#hiddenrole

Many of you are curious about Blood On The Clocktower, and have decided to either make your own Grimoires, or to play online via one of the many fan-made digital platforms. I'm hoping that the following excerpts from the rulebook will be helpful in getting you started. Whilst they are certainly not the complete rules, they should be enough to answer the most basic questions that arise about how to Storytell a game of Trouble Brewing, and maybe even beyond.

The unfortunate delay of the game has resulted in a lot of people learning to play Blood On The Clocktower either from hearsay or trial and error. This should make things a little easier: BOTC Basic Rules

These PDFs can act sort of like a "quick start" set of rules to get you familiar enough with the basics, should you be interested in running a game or just want to get familiar with things before your physical copy arrives.

Also, I've found it to be incredibly helpful to new players to hear the following rules explanation before their first time playing. As a Storyteller, I read this out (or ad-lib it) before every game I run, and it is a great introduction for the players: BOTC Rules Explanation for New Players

It covers the main points that new players need to learn before beginning, ignores the more finnicky elements that nobody needs to know yet, and gets the group playing with a minimum of fuss. Reading this aloud before a game usually answers a lot of player questions that would otherwise occur during the game. It also acts a short "What am I supposed to be doing?" guide.

If you use this sheet, I recommend waiting until the first nomination is about to occur to read out the part that deals with nominations and voting. The players don't need to know this information until this point, and will retain much more information when the rules are read out when they need to use them.

Good luck, and have fun.

Now that you’ve had a few days to point your eyes at our initial photographs, in the last post, it’s time to go into more detail about the pre-production copy. I’ll be separating this post into three sections. First I’ll go over what they’ve absolutely nailed, which will make up the bulk of the post. Then I’ll discuss what we had issues with and how those issues have been addressed. Finally, we’ll talk about what wasn’t included and why it wasn’t included. But before I do, please keep in mind that the purpose of a pre-production copy is to iron out any remaining creases. It’s a dress rehearsal, so don’t panic if the actors get a few lines slightly wrong.

The Good

The Rulebooks are fantastic. We spent so much time getting these right, but there’s always that fear that the text might come out weird and unreadable, or the artwork might look all washed out and crappy on paper. But the rulebooks have absolutely outstripped our expectations and we’re just thrilled to bits with how awesome they look.

The Grimoire is extremely sturdy and well-built. We’ve slapped it around a fair bit and it’s clearly built to withstand a lot of punishment. This is good, because you will end up lobbing it around a lot.

The Character Sheets are just wonderful. Not only do they seem to be even more durable than the previous white sample examples sent through, but they’re also vibrant and very easy to read.

The Felt is fantastic. It’s arguably the weirdest part of the whole box, and certainly not something that your average board game producing factory is used to manufacturing. We honestly had nightmares worrying about how this particular component might need loads of extra scrutiny. But credit where it’s due, Panda Manufacturing have absolutely nailed it on their first try.

The Pages on the outside of the grimoire look so cool. This might seem like a little thing, but we made sure to get the lines on the edge of the grimoire to line up properly, creating the illusion of an actual, giant tome of eldritch lore! It’s those little touches that really add to the atmosphere of a game and, frankly, which make the difference between a good game and a great game. It’s mega satisfying to see it look so real.

The Token Boxes fit together really well. They’re the perfect size to contain all of the necessary bits, but most importantly, they’re very sturdy. In a lot of our prototype copies of the game, the token boxes needed to be held closed with rubber bands, so we’ve ensured that the cardboard around the edge of these versions is nice & thick and keeps them closed naturally, as you can see from the pictures below.

The Bad

The Sleeve around the Grimoire is a little askew. It fits perfectly, but the folds in the PPC were in the wrong spot. It looks a little jarring if you know what it’s supposed to look like.

The Double-Sided Tokens, in some instances, have some pretty heavy drift on one of their sides.

Both of the above issues have been confirmed by Panda as not being representative of the finished product. In their exact words, “this is normal in a PPC since the tokens are cut by a plodder and not die cut. In mass production, drift is a maximum of 1 mm in the worst situations. Don't worry this is typical for a PPC.”

The Absent

The Death Shrouds, Token Bags, and Plastic Sleeves were not in this most recent sample provided. This is because the PPC contains only printed products. We’ve already seen samples of all of these and approved them in advance. You can check the death shrouds out in this update from almost a year ago and the bags can be seen in this one, from May of 2020.

In Other News

If you’ve made a pre-order for Blood on the Clocktower and need to change your postal address, this can be done easily via the CrowdOx portal. If you do need to do this we’d appreciate you having it done as soon as possible, to ensure that your game is delivered to the correct address. We’ll have a final deadline for address changes for you in future. If you’re having any issues, or if you need to change your address to a different country, don’t hesitate to drop us an email at: [email protected]

We’ve received some questions regarding whether we’re still on schedule for our November 30th release date. Our initial estimates, regarding how long each step in the manufacturing would take, were quite conservative, providing for a bunch of potential issues at each step. Essentially, all of the times have a lot of 'padding' on them. At the moment, we’re still on track for the planned date, but if that changes at all it'll likely be to do with the current freighting crisis. We have the funds to absorb extra costs that we might incur, but we’ve got no control over shipping times, unfortunately. Having said that, our freight partner hasn’t yet suggested that we’ll be affected, but if they do then we’ll update the timeline and delivery expectations accordingly.

