Sooooo... Town of Salem...

So, call me a casual scrub or whatever all you want, but my favorite game right now is Town of Salem, no contest. It's a fun online game, and each time you play is different from the last, partially due to all the roles given to players being randomized, but also due to you playing with a new set of players each time. Which is absolutely awesome, because I, a hermit with social anxiety and very few real-life social skills, actually made quite a few online buddies via Town of Salem in this way. But at the same time, the fact that you could be playing with anyone at any time is one of its downfalls, as well.

To put it frankly, there is a portion of the Town of Salem community that is absolute trash. It's not too big, but it's significant enough for a small portion of games to be ruined for most of the other players. The people in this portion of the community usually fall into a few different categories: 

• petty assholes/bullies,
• shit posters/spammers and creeps, 
• cheaters, 
• game throwers, and 
• hackers.

They each kind of ruin the game in their own special way, and in order to best show you how, I'll be giving examples from my own past experiences. Just keep in mind that I'm not trying to target anyone in any of these stories or anything (except maybe the guy in the last story, but he's a little different, you'll see). I just want to make sure people know why they shouldn't do this kind of crap in excessive amounts on any online gaming platform, and definitely not on Town of Salem.

First, let's talk about being a petty asshole/bully, because being a petty asshole on Town of Salem could easily lead to becoming spammers and game throwers, as well (and, yes, I will have a story relating to this later on), and it's also one of the most common members of the shit community nowadays.

Petty assholes tend to completely forget that Town of Salem is just a game with no real-life consequences, and thus become extremely angry at the stupidest things. Did someone accidentally hang a town member? Did they briefly forget someone was the confirmed sheriff and simply ask for their role? Well, I can guarantee you that the petty asshole isn't going to let you forget it, and they'll verbally abuse you for the remainder of the game until they die, in which case they will bitch about you and how "retarded" you are to the rest of the townies in the afterlife.

Now, I'm no genius, so I've dealt with my fair share of petty assholes targeting me, and let me start off by saying that it is never a pleasant experience, especially for someone with social anxiety. Fairly recently, it was down to just me, an online buddy (who I'll simply call "Odd"), and another player. The mafia was all gone, so that just left me as the medium (who speaks to dead town members at night), another townie, and a werewolf . Odd was claiming the investigator, so we were putting the other player up for lynching when they claimed escort. So my mind re-winded back a little to where someone was claiming that they had been role blocked the last few nights. No escorts were dead and the graveyard was filled with roles (therefore making it easy for someone to make a fake investigator will). 

So, I voted innocent on the other player and together we put Odd up for lynching. Odd was investigator, so I knew I'd screwed up big time. Night fell, and there was no full moon, so I was expecting maybe just a few "Yeah, that was kinda dumb"s, and while Odd explained to me that it was a mafia member trying to weasel his way out of lynching that claimed he was being role blocked, another dead town member was yelling at me in all caps about how I was an idiot, how I was retarded, and how if I payed any attention to the game at all, the town wouldn't be losing. 

And for the first time in a long, long while I got a bit of an anxiety attack. 

I kept saying sorry, he kept yelling, and when day came, I told the werewolf he played well and got the hell out of there before the game even ended because I didn't want to spend another minute being told that I was a stupid, worthless human being.

Before I left, I saw the werewolf saying something along the lines of "don't yell at him," and immediately after I left, Odd messaged me from the home screen and waited a whole five minutes before I had calmed down enough to actually properly respond to him with something other than "Sorry". The other friend we were playing with (I'll call her "Flame") who had to leave that particular game early (I'm assuming her game froze) was extremely confused as to what had happened, and I was way too embarrassed to explain.

Now I'm going to talk about shit posters/spammers and creeps, because while they're not nearly as common as they used to be due to mods cracking down on the report system, they still have a bit of a presence in the community. Spammers can seriously distract from the game since, as is the case with most of them, they will oftentimes post the same text over and over again. Creeps work a little differently in that most of the language they use tends to be vulgar and gross, and that no one wants to talk to them because of it. And while that can be considered a tactic for jesters to get the town to want to lynch them, it 1) can be considered harassment, and 2) tends to be used by people who are a part of the town and just want to be gross assholes for no reason.

I think my worst experience with a spammer was a year or two ago, when I was playing with someone that called himself "Dog". Dog would only speak via "BARK BARK BARK", and he would speak often, so the discussion phase of the day would be filled with walls upon walls of "BARK BARK BARK". And I grew sick and tired of it really quick and told him to please shut up. I was jailed the next night. Guess who it was? If you guessed "Dog," then you are correct, because I was barked at the entire night. Not that it was of any consequence to anyone, since I was a simple framer, but it was annoying as all hell when he jailed me a second night. Then a third night. Then a fourth. He never executed me. Just barked and barked and barked and barked. During the day, he would whisper to me in barks. The Serial Killer attacked me, but I wasn't even granted the sweet release of death because I was in jail. So one night, after the mafia killed the lookout, I finally shouted "GUYS, DOG IS THE JAILOR, KILL HIM." The dog executed me, finally, and I died. I was relieved to finally be free of him before I saw ghostly text floating on my screen "BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK" and remembered that he was killed with me. 

