Mentor

Mentor Alias: none Alignment: Third-party Anti-town Role type: Manipulative Killing Choice: Night

A concept invented independently by Vi and Xylthixlm (each will offer differing accounts of how this role came to fruition, as Xyl's variant "Evil Mastermind" does not function identically to the Mentor), first implemented on mafiascum.net in Mafia ViPod. The concept behind it was to create the most acceptable Cult; however, Mentors can feasibly take any alignment.

At Night a Mentor can recruit one (and only one) other player, henceforth called the Mentee (on IRC it is called Evil Minion). If the Mentor dies, the Mentee will commit suicide and that's the end of the group. If the Mentee dies, the Mentor must recruit another one at the next available opportunity. If the Mentor already has a Mentee, the recruit ability may be replaced by another ability (typically a night kill).

Because of this one-way relationship, the Mentor gains a huge amount of power over whoever is recruited. In addition, solo Mentors are effectively scumgroups unto themselves with a masked kill in their recruitment. Thus, anti-Town Mentors are more powerful than your average Mafia - if slightly riskier.

One criticism of the Mentor role is that its power is highly dependent on the player who gets the role. Skilled players are at a significantly lower risk of being lynched or night-killed, whereas VI Mentors can easily become detrimental by dragging a skilled recruit down with them when they get lynched (and if they claim to avoid being lynched, they are summarily night-killed).

An interesting dynamic may result from a Town Mentor recruiting a scum player. As only Cult-aligned Mentors actually change the allegiance of the Mentee, the scum would be forced to avoid killing the Mentor in order to keep their Menteed ally from committing suicide.