I’d also like to drop you all a link to the experimental characters section of the wiki, which has come a long way since our last mention of it. You’ll notice that almost all of the experimental characters are now included on it. The wiki really is a fantastic resource for getting to grips with individual characters and finding fun ways to play them, so please do go check it out.

Finally, I just want to point out that this will likely be our final major news on physical production. We’ll continue to check in with you guys every month, and you can expect more useful information to come along between now and release. But really, these final adjustments mark the end of our work on the game itself and the beginning of it transitioning into something that exists on your shelves and at your local board game stores. Thanks again for taking this journey with us, and I personally can’t wait to play this game with as many of you as I can convince to tolerate me!

More from Steven Medway, designer of Blood on the Clocktower..

Are you new to Blood On The Clocktower but familiar with mystery games in general?  Are you totally new to deduction games? Maybe you are seasoned veteran looking to hone your skills? Here are some hints and tips to get you playing, and to reveal a few of the deeper strategies for different skill levels. This is by no means an exhaustive list. For more, please visit bloodontheclocktower.com/wiki

BEGINNER If you are Good: reveal and share

The best first piece of advice I give to good players is: reveal your character and share whatever information you have. You don’t need to do this immediately, but do so at some stage during the game. When all good players talk and share, there is usually a lot of information for the good team to use. Some important players might die, but the team as a whole will survive, so this benefits everyone. The Demon can only kill one player per night, so even if a lot of good players share what they know, most of them will survive until tomorrow. 

If you are Evil: pick a good character to pretend to be

The best first piece of advice I give to evil players is this: pick a good character on the character sheet, learn how that character works, and tell people you are that character. Give false information to the group. For example, if you are pretending to be the Empath (a character that learns how many evil players that are sitting next to), then tell the group you are sitting next to no evil players when in fact you are. Bluffing as a particular character will make you live longer, since players who don’t tell anyone who they are tend to die earlier, but it also creates false information to confuse the group .

Use your vote wisely

You can vote as many times as you wish. You can choose to not vote at all. You can tie votes. You can vote for players you think are evil. You can vote for players that you know are good. However you vote, be aware of how many votes are needed to execute a player, and which players are voting for who. You can be somewhat frivolous with your voting for most of the game, but make it count on the final day. In particular, if you are dead, use your single vote token wisely – the dead as a group decide who dies on the final day, and this is the time you need your vote the most.

Find out who is evil

The most basic strategy in the game is geared around finding out who is evil. Watch and listen. Execute people that you have reason to think are evil. Easy, right? Not quite. There are, at first glance, two ways to determine whether a player is evil.

Firstly, watch their body language and pay attention to how they are acting. If they look shifty, or sound shifty, or act shifty, they might be evil! Unfortunately, many players act this way when they are simply nervous. Also, many good characters have something to hide, so that suspicious body language you are detecting may be for a very good reason… that they are on your team, but with a secret.

Secondly, is through game information. Does the information given by the Empath and the Fortune Teller match up? Is what the Investigator saying supporting what the Undertaker knows? If yes, then most likely you’ve found an evil player. If almost yes then you might have a good player with false information.

If you are fairly sure you have found an evil player – execute them! Is the Fortune Teller telling you that 1 of your neighbors is the Demon? Execute them. Is the Town Crier saying who a Minion is? Execute them. Although, the issue with this strategy is that the people saying that other people are evil, might actually be the evil ones. Or, they may be good, but have false information. It is up to the good players to weight the benefits against the risks.

Psychology

Relax, and have fun! This is not a game about being paranoid and accidentally saying the wrong thing. This is a game about talking and sharing, lying and deceiving. As long as you don’t say “I’m evil!”, then whatever you say is probably going to help your cause. Talk. Talk. Talk. Listen. Listen. Listen. BOTC is designed to encourage communication, so feel free to say whatever you want to whoever you want. Do what you find enjoyable. Say what you find comfortable.

It may sound trite, but the better you feel, the better you’ll play.

INTERMEDIATE

If you are a Townsfolk…

Use your ability. Bluff as different characters if needed, and lie if needed… just make sure you get to use your character ability, even if it isn’t ideal. Any little bonus helps and a temporary deceit is worthwhile if it wins the game for you and your team. For example, if the Demon knows that you are the Ravenkeeper, they will never kill you, but if you can bluff as a different character in order to attract a Demon attack, and you choose a player to learn their character – the upside can be enormous. Once you feel that you have used your character ability well… share, share, share.

If you are an Outsider…

Find a way to overcome your negative character ability. It doesn’t matter how. Do whatever you need to do. If you are the Saint, do whatever you need to do, say whatever you need to say to not get executed. If you are the Butler, make finding a good master your number 1 priority.

Focus on making the group trust you. The number of Outsiders in play is listed on the Traveller sheet. There will typically be 1 or 2. If the number of Outsiders that have revealed themselves publicly matches this number, you know who the Outsiders are, and can be trusted. If the numbers do not match, you’ve found out that one of the Outsiders is lying about who they are… you know what to do next.

