Template:Story Medium
Mechanics
- During the night, the dead will see any alive Mediums talking as "Medium".
- When talking to the dead, you do not see the other Mediums talking.
- When you are dead, you may click the sun icon during the day phase to "seance" a living person once.
- If you are jailed, you will hear both the dead and the Jailor; however, only the Jailor will hear you, and the dead will not be able to hear you nor the Jailor.
- Once you have used your seance, the sun icon will disappear, and you can no longer seance again the next day.
Strategy
- As a Medium, you are capable of many useful things:
- You can relay what the dead are saying back to the living.
- You can confirm other Mediums.
- You are one of two roles (Medium and Janitor) that are able to figure out cleaned roles directly
- However, remember that evil roles can be cleaned because of the Transporter or the Witch/Coven Leader, and they can lie about their role to throw off the Town. Therefore, if there is a Transporter or Witch/Coven Leader, there is a chance that the cleaned person is evil.
- You can get the last result of a Town Investigative role just before they died.
- You can retrieve information from anyone that has had their Last Will modified by a Forger.
- You can find out what happened to people before they died, such as if they were blackmailed, role blocked, controlled by a Witch, etc.
- You can discover if an Escort or Jailor was killed by a Serial Killer that they targeted with their abilities. Note that these roles receive a special message when killed by a Serial Killer they role blocked but not when the same thing happens with a Werewolf, so they cannot confirm who the Werewolf is (although they may have suspicions based on what the person said, and may be able to tell you who they targeted that night).
- You get the thoughts from the deceased on who they think is Town, Mafia, or Neutral Killing.
- You can talk to other Mafia or Neutral members to possibly get some more information using your seance.
- By giving your name to dead Townies and asking them to check the names of other people that claim Medium, you can figure out who is actually a Medium or not. This also ensures that if any Town members are revived by a Retributionist, they will know you're a confirmed Town member. And remember, always state your name in the Medium chat at the start of every night to ensure that all new dead people will know your identity.
- You can also prove yourself by getting secret information from the dead. Ask them for the contents of any whispers they sent or received so you can use it to prove yourself to whoever was at the other end. Also, ask anyone who was jailed to tell you what they discussed with the Jailor (or, alternatively, ask the Jailor what they discussed with everyone they jailed), then use this to prove you're a Medium if necessary.
- Be warned, however, as players communicating externally may use this to find out your role.
- You could even suggest that the remaining players whisper passcodes to each other; later, if a Town member dies, you can get their passcode from them and use it to confirm yourself.
- Important: Your job in the Town is to carry on the discussion after people die. It's beneficial having dead players discuss freely without any doubts once you're dead, as Townies can give you useful information. This role can potentially change who wins and who loses, so discuss wisely.
- Don't always trust what a cleaned victim tells you since they could be a Neutral character or possibly even a Mafia member trying to throw you off with false information. Ask the deceased for proof before you tell everyone that someone is guilty. The dead can still be wrong or lie to prevent game-throwing.
- You can speak to a just-lynched Jester and try to convince them to haunt your preferred target. While Jesters have no particular reason to listen to you, they often do; many of them want to have a big impact on the game and would rather haunt a Neutral Killing role rather than a random Townie.
- Reverse Psychology also works: if a Jester just got lynched, beg them not to haunt your preferred target. They may pick that target just to annoy you, but in reality, it is what you wanted. Note that this is less effective in general as a strategy.
- Having two Mediums can be the key to success in a round. If one of them dies, they can take info from the newly dead and tell this to the other Medium. They can also confirm each other by the dead almost instantly, provided they say their name. A revived Townie can also tell the Town who the Mediums are, making 4 Townies (the Retributionist by announcing or confirming another way, the revived target, and the two Mediums) confirmed at once.
- However, none of the above matters if nobody knows you exist, so make your presence known as soon as possible at night.
Using your Seance
- If you die, do not quit, even if you die Night 1. You are still able to speak to a living person once through your seance.
- Don't use your seance immediately after you die. Save it until you have enough useful information and have identified a living person you trust to use it.
- Do not save your seance too long. Many Mediums end up saving it until it's too late. Remember, you have to push the seance button the day before the night you talk with someone, and the Town usually needs to still have a majority the next day or they won't be able to do anything with the information you provide.
- Practically speaking, this means the Town usually needs to have at least two more Townies than the Mafia on the end of the day you initiate the seance (the Mafia will most likely kill one of the Townies, leaving the Town with only one more member than the Mafia, allowing them to lynch one), which leaves you a very narrow window to seance effectively.
