#scriptaday

Okay, this is like, the third time I'm talking about Ride the Cyclone on this blog, but it's a cool script that's finally stopped being updated. The many versions of the script have confused some people in the past, so here's a definitive Script-A-Day on what is possibly the premier solo Al-Hadikhia script right now.

Ride the Cyclone is all about maximizing the Al-Had's dynamic of asking town if they're willing to sacrifice themselves to prevent triplekills. Almost every Townsfolk on-script would rather choose to live due to their own individual power — characters like the Balloonist, Town Crier, Alsaahir, Savant, Preacher, and Amnesiac thrive with several nights of life, but if everyone plays for themselves, then evil can dominate by scoring triple kills. The Outsiders are mostly similar — the Puzzlemaster wants to save their guess, the Golem wants to wait to kill a likely evil player (and simply won't get picked by the Al-Hadikhia afterward, since they can't nominate), and the Politician is playing for themselves, hoping to flip evil by any means.

Meanwhile, the Minions are four very different beasts, but are very quiet, making the good team work for their meal to figure out which ones are in play:

The Boomdandy can make executions terrifying if town suspects one's in play, but the mere threat of one can be just as helpful to evil.

The Boffin can help evil recreate powerful mechanical effects like the Golem or Princess, but can also cause more silent disruption via droisoning (PM, Philosopher), Outsider modification (Balloonist), or just by giving evil extra information to help them coordinate (HP, Savant, Fisherman, Amnesiac, Snitch).

The Xaan's a huge source of droisoning that must be accounted for by good, but the Politician being a hidden Outsider can really screw with the potential Outsider count.

If all else fails, a Mastermind can snatch the win for evil from the jaws of defeat if good players get too greedy with their lives and all choose to live.

Outside of the words of potential extra Outsiders, all four of these Minions are mechanically silent, and the threat of each one can sometimes be just as powerful as their actual effects: the threat of a Boomdandy can keep the Demon off the block, the threat of a Xaan can discount incredible information, the threat of a Mastermind can encourage powerful Townsfolk to choose death, and the threat of a Boffin can direct executions into otherwise-confirmed players.

For the most part, bagbuilding Ride the Cyclone is surprisingly simple. Keep the ratio of good characters okay with death to good characters who want to live balanced: a bag with mostly characters who want to choose life can end up swingy, depending on if the Al-Hadikhia gets multiple triplekills or gets drowned in a sea of information. Characters like the Knight, Seamstress, Banshee, and Snitch are invaluable tools when balancing out a bag.

Another thing to note is how solvable the Xaan number is. The Princess can solve if it's Xaan 2 or not depending on if their ability fires, and a Banshee who dies at night without activating their ability knows they're either puzzledrunk or that they died on a Xaan night. This can be incredibly powerful information, especially if there isn't a Puzzlemaster (or someone claiming it): be mindful of the Xaan number when you bag Xaan with characters that can singlehandedly solve it, and make sure evil's game plan isn't going to revolve around selling a different Minion as being in-play with too many hard-confirmable characters!

Some notes:

The Knight is incredibly powerful at ruling out powerful characters as being Boffined Demons. To that end, a Xaan 1 showing the Demon can be powerful - unless it’s obviously Xaan 1! Support it by giving evil 1 or even 2 Outsider bluffs, or otherwise give the Knight true info if the game looks like it’ll shake out as obvious Xaan 1 so the Knight starts turning on their pings.

If the Preacher preaches the Mastermind on a Mastermind night, the good team instantly wins — there's no more Mastermind ability extending the game, and the Demon is dead.

The Balloonist can be great for finding hidden Politicians, but can feel incredibly weak if you just show them alternating Townsfolk and Outsider claims. Make sure they can use their info by showing them players claiming Townsfolk characters back to back (or Outsider characters back to back — Al-Had with Boffin-Golem followed by another Outsider is a classic!)

I’ve talked about High Priestess enough here, but to summarize — the High Priestess is most interesting when they’re incentivized to have conversations with their pings and socially read them: the operative word in the High Priestess’s ability text is “talk”, and their role is to facilitate useful conversations that would not happen otherwise. A High Priestess should expect to be shown players who benefit from being talked to, like a Savant who needs help solving their info or a Boomdandy bluffing info that incriminates their Demon. Who is most important to talk to is somewhat subjective and might change depending on which player pulls the HP token: keep your group in mind, and do what’s fun.

