YMMV / Town of Salem

• Base-Breaking Character:
  • The Vampires are the biggest base breakers due to their alignment changing abilities. On the one hand, they offer a new and admittedly fun twist to certain games. On the other hand, they blatantly break several fundamental rules for role creation, and are pretty much responsible for what is generally agreed to be one of the worst roles in the game (Vampire Hunter).
  • The Spy. You either hate it or love it. You either find it Difficult, but Awesome and an incredibly unique role, or you find it an annoyance for making several mafia roles useless and for being too focused on defeating members of the mafia.
• Broken Base:
  • Many of the roles are controversial in their balance. There is debate over whether the Vampire Hunter is overpowered, the town's only slim hope of winning against the overpowered vampires, or needs to be reworked entirely. The Retributionist is either overpowered or useless depending on who you ask. Whether or not Spy's loss of ability to hear whispers or see Mafia's chat makes Spy balanced or useless. The Medium either needs to be buffed or is fine the way it is. The Neutral Killers should stay as a hard to win role or be buffed, depending on the player.
  • All Any has a significant divide between players who want a balanced role list and players who like the unpredictability. The same goes for Custom Games, again split between players who want balance and those wanting something creative. If you're the host, no matter what sort of role list you create, you're going to get some people criticizing you.
• Character Tiers: Has its own page for space.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Players can do some pretty hilarious things in the game - including with the death notes or wills.
• Fanon: The Town of Salem wiki has custom stories, fan writing about the various roles, their backstories and their point of view as a game goes on. Of note are the backstories written for the Summer Solstice event, which are posted onto the roles' pages as their definitive origins, as the wiki's users had been in an edit war to get their own stories on there. Now, you can find a catalogue of custom stories here for the base game and here for roles added in the Coven expansion.
• High-Tier Scrappy
  • The Mayor. In a game where the challenge comes from not knowing who is what role and being unable to openly communicate for fear of giving the wrong information to the wrong people, the mayor's ability to display his exact alignment to the town is a borderline game breaker. A smart mayor can make the game so centralized that it just stops being fun for many players, and a stupid mayor can ruin a game just as easily by hindering the town with their poor decisions and voting power. Thankfully, they made Mayor unable to whisper or hear whispers in a recent patch, but a good one is still nightmarish for the evils.
  • The Vampire Hunter is hated by vampires for being too good at killing them AND having the ability to eavesdrop on them. Their one function is to kill Vampires (one of the rarest roles), leading to very dull gameplay. They can be VERY hard to lynch due to Enemy Mine and their investigative results. All of this is not helped by breaking several foundational rules of TOS roles (No hard counters!).
  • The Jailor is the other end of the stick, being an overpowered Creator's Pet that holds the distinction of being the only fixed town role in the ranked role list, and the center of an annoying meta where the Jailor claims on Day 1 and demands the Town Protective and Lookout camp them because there's no way to punish them for it since the also fixed (at the time of this writing) Witch cannot force the Jailor to kill a member of the town without a lucky guess. Very tellingly, the Mayor was once able to receive whispers from other players and be healed by Doctors while revealed, which caused "Mayor games" where the Mayor immediately reveals and demands everyone to whisper their roles to them. This was shut down with the current Mayor being unable to be whispered or healed while revealed, but nothing has been done to prevent pretty much the exact same thing from happening when the Jailor is at the center of it. Isn't that weird?
• Low-Tier Letdown
  • The Sheriff tends to become this in game modes outside of Classic due to a combination of being a relatively common claim for mafia and neutral killing roles to fake (meaning real Sheriffs are likely to be mistakenly lynched if there aren't other Investigative roles to confirm their innocence), often being mistaken for an Executioner if they first announce a suspicious target too early or too late in the game for the town's liking, and being unable to detect a number of evil roles. The latter issue is most prominent in the Town Traitor game mode, in which three out of the five evil roles present in the game are undetectable to the Sheriff (the Godfather, the Witch, and the Town Traitor), rendering Sheriffs virtually useless if/when the Mafioso and Random Mafia die.
  • ANY Investigative or otherwise inactive role once the number of surviving Mafia outnumber the Townies.
  • While the Crusader is hated due to being RNG based, the Trapper is widely hated due to being regarded as an incredibly inefficient and weak role, as you have to wait one night to build a trap and can only have one trap at once; the fact that the trap gets triggered by any visit and not just attacks doesn't do it any favors either.
  • Survivor has no actual goals other than staying alive, which leads them to be extremely boring to play as. The fact that they have no actual allegiances leads to them being massive trolls and backstabbing factions, and/or being killed on sight/claim just in case.
  • Framer relies on a Sheriff or Investigator even being in the game, let alone investigating their target. If the Sheriff or Investigator dies, or if there were none to begin with, they become useless.
