It's come to our attention that CRIER is substantially underperforming at present. A few options have been presented, such as moving it to Power/Support town spawns, giving an obvious reveal mechanic for when the Crier needs to identify themself.

We view the ability to self-confirm as ESSENTIAL to any town Government role; the only one that can't is CITIZEN (and they get a vest partially for that reason). The Mayor can -vote, the Marshall can -lynch, the Constable can day-execute anyone, the Mason leader(if spawns alone) can recruit Masons and/or purge cultists, and 2 or more Masons can confirm each other. Crier, in theory, should be able to do this too, either by codeword, elaborate colored text, or a daybutton. But none of these are viable as long as the JUDGE can night chat.

Crier's image to us is to be able to, instead of being a trolly citizen, is someone who does things like vote analysis, points out errors in pasted LWs or claims, winnows down the odds, and suggests targets to investigate and kill...and all from a position where the Scum can't easily shut him up, because nobody knows who he is.

So we're thinking of removing the JUDGE night chat. In fact, we think Judge night chat actually hurts the role more than it helps much of the time. No other Neutral Evil (WITCH, AUDITOR) has such a method of communicating to the town or Mafia in an effective manner. Beyond this, if you go into N1 and say "JUDGE HERE, DON'T KILL ODDS", that tells the town roles several things. If you're the VIGILANTE, your list of targets to take out was just halved. If you're jailor, similar. If you're Marshall/Mayor, you know you shouldn't reveal until you know the JUDGE is sucking dirt, and if you're CRIER, the massive CC means nobody will listen to you because they have no way to determine you from the JUDGE.

So what we propose is that the JUDGE will have night chat removed (and, depending on coding difficulty, it may return after he -courts for the first time). Additionally, the Crier might instead be "COURT REPORTER" during court trials or some such, instead of just "COURT".

Expected results to the meta: Buff to crier. Free of the spectre of "being judge", he can lead unimpeded, at least until the JUDGE reveals. He also gets additional cred during court if we change his in-court name.

Buff to Judge. While the JUDGE cannot talk and warn against killing him, mafia can still communicate to him with Death Notes. Furthermore, so long as a JUDGE is not forced into the setup table, and instead spawns randomly, we expect more mid-game "Gotchas!" where a hitherto unknown JUDGE who spawned in a Neutral Evil, Any Neutral, or Random Any slot will will court shortly after someone becomes confirmed and eliminate them, possibly to devastating effect if it was a multiple elimination from a MARSHALL.

We're open to alternate suggestions, if anyone has one, but this is one that we think will make the game overall more fun, interesting, and lead to more shocking endings.

Let us know what you think.