What exactly is a modifier?

[biancospino]

This is possibly a silly question but... what exactly is the difference between a passive role and a modifier that confers a passive ability? That is, why exactly (per the wiki) is Miller a role but Macho is a modifier?

My first instinct would be that stuff that confers a passive ability, and makes sense on its own, like Macho, should really be a role and not a modifier, but maybe I'm missing something idk

[biancospino]

Ok but, it's kind of moot since hybrid roles are ok; one could just call it "Serial Killer Macho" if Macho were a role. Frankly I do personally find arbitrarily assigning the status of role or modifier to stuff to be more confusing.
(Incidentally, what is or isn't a role is actually not entirely academic since, e.g., [role]-Enabler is normal (if role is normal) but [modifier]-Enabler isn't clear it is)

[biancospino]

Entirely credible it's just an historic accident I guess

[biancospino]

Thanks, that makes sense. Thou it does beg the question why then Macho, Ascetic, Bulletproof are misclassified as modifiers in the Normal page. (And also why Atheist and Hated are in the modifier category on the wiki instead of the main role category; that I assume is just an oversight since Macho is indeed moved)

There are also derived roles such as Finder and Enabler. They need a role (or modifier) attached but are not modifiers, as these roles refer to a role (or modifier) but aren't actually the role they refer to.

Things like (incomplete) Enabler should be called "Functionals", as they swallow something and return something else, change my mind.

Ninja and Strongman are unusual in that they both refer to a role and a modifier, though the role version of Ninja and Strongman modify factional abilities. Notably, the modifier version of Strongman is still not Normal yet.

Incidentally, a Normal Strongman "cannot be stopped from performing a kill" so I wonder if a Mafia Babysitter Strongman would actually have the Strongman part of their role apply not only to the nk but also to the Babysitter's conditional kill