The Princess adds an interesting bit of social complexity here — it can potentially hard-confirm itself if the Al-Had chooses to attack on a Princess night and nobody dies, but can also be denied confirmation if the Al-Had chooses not to wake (remember, the ability has "you may choose 3 players"!) Pair that with the on-script Mastermind, and Masterminds bluffing Princess might be able to score themselves a couple cheeky wins! Just remember that an Al-Hadikhia who chooses a dead player on a Princess night can still revive them from the dead, even if they can't kill. (Why is your Al-Hadikhia choosing a dead player on a Princess night? Beats me, but it's happened before.)

Remember that when a player chooses “die”, they die at that instant: this means that the Banshee’s announcement happens immediately after they pick die, not at the end of the night phase. This means that any players announced after the Banshee’s call will know they can choose to live!

I'd strongly recommend to not allow Amnesiacs to guess their ability after they die. It's a common houserule, but it shouldn't be used on this script, so the Amnesiac has a harder choice when deciding whether or not to live when picked by the Al-Hadikhia.

Be a touch careful with the Puzzlemaster here. It’s much more damaging in an environment where everything goes faster, but given the mechanical and confirmatory nature of the characters on-script, they can sometimes solve who their puzzledrunk is and kill the Demon that same day. All that to say: be careful if you puzzledrunk the Banshee and can’t sell that the Xaan night was that night?

Politician flips are hard to adjudicate and are often very context-dependent at the best of times — but in general, if the Politician is more responsible for evil winning than any other good player (regardless of whether or not that was their intent!), they should flip evil. Ideally, they should be most responsible for getting Townsfolk players executed, and be a major force in town pushing worlds. Simply choosing to die on a Mastermind night (and being the proximate cause of a loss) might not be enough!

You should know that the Boffin-Politician jinx extends to a Boffin-Philosopher who tries to go Politician, since jinxes are between abilities, not characters. Sorry, Demon, you aren't turning good that easily!

While we're on the subject of the Boffin — keep your Boffin-Amnesiac abilities balanced. If the Boffin-Amnesiac causes droisoning or other forms of disruption, give the good team direct clues or otherwise make it possible for good to figure out what's happening. I personally more strongly lean toward Boffin-Amnes that grant the Demon information, since it is still useful for evil (by potentially confirming themselves via their Amnesiac ability gaining information they wouldn't know as evil) while not requiring clueing.

When running the Boomdandy’s ten-to-one countdown, make sure you know it doesn’t have to be exactly ten real-life seconds. Depending on the size of the game, you might increase the time between numbers to allow for a longer countdown. Don’t make it too long — after all, the Boomdandy is still an Minion, so should help the evil team — but it can be unfun for both sides if the countdown is too short.

I think that's about it from me. You can check my earlier posts on this script if you want more advice — the spirit of the script still remains, even as the versions get more and more different from this final one. See you soon!

I can't believe it's been about a year since I last covered a script featuring the Minuit engine — and that script was its originator, :Minuit a Fond La Caisse! For those unfamiliar, the trio of Mastermind, Vortox, and Lleech sparks intense paranoia on a zero-death night. If the Lleech host got executed, doubletapping could lose on a Mastermind day. If the Vortox just sank, not executing anyone could lose to the Vortox's win condition!

Executionology's spin on the engine is something completely different from how Minuit does it. Every Townsfolk is incredibly powerful in its own right, but the evil team specs harder into confirmation mimicry with characters like the Vigormortis and Boffin, making it much easier and much more rewarding for evil to bluff insanely gamewarping information. There will often be several chains of incredibly strong information running around, and a game's outcome is usually decided by whether or not the right players are trusted as someone makes a last-second nomination while everyone's tensions are running high.

When bagbuilding Executionology, make sure to maximize the number of worlds that can stay open — meaning be careful with the number of world-limiting in the bag. A huge part of evil's plan if they want to leverage the Mastermind engine is being able to sell worlds where the Vortox just sank a kill, so having several in-play Townsfolk that can all fully deconfirm a Vortox can be super tough on the evil team.

