Among Us is a wildly popular game where a group of crewmates are sent off to finish their tasks on a spaceship, while two imposters try to sabotage them. While being an imposter is undeniably fun, being a crewmate is so much better. Not only are you able to avoid the anxiety that comes with being the imposter, you get more perks and you’re able to experience unity with other crewmates.

When you’re a crewmate, you aren’t subject to the stress that imposters face, and instead, you can rally your fellow crewmates together for the win. As the imposter, the entire game is on your back. You have to be on edge, constantly looking around and scouting out for locations to kill people. Even if you try venting, a feature that allows only imposters to quickly travel across the map, you might find yourself red-handed. There might be people on security watching you enter but not leave a location. When there’s less people, it gets even more tough. While the imposter is losing and trying to figure out how to kill when everyone’s grouped up, you’re able to organize the crewmates’ strategy. You get to hang around in groups or find a buddy, and you can finish your last few tasks together, and soon, you’ll win just by filling the task bar. The imposter can’t do anything if that happens. 

Statistically, you should have an easier time winning, especially if the imposters frame themselves. In a regular game, usually there are eight crewmates and two imposters. When you’re playing as an imposter, it can either be a breeze or a pain. You might be paired up with an experienced imposter or an absolute noob. If your partner imposter dies in the first round, you have to do all the heavy lifting. When your partner gets voted off, don’t expect for them to stick around and help sabotage. Instead, you won’t get any support at all. If you’re ever the dead imposter, there’s only so much you can do to help, with all the waiting for the buttons to refresh. For people who like being challenged in games though, you can still get the same feeling as a crewmate. It takes a different skill to convince people and strategize and use the numbers to your advantage.

If you are a crewmate and your fellow crewmates vote you out, it’s satisfying when they see you are not the imposter. As a ghost, you also get to access the ghost chat and a front row seat to the chaos going on in the main chat. Ghosts get to root people on or collectively share in grief when crewmates start accusing the wrong person. Another ghost perk? You can haunt! When you’re playing on a public server, the walking pace is often mind-numbingly slow, but as a ghost, you get to float through walls and have the choice of haunting imposters or your fellow crewmates. 

Although it might initially seem boring as a crewmate, you get to experience everything an imposter does, but with a stronger sense of unity. Plus, if your superego cringes every time you lie, you would have a clear moral conscience during games when your imposter. Quoting our wise friend Lady Macbeth, “’Tis safer to be that which we destroy [t]han by destruction dwell in doubtful joy”—it’s better to be the dead crewmate than the anxious imposter (Shakespeare 3.2.7-9).