and dirty sleuth possible, both factors will come in to play. Do the town risk giving messages and honest information to the sleuth when they know the dirty sleuth could be reading? In this setup nothing can be trusted anymore as the players play games and use wifom with the 2 possible sleuths. The sleuths have the important job of discerning how much truth is in their target's last will and how to best act on it.

[Kromos]

Has this really never been suggested before? It seems like a very simple thing to do.

[Kromos]

Can the lawyer see his target's last will or does he just create a new one from scratch?

[Luna]

An interesting role, you might want to change the description a little bit to reflect that the Sleuth sees the current last will of a living player (when I read the first several lines I kept thinking "This is a lame Coroner"). I like it because it's almost like a messaging system. It fulfils the same role as the Journalist, only giving more control to the Sleuth at the expense of a useful and anonymous public announcement.

I think I'll have to comb through and find some of the older role suggestions, though I think they'll be pretty hard to find. I seem to remember that the role which changed players last wills was submitted under the name 'Accountant' and I was the one to suggest it got changed to 'Lawyer' (which is the only reason I remember that role in the first place).

There's also the meta-game of whether an investigative PR could claim Sleuth and share his info with slightly less chance of getting killed at night (though if scum believe that a Town Sleuth has found a trusted investigative role he'll become a target).

I like this role because it's fairly simple, but like the Journalist it has the potential to really give the player an edge. Like the Journalist though it is a simple role to confirm, so hosts need to take that into account when planning a setup. The possibility of a Dirty Sleuth in play does make things interesting though (I'm a fan of roles which have a direct Mafia equivalent).

I'm certain there's more flaws somewhere though, there always is.

[Kromos]

There's also the meta-game of whether an investigative PR could claim Sleuth and share his info with slightly less chance of getting killed at night (though if scum believe that a Town Sleuth has found a trusted investigative role he'll become a target).

I didn't think of that .

It's a bit different than just giving a message to the sleuth as it's also their last will. If they lie about or don't include their investigation results in their will to confuse the dirty sleuth then it will hurt the town when they die. The message for the sleuth would also be made public and negate the usefulness of the message.

I changed the ability description.

[Kromos]

If anyone wants to put this in their FM, go right ahead.

[Kromos]

The sleuth / dirty sleuth can now find other sleuths as their last wills cannot be read.