You keep the town cat-run.
The Cat
Five Cat Laws, or one Rat kicked out of town.
Cats are the majority faction in Service Rat. You start the game knowing your own role and nothing about anyone else: no allies, and no list of names to lean on. Your job is to sign enough Cat Laws to keep the town cat-run, while figuring out which of the players sitting across the table is a Sellout, and which one is the Rat hiding inside the same team. You win as a group: every vote, every Mayor pick, every read on a teammate matters.
Goal
Cats win in one of two ways: sign five Cat Laws over the course of the game, or kick the Rat out of town with a mayoral prerogative. Both endings count as a full Cat victory. You lose if six Rat Laws are signed, or if the Rat is elected Ratcatcher while three or more Rat Laws are already on the board.
How to play this role
During Nomination and Voting, watch who the Mayor trusts. A clean Cat Mayor tends to pick the most-cleared player in the room as Ratcatcher; a Sellout Mayor will push a buddy through, sometimes a player nobody has voted on yet. Track every MEOW! on every round - patterns harden over three or four rounds. If a player keeps meowing at rounds that produce Rat Laws, that is not a coincidence.
Learn to read the docket. The docket contains six Cat Laws and eleven Rat Laws, so Rat Laws are common - but the count tells the story. If a Mayor claims to have drawn three Rat Laws and the Ratcatcher claims they got two Rat Laws, the math is still possible. If those claims repeat round after round with the same partner, the lie is in the room. Note who shreds quickly and who stalls.
The late game is where Cats win or lose the read. Once four Rat Laws are on the board, every prerogative becomes lethal. Push for a Sniff Out on the most suspicious player before granting them power. Use Kick Out of Town decisively: a wrong shot ends the game for you, a correct one ends it for the Rat. Never vote MEOW! on a Ratcatcher you have not personally cleared once three or more Rat Laws are out.
Quick tips
- Vote HISS! on any Mayor + Ratcatcher pair you cannot account for - the Caterwaul is better than a free Rat Law.
- Talk out loud about what you shredded; silent Mayors read as Sellouts.
- Track the docket size; if the docket reshuffles mid-round, claims about what was drawn become unverifiable.
- When you receive a Sniff Out power, ask the table who they want sniffed - then ignore that and pick the player whose votes do not add up.
- Save your Kick Out of Town for the moment three Rat Laws are on the board; the Rat will lean into the Ratcatcher chair to close out the game.
Common mistakes
- Meowing at every round because it feels cooperative. Cats who never hiss give Sellouts free law slots.
- Trusting the previous Ratcatcher just because their last round signed a Cat Law. One clean round does not clear a Sellout - it only proves the docket cooperated.
- Forgetting term limits. The previous Ratcatcher (and, with six or more players alive, the previous Mayor too) cannot be nominated, which narrows the pool and forces tells.
- Burning the Kick Out of Town shot early on a gut read. The Rat usually only shows themselves once the board has three Rat Laws - wait for the data.
Ready to test your read? Download Service Rat free on iOS and Android and host a five-to-ten-player table tonight.