Mentor

Mentor Alias: Evil Mastermind Alignment: Third-party Role type: Alignment-Changing Killing Linked Choice: Night Status: Known

A Mentor is a role whose Night action is one of the following:

• If the Mentor does not have a living Mentee, at Night they can recruit one.
• If the Mentor does have a living Mentee, at Night they or their Mentee can kill someone (unless the Mentor already has a factional kill).

A Mentee is a player who has been recruited by a Mentor. They can talk to the Mentor at any time, but will die if the Mentor dies. (If the Mentee dies, that just frees up the Mentor to recruit someone else during the next Night.)

While these are not necessary facets of the role, it is particularly common for Mentors to be anti-Town and recruit Mentees to their anti-Town alignments. These are partly consequences of the role being designed to represent the most acceptable Cult.

On IRC this role is called Evil Mastermind (with its recruit called Evil Minion).

Mentor is an alignment-changing role, and thus requires declaring a game mechanically bastard.

Standard version

A Mentor with no living Mentee can recruit a player at Night to make them their Mentee. Otherwise, if a Mentor already has a living Mentee, they or their Mentee can attempt to kill a player at Night. The Mentor and their Mentee can communicate privately. If the Mentor dies, the Mentee dies too.

If the Mentor is self-aligned, they convert the Mentee to the Mentor's alignment.

Use & Balance

Town-aligned Mentors exhibit qualities of Neighbors, Vigilantes, and Lovers. A Mentor can recruit a player, determine if they are Town or not, and either shoot them the following Night (if not) or discuss who to shoot otherwise (if so). This can be a potent role in Town's arsenal, considering once a member of the Mafia is recruited, there is nothing they can do to outlive the Mentor.

Mafia-aligned Mentors (with alignment change) are nearly equivalent to Mafia Recruiters.

Third-party Mentors with alignment change (functionally, Cult Mentors) are stronger than ordinary Serial Killers because they have an advocate on their side during the Day and a masked kill in their recruitment. In particular, it is in a Mentee's best interest to do anything to stop its Mentor's death.

All of these have one major point of swing: If the Mentor dies, the Mentee dies as well. Thus, the effectiveness of the Mentor role (and the chance of the Mentee(s) winning) is dependent on the skill of the Mentor at not dying by elimination or night-kill. This is a problem with any Cult, though.

Sample Role PMs

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

• As an active action: if you have no living Mentee, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will recruit that player as a Mentee.

Each Night, if you have a living Mentee, you or your Mentee may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, that player will die.

If you have a Mentee, you can privately communicate with them, and if you die, your Mentee will also die. (edit)

Example (simplest form)

Welcome to game! You are a Third-party Mentor.

You have the following active ability:

• Each Night, if you have no living Mentee, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will recruit that player as a Mentee.
• Each Night, if you have a living Mentee, you or your Mentee may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, that player will die.
• If you have a Mentee, you can privately communicate with them, and if you die, your Mentee will also die.

You win if you are the last player alive.

Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Example (with modifiers)

Welcome to game! You are a Third-party 1-shot Mentor.

You have the following active ability:

• Once in the game at Night, if you have no living Mentee, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will recruit that player as a Mentee.
• Each Night, if you have a living Mentee, you or your Mentee may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, that player will die.
• If you have a Mentee, you can privately communicate with them, and if you die, your Mentee will also die.

You win if you are the last player alive.

Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.