Vigilante

Vigilante Alias: Vig Alignment: Town Role type: Killing Choice: Night Status: Simple Normal

A Vigilante is a Townie who can kill a player at Night.

Using traditional flavors, Vigilantes share the "shot" kill flavor with the Mafia. Thus, their kills are indistinguishable from those of the Mafia in this case.

While a few moderators prefer to defy meta and use Mafia Vigilantes to allow multiple scumkills from a single faction, the vast majority of Vigilantes are Town.

Pronunciation

There is no consensus as to whether "Vig" is pronounced with a hard 'g' or like "Vidge". The easiest solution to this problem is to pronounce it however you like, but never try to make a pun out of "Vig" or try to verbally say it to others, unless you know how they pronounce the term.

Normal version

This role is allowed in Simple Normal games.

Vigilantes are considered Normal on mafiascum.net if their kill flavour is indistinguishable from other factions'. As of 9 November 2015, they must also be town aligned. As of 31 October 2023, Non-Town Vigilantes are allowed in Complex Normal games.

Variations

This role is frequently used as an X-Shot Vigilante (where X is a number), allowing it to make only X kill attempts over the course of the game (in addition to the usual restriction of only being able to make one kill attempt per night).

There is no consensus in regards to whether an X-Shot Vigilante loses one of its ability uses if it is Roleblocked while trying to kill someone.

In games with nontraditional kill flavors, it is by no means a requirement for the vigilante to have a kill flavor indistinguishable from that of the Mafia.

One of the most coveted variations of this ability is the Day Vigilante, or Dayvig, which is a Vigilante that can kill during the Day. Depending on the game, the Dayvig may be able to submit its kill privately, or it may be forced to declare its kill publicly. Daykills are not normally stoppable by active abilities, so Dayvigs are considerably more potent than ordinary Vigilantes.

Some other variations that have been seen include the "Mad Monk" (a Bulletproof Vigilante), and the "Crazy Fiend" (a 1-Shot Vigilante belonging to an anti-town faction). The Arsonist is a conceptually similar role to a Vigilante, especially when Town-aligned.

Use & Balance

Vigilantes simply increase the death count and thus the speed of the game. While in theory Vigilantes constitute additional Town-sourced kills, in practice Vigilantes vary widely in skill and effectiveness. Considering the difference between a Vigilante that only hits Townies and a Vigilante that only hits scum, it's easy to see that this is one of the swingiest Normal roles.

Because of its swingy nature, it's hard to judge a Vigilante's power in terms of whether it weights the game in favor of Town or scum. At present, Vig is considered a fairly solid pro-Town role due to adding another Town-directed kill to the game (contrast scum-directed kills, which have no chance at all of hitting scum). In addition, Vigilante is generally a very confirmable role - not many roles kill people aside from the Mafia's factional kill, so after an unexpected extra player dies a Vigilante can claim the kill. Since Vigilantes are almost always Town, the Vig is generally considered confirmed Town from that point on. Dayvigs are even more confirmable as Vigs for obvious reasons, but on occasion moderators have been known to include scum dayvigs.

Moderators should take care to ensure that the vote count is reset whenever a player dies during the Day, so as to prevent a player being able to kill one player and immediately force the elimination of another (unless the game has an unusual voting system that avoids this problem some other way). In games where the vote count does not reset, and where an even number of players were alive, a hypothetical scum Day Vigilante could wait for a Town-aligned player (who they weren't voting for) to get within two votes of an elimination, something that frequently happens naturally, then shoot one player, hammer another, and kill a third overnight, thus gaining an overwhelming advantage. As such, failing to reset the vote count can end up inadvertently confirming the Dayvig as Town.

As a final note, generally when given the choice between being able to kill someone or being able to do almost anything else, players will choose to kill someone. Balance your games accordingly.

Play Advice

The philosophy of when and how often a player should shoot is debatable. One school of thought is that kills narrow down the pool of suspects, so any player that is not less likely to be scum than random should be fair game for being shot. This same school of thought favors killing on every Night, including Night 0 (when there is no game-related information about any player).

The other school of thought is that Vigilante kills take away majority-rules eliminations from the Town, placing too much power in one player's fallible hands. This school of thought advocates only shooting players who are likely to be scum (or even whoever the Town collectively dictates should be shot), and not shooting otherwise.

The best play as a Vigilante is to shoot scum. This requires the Vig to find scum. There is no easy way to do this. However, because of their ability to make or break entire games depending on who they target, Vigs are frequently lauded and/or blamed for their decisions beyond appropriate proportions. Thus, as a Vig your best bet is to make decisions that will not cause you to be hated by every other player in the game. If in doubt, shoot a player that people would want to policy elimination (e.g. lurkers).

Another potential approach to playing a Vigilante is to attempt to predict what the most likely elimination the next day would be, and shoot that player; if they're scum, great, if not, you effectively denied scum the nightkill they'd get after the mislim tomorrow and so you're still helping. This effectively introduces the Double Day mechanic into the game.

N0 in a large game is one of those times that is acceptable to policy vig someone because it is almost impossible to tell what the game will end up looking like and there are will decrease town chances of winning even if they are town; even if they do draw a PR, they are in a position where the role itself is worth more than the player. Outside of those, cases where vigs should shoot would be those involving a confirmed scum, a forced win path, and/or a game that will stay at odd players post shot.

Sample Role PMs

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

• As a targeted action: that player will die. (edit)

Example (simplest form)

Welcome to game! You are a Town Vigilante.

You have the following active ability:

• Each Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, that player will die.

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 (with modifiers)

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

You have the following active ability:

• Once in the game at Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, that player will die. Your target will learn that you targeted them (but not what action you targeted them with).

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.