If you are a Minion…

Be bold! Tell outrageous lies! Claim to be whatever character you want! Claim to be the same character as another player! Your role is to cause as much confusion as possible. Do this well, and the good team will not have enough information to go on once the final day arrives.

Die. Yep… die. As long as your Demon is safe, it is perfectly fine if you die, and it is often preferred. If you are being executed, then the Demon isn’t.

If you are the Demon…

Hide. Play it safe. Pick a bluff that you are confident will be believed, and that is within your skills to maintain. Be helpful, but fade into the background a little. As long as you can weave a consistent narrative, and are claiming to be one of the 3 characters shown to you at the start of the game as “not in play”, then you should be safe for a while.

If you are Good: play the logic

Every character grants information if used in a clever way. Whilst the Empath simply learns how many of their living neighbors are evil each night, that information changes as players die and the Empath gets new neighbors – maybe it’s time to “help” certain players die so that you get more information? The Exorcist prevents the Demon from acting if chosen – if you can prove that the death last night was due to a Minion ability and not a Demon ability, then you’ve found the Demon.

Each game of Blood On The Clocktower is designed so that an incredible amount of information is available to the players… if you know where to look. Sure, you can’t trust ALL of it, but you can trust most of it. Form theories. Test them. Develop paths of logic based on the information available from the stated character abilities, and ignore body language and social clues. For example, if the Savant has learnt that either Evin or Sarah is the Witch, or that there is a Snakecharmer in play, then investigate both of those possibilities and see where each path leads. Only one can be true. Every piece of information that you get due to your ability, or that others get from their ability, shouldn’t be taken at face value – it is a starting point for investigation, a beginning of a chain of logic for you to combine and compare.

The game is not about accepting your information passively and hoping for the best, it is about using your information as a starting point for action and theory testing. You are the Chambermaid but don’t know whether you are actually the Drunk? Instead of crossing your fingers and shrugging your shoulders, nominate the Virgin and find out…

See a previous post “Behind The Curtain: Total Chaos? Sort of.” For more information.

If you are Evil: disrupt the logic

You can’t simply stay silent and expect to be ignored! The good team will be learning information, collecting information, combining information, and testing information… you’ll need to put a spanner in the works.

Spread as much false information as possible. Claim to be the Investigator and throw 2 good players under the bus! Claim to be the Tea Lady and act shocked, shocked! when one of your neighbors dies. Whenever you put a single piece of false information into the mix, it doesn’t need to be believed… it just needs to conflict with the other information at the table. When the good players are tangling with 6 pieces of information and they don’t know which 5 pieces are true… they are likely to pick the wrong ones.

Make Sacrifices

If you are good, don’t be afraid to be executed… you continue playing, so it’s not the end of the world. If the good team thinks you are evil, it is often better to get executed sooner rather than later – you can prove that you are good if the good players think the Minion is still alive. Attract the Demon’s attack at night time if you believe that there are more useful Townsfolk to keep alive.

If you are evil, don’t be afraid to sacrifice one of your number in order to win the game. It is not about who lives… it is about who wins.

Work as a team

If you are good, then trust other people as a default. You most certainly will be making an error if you trust everyone, but it is a bigger error to trust no one. So, trust others until you have a reason not to. Use your abilities to confirm that what they say is true or false, and form alliances with them. The game is not about you, using your ability in isolation, but in combining your ability with the abilities of the other players.

If you are evil, combine your bluffs so that they support each other. For example, if a fellow Minion is claiming to be the Grandmother, claiming to be the Grandchild will make both of you look more trustworthy. Most characters are set up this way – so that when more people bluff within the same narrative, the bluff gets stronger. Similarly, co-ordinate the use of your abilities. For example, if you are the Poisoner, you’ll want to be poisoning a different player than the Imp is killing. Or if you are the Devil’s Advocate, you’ll need to communicate with the other evil players on who to execute. Co-ordination with your teammates is key, no matter your alignment.

 Find out who is good

It is a beginner strategy to focus attention on who is evil. But, it is often more useful (albeit more subtle) to find out who is good. This is MUCH more helpful than finding out who is evil. If you find out who is evil, you can execute them, and the game continues (assuming they were not the Demon). However, when you find out that a player is good, you can keep that player alive, reducing the pool of possible Demon suspects by 1. If you know 2 good players on the final day… you know who the Demon is by a process of elimination (pun intended). Additionally, if you know that a player is good, then you can trust that they are telling the truth, and therefore can use the information that they are giving for your purposes. It’s a double bonus.

If you are the Demon, you’ll definitely want to kill confirmed good players as early as possible. They’ll be a huge problem later in the game if they stay alive.

ADVANCED

Specific characters: find out what your job is

Often, when people ask “What are the best strategies in the game? Give me the REALLY juicy tricks and traps.”. This is a difficult question to answer, because each character has multiple strategies, and these strategies are dependent on which other characters are in play, and in what order.

However, there is one great piece of advice that is useful in order for you to find a great strategy: read your character ability and ask yourself “What is my job?”. Alternatively, “How can I use my character ability to the absolute maximum? What is the most ideal end scenario for me?”. Or, more simply, “what is my personal goal?”