...OK, yeah. It's funny looking back on it, but I actually wanted to punch something at the time.

Now, as for an experience with a creep,  this one does get nsfw, so please excuse me. 

I was playing alone in a game with a person calling their self something along the lines of "Joan the slut". Basically, Joan's shtick was that he was gay, really gay, and that he wanted to have sex with everyone. So he'd whisper things to people and they would respond back, not in a whisper "Dude, stop, please." He'd keep saying stuff like "I want to suck so much dick" and "Drink my cum" out loud. Eventually, I was was killed without him whispering to me (thankfully), but when I died, I met another dead townie who says he more or less took his Town of Salem username, and that he felt really grossed out by it. About 50% of the dead people had reported Joan by the end of the game for harassment, but what got everyone else to report him was when he effectively game threw by lynching his fellow mafia when it was 2v1. When the game ended (mafia still won somehow), everyone left immediately. Except for me. I simply told him "Just letting you know that everyone here's reported you for either harassment or game throwing," and left. Next game, there's a player named Moaner who says "moooooooaaaaan". I was pretty sure it was Joan, but he confirmed it to me when, on day 1, he whispered to me twice.. "Take those fifteen reports and shove them up your ass hole," and "Drink my cum, bitch." I ignored him the rest of the game. He continued his harassment of other players, everyone reported him again, and when the game ended, I waited about a minute after Moaner left before starting a new game, just to make sure I wouldn't have to play with him again.

No one wants to play with gross creeps, so don't be a gross creep.

Now, cheaters are a little tricky to deal with, since most of the time you don't catch them, and they oftentimes don't even know that what they're doing is giving themselves an unfair advantage over others, which just makes the game frustrating.

These players tend to play together over Skype, or Discord, or some other platform that helps them communicate more easily. And I don't have a problem with that in itself, but you need to make sure you're not giving away so much information about your role and your findings to your friend that it becomes unfair to others. The best way to get past that is to just talk as a whole about the game; if you're mafia, try to deflect your friend the way you would with any other player. Lie, tell them you're town, don't tell them your name, lead them into the wrong direction. A good example of this is how Minx, a let's player known in the community for playing this game on YouTube, plays with her friends. Just watch her play one game and you'll know what I mean. She's a deceiving little bitch, and I love that about her.

The players in this story weren't necessarily ill-meaning, but the way that they played seriously unbalanced the game, and I was extremely frustrated by it.

What basically happened three nights into the game, one of the townies died. Can't remember their role or anything, but I do remember the will they left. "[So and So] and [This or That] are mafia! I know because I'm on Discord with them! I want them dead! They're traitors to the town!" Everyone thought it was a forged will until the confirmed medium came out the next day and confirmed that this player had, indeed, written those exact words in their will.

Now, this upset me for a couple of reasons. One being that they were cheating, obviously. Another being that they were ratting out the buddies they were cheating with. And it left the game completely unbalanced, even though the arsonist ended up winning (and, yes, those other two players were mafia). Pretty much everyone reported the three, and I took a little initiative in making sure everyone did. Next game, lo and behold, I die and meet another person in the dead chat who simply says "Snow is mean." When I asked them about it, they said "I know you from the last game." And they pretty much confirmed my suspicions with their silence when I asked if they were one of the cheaters.

I'm pretty sure that these people were kind of young, maybe preteens or early teens, and probably just didn't know any better, and I do feel a little bad for being a bit harsh on them, but at the same time, no one wants to play an unbalanced game. I hate it when there's cheating on my team or the other team because it makes things unfair for everyone, and I want to make things as fair and enjoyable as possible for other players. Don't ruin the experience for other people, please. 

Now the next category is game throwers, and, boy, does this one get my panties in a twist. Game throwers are people that go out of their way to purposefully lose the game, and bring down everyone on their team with them.

The most generic example I can think of is when I played as the mafioso. We had a consigliere who picked a random person to investigate night one- nothing out of the ordinary. But when the sun rose on night two, the consigliere announced to the town that he was the consigliere and that he found the werewolf, and he then proceeded to tell the town the names and roles of all the other mafia. Ironically, at the exact same time, there was a hacker present who revealed the names of all the mafia, plus the werewolf. Needless to say, both these players were reported by literally everyone, and the game didn't last long between vigilante strikes, lynchings, and jailor kills.

But that story's simple, and I did promise you a story about a petty asshole becoming a game thrower. So here's another one. This story comes from a game I played with a friend I'll call "Captain". We had played a game together previously and randomly ended up in this match, so we knew each other and ended up friending one another following this game because we liked one another's playing style, even if the game ended up being absolutely awful in the end.

I was the executioner, and my target was someone with a default name, something like Giles Corey. So I did the usual spiel on day 2, "I'm sheriff, and Giles Corey is mafia" and the like, and people who could use their brain saw through my horrendous lie and ignored me, knowing I was the executioner. So I gave up and used common logic to help the town. So, come the end of the game, when there is only me, Captain, Giles Corey, another town, and the serial killer, I get just a tad bit selfish and ask if we can hang Giles, so that I can get a win and we can all lynch the guy we knew was Serial Killer the next day and go on our merry way.

