Template:Story Janitor
Mechanics
"Cleaning" only means your target's role and Last Will will not be revealed to the Town. It does not have any effect on an Arsonist's gas.
- Your cleaning attempt will be successful if your target dies for any reason, including leaving the game. However, it is most common that the player dies by a member of the Mafia, as you can see who can potentially die that night.
- The cause of death will still be revealed to the Town, even if it is a Bodyguard dying by guarding someone, or a Vigilante dying of guilt.
- Your target's role will appear as Cleaned in the Graveyard.
- After you have successfully Cleaned a victim, you will receive a message about their exact role at the beginning of the next day.
- This will appear as a plain message: 'You secretly know that your target's role was [Role]'
- 'You secretly know their last will'
- You will be able to read your victim's original Last Will by clicking on their name in the Graveyard. Everybody else, including the other members of the Mafia, will see a blank Last Will.
- Amnesiacs cannot attempt to remember a Cleaned person's role.
- If a Forger attempts to forge your target's Last Will, their attempt will have no effect; your clean takes priority.
- If your target is also killed by Medusa, your clean will take priority over their stoning, they'll appear as Cleaned instead of Stoned.
- If you visit a jailed target, you will not waste a clean.
Strategy
Selecting Someone to Clean
- It is very important and common to clean Town Investigative roles, because they are almost guaranteed to write something in their Last Will that is important to aid the Townies in lynching the right people. You should clean them, especially if the Mafioso or Godfather decides to kill a known Town Investigative. Be aware that if you Cleaned a Town Investigative role by chance on the first night, there will not be information.
- You can later disguise to be one of the known Town Investigative roles as well. Additionally, Consiglieres can benefit from the information obtained, and it will often help them prioritize their investigations.
- Be wary of cleaning the Mafia's first target. Since night one is when Investigators and Sheriffs will only be getting their first bit of information, if you kill one of them, their Last Will will not contain useful information for the Town. If any roles that aren't Town Investigatives are killed, then it doesn't matter either, as the Retributionist normally waits to use their only revival past Night 3, and the Medium is almost never confirmed after the first night. As the information from these Last Wills will not surface until much later, your cleanings may be more useful to use later on.
- If a fellow member is being accused by a non-confirmed Town Investigative (especially from Day 3 and onward), and you are definite that they are that role, cleaning them can also be beneficial, however, some players might think your fellow Mafia member is the Janitor, or at the very least, a member of the Mafia, due to hiding that player's information from the others.
- On the other hand, in games with tighter role lists, like Ranked, cleaning anyone will conceal their role and make it much harder for the Town to determine people's roles by process of elimination; therefore, it might be a worthwhile strategy to use all your cleans as quickly as possible to be sure you free up as much claim space as you can before you die.
- Retributionists are also unable to revive your Cleaned targets. This can come in handy when dealing with a revealed Mayor, Jailor, or other important roles who often leave important Last Wills. Bonus points if the Retributionist tries to prove themselves by reviving the Cleaned role - and getting lynched when they fail.
- However, this may lead the Retributionist to revive a Town Protective role, like Doctor - making the Mafia's job all that much harder. Generally, it is still a good idea, though.
- Even when you are cleaning roles that seem to have no importance for the Mafia in their Last Will (such as Doctors, Jesters, Bodyguards, or Survivors), it still can be helpful to confuse the Townies in a situation where the role list is tight. This situation is more likely to be useful when you're likely to be lynched next day or the game would be likely to end because there are only a few players left, and you would like to use all of your three cleanings. Also, if you clean a Jester, then you can use it to your advantage. Simply acting like a bad Jester will probably result in you being ignored.
- If you're in doubt about when to use your cleanings, you may consider cleaning a person who is leaving the game or getting disconnected ("apparently committed suicide"). Those who left the game are incapable of telling a Medium their true role and are usually not investigated and not watched by Lookouts (especially on Night 1). They are also guaranteed not to retaliate! (eg. Veteran and Werewolf). This always sheds doubt especially on semi-random role lists, as Townies will be unsure of the existence of that role.
- Avoiding cleaning if you want to expose a role to the town—i.e. a Consigliere has found a Vampire and you want the town to know that Vampires are in the game.
Taking advantage of your cleanings
- You know your target's role, so saying you are a Medium the next night and revealing their role, claiming they told it to you can support you. With this way, you can trick the Town by saying in the name of the dead people, for example, "The (name/role) says X is suspicious/Mafia/Neutral Killing." when X is not a part of the Mafia. Moreover, you can do other things to make you naturally believed as a Medium by becoming a messenger (i.e. if Jailor has executed a Townie, you can say "The jailed Townie is getting mad at the Jailor").