For example, if you are the Poisoner, your “job” is to find out the best good players to poison, and then poison them at the perfect time, so that it causes maximum confusion. If you are the Soldier, your “job” is to get the Demon to attack you… multiple times if possible. If you are the Sweetheart, your “job” is to stay alive by any means. Once you know what your personal goal is, your unique strategy reveals itself. As the Poisoner, you’ll find yourself having private conversations with people, finding the Slayer, and poisoning the Slayer on the same day that you convince the Slayer to slay the Demon, then convincing the group that the Slayer is a good player – because if the group believes the Slayer is Good, then they’ll believe the player the Slayer tried to slay is NOT the demon! As the Soldier, you’ll bluff as the Fortune Teller to attract the Demon’s attention, then cut a deal with the real Fortune Teller for them to pretend to be the Monk and claim that they protected you at night – confusing the Demon and getting them to keep trying to kill you after the real Fortune Teller dies! As the Sweetheart, you’ll pretend to be the Artist, and ask a question of the storyteller in private to give the impression that you have used your Artist ability and are therefore a poor choice for the Demon to kill… but also give fake Artist information to the group so that they trust you!

The possibilities are endless. For tips and tricks and strategies for particular characters, see their particular character entries at bloodontheclocktower.com/wiki

Bluffing when good

Advanced good players bluff too. They always have the greater good in mind – the good team winning – but will trick other players in order for this outcome to be achieved, revealing their true character and deception later in the game once their goals have been achieved. Don’t feel bound by the truth, even if you are good.

The perfect bluff when evil

Whilst many intermediate players will bluff as any good character, which is helpful, a particularly advanced evil player often waits, watches, and listens. When the web of information is revealed to the group, they notice a particularly soft point in the hierarchical structure of facts that the good team is putting together, and create a lie accordingly. It is much more effective to disrupt the tree of knowledge at its roots compared to its branches. For example, if facts A and B when combined, create facts C + D + E + F, and those facts create the possibility that your Demon is actually the Demon, then disrupting fact A or B is much more effective than disrupting facts C, D, E, or F, or simply creating the possibility that a different player is the Demon. Noticing what the good players know, and getting very careful and specific with the lies you tell, can be much more effective than simply throwing a pile of misinformation into the mix.

Multiple bluffs

Bluff as only one character? Pfffft. That’s for amateurs. Whether you are good or evil, having an initial bluff, then a backup bluff in case the first bluff fails, plus a good reason why the initial bluff was necessary, can be a huge help. Even the most talented players get caught out in a bluff that doesn’t hold water every so often. Plan B is rarely needed, but always handy to have.

For example, you are the Sage. You bluff as the Savant, visiting the Storyteller each day, and telling the group bogus information that you made up. It becomes apparent that your information is inconsistent – but never fear! You tell the group that you were only bluffing as the Savant to confuse the Demon, and the truth is that you are actually the Flowergirl, learning about who is and isn’t voting (but you can’t seem to make sense of your Flowergirl information). The Demon, wanting to kill the Flowergirl, attacks you, which was your initial plan, and because you are the Sage, you learn who the Demon is. Cunning.

Hi Everyone! This is Evin here on the BOTC blog. It's been an absolutely wild start to the BOTC Kickstarter campaign – we funded in 16 hours, received one of the most glowing reviews that Shut Up & Sit Down has ever issued, and have experienced all the wonderful highs (Fully funding and then some! Lots of enthusiasm and support!) and the lows (Sleep! Dear God – sleep!) that a busy Kickstarter campaign has to offer.

But you won't be hearing much from me in this post. Instead, we've handed the keyboard over to Steven Medway, the creator of Blood on the Clocktower, for a series of articles about the design choices and processes behind his game. We're calling these Behind the Curtain.

Blood on the Clocktower is a game that's a lot of fun, but it's not always totally clear why it's fun, even to those (myself included) who have clocked hundreds of plays. In these in-depth posts, Steven will show us 'behind the curtain', so to speak, of the game's design, inspirations, and inner workings.

This first post answers the question: “If the Storyteller can lie to players about their info, isn't it all just guesswork? Why is this fun?” In future posts we'll cover Werewolf & Mafia (how we're different & how we're the same); the role of Outsiders in the game (why we have roles whose abilities present a challenge to overcome); and more.

Without further adieu, here’s Steven.

Total Chaos? Sort of...

If you are on the good team during a game of Blood On The Clocktower, the inevitable question comes up: What information is available for us to use? Is this information true? Is the Storyteller lying to me? How do we know?

In every game of Blood On The Clocktower, there is a significant amount of information for the good players to utilize to win. Some Townsfolk gain information passively – they wake each night to learn something, like whether or not the Demon voted today, or how many evil players they are sitting next to. Some Townsfolk gain information as a result of a player’s action – like the Virgin learning if the player that nominated them is a Townsfolk, the Undertaker learning the character of the player that was executed today, or the Slayer learning whether the player they just tried to slay was the Demon or not.