- Using your seance on any role that has the ability to speak at night (e.g. a Jailor, or any member of the Mafia) can lead to a very confusing and often irritating conversation, since other people will be speaking at the same time as you, yet neither of you can see the other's messages. In most cases, it's a detriment to the player you're speaking to from beyond the grave.
- You could also use your seance on someone who is suspected of being Mafia; once the seance begins, you could take note if it seems what they say is to be directed towards other players. If what they say sounds like they are conversing with other members, then you just possibly found a member yourself. The problem with this is you have no way of directly telling the Town about this, unless someone is resurrected or another Medium seances.
- When you are dead, you could try to lie to a dead member of the Mafia. You can claim that you have wasted your seance, and then after about 30 seconds later, ask that person who the last Mafia members are, or try to guess and ask if you are correct. You may have to convince that person that you have used your seance. Remember, he/she could still be lying or might not tell you who the Mafia are. If you do manage to get information, then use your seance on a trusted Town member and tell him/her the information.
- If it turns out there are two Mediums, you can use your seance on a third trusted person once you're dead to ensure the Town doesn't believe the second Medium claim is fake.
- If there are two Mediums, keep in mind that you get an achievement for the first time you seance a Serial Killer, Godfather, or Arsonist. If you happen to get any of these achievements, make sure to alert the other Medium the next night.
- Occasionally, if there is more than one way for the Town to access the living (a second Medium, a possible Retributionist, etc), it can be useful to seance someone who you think is evil and to try and get them to confess.
- If you use your seance on someone with useful information, always tell them to put it in their Last Will immediately. If you've identified them as reliable Town, the Mafia probably has too, and might kill them that night; if they don't write your information in their will, it might be lost. Remember: the Last Will only saves if you close it.
- You can instruct the person you're using your seance on how to use their ability in a particular way that very night, such as telling a Vigilante who to shoot. If the dead have identified a definite member of the Mafia, it can be valuable to anyone you think may need a little push to do the right thing.
- If you do not have any useful information, you could seance the Mafia Killing and tell them who to kill to try and confuse them. By saying things like "Kill Addfire" or "The Vet is out of alerts, kill him" or "Don't kill Carbon", or even “Octoling is in jail, don’t target him”, you may cause the Mafia to lose.
- However, keep in mind that spamming is discouraged significantly as you can be banned, so when using this strategy, try to use this strategy effectively while also respecting the game's rules.
- Choosing to seance any member of the Mafia after you are certain you do not have any useful information, then annoying them with useless information or repeating over and over again that a confirmed evil is actually a Townie, could cause the Mafia to get distracted and make a mistake, tipping the game in favor of the Town.
- Keep in mind, however, that spamming is against the rules and could cause your account to be suspended or banned. This strategy is frowned upon in general, so use sparingly.
How to Help the Medium
- It should be simple enough to realize this, but if you die, DON’T LEAVE. The Medium relies on dead players being in the game to be useful. A graveyard with no in-game players is as good as empty to a Medium.
- Any talk is good talk when a Medium is present. Keep the Chat at night lively, and post any leads or suspicions you can. It may just tip the balance of the game.
- Are you a Jester that just got lynched? Let the Medium know who you plan to target. If you happen to be targeting them, they’ll likely let you know.
- Did you attack an immune role, but never got the word out? Let the Medium know so they can relay it to the living.
Trivia
- The "Medium’s Curse" is a popular joke that Mediums always get killed on the first night when their role is "basically useless", despite the player not having revealed their role. Players will usually refer to it whenever it occurs, but not mention it if a Medium stays alive for more than ~2 days. If a Medium is one of the last alive, they might say that the "Medium’s Curse" has failed or finally been lifted. The Medium's Curse is similar to the less popular "Retributionist's Curse".
- The "Hogan Scenario" is when two Mediums are in the game and their miscommunication causes a snafu during the day. The name comes from a character who was a second Medium, and the quote comes from his defense portion - "You're stupid brothers!".
- The Medium received a buff in Version 0.3.0 which was released on June 10th of 2014. Prior to then, the Medium would use its ability in the daytime to select one person from the graveyard to talk to anonymously during the night. In addition, once the Medium was dead, he did not have a seance available to communicate with the living.
- According to a poll made by Naru2008, the Medium is the most hated role in Town of Salem which had 304 votes, saying "you were just a sitting duck", waiting to be killed.
- The name Medium might have been derived from the French word "médium", which is a person who pretends to communicate with ghosts.