- However, keep in mind that sometimes it's normal to have two or more Mediums, which would result to the real Medium calling you out as the dead people will alert the real Medium(s) during the night.
- This strategy may have a backlash when you're standing out as a Medium for too long without the Mafia trying to kill you, especially when you have revealed a lot of "important" information publicly. The Townies might think you are a Janitor instead. Many Townies will rapidly lynch any Medium claims when it becomes clear there's an active Janitor, helped along with the fact that Medium is not deemed useful to most players and Medium is a common claim for a Janitor.
- Another option you can do is to pretend or role-play to be the role that you Cleaned, especially because only you can read your target's Last Will. Many Unique Roles are rarely claimed due to the ease with which they can be counterclaimed; cleaning can open these up to the entire Mafia! In all cases, be aware that this risks getting you exposed by a Medium and that these claims trust the Town to not dig any further and demand confirmation going forwards; usually the Town won't ask for more confirmation once you're "confirmed", but it may happen if the game drags on or if something else calls attention to you. Regardless, when a cleaning allows them, some of the most powerful claims are ones that the Mafia is rarely able to make (and which therefore are less likely to face the backlash from the Town):
- Another strategy is if you are aware of a Retributionist reviving someone, and no one else knows about it, you can kill and clean the real Retributionist, and if a Town member is revived the following day, you can claim that you are the confirmed Retributionist that revived that Town role.
- While it's dangerous, claiming to be the Jailor is sometimes plausible after cleaning the real Jailor, as the Town will frequently not bother to ask for additional confirmation, trusting the real Jailor to sort you out if you lied (and are unaware that the real Jailor is dead); you can also use previous records of who the Jailor jailed from their Last Will in order to get them to "confirm" you as the Jailor. However, if there is a Medium, they will call you out as "not Jailor". The only probable hope then is to pretend to be a Jester.
- After cleaning a Jailor, you can use other strategies that rely on the Town's assumption that the Jailor is still alive, too.
- Help your fellow members of the Mafia out! If a member of the Mafia is in trouble, tell a role of a person you Cleaned so they can have claim-space. Of course, you won't be able to claim this role anymore, but you could save the life of another member of the Mafia.
- Similarly, the Veteran is normally a dangerous role to claim because it's unique; but after you've Cleaned one, it becomes incredibly easy and will discourage Investigators or any Town roles from investigating you in the future.
- Transporter is usually an impossible role to claim due to the need to produce a Last Will that the people who have been transported can confirm. However, it sometimes becomes available if you steal the detailed Last Will of a Transporter; however, you need to claim said role quickly, as the Town may notice if "your" Last Will ends early. Alternatively, you can tack on entries at the end that transport you with members of the Mafia or with people who died; one or two Townies confirming the Last Will's transports will often be sufficient to let you pass as a Transporter.
- In Ranked and other modes where roles are defined by general category, successfully cleaning a role opens up that entire category as a safe claim. For example, in Ranked, if the Doctor dies, it is usually safe to claim to be a Doctor or Bodyguard.
- You can find Neutral Killing roles based on what they claim, as you will know what is and isn't possible.
After you're Out of Cleanings
- When out of cleanings, don't give up! You still contribute to the Mafia via voting, sharing out strategies in the Mafia night chat, taking advantage of the Cleaned roles, or perhaps becoming a Mafioso later on.
- If you've already pretended to be as Medium (and you're safe that there are no actual Mediums left), you can continue the disguising strategy or simply saying nothing "as no Townies are talking". However, this is not recommended and you should always be prepared with some information. It is suspicious if you are silent and have no information, even if you were a real Townie.
- If you have no cleanings left, it can be a good idea to try and take a hit for a more important member of the Mafia (Godfather, another Janitor with cleanings left, a Mafioso or a Forger with forges, etc.) Try pulling attention to yourself to draw it away from others. Only do this if it is clear that another member of the Mafia is in danger of getting enough suspicion on them, they are lynched or killed, or if they have a more important role in the Mafia than you do. Keep in mind you do not need to be alive to win when the Mafia kills everyone.
- As a role with no more night abilities, you can try and create chaos.
- You could also let the Godfather, Mafioso, Consigliere, or any other Mafia member call you out as a Janitor, and then "confirm" themselves as Sheriff or Investigator or another Town role. This is a form of bussing, and if pulled off, can be very helpful. However, be sure that all Cleaned roles have been shared with the Mafia, otherwise the sacrifice will be for nothing and you won't gain anything out of it.
