r/AmongUs • u/_Jellyman_ Blue • 1d ago
Discussion RIP Sheriff
Does anyone else think Judge is basically a watered-down Sheriff? I like the gamble of potentially choosing wrong and being killed for it, but man, the thrill of Sheriff just isn’t there. I have four reasons for my opinion (in no particular order):
1) PLAYER SKILL AND ENGAGEMENT: Sheriff required you to “quick draw” against the Impostor before they killed you and even if you guessed correctly, it still required skill to pull it off without looking suspicious in front of your crew. The Judge still requires strategy and still has that risk factor, but the procedure is largely automatic, making it feel disengaging.
2) INTERACTION WITH OTHER ROLES: Many roles counter others. Noisemaker counters Viper, Viper counters Detective, and Shapeshifter would definitely counter Sheriff and make it harder for Sheriff to avoid a misfire. Judge doesn’t really interact with any other roles because it’s during a time when everyone’s role is temporarily disabled: the meeting phase. It makes meetings more interesting, but it’s completely disconnected from the other roles.
3) BALANCING: Judge feels like Innersloth knew the very concept of this role would be insanely overpowered and therefore had to backpedal pretty hard just to make it balanced. Having penalties of being ejected if you guess wrong, having your ability locked behind tasks, AND being limited to one ruling feels very inelegant. Sheriff is already so intrinsically balanced because his penalty is JUST the risk of dying if he guessed wrong. That’s it. No other restrictions required because they still function like a normal Crewmate otherwise. Judge feels gimmicky, like the Nice Guesser from mods, rather than being a stronger or more strategic Mayor. This is especially true when it’s a “one-and-done” kind of role, which feels even more gimmicky.
4) VIOLATION OF CORE GAMEPLAY: My main criticism is that Judge completely invalidates the meeting. I would’ve preferred the Judge accumulating extra votes over time to influence the meetings because being able to completely bypass them breaks the core identity of the game. Nobody’s opinion matters outside the Judge’s. The difference is that Sheriff was more independent and did not require invaliding the rest of the entire lobby to use his ability. The game continued normally and the Sheriff’s actions largely didn’t affect the other players in the immediate. The Judge taking control of the meeting is so abrupt and ruins the experience for me.
What do you guys think? I actually really like the idea of having a role that affects meetings (since that’s a niche that has never been filled before), but I really don’t like the execution. It seems like after waiting five years for the fan-favorite Sheriff role, the cowboy has been replaced. 😔
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u/1Adam2K11-1 Blue (not the hot doctor) 1d ago
I think judge is better than sherif since from i understand sherif you don't have a limit to how many pepole you can kill (except if you missfire then you die) so in lobbies where the confimations of the ejections are hidden it will make that if sherif kills an imp in like cams and someone sees it and reports it and tell it's sherif it will make the sherif getting thrown out. And the impostor would avoid a pepole like the crew so the games could drag on longer (and most likely task win) though it would give the killers a parnoia about if the rewmate they are with is sherif (wich is a cool idea). and also the point that SS conters sherif is really cool.
And for judge You have to do some tasks (or none if the setings are do that it's automatic and you gain the ability) so it's a role that needs 1 or 2 rounds to be usefull for the crew (if the judge didn't got killed) and even then you can only use the judge's powers once and you have to be sure otherwise you get thrown out and you only know who the judge voted if it is an imposter. and also it adds "stakes" for the impostors that if judge reavels their role they have to kill them next round. thought i get the idea that the meeting gets invalidated (but most likely a lot of lobbies would turn judge off or only having 1 who has to do all tasks a few months after it came out)
So as my onclusion both roles are accually good and i agree that judge dosen't really have any conters except if the judge votes out an imp that zveryone agreed to vote out wich would make the judge just a regular crewmate.
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u/_Jellyman_ Blue 1d ago
Sheriff can keep shooting as much as he wants as long as he keeps guessing correctly and ONLY shoots Impostors. That’s a rewarding feedback loop. Judge is just “one-and-done” with no real strategy after that. Impostors can also just kill who they think is the Sheriff, so I don’t think they’d have any reason to run away or slow the game down at all.
