GENERAL INFO:Blocktown Trials is a game that challenges players on their ability to convincingly lie, as well as detect when other players are lying! The game ranges from 7 to 15 players, who are randomly divided into alignments – Town, Mafia, and Indies. If you are a Town member (i.e. the good guys), you must track down and eliminate the Mafia and other villains before they do! ...The catch? You don’t know who is a Town member and who is a villain. If you are a villainous role (Mafia, Psychos), you secretly murder town members in the veil of night and try to avoid getting caught during the day.
ALIGNMENTS:Town
The majority of players in any given round are aligned with the Town. To win as a Town member, you need to rid the town of all evildoers. Which is... easier said than done, as Town members can't tell who's evil and who isn't. To make up for this, however, the Town is full of useful jobs -- investigative roles, killing roles, supportive roles, you name it!
Mafia
Mafia make up 1/5 of the playercount, meaning there will be 3 evildoers in a town of 15 players. Mafia are aware of who are on their team, and also can talk to each other at night! However, since their radio signal isn't secure, they have to speak anonymously. This means the Mafia members have to carefully plan out their heists, especially if the town's Spy is eavesdropping on them! As usual, the Mafia win by erasing the entire town of non-Mafia life, killing everyone not aligned with them.
Independent
There are three types of independent roles: Neutrals, Delinquents, and Psychos. Combined, they take another 1/5 of the playercount in every round, meaning one of each will always show up in a full 15-player game!
Neutrals are mostly selfish roles that aren't part of Town or Mafia, and follow their own goals instead. Said goals behave independently of the actual game, and can be either good or evil! The neutral Amnesiac, for example, can examine a dead player, and steal their role - regardless of the body's former alignment. And once he assumes a role, he'll win by fulfilling the new roles goals. However, it was his choice whether he should be an innocent, slasher/delinquent, or an even more dreaded mafia!
Delinquents are basically the Neutrals, except eviller and edgier in nature. They have independent goals from the Mafia, and win once they fulfill said goals! The Jester, for example, will win once he gets lynched, in order to haunt everyone else from beyond the grave.
Psychos don't care about any of that - their one objective is simply to slaughter everyone in the town, regardless of name, team, dependency, alignment, religion or SAT score. They want a quiet life, and they'll build it atop a mountain of corpses if they need to. Psychos, while aren't aware of their counterparts, can win with them, if said counterpart hasn't killed you already...
ROLES:There's a definitive list of all the roles in the game, which you can check out here!
MECHANICS:Housing
That's right! In Blocktown Trials, every single player gets a home to stay in, sometimes even with roommates. The names of the people living in each house is helpfully (or incriminatingly) plastered on their front door, which only they can lock and unlock at will. However, any killing role can break down a locked door once per night, making an incredibly loud racket while doing so! And usually, when a house is broken into, so are the skulls of all the tenants...
In Blocktown Trials, you can also agree with another player to have a sleepover at their house! You can be even harder to track down and kill if you're not in your house, but if your friend is on the other team, they'll see you as a massive and easy target wide open for assassination...
Even if your roommate is actually an enemy, you'll normally be safe! It'd be INCREDIBLY incriminating if someone was killed but their roommate was alive and well... unless they slept elsewhere. As such, if your roommate is smart, they'll want you alive for as long as possible, unless they're really sneaky or REALLY want to get lynched for some reason.
Weapons
Only killing roles in Blocktown Trials have weapons, everyone else is effectively unarmed and have to fall back on a courtroom trial system. However, the weapons themselves have limitations too - all guns in the game have limited ammo every night. If someone's aim is outright terrible, they can go an entire night without murdering anyone! The only weapon that can be used freely at night is the Serial Killer's knife.
And if they're extremely unlucky, killing roles can also get completely shafted at night! The Jailer can whisk them away from any potential targets and lock them up for the night, and the Tinkerer can completely jam their firearms, rendering them effectively weaponless for the night!
Events
Daytime lasts 5 minutes. You start the day with 2 minutes to examine the crime scene, and discuss the circumstances of the murder. Once investigation time is up, everyone is swept away to a courtroom. They have one more minute to discuss the murder, and then the one-minute voting period starts, during which drowsy people finally show up, and everyone votes on a possible culprit!
Once a player is picked to be lynched, the clock stops as the trial's defense phase starts! The defendant will explain themselves and present their story, as everyone else votes if they're innocent or guilty! If they're actually guilty, they will be killed off and the trial will instantly end. If they're determined innocent, the clock will start ticking again, and the trial will re-enter the voting phase so everyone can vote on a different suspect. This will go on until either time runs out, or a "guilty" verdict is finally reached...
After the trial people have one more minute to walk back to their houses are search for more clues, and then night falls. Nighttime is shorter than daytime, at 4 minutes, during which you have to rest in a room - if you don't, you'll be drowsy during daytime. You have a set amount of time to run back indoors, which varies between roles: for most it'll be 1 minute, while Town/Mafia killer roles can stay up for 3 minutes, and the Nightwatch can just walk outside all night to their heart's content.
At night, everyone will appear anonymous to each other, their avatars being fully black silhouettes. If people try to speak, their name will appear “Unknown (1) says, ‘hey man whats good’.”, where (1) is their unique character ID set at round start.
Murder
GUN SHOOTY BANG BANG STABBY STABBY HAPPENS
Sleep
Sleep is very important - if you don’t get enough of it at night, you'll be "drowsy" when dawn strikes, which earns you a mess of handicaps until you enter trial. You will have extreme difficulty talking to people and examining anything, and will show up to the trial one minute late, where the effect wares off. However, it's easy to avoid: simply go to a room (preferably your own) before your timer runs out, and make sure not to go back outside.
Even though you’re stuck indoors, you can still look outside through the windows, and walk around the house to making sure nobody is coming. You CAN go outside, but it'll get you forgeted up almost all of the next day. It’s a fine balance between resting through some nights and running outside other nights.
GAME TYPES:All-Inclusive consists of the following:
Jailor
Town Investigative 2x
Town Support 2x
Town Protective
Town Killing
Random Town
Mafia Godfather
Mafia Killer
Random Mafia
Psycho
Delinquent
Neutral
Literally Any Role
Controlled Chaos consists of the following:
Jailor
Random Town 7x
Random Mafia 3x
Random Independent 3x
Literally Any Role
Total Chaos consists of the following:
Literally Any Role 15x
LOBBY:If you get brutally murdered early on in a match, don't sweat it! We have an expansive lobby with plenty of minigames to keep you entertained until the next round starts. There are a ton of great ones -- falling platforms, deathmatch, you name it!
(The lobby will be added in a post-launch update)
CREDITS:Blank Media Games, for the idea and creation of Town of Salem.
Jack Noir / Crystalwarrior, for scripting and helping design the gamemode, and initially proposing the idea to make this a standalone gamemode instead of just a gamemode within Mafia Madness.
rggbnnnnn, for helping design a majority of the gamemode and hosting the server(s).
Caden100 / Cadlage, for helping design a bit of the gamemode.
Navar0nius / Cybertails1998, for helping design a bit of the gamemode and massively cleaning up the OP.