  • Juggernaut of all roles was this. At the time the Coven expansion was released, it had an extremely low spawn rate (due to it being a "secret role"), meaning you had to get lucky to even be in a game with a Juggernaut, let alone be one. Even if you were lucky to roll a Juggernaut, you're left with no defense at the start of the game. A stark contrast to other Neutral Killing roles, which always have Basic Defense built into them. Granted, you could earn Basic Defense upon your second kill at the time, but this is assuming you weren't killed during the first few nights. To add insult to injury, you were only able to kill on full moon nights,^note meaning if you failed to secure your first kill, you'd have to wait another two nights to get another chance to attack leaving more opportunities for you to die. To top it all off, Juggernauts had no investigative result, meaning that if an Investigator investigates you, they would immediately know that they visited a Juggernaut and proceed to push the town to lynch you. Thankfully, as the role became less of a secret, it was given a higher spawn rate in 3.2.4 and its shortcomings buffed in 3.2.5, where they now start with Basic Defense, reducing the amount of kills required to fully power up, and gave it an investigative result.
  • The Poisoner has the potential to become a consistent second killer for the Coven, but becomes much less effective when a Doctor is in play.
  • In Town of Salem 2, the Coroner is laughably inefficient compared to other TIs because it struggles to gather any worthwhile information. It relies on the graveyard (therefore making it completely useless on N1) and has to connect the dead townie to their exact killer during the night. While Coroner can't be deceived by evils, they don't have to waste their time, because more often than not, a Coroner can go an entire game without finding evils because the chances are so slim.
• Memetic Badass:
  • The Pestilence, for being the only role to be unkillable at night.
  • The Mayor, for being able to force anything to lynch itself late in the game. They can even lynch the other party and win for the Town in a 1v1 situation.
  • The Arsonist. It isn't every game he's able to kill everyone at once, but it does happen.
  • The Jester no sells everything but Pestilence. He can also be the sole winner when no one survives the game.
  • And the Veteran, for being able to kill everyone that visits up to the Werewolf.
  • In a bizarre case of an inanimate object becoming this, the gallows have become this for being the only thing capable of killing Pestilence.
• Memetic Loser:
  • The Survivor, for doing almost nothing and for being a scapegoat for Town, Mafia, Coven, and the Neutral Killers (when they aren't being lynched pre-emptively to stop any Chronic Backstabbing Disorder before it starts).
  • The Vampire Hunter for being a band-aid solution to the controversial Vampires.
  • The Crusader, for killing other town members (including protective townies a lot).
  • The Framer is widely considered the worst mafia role that goes from only situationally useful to downright useless if there are no Sheriffs or Investigators in the game. It did receive a buff in Version 3.3.0 where frames last until a Sheriff or Investigator visits them, but it still remains a weak hard countering role.
  • The Firefighter. While not an actual role in the game, it's a poorly conceived frequently suggested role-idea that never will make into the game (for obvious reasons). They're designed merely to hard counter Arsonists (who at the time had the hardest time winning) and has become the crowning example of a terrible role idea.
• Memetic Mutation: Now has its own page!
• Memetic Troll: The Jester. Obviously.
  • The Forger and Disguiser have gotten this for being better at trolling than being useful.
• Narm:
  • The swear filter turns swears and insults to more acceptable substitutes. While most of the replacements make sense, others are… weird, to say the least.
  • For a brief while after the mobile Kickstarter, the game login screen had a different wallpaper that represented the people of Salem with actual faces and costumes. While it was meant to be serious, the fact that they seem to be trying too hard to look angry, combined with real people in a very cartoony game just leads it to be taken humorously by many.
• Narm Charm: The swear filter for the reason above. A sizable portion of players like to keep it on.
  • Most notably, it replaces the F-bomb with 'tarnation'. This became a meme in of itself in the community.
  • The filter outright reverses the phrases "you suck" and "you're trash" and get turned into "you are a great player" and "you are an amazing player", respectively.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The final seconds of night time, when you are scrambling to finish your will and don't know whether or not you'll live. The night time theme can also come off as this for some.
  • Conversely, being jailed when the Jailor has executions. The screen gets overlayed with jail bars and you are confronted with the Jailor, who must decide whether or not you live to the next day. More doubly so if you're a non-town role and didn't come prepared with a fake will and an alibi for your actions.
• Tear Jerker: Often, pets will start crying if their master is lynched.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • The Arsonist was lambasted for its ineffectual and slow dousing abilities. Since they became unkillable by Bodyguards (and single-handedly ruining a complacent gaming system), the hate has died down a bit.
  • People like Vampire Hunters a bit more when playing the "Dracula's Palace" Mode. Mostly because outside of Dracula's Palace and Custom, there's no guarantee one will appear in a regular All Any game (as they only have a chance to appear when Vampires do).
  • Vampires have been irritatingly shoved into custom games, due to their relative rarity (only appearing in All Any and Custom as mentioned above). Their own game mode has led to less Custom/Vampire Takeover games.