On the evil side — probably build your evil teams first, and consider synergy. If you're putting the Vigormortis in the bag, for example, pair it with something it benefits from killing! (If you rack Vigor/Boomdandy in 1-minion, I'm killing you such that you won't retain your ability OR poison 1 Townsfolk neighbor.) There is a thing as too much synergy, too — Lleech/DA tends to balance as too strong — so keep an eye out when figuring out what evil characters you want in the bag, then adjust the good characters accordingly so they can fight them.

The Lord of Typhon is the only on-script Demon that doesn't produce any misinformation with its own ability. When putting it in the bag, almost always add an Outsider (or maybe even 2 in bigger games), and give the Typhon the tools they need to succeed, like a D/A, Sweetheart, and/or a powerful Boffin ability!

Some notes:

Don't be afraid to get aggressive with Balloonist info! The Vortox on the script means that their info could just be pointing at Townsfolk claims — so show them players claiming Townsfolk! This could include a Mutant who's adhering to madness or evil players back to back with good players. Let the Balloonist be strong here.

The General is tricky here — there's pros and cons for running a 3-star General vs a 5-star General. I think this is one of the few scripts where I'd strongly consider running a 5-star General, just because there's a lot to pick up on here. In Vortox, make sure to give the General a reading that’s more than 1 star away from the truth (so if the truth is thumb slightly up, give a thumb down or slightly down in Vortox), that way their information is still actionable.

Remember that a Chambermaid choosing a Demon who only wakes to a Boffin ability (and not their own Demon ability) doesn't see them as waking. This is mostly relevant on N1, but there's an edge case where the Lleech/Mastermind jinx has triggered, but the Lleech is still waking up to their Boffin ability.

The Mathematician is actually fairly straightforward to run here, so I won't bother with a full bulleted list. If a player gets incorrect information or their ability doesn't work as it should due to drunkenness, poisoning, or the Vortox, it pings the Math. And remember when running a Vortox game that the Mathematician doesn't track their own ability malfunctioning!

Okay, edgecase: if the Lleech-hosted Devil's Advocate protects someone who dies to execution later that day, the Mathematician ticks up that night. Lleeches do sometimes host their own Minions, so this is still important to know!

Don't be afraid to give weird info to droisoned info roles, especially the Chambermaid, Dreamer, and Savant. Scripts featuring the Minuit engine are ones where the possibility of a Vortox game needs to remain open for as long as possible. Giving weird info, like showing dreamt evil players as good characters they aren't claiming, can often allow evil teams to push Vortox worlds long enough to win.

That being said, if evil is actively pushing non-Vortox worlds, follow your evil team's lead and don't sell them out!! Context matters here, and every game is different.

Fisherman advice about who to execute can be extremely helpful to give here, especially on a suspected Mastermind day. Just keep in mind that the Fisherman should get unhelpful advice if the Vortox ability is active — which means that giving advice that would be helpful in a Vortox game can accidentally confirm non-Vortox. Whoops!

Only kill the Tinker due to their own ability to hide a night of zero deaths. Any other time just hard-confirms them!

This is less of a "you should know", but give your Boomdandy teams Tinker bluffs. And your Vigor teams. And your Typhon teams. Actually, just have evil bluff Tinker more when they die at night or want to get executed. People seem to like policy-executing them day 1, and a Tinker claim being the only death at night is terrifying for the good team.

Okay, one more of these — Boffin-Mutant is really funny. I'm not saying to do it all the time, but you should consider giving a non-Lleech Demon with a Mastermind the Mutant ability. It's a bit of a called shot as an ST, but when it happens, it's real good.

You should know that a Boffin-Townsfolk ability in a Vortox game yields true information, since the Boffin is a Minion and not a Townsfolk. The obvious use case is to allow your Vortoxes to bluff true Dreamer/Chambermaid/Juggler/etc information to sell non-Vortox worlds, which can be game-winningly powerful.

Remember that if final 3 is the Lleech, their host, and the Mastermind, good cannot win and you should end the game in an evil victory. Either the host is executed and there are no living good players can stop evil from executing a good player the following day, or the host isn't executed and evil wins.

This may seem obvious, but don't give obviously-false info in a Vortox game unless you literally have to. Evil teams succeed on this script by selling alternative Demons as being in play, so help them out. When you can, opt for false info that can be explained as sober via alternative worlds: "If this is true, then these players are evil."

