Herring

Herring Alias: none Alignment: Town Role type: Deceptive Choice: none Status: Untested

A Herring is a role that Seers as blue and, when investigated by a Vanilla Cop or Neapolitan, returns as "not vanilla". While it can be any alignment in theory, in practice it is almost always aligned with town.

Standard version

A Herring is treated as a power role for the purposes of investigative roles like Vanilla Cop, but is otherwise vanilla.

Variations

Herring is typically a Hidden modifier applied to a vanilla town role. Hidden Herrings are considered considerably less Bastard than hidden Millers, but the existence of a Herring is typically revealed in the setup beforehand. Self-aware Herrings essentially are Named Townies.

Herrings may also give incorrect results to Role Cops or, alternatively, no result at all.

Mafia Herrings may investigate as "innocent" to Cop checks, similarly to Godfather.

Use & Balance

Herrings are added to the setup to weaken the power of Vanilla Cops or other similar roles. For this reason, they are almost always town, as they appear in setups that have only a handful of town power roles that the mafia would prefer to nightkill instead of vanilla town.

Play Advice

Unlike with Miller, it is typically not advised to claim Herring early as the goal is to get investigated by mafia so that the more important town power roles can stay hidden. Faking a powerful softclaim can be a good way to catch mafia's attention, but be careful not to overdo it as mafia might consider it more prudent to nightkill you instead.

Sample Role PMs

The standardized Role PM for "Herring" describes the passive ability as follows:

• As an unmodified passive ability: You investigate as a power role to Vanilla Cops and similar roles. (edit)

• As a passive ability with a modifier: You investigate as a power role to Vanilla Cops and similar roles the nth OR on day n. (edit)

Example (unmodified)

Welcome to game! You are a Town Herring.

You investigate as a power role to Vanilla Cops and similar roles.

You have no active abilities.

You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

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

Example (modified)

Welcome to game! You are a Town 1-shot Herring.

You investigate as a power role to Vanilla Cops and similar roles the first .

You have no active abilities.

You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

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