  • As of August 2020, three of the basic neutral killing roles received buffs that made them much better. The serial killer can now choose to not kill their roleblocker and when roleblocked, the killed roleblocker's will will be ruined. The werewolf now gets full moon nights every night after the 4th night. The arsonist will passively douse anybody who visits them at night and is able to see all doused targets, including those doused by other arsonists.
  • The Forger used to be regarded as one of the weakest Mafia roles in the game due to having an incredibly situational and niche ability and being basically a worse Janitor. They then got buffed into being able to choose the role the person they were forging would appear as after dying, which made it a lot more useful and gave it a distinct role to the Janitor.
  • Patch 1.5.9 featured a total rework of the Disguiser, changing them from a useless name-thief to a Mafia member that can alter the role they appear as, both to Investigators and during the post-death role announcement (if they died that day). And in 3.3.0. Disguisers now disguise other members of the Mafia as Townies. Disguised Mafia don't show up as Mafia visits to the Spy, and since the Disguiser visiting other Mafia members is considered a Mafia visit, being visited by the Mafia is no longer a guarantee that the person is innocent.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The Crusader is widely hated for its mechanic of randomly shooting a visitor of its target, which generally leads to a town member being shot. This becomes especially frustrating when the target in question has asked for protection, leading to the Crusader shooting another protective role. Two Crusaders killing each other off is rather common, and generally met with amusement and/or annoyance.
  • In terms of game modes, Coven Rivals and Vigilantics were both loathed by players so much that they were taken out of the game, with the latter being replaced by Dracula's Palace. The former for being almost unwinnable, and the latter for being so boring nobody would play it.
• That One Achievement: Due to the nature of the game, some of the achievements in the game are outright near-impossible to achieve unless you or other people go out of your way to get them. Not to mention, you're also playing on a team for the most part, meaning your allies probably wouldn't appreciate you minimizing their victory just for an achievement.
  • The most notorious and controversial of these achievements is "Faith in the Town." To get this achievement, you must be Mayor, be put on trial, then be pardoned, all without revealing yourself as the Mayor. A person playing for this achievement is put into a somewhat grey area where not revealing on stand could be considered gamethrowing. Telling people on the stand that you're trying to get this achievement won't work for the most part. After all, if you were truly were Mayor, wouldn't you just reveal yourself? The only other option is to outright lie about your role and hope town believes, but this option only adds more fuel to the gamethrowing argument. It is for this reason that many players petitioned removing this achievement due to many mislynched unrevealed Mayors wanting the achievement.
  • "Patience, Jackass, Patience." Playing as an Executioner and lynching your target isn't all that hard, right? Trying doing that on Day 10. Games normally don't go into the double digits, and even if they do; don't expect you or your target to be around at that time. This achievement, alongside Faith in the Town, would be removed in Town of Salem 2.
  • "But You Have Heard of Me" Requires 10 lost duels as the Pirate. Similar to the Execution achievement above, you have to be in a game that lasts long enough to Day 10 to even get a chance of winning this achievement. Not to mention, due to the Luck-Based Mission that is the Pirate, there's a 1/3 chance you'll win the duel, further delaying the achievement and requiring an extra night to complete. All the while you're avoiding being killed at night or being lynched during the day. The only saving grace is that the losses don't have to be consecutive and wins don't count against this achievement. "Scalawag", the Town of Salem 2 version of this achievement, would reduce the difficulty by reducing the number of lost duels needed to 6, but success is still rare.
  • "Don't Fear The Reaper", a ToS2 Hexmaster achievement that requires Hexing Death. An achievement that seems deceptively simple until you remember Death is an Instant-Win Condition; if Death survives the day it transforms, it will slay every non-Apocalypse before another night occurs. This means the Hexmaster has to hex the Soul Collector the exact night they transform. Even if the Soul Collector was found out, there are four possible nights they can transform, and the Hexmaster only has 1 chance. (The Hexmaster can also technically get the achievement if Death disconnects during the day, as its town killing effect won't occur if that happens, but that's an extraordinarily unlikely event.)
  • "Wild Spray", a ToS2 Wildling achievement. This is a Luck-Based Mission that requires an extremely specific circumstance: You must have a Dreamweaver teammate target a Vigilante, who must not have the insanity cleansed (which simply requires a town member to visit them), and then when insanity causes the Vigilante to shoot randomly, you must be the one who takes the bullet.
• Vindicated by History: The Neutral Killing roles being featured on Ranked games, many people used to loathe playing as NK on Ranked due to the fact that it's insanely hard to win as them. Once they were finally removed from Ranked, many players began to miss them as the games started to get more repetitive and boring without them. Some people also miss playing as them because, even though they knew they were most likely not winning, they still miss the tension of those games. There's also the fact that Blank Media removed the NK roles right after they were buffed to become stronger, which can come off as a weird decision to some people.

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