That's about all from me! It's terrifying to play as good, terrifying to play as evil, and terrifying to Storytell. Would recommend!

This Script-A-Day has been a long time coming, and has been constantly delayed for reasons. However, this version's stable enough to where both Delta and I are okay releasing it. Here's what he has to say before the writeup proper!

This script is what made me convinced that Atheist is my favourite character in the game. Seeing a truly intense 15p Atheist game where every player is deeply invested and arguing about something and advocating for what they think is truly something special when you first see it as a Storyteller. Atheist scripts have a unique vibe to them when puzzlely that no other character can replicate. I'm a fan of oddball characters, but Atheist is by far the best.

Star's Edge is the premier script for featuring the Atheist as a puzzle. With a very open town and several ways for evil players to get bluffs, it positions itself as a stellar environment for Storytellers and players to experience Atheist at its best. The Townsfolk focus on forging confirmation and on character-checking to help combat the terrifying Hermit-Drunk onscript, one of the few sources of mechanical misinformation.

The Hermit is very deliberately placed on this script: a Hermit has the Drunk, Plague Doctor, and Snitch abilities on this script. A Hermit who sees the Atheist token, then, is both positioned in a way that makes it much harder to answer whether it's an Atheist game, by giving Minions Snitch-bluffs to remove doubleclaims from the equation and disincentivizing executing them, because the Hermit-Drunk-Atheist could gain the Plague Doctor-Boomdandy ability and explode, ending the game! This threat extends to real Atheists and Drunks seeing the Atheist token, and the Boomdandy might just take an Atheist bluff, too, making executing the Atheist claim — something which is normally a policy execution on other Atheist scripts — very dangerous on Star's Edge.

Rounding everything out is the evil team, with Minions that capitalize on the strengths of the on-script Townsfolk and work against them and Demons which perfectly blend in with the misinfoscape. The Godfather is the big source of Outsider modification, and both it and the Witch can accelerate games such that town has less information to work with. The on-script Yaggababble can simulate both of these effects, too, and Lil' Monsta adds an extra Minion, meaning that Spy and Boomdandy worlds can stay open to throw shade on confirmation chains and make executing suspicious players scary.

Bagbuilding Star's Edge isn't simple, but it's also less complex than one might expect. Definitely start building the bag with your evil team — or, if you're running an Atheist game, the composition of evil characters you want to frame as being in play. Craft town so that they can fight those specific threats — for example, if a lot of town can get fooled by Spy-misregistration, a Chambermaid or a Mathematician can help swing things back toward good. If you have multiple Drunks due to a Godfather allowing a Hermit and a Drunk, having character-checkers like the Librarian, Dreamer, Undertaker, and Savant can really help town disambiguate.

The big throughline to remember here is that the existence of an Atheist claim drastically complicates things for the good team. If you're bagging a Hermit (Drunk (Atheist)) or Drunk (Atheist), stack up the good team a little to compensate — a good player will sincerely be pushing Atheist worlds and forcing town to consider possible frame worlds where they themselves are evil. It also gives Boomdandy explosions an extra option, and can take heat off the only Demon candidate in a final 3 if town wants to execute the Storyteller.

Some notes:

Mathematician! This one's a little bit of a doozy, so bulleted list for the stuff that pings the Math:

If a player gets false information or their ability malfunctions due to Spy misregistration or Vigormortis-poisoning, it pings the Math.

If the Drunk or Hermit's ability yields false information or malfunctions due to being the Drunk/Hermit, it pings the Math as per the jinx.

IMPORTANT EDGECASE: A Drunk (Atheist) or Hermit (Atheist) pings the Math once on the first night (and only the first night), because their setup condition failed to trigger.

If a Minion gets preached, then they ping the Math each night that the Preacher ability prevents them from waking to their Minion ability. (If a preached Boomdandy fails to explode, it also pings the Math the following night.)

As a general rule of thumb, here's how I handle the Outsider modification characters on this script, after talking to Delta:

Hermit: Almost always remove an Outsider, unless it would result in the Hermit removing itself from the bag.

Godfather: There are three other sources of negative Outsider modification onscript (Hermit/Drunk/Vigormortis) — basically always add an Outsider with the GF's ability.

In a game with both a Hermit and a Snitch, only one set of Snitch-bluffs goes out, because the first Snitch ability satisfies the condition of the other one.