Captain was up for the idea, since I helped us get the town that far, but Giles decided to insult me relentlessly, calling me things along the lines of a "brainless retard". The other townie was on the fence, so Giles wasn't voted that night, and come morning, the other townie is dead. I say to forget it, to just get the Serial Killer, and Captain just does so, but Giles apparently had other ideas. He decided to continue cursing at me while he voted with the Serial Killer for me. They didn't have the majority, but neither did Captain and I, and the day ended with me knowing that my friend would be dead the next morning. And when morning came, Giles, of course, decided to vote me up for lynching, saying that I was a retard and that he never wanted a retarded town that listened to a retarded executioner to win.

I was lynched, and Giles was killed the next morning. He robbed approximately ten people (including himself) of a win that could have easily been theirs, and he was reported for game throwing.

All because the executioner also wanted to win.

Now, it's time for a story about hackers.
See, there was a particular incident that happened during a game I played a while ago that prompted me to make this post, because it honestly kind of freaked me out. See, it dealt with a guy that was a combination of three different shit community categories: Cheating, game throwing, and hacking. And, hell, he could potentially fall under the petty asshole category, too.
Now, this was a game that I was playing with my buddy Odd.

I honestly can't even remember remember what my role was, just that I was a part of the town. It all started when the jailor died night one or two, and the next night they were revived. Someone called out something along the lines of "I'm the retributionist. You're welcome, [jailor]." At that moment, someone with the default name William Phips revealed himself as mayor. This wasn't the weird part; people pick all sorts of weird times to reveal themselves as mayor.

So, as this was clearly the most logical thing to do, Mayor William votes up the guy that claimed retributionist. Even more disturbing was the fact that a few other townies, including the jailor that was revived, also voted him up until he was on trial. In the end, in a almost completely full town, only three people were sensible enough to vote innocent on him: me, Odd, and one other townie.

The guy was, of course, the retributionist (big surprise, since no one else seemed to want to claim the role), and the following days were just... weird. Someone that claimed sheriff said that he'd found a mafia member; the guy had no defense, so the mayor kept voting him up with a few of the town members that weren't on the fence about this. But he always voted innocent, and when his votes counted for three and the other mafia members were also voting innocent, that meant that the guy got off free. But the mayor did it again. And again, so that we'd used up all trials for the day. He never said anything, either. Just voted him up, voted innocent.

He kept doing stuff like this, and eventually I died, then Odd died, and a whole bunch of other townies died. The Serial Killer kept killing mafia members one after another until, eventually, there were only four people left: the Godfather, the one other guy that voted innocent on the retributionist (I think we was a doctor), Mayor William Phips, and the Serial Killer William Hobbs. The mayor voted for the Godfather, so he was the one that ended up being lynched in the end, but it was this point in time in which William Phips started to talk, and things were getting weird, to say the least.

See, the Godfather had accused him of cheating (at the time, I was confused as to why), and was saying that he would report him. To this, William Phips merely said "Eh, I have more than one account. Doesn't matter to me."

The next morning, the doctor died, and things started to get really freaky when I realized that, as William Phips the Mayor and William Hobbs the Serial Killer were talking, they weren't talking to each other, but to the people in the dead chat.

William Phips: I actually have five accounts.

William Hobbs: I hack, too, so don't even think of reporting me.

William Phips: If you do, I'll find your I.P. address.

That's when everyone realized that this was one person, either sitting with two computers on his desk or with two browsers open. In order to find all the mafia so that his Serial Killer account could kill them, he was probably either hacking to find their identities or had yet another account on this game that ended up on the mafia's team.

I was horrified when the next day came and both of the Williams were still standing.

William Hobbs: I bet this is pissing you all off, huh?

William Phips: Dead and not able to do anything about this.

William Hobbs: hahahahaha

Odd was saying to report him, to which I hastily told him, hell no, what if he hacks us for our IP's? Yet I still had this morbid sense of curiosity as I watched the two Williams talk to the quickly dwindling population of dead people, fed up and leaving in search of new games. I probably would have just kept watching until Odd told me we should probably leave and start up a new party. To which I agreed.

I still don't know if he could have done anything with my I.P. address or not, but I'm glad that I didn't stay to find out.

It still bothers me, though, that that guy likely got off scotch-free for being the most aggravating, weird, and kind of scary encounter I've ever had on the game. Odd and I were both dumbfounded by the entire thing. It still doesn't change my opinion on Town of Salem- I still love it- but that one game, in particular, puts a few things into perspective for me.

Just be careful when playing, guys. Even under anonymity, there are some weird people out there that would probably love to hack into your computer and make your life miserable if given even the slightest provocation. And that doesn't just apply to Town of Salem. This applies to all online games.

But I guess that's all I've got to say, though. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on Town of Salem if you've played it, and also let me know some crazy games you've played before. If not, you can check it out if you want; you can sign up for free on Blank Media Games (I recommend starting on Classic Mode), and if you like it enough, you could always pay five dollars for the game on Steam, though that's mostly just to support the creators.

In the meanwhile, you have an awesome day! See you!