To balance this, there are mechanics in the game to make sure that the evil team is not found out immediately, such as drunkenness and poisoning. If a player is drunk or poisoned, they get false information, and they temporarily lose their ability - but the Storyteller pretends that they still have it. For example, a drunk Empath still wakes as night, and learns false information. A drunk Virgin can not cause a Townsfolk to be executed, even if a Townsfolk nominated them.

The reason that there is not simply a series of facts for the good team to accumulate to solve the puzzle and find out who is evil, is because if they could do so reliably then a good team of sufficient intelligence and co-ordination could win almost every game. And getting found out that you are evil with 100% certainty wouldn’t be the most fun thing for an evil player. Instead, the good team can get 90% of the way to a solution but they will need to apply savvy judgement in executions and proactive cunning in the use of their character abilities in order to win. The evil team can offset this march of logic and reason that threatens their victory by using their abilities to give the good team misinformation with precision and prudence, whilst crafting lies that are finely tuned to the situation at hand. The evil team’s utilization of false information is crucial to them surviving. Even the Storyteller may give the good players misinformation under certain circumstances. The Storyteller cannot simply lie to players willy-nilly, nor may break the rules of the game unless a character ability says that they can. When a player is drunk or poisoned, it is the Storyteller who decides exactly what kind of false information is given to the player, but the player does not know that they are drunk or poisoned - that's the rub.

This creates a situation where, in every game, the good players can trust most of their information most of the time… but they will need to put their theories to the test to see if they are correct. However, since the occurrence of drunkenness and poisoning (or other means of false information) is uncommon, it means two things:

1) The good team can trust that most of their information is true. It is impossible for all their information to be wrong. It is impossible for most of their information to be wrong. But, it is possible that one (or sometimes, two or three) pieces of their information is wrong. So, the default position - to trust that your information is correct - is the strategic one. (Unless a Vortox is in play, but we’ll get to that later) 2) If you, as a player, can figure out that your information is actually incorrect, this is a huge boon for your team. If you know (or think you know) that your information is wrong, you will usually know why that information is wrong, because there are limited reasons for this being the case. Once you know why your information is wrong, you can use this to make further deductions. For example, if the good team is certain that there is a Baron in the game, and that the Baron has added a Drunk – each good player knows for certain that one of their number is drunk. If you can figure out that you are the Drunk (by deducing that your information is wrong), then you further confirm that nobody else is the Drunk (so you can trust that all their information is correct), and you can confirm that a Baron is in play. So... that player that is claiming that they are the Undertaker and knows that the Spy has been executed is lying! In this case, there can not be both a Baron and Spy in play. Whatever the situation, figuring out that your information is wrong actually gives you more information you can use.

What this all means is that the question “Is my information true?” is not the most useful question. It is wise to assume it’s true, unless you have a reason to suspect otherwise. A better question is “If my information is true, what should I do?” because that means you also ask the question “If my information is false, why is it false?”

Blood On The Clocktower was designed to incorporate some common elements of deductive reasoning. You can use this reasoning to put whatever information you do have to work. For example:

1) If A then B.

Most of the information that you get in a game of BOTC isn't certain. But, you know that IF it is correct, then something else must also be correct. For example, if you are the Flowergirl, and you learnt that the Demon voted yesterday, you don't know for certain that the Demon voted yesterday, because some of the Demons might be mucking around with your information. So, you don't know that the Demon voted yesterday. But you DO know that IF the Demon voted yesterday, the Demon is not a Vortox (because the Vortox makes all information false). And you know that if the Demon voted yesterday, and the Demon is not a No Dashii, you are not sitting next to the No Dashii (Because the No Dashii poisons their neighbors). So, it's not so much about you being passive and crossing your fingers that your information is correct, but much more about using that information to figure out what else must be correct.

2) If B then C then D...

This is the same process, but gets you from A to D, by way of B and C. For example, if you are the Flowergirl, and learnt that the Demon voted yesterday, and all players voted yesterday, and the Dreamer is claiming that they learnt false information, then the Dreamer is lying, because the Dreamer must have true information because you know there is no Vortox in play. (That's a bit convoluted, but you get the gist.) Basically, if you know one thing, there are a whole lot more things you know too.

3) If notB then notA.

Once you've examined your information, and seen where it leads in a logical sense, things will often not make sense at all. You've reached a point that is called "Reductio ad Absurdum" - a logical inconsistency. If your information is true, and you've followed the train of logic - however far - and have ended up with an inconsistency, then you know that your initial assumptions were wrong. And if you know it's wrong, you probably know WHY it's wrong... and that is really helpful. For example, you are the Undertaker, and you learnt that the Imp just got executed. Logically, this can only mean that a Scarlet Woman was in play, and has now become the Demon. But, since there is only one Minion in play, and the Investigator is saying that 1 of 2 players is a Baron, and 2 players have claimed to be Outsiders, and there should not be 2 Outsiders in play, that doesn’t add up. Your information that the Minion is a Baron is logically inconsistent with there being a Scarlet Woman in play. So, the assumption that your information was true, is incorrect. What you do with this information is up to you - maybe you talk to the Investigator to find out if they are simply a good player bluffing as the Investigator, maybe you execute the Outsiders upon suspicion of them lying, or maybe you let everyone know that you are drunk... which is great news! Figuring out that you are the Drunk that means that they can not be the drunk, are therefore sober, and anyone with false-sounding information is definitely lying! The pool of suspects just got smaller!