Not quite the same thing, but show your Minions the Atheist token in the Snitch bluffs if the token isn't in play! Letting them know Atheist is a safe bluff can be incredible for helping evil frame Atheist worlds without having to coordinate safe bluffs first.

The Hermit being able to explode like a Boomdandy mainly serves as a deterrent for executing the Atheist claim. If a Hermit who saw a non-Atheist token gets executed, it's usually more fun to gain a different Minion ability.

If the Spy dies during the day, you may choose to register the Spy as an Outsider to the Godfather, allowing a kill. This is an evil-sided decision, but if the Spy is bluffing as an Outsider or planning to back into one, or if evil's really on the back foot, you should strongly consider giving the Godfather a kill.

Know how to run a Boomdandy explosion (or Atheist-simulated Boomdandy explosion) here. Make sure your players know they can point to you, the Storyteller, if they think it's an Atheist game!

Be sparing and be deliberate with extra nightkills from the Yaggababble ability. The maximum number of deaths that can normally happen in a night is 3 (one from the Demon, one from the Godfather, and one from a Plague Doctor-given ST Godfather ability) — and 3 kills are extremely rare. Much more common is 1–2 kills, and double deaths only happen when an Outsider dies during the day. To that end, only multikill when it could plausibly also be a Godfather kill because an Outsider died during the day. Keeping the fact that it's a Yaggababble game hidden is typically vital for evil to succeed.

Ooh, and remember that you can use the Yaggababble ability to simulate a Witch-kill during the day. Don't do this if there's already an active Witch ability in-play (unless a dead evil is, like, bluffing Plague Doctor or Hermit?), because it outs that it's a Yaggababble game if multiple daykills happen.

Lil' Monsta and Spy can be tricky to run together, since it's not very fun to have a Spy who's only registered as good end up as the Demon in final 3 with no way to find them. Use the Spy misregistration less often than you otherwise would to make sure the good team has a chance of identifying them as a possible babysitter, and don't be afraid to kill them at night if they aren't babysitting. (Remember that you should be killing LM-Minions at night such that only one is in final 3!)

You should know that in a base-0 Outsider game, rule that the Godfather can resolve their setup modification after the Vigormortis, such that there can be 1 Outsider in a Vig/GF game.

I'm saving this for last — run puzzle Atheist. I cannot stress this enough. Atheist games of Star's Edge are at their best when they are layered puzzles with slight mechanical cracks in them, not when the ST heavily clues that it's an Atheist game with outlandish mechanical happenings. Check out Delta's essay on puzzle Atheist for more — it is an incredible read.

Before I say my piece, a note from Delta, this script's author!

The Passage of Time set out to do something insanely ambitious: make an engineer script. The resulting script is essentially a complex mess (endearingly) where evil is often not even bothering to blend in, and good has a pretty quick grasp of who is evil and who is good, but the brutal power of evil is often enough to completely steamroll through that. For good to win, they need to strategize and coordinate, but under the veil of shadows as to not expose Damsels and prevent evil from intercepting. The Princess unites the good team on an action day 1, the Engineer can create optimal conditions, all whilst the Psychopath hides away, waiting for the perfect moment to ruin everything. My favourite TPOT story is when the Snake Charmer sniped the Shabaloth N2, and then they killed the original Demon a few nights later. The original Demon (now Snake Charmer) was regurgitated, and stole back their Demonhood before closing out the game themselves on the same night, winning with their original team in a photofinish.

The Passage of Time is an incredibly iconic script pushing power against power. It's shown up on the TPI stream before, and for good reason — there's nothing quite like it. Featuring an incredibly chaotic suite of evil characters, everything feels overpowered, but the good team has some incredibly powerful tools to fight back. The Savant, Fisherman, and General can get amazing information about the gamestate, the Banshee and Engineer can switch things up and swing the advantage over to the good team, and the Monk, Princess, and Cannibal can stall out the game and protect the most important players from the Demon.

Each Demon has a unique skillset that if misidentified, can spell doom — the Shabaloth is the only source of extra death at night, but can hide for a time by sinking kills, being able to jump out when it's too late for good to do anything about it. The Imp and Fang Gu, meanwhile, are both mobile, but in different ways: the Imp seems weak, but starpassing to a Minion can often go undetected, while the Fang Gu can create a whole extra evil. If town's executing Outsiders while the Boomdandy-turned-Imp chills, the game is all but over.