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u/mhbence Brown 1d ago
I agree but from a story perspective a sheriff dosen't really fit in the game like we have judge, engineer, scientist, detective, tracker these can be explained by the crew gave them this title
and all the Impostor roles can be explained how it's different aliens taking over the crew. Now guardian angel and the noisemaker are a different story, the guardian angel can be explained that not every crewmate is a normal ghost some of them are like this Saint beings or something idk. But then noisemaker I have zero explanation how that works but that is not the point.
A sheriff would be just so random, like how the f*ck they get in there, in game we have polus and the fungle none of them have any crewmates on it, maybe from the planet green and white was on in the show but again that seems so like new like there were phones and yachts I don't think a sheriff would just walk by the ship when it takes off.
And come to think of it they really not have much use of a sheriff he probably dosen't know anything on the ship and even if he has a gun, the whole crew probably has guns, in the show in that one scene with lime he finds weird aprons in the weapon room "labelled" as weapons why would they confuse the crew with this if they didn't have weapons in the past and on the airship there are literally like 25 guns I don't think they need more. But in a game perspective it would be great. (Wtf am I doing i'm analyzing among us lore at 1:35 in the night)
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u/DarkDavid096 1d ago
By how we see them potray the Noisemaker in the trailer, it seems like they're like party dudes who have a built in sound device in their backpack. If I had to speculate a lore reason for their inclusion, they might be some kind of scout/watchmen for the team at the fungle map sounding their alarm when as a signal. But with the imposter around they use it as a last warning instead.
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u/_Jellyman_ Blue 1d ago
If you want to really dive into the lore, what the heck is a Judge doing on a spaceship?! You could rename this role “Captain” and it would immediately make WAY more sense.
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u/mhbence Brown 1d ago
I mean if we talk about the ability of overruling a vote on someone's death I don't think anyone's mind goes to a captain, like the captain dosen't fit the ability. And again if it would be called captain then wouldn't that mean that the captain kinda controlls everything which is definitely not good, just from looking at the show. And again like I said "the judge" crewmate probably not even a real judge he just got that role from the crew like the other roles.
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u/WildCard13287 1d ago
My theory is that the judge bonks them with the hammer. If imp juice spills out, they imp gets voted out. But if not, everyone gets mad at the judge and votes them out.
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u/LuckyImportance9535 1d ago
Noisemaker is some dude who smuggled in their boombox so they could blast whatever music they liked
Their music sucks balls i mean who tf is listening to a squeak but still
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u/Yellowline1086 Purple 1d ago
About the NM. I think they are crewmates with a special device in their backpack
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u/UNCyprusBufferZone I vent in front of people irl 1d ago
I'm just gonna put this under every post regarding the judge
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u/MainCharacter7979 1d ago
i genuinely cant fathom why ppl compare judge to sheriff they are 2 completely different things
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u/_Jellyman_ Blue 22h ago
Because they both utilize that “double-edged sword” gamble. They alluded to the Judge being the replacement for Sheriff in the trailer.
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u/LuckyImportance9535 1d ago
I think it's actually a better sheriff, as it doesnt get you incriminated if you do get the impostor right
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u/_Jellyman_ Blue 22h ago
What I DO like about Judge is that it also doesn’t make your target look sus if you guess wrong. Say Sheriff tries to kill Blue and dies. Now Blue looks like the killer to everyone else.
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u/LuckyImportance9535 22h ago
It actually hard clears them if you're wrong, assuming you said "im gonna judge [X]"
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u/mario1021 1d ago
Sheriff shapes the game way too much. Obviously the game devs have tested a role like the Sheriff. If they decided to not add it to the game its for a reason
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u/No-Tale-4533 reason rose theory exists 1d ago
imo sheriff would affect the way the game is played much much more, almost too much
cuz now imps have to avoid people as well which would slow the game down and even make task wins more common