4) Either A or B

This idea crops up in many, many Clocktower characters. You know for a fact that either A is true, or that B is true. Again, you don't know any one thing for certain, but you know enough to get you talking and deducing. This kind of information was specifically put into the game to avoid the "I know you are evil!" accusations that can be pretty un-fun for a new player when said with certainty. Instead, I opted for "I know that one of you is evil, but not which one!" types of information, because it's more fun for the player with the information - because they have a puzzle to solve, but also more fun for the players being accused of being evil - they always have an excuse! They can say "I believe you. I believe that either myself or Dave is evil... because I think Dave is evil!" Many characters have this type of information. So, whilst "Nothing is known for certain" is true, that does not mean "You know nothing." For example, the Librarian may know that one of two players is the Drunk, but not which player. The Savant gets two pieces of information each day, but one is true and one is false.

When you put all this together, you get a complicated and interesting system of logical interactions that fluctuates over time as players gradually reveal their information. It also means that lying is much more than applying body language and social trickery - you'll need to craft lies that play into the information that is being talked about, as well as the logical leaps that you think the good players are about to make. For example, if you are evil and the good team mistakenly thinks that a Recluse is in-play, do you bluff as the Recluse? Or bluff as a Librarian that knows who the Recluse is, and nudge a fellow evil player to bluff as the Recluse? Or do you bluff as a different character entirely to contradict their information that a Recluse is in play in order to look more trustworthy in the long run because you think that the good team will come to that conclusion eventually? Maybe you’ll bluff as the Recluse, but plan to change your bluff to the Slayer later on, so that the Slayer bluff is more convincing? You’ll have to judge based on the situation at the time. It all depends on what information the good team has figured out 100%, what information they are completely wrong about, and what information you think they’ll figure out soon. Your cunning may prove more important than your character ability.

If players are new and stay quiet for the whole game, not sharing their information, then it can certainly seem like "chaos". Similarly, if the evil team is on top of their game, and manages to fill the heads of the players with enough expertly crafted misinformation, then it can seem like chaos too. But, with a player or two on the good team who has their wits about them and is willing to put all the information together and encourage other good players to do the same... evil is in serious trouble. In most games, the good team has either figured out (with reasonable certainty) that 1 of 2 players is the Demon by the final day... or they've figured out that enough good players are actually good, which leaves only a few players left to execute, and juuuust enough time to do so.

I love puzzles and social games, and I hope you do too. Setting the difficulty when those two worlds collide can be a challenge. For some people, this can be too confusing. For others, too easy to figure out. For others still, it is exactly their cup of tea. The joy of being the Storyteller is that you can craft a game that is the right level of challenge for your players – both before the game begins and as it is happening. The joy of being an evil player is in crafting the perfect lie to confuse and befuddle the good team. The joy of being a good player is to cut through the chaos, to find the necessary truth amidst a sea of possibilities, to separate fact from fiction, and to work together to build a team that agrees with you.

I hope this peek into the design ideas behind Blood On The Clocktower has helped you determine whether Blood On The Clocktower is the game for you and your group. And if it is, I hope that these Behind The Curtain articles will help you really get the most out of the game - whether you are a player looking for strategy and insight, or a Storyteller looking for ways to engineer more fun for your players.

In this BTC, the designer Steven Medway, talks a bit about the character class “Outsider” and explains why they were developed, and why they are really fun to play...

Outsiders are an unusual type of character. They are good, and win when the good team wins, but their abilities are… different. Their abilities are… interesting. Their abilities are… not helpful.

Each Outsider has an ability that is a detriment to the good team. Maybe their ability helps them personally, but at the expense of the team? Maybe the good players think they are evil, without realizing they are actually good? Maybe they are so holy, so valuable, so indispensable that executing them forces the townsfolk to see themselves the true monsters?

Unlike the Townsfolk, who start in a neutral position but with the opportunity to gain an advantageous position by cunning and clever use of their ability, each Outsider starts in a negative position but with the opportunity to gain a neutral position through meeting the challenge that their ability presents… and maybe even turning that into a positive as well.

Holy crap! That sounds awful! Who would do such a thing?! How is that possibly fun? Let’s find out… Balance

The original mechanical purpose of Outsiders is to balance the game. When designing the game, there were many priorities: fun, inclusiveness, uniqueness, creativity and balance. Balance was one of the big ones. Each player needs to know that their victory or loss is due to their own intelligence, courage, savvy, wit, and teamwork. Nobody wants to lose because things are unfair, and winning under such circumstances would feel hollow. I knew that the game was balanced for 7 players – with 5 good players and 2 evil players. Later on, after several hundred recorded games, the statistics would show the evil and good win rates to be within 1% of 50% either way. Good would go from winning 49% of the time at the lowest, to 51% at the highest, even as players developed strategies upon strategies.

However, the question was “When adding an extra player to the game (i.e. making it an 8 player game), should that player be good or evil?" If the player is good, then good would have an unfair advantage, due to having extra information due to their ability, an extra vote, and an extra player that the Demon needs to kill in order to win. If the added player is evil, then evil has an unfair advantage due to extra power, votes, and misinformation. Either way, adding a good or evil player to a 7 player game was an issue.