The Minions are in the pseudo-loud space where an Engineer is rarely hard-confirmed by making their choice. If the Psychopath kills, then stops — did they really get engineered into the Boomdandy, or have they stopped killing to help a fellow evil bluff Engineer?

What brings everything together are the devastating Outsiders on the script. The Mutant and Damsel prevent town from sharing their info too outwardly, lest they expose one, and the Puzzlemaster and Barber can provide unmatched mobility and misinformation that can completely confound a good team's solving efforts. Oh, and the Plague Doctor is an entirely separate can of worms — you don't want the ST gaining *any* of these abilities if you can help it!

When bagbuilding TPOT, start with deciding the evil team you want in play, and which Outsiders (if any) are in the bag. If the Minions and Demons are incredibly powerful (Shabaloth + Psychopath is a notable combination as two potent tempo-increasing characters, but Fang Gu can also be this way), consider removing an Outsider with the Sentinel, and vice versa: if the evil team is incredibly weak (Imp tends to be this way, especially when paired with the Psychopath), consider adding an Outsider. At base-0 Outsider counts (7, 10, and 13 players), if an Engineer is in play, almost always consider adding an Outsider with the Sentinel or Fang Gu, so Fang Gu isn't an optimal choice for the Engineer.

The good team should be a match for the evil team. This can be hard to get a handle on, especially with the high-power and swingy Townsfolk and Outsiders on the script, but make sure that they can counter the unique capabilities of the evil team. High killpower evil team? A Monk and/or a Princess might be in order. Mobile Demon? Ongoing inforoles like the Snake Charmer, Savant, and Cannibal will fit well. An Engineer can be the perfect fit to disrupt all of evil's plans... but can also create something the good team might be unprepared to fight — so especially at low player counts, be a little careful with the Engineer. Keep in mind that the Engineer can change the Demon type, and prepare for that to happen when bagbuilding.

Some notes:

Both 3-star General and 5-star General have their benefits — if you think you can capture the specific quirks of the gamestate that differentiate a "good is winning" from a "good is slightly winning" with all the moving parts of this script, run 5-star if you can. A 3-star General is also perfectly accceptable, and, in my experience, is a bit easier to run here.

If the Plague Doctor dies, don’t be too harsh on the good team. Ending the game after town executes on 5 by using a duplicated Psychopath ability isn’t particularly fun for either team. I’d almost always gain a not-in-play ability, and use it in a way that keeps the game fun and interesting while giving the PD something to chew on as they solve for which Minion ability they gave you.

Couple quick comments — if you gain the Psychopath ability, you hard-confirm the Plague Doctor by killing. However, it massively speeds up the game — overall, prioritize fun and fairness.

If you gain the Wizard ability, but don't know what to wish for, just give the wish to an evil player and let them have it.

Be a little careful when deciding the puzzledrunk — with some characters, like the Engineer or Banshee, it can be blindingly obvious that they're puzzledrunk, which can result in an unfortunate loss for the evil team. Most everything else is fine, though. (Oh, and don't puzzzledrunk an Outsider — even outside of "outsiders should hurt the good team" reasons, you don't want the Fang Gu jumping a puzzledrunk player and then being unable to kill.)

I've covered Wizard scripts on this blog before, so this might be old news to you, but my number one tip for running the Wizard well is to remember that you can veto a wish!!! If something seems too hard to cost or too challenging to run or too unfun, you can always say no and ask the Wizard to make a different wish.

As previously mentioned, the Shabaloth is the only source of extra deaths at night, meaning it can be fairly outed as a Demon type. With that said, be careful with when you resurrect a player — I'd go for one rez, maximum, and only if the Shabaloth is getting several doublekills in a row, to balance the pace of the game.

Just another quick note — the Barber procs immediately upon being killed, so if the Shabaloth kills the Barber with their first kill, you prompt them for the Barber swap before prompting their second kill.

If the Shabaloth Barber-swaps themselves, the new Shabaloth can't resurrect the picks of the old Demon. This is fairly houserule-able, if you so choose.

I think that's about everything. This script is pretty difficult to run, but it's absolutely worth it. Give it a run... if you dare!!

