Difference between revisions of "Bus Driver"

Latest revision as of 22:38, 9 November 2016

Overview

The Bus Driver is a Town Power / Town Protective role can be both massively helpful or destructive for the Town depending upon the skill and luck of the player. The Bus Driver has the ability to swap the positions of two players each night; night actions that target one of the swapped players will be redirected to the other one.

When used carefully, this ability can be very beneficial to the Town, both in terms of being able to bus important members of Town out of danger's way and in terms of being able to bus scum into harm's way (either forcing a killing role to kill himself or to kill his allies).

However, when not used carefully, the Bus Driver can cause a lot of chaos and disrupt the Town's night actions, including its investigative leads, other protective targeting (Doctors / Bodyguards), or night kills (Vigilantes). Therefore, it is very important to use the Bus Driver's ability judiciously to ensure that you are an asset to the Town as opposed to a liability. Some strategy discussion about how and when to use the Bus Driver's ability is below.

Strategies

• Many players believe that it is not necessarily a good idea to bus drive people randomly. They think that you will be more likely to cause harm than good, such as causing confusion for the investigative Town roles.
  • At the very least, it is important to leave a Last Will indicating the players that you bussed on each night so that the Town can do some thinking about its leads on those people and adjust as necessary.
  • Having it be in an easy-to-understand format such as this is important: such as: N1: no one, N2: #7 and #1, N3: #15 and #14,

• A Bus Driver may serve an important purpose in terms of protecting important Town roles that are not able to be healed by Doctors such as a Mayor (in most setups) or a Marshall.
  • The Bus Driver can swap these roles, once they have revealed, with another player, whomever is most likely to be scum in the Bus Driver's opinion.
  • Because of their self-confirmation and votes (for the Mayor) / lynch round ability (for the Marshall), a Mayor or Marshall who is able to stay alive for more than a turn or two is a huge threat to the Mafia / Triad.
  • The same practice can also be done for other important Town roles in the absence of a Doctor or Bodyguard. For example, bussing around a confirmed Sheriff who has already identified a member of the Mafia / Triad.
• Because a Bus Driver may be assigned to the Town as a Town Protective, it is possible to receive one or more in lieu of any Doctors, Bodyguards, or Escorts in many setups.
  • Therefore, the Bus Driver may need to wear two hats -- both protecting valuable Town members (as described above) as well as attempting to get scum to kill each other (as described more below)
• A Bus Driver can cause a killing role without night immunity to kill itself by swapping the killing role with its target.
  • The game refers to this as being run over by a bus in the death description of the player killed. There is also an in-game Achievement associated with this action -- Licensed To Kill.
  • In contrast, if you swap a killing role that has night immunity with its target, you will not kill that player. Instead, that player will get a message that they were almost run over by a bus.
• Additionally a Bus Driver can also force an Arsonist to douse himself by swapping the Arsonist with their target.
  • However, the Arsonist can always undouse himself the next night so this may be more of a diversionary tactic if douse notification is on. If douse notification is off, you may be able to trick the Arsonist into dousing himself and igniting without realizing that he self doused as well.

• Situational strategy: if a Survivor role-claims (or proves it), they are unlikely to be targeted at night by killing roles, so you can swap the Survivor with the target you want to keep safe.
  • This is another reason why an early Survivor claim is not necessarily the best strategy for that role. You may find yourself being used by the Bus Driver as a shield for another player.
  • This strategy can also be used with other roles that are not useful to the Town, including an Executioner who has publicly revealed himself (especially one with night immunity) or a Jester.

Options

• Can target self - (Default: Off)
  • In terms of the current meta, most hosts enable this option because it allows the Bus Driver to be far more powerful / useful at the end of a game.
  • Scum tend not to like a Bus Driver because of the unpredictability he adds to a game so he is often a good target to reduce the chance of accidentally killing scum that have been swapped with your intended target.
  • Also, not allowing a Bus Driver to target himself means that he will be useless at the end of a game if he is attacked directly. In contrast, a self-targeting Bus Driver has an excellent change to flip himself with scum (as described above) and trigger a Bus Driver "run over by a bus" type kill for the Town.

Notes

• A game can become EXTREMELY chaotic with multiple Bus Drivers in play. For this reason, most hosts lower the chances of Bus Drivers appearing to reduce the possibility of this outcome, given how disruptive it may be on a game, in terms of any / all night targeting.
• For example if there are 3 players (Player A, Player B and Player C) and 2 Bus Drivers and the first Bus Driver swaps players A and B whilst the second Bus Driver swaps players B and C:
  • The original order of the players is A B C
  • If Bus Driver one swaps first the new order is B A C followed by B C A after Bus Driver two swaps
  • If Bus Driver two swaps first the new order is A C B followed by C A B after Bus Driver one swaps
• With multiple Bus Drivers it becomes relatively impossible to know which players were affected what way in the previous night if the Bus Drivers targets overlap because there are multiple possible outcomes. The game mechanic is whoever is higher up on the original game lobby list gets to swap their targets first.

• Bus Drivers only affect the recipients of night actions. For example if a Sheriff investigates a player and the Sheriff is then swapped but the Sheriff's target is not, then the Sheriff will still investigate their target normally.

• If the Bus Driver is controlled by a Witch, no one will be swapped.