My solution was to add a good player, but to make that good player's ability an active drag on the good team. The bonus of having an extra good player in the game is offset by that player's character ability - which sucks. The character ability should roughly be bad enough to balance the extra good player, but not so terrible that the player should be executed to remove it. This has been a tough balance to strike, but I think it has been met decently well. Intelligent Outsiders should never campaign for their own execution. Staying alive and being trusted by the good team more than offsets their disadvantages.

So… Outsiders enter the town of Ravenswood Bluff. Their overall force is neutral, but if trusted and played intelligently, they become a definite boon.

  Speed:

Trouble Brewing was originally designed for lower player counts – 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 players… with extra players a nice bonus but not necessary. I didn’t want to have all players acting every night, otherwise each night phase would go too long. As such, many characters were designed to gain information, or to use their power during the day, such as the Virgin, Slayer, Artist or Savant – they gain fantastic information, but need to be proactive during the day to get it, not receive it passively at night.

Generally speaking, the Outsiders follow this trend, having abilities that effect the game in some grand way, but do so without lengthening the night phase. Each Outsider was selected to facilitate the flow of the game, so that all characters have their important game-effect more or less linearly as the game progresses. Things got a little more complicated as redesigns occurred to facilitate higher and higher player counts, but that was the original idea.

You are not awesome:

There is a design philosophy in most games that I call ‘Everyone is awesome’. Much like characters in a superhero film, each and every person is full of fantastic powers, and close to flawless. Every single character is as engaging as possible, dressed as cool as possible, has skills beyond reason, is a positive role model, has “plot armor” protecting them, and a cocky, assured, witty comeback to punctuate every situation where their supernatural levels of acrobatics and kung-fu knowledge have impressed us. Essentially, everyone is awesome. This kind of setting is fine for a power trip. As a viewer, we get to see Batman clash with Superman, and the undiluted epic-ness is unmistakable. As a player, we get to be the fantasy hero or heroine that we imagine we could be if only the world worked differently, kicking ass and taking names.

For Blood On The Clocktower however, I didn’t want that type of setting. The game is not on the scale of the normal vs the epic, but on the scale of the comic vs the tragic. Ordinary people go about their ordinary lives, and are forced to come together to defeat a supernatural force that threatens their existence. Nobody has superpowers. Nobody is awesome. The door to the unusual and the unbelievable is certainly open… but it is rare. I was inspired more by Greek myth, the works of William Shakespeare, and (yep, unsurprisingly) H.P. Lovecraft. In such narrative settings, the protagonists are often everyday people. Soldiers. Chefs. Librarians. Detectives. Washerwomen. Butlers. Such people have abilities, and they also have their flaws. I wanted to explore both the positive and negative parts of human nature and human talent. I wanted the game to feel like a story, and each character in a story is interesting precisely because of their flaws, their dreams, their comic and tragic elements, not just their “special power.” Outsiders proved to be the perfect way to explore this, adding to the game as a whole, whilst providing the player with a unique challenge that they probably wouldn’t have expected in a game of this type.

Instead of games where something epic happens because a character ability says that something epic happens, I wanted a game where epic things happened because the players showed creativity and courage, worked together as a team and accomplished something they thought would be impossible an hour before. To do that, they needed to start off as ordinary, and achieve greatness based on what they DO as a player, not on what they ARE as a character. This requires trust, listening, team-building and decisive action. In the case of the Outsider, it requires intelligence and savvy to overcome a negative ability. In order to help your team win, you don't passively sit there and ‘let your character ability win the game for you’, you have to actively find a way to neutralise it. Your goal is to win by overcoming your limitation, not by simply using your special power and then tapping out. I feel that this is a unique challenge, and I like Clocktower because of it.

Games are not epic because your character is written to be epic. Games are epic because you fought tooth and nail, overcame incredible odds, and EARNED it.

Subtlety & Teamwork:

All characters in BOTC are written so that there is no single dominant strategy for the player to use. If a dominant strategy has been found, I rewrote the character. What this means is that it can take several plays of the game to figure out an effective way to play a character. For example, the Ravenkeeper can: 1) Tell the group they are the Ravenkeeper, in order to survive to the final day. 2) Bluff as a powerful good character, in order to be killed at night. 3) Stay silent, and hope for the Demon to accidentally kill them. 4) Ignore their character ability and focus on other player's information and powers.

No character ability can win the game single-handedly. No player can win the game by themselves. Whilst using your character ability most effectively (if you are a Townsfolk), or overcoming your character limitation most thoroughly (If you are an Outsider) can help you win, the majority of your actions and words should be focused on other people - learning what they are, convincing them you are good, strategising as a group. I have found that players that are more focused on working as a team, are less concerned about "getting a character that sucks" because they see that the game is less about them as an individual, but them as a group.

Outsiders are forced to play as a team. When you are an Outsider, it is crucial that you co-ordinate well with others, or face certain doom. You’ll need to listen to the good players, and act as a leader, or at the very least, a helpful assistant. The role of the Townsfolk is to develop power and deliver information. The role of the Outsider is to form allegiances and combine the skills of others.

Trials and Tribulations = fun

Another reason that Outsiders are the way they are, albeit a contentious one, is that adding in deliberate limitations is fun. In most games, as in most stories, there is an obstacle for the protagonists to overcome. Maybe it is a journey to be made, a villain to be defeated, or a puzzle to be solved. The overcoming of that obstacle IS the game. It can be more interesting if the obstacle isn’t external to the character, but internal, or personal.

For example, in a game of Dungeons and Dragons, one way to run a game (as the Dungeon Master), is to have a party or 4 or 5 hyper competent characters, and a suitably evil and world-destroying villain for them to defeat. Another way is to give your players a more modest goal, such as preventing a bad harvest in a local town. With these more modest goals, the real hurdles are found with the characters themselves – maybe the thief has a bad history with the local public official and needs to disguise themselves in public, or the wizard has hayfever and their spells misfire, or the cleric has lost a leg due to a war, but is wealthy, and is chauffeured around the various adventure zones in a palanquin. These limitations, if decided upon as pre-conditions of the game, may seem cruel or unfair to a beginning player at first glance – particularly a player obsessed with character power and ego – but they serve the narrative of the game. They provide an unusual situation, a limitation on the usual choices of the player, but one that creates stories, one that creates a memorable experience precisely because of its uniqueness.

Adding Outsiders to game isn’t a result of a sadistic need to be deliberately cruel to players, it is a way for the Storyteller (or the Dungeon Master, or the game referee, or the game designer) to create a situation that the player must negotiate - a challenge for them to overcome, and when done successfully, that becomes a memorable experience, and a fun one.

If your players don’t like Outsiders because they feel that they are “bad” characters, that’s a real shame. I really like them, specifically because of their negative ability. They are usually crafted so that the downside of their ability is due to the actions and abilities of the OTHER players, not as a “flaw” in the character themselves. They serve the greater whole of the game, and many players have fun precisely because they recognize this.

For example, I was running a game for 15 players: all actors or filmmakers or otherwise in the film industry. Sean, the Saint, comes up to me at the beginning of the game to ask a few questions in private. The conversation went as follows: "So... I'm the Saint?" "Yes." "And if I die, I lose?" "Yes." "And if that happens, the game ends?" "Yes." "Does my whole team lose too?" "Yes." "Wow. That is REALLY unfair." "…Yes?" "Awesome. I LOVE it!" Sean then proceeded to have the most insane and intense Saint game that I've ever seen. The Imp, claiming to be the Fortune Teller, was *hammering* the Saint from all angles, claiming that they registered as the Demon on at least four consecutive nights. A Minion, claiming to be the Investigator, was relentless in saying that the Saint was a Minion. Sean, the poor Saint, was sweating bullets for about 5 days straight. The entire evil team kept voting for him, but other players always got more votes. I have never seen a Saint campaign so hard for so long against their own execution… and successfully so. It was beautiful.  This was a super fun game, and only happened because the player saw how "unfair" their character was, and gleefully dived straight into the challenge.

In short, the point of outsiders was to provide balance for larger games by adding an extra good player but in a way that meant the evil team wasn’t completely over run. Outsiders are an obstacle for the good team to overcome, but in a way that is still ridiculously fun.

Hullooo!

The long-awaited pre-production copy is here and there’s a lot to be pleased with. We’re going to share just a couple of photos with you that we took as we were opening the box. In future we’ll do another, larger update, with some more professionally-taken pictures that will be much higher quality. But for now we just really wanted you guys to see this as quickly as humanly possible.

First of all, here’s a little snap of the box on some weighing scales. At 4,188 grams (about 148 ounces), it’s actually a little lighter than we’d expected, which is fantastic.

From the front, you can see that the sleeve fits snugly over the whole thing. The purples and browns mix together really nicely to create the sense of an ancient, regal tome, perhaps found in the depths of a cursed library.

The tokens look great on their punch boards. In particular, the actual role tokens came out looking really vibrant and easy to read.

Similarly, the rulebooks are just wonderful. The art looks absolutely gorgeous on paper and the colours really pop out of the pages at you.

The character sheets have never looked better. We were very impressed with how crisp and vibrant they are. They’re extremely easy to read, as well as navigate with your eyes, which is going to be crucial when you need to come up with a quick lie in a pinch.

Finally, here’s a snap of the back of the box, looking very ominous.

I’m absolutely itching to just throw another 30 pictures in here and show you all of the things. But I know the sensible thing to do is to wait until Andy has had a chance to properly photograph them and present them clearly to you all.

See you next time,

In our July 2021 update there’s not a great deal to report. We cover:

Our ongoing improvements to the BOTC Wiki,

that the pre-production copy has not yet arrived but we’re expecting it soon,

the rising cost of sea-freighting (and that we can cover those costs),

and that Ben Burns will be at UKGE at the end of this month.

Read it all here!

Cheers,

The June 2021 production update doesn’t see much news on production itself, so we instead presented the long-form thoughts of designer Steven Medway on the concept of ‘balance’ in the design of Blood on the Clocktower. The whole thing’s nearly six thousand words, so prepare yourself. Read it all right here:

June 2021 - Balance & Blood on the Clocktower

Cheers,