Alchemy 101 was made as a harm-reduction approach to introducing the Alchemist to newer players. The Alchemist is an incredibly exciting character — who doesn't like using evil's own abilities against them? — but also one that's incredibly difficult to scriptbuild, since most Minion abilities are super powerful in the hands of good players. On Alchemy 101, all 4 Minion abilities are fun and potent while maintaining balance: the Harpy and Witch can kill evil players who step out of line, the Boffin can debuff the Demon, and even an Alchemist-Baron can confirm all the face-up Outsiders on the script.

When bagbuilding Alchemy 101, make sure evil has the tools to deal with the good team's shenanigans! To some extent, they can mimic confirmation like the Alchemist, Undertaker, and Golem via the Boffin, but too much hard-confirmation can quickly have the evil team overrun. Make sure to balance the volume of the Minions, so that evil can frame one of those players as a Boffined Demon — if it's a 1-minion game and both a Harpy and a Witch are active in a Lil' Monsta game, there can't also be a Boffin!

Especially in smaller games, make sure to limit the number of day-killing characters in the bag. Having, say, both an Alchemist-Witch and a Harpy in a 7-player game is usually too much — make sure the game doesn't go by too fast!

Some notes:

Both 3-star General (the rules-as-written thumb up/thumb neutral/thumb down) and 5-star General (introducing thumb slightly up/down to indicate good/evil slightly winning) work very well here. Do what you’re more comfortable with running as an ST.

Quick note — the Monk protects from the non-killing negative effects of the Demon. This includes Vigormortis-poison, but also prevents a Harpy or Witch who's babysitting Lil' Monsta from affecting a Monk-protected player!

Fun abilities to curse the Demon with with an Alchemist-Boffin:

give an Imp Boffin-Soldier so they can't starpass

Butler

Recluse (and then you misregister them as evil to, like, the Town Crier and stuff)

Klutz

If you're putting an Alchemist-Baron in the bag, don't also put an actual Baron in the bag for +4 Outsiders. That's not going to be fun for anyone — definitely not the good team with four fewer Townsfolk!

Make sure there are ways to track who the Drunk is with a Mayor in the bag, like a General or Ravenkeeper. With a Vigormortis on the script, it can sometimes be impossible to differentiate between "Drunk (Mayor), Imp/LM game" and "sober Mayor, Vigormortis game". Personally, I would almost never make the Mayor the Drunk on this script.

There are only a couple evil pings here, so the Harpy can be a little tough to run. In general — a Harpy-mad player should sincerely be trying to convince town their target is evil, not just pretend that they think that. This means a mad player should be indistinguishable from a tunneling player — in the same way a player saying “I am the Flowergirl” without elaboration or provocation isn’t fulfilling Cerenovus-madness, a player just saying “This player is evil” or “I think this player is evil” similarly isn’t fulfilling Harpy-madness. It’s their argument with how they try to convince town that matters!

Oh, and if your group really dislikes the Harpy, the Cerenovus is a fine switch-in. It should work about as well.

There are quite a few fun things you can do with the Boffin here that are definitely worth thinking about. There's confirmation mimicry via Boffin-UT or Golem, but it doesn't stop there! Boffin-Philo can drunk a Townsfolk of the Demon's choice, Boffin-Recluse can help the Demon hide from FTs by registering as a Minion, Boffin-General and Boffin-Fisherman can give key gamestate insights... the sky's the limit!

Remember how Boffin works with LM. Since "the Demon" doesn't exist when the Boffin's turn in the night order comes around on N1, the Boffin ability can't alter setup in a LM game (if for whatever reason you wanted to rack Boffin-Alchemist-Baron in a LM game). Every time the Demon player changes, the Boffin ability can change, which can help disseminate bluffs to a LM team.

That's about all I have! This script is a ton of fun and I highly recommend it. See you next time!

Originally intended for when my IRL group wanted to play custom scripts but had new players attending, Tour has recently exploded in popularity across the Unofficial BotC Discord server as a low-complexity custom script, and has even made its way onto some BotC livestreams!

Tour serves as a "tour" of the Drunk/Godfather/Ojo interaction found on many custom scripts — a doublekill in the night could indicate the Drunk got executed and the Godfather got a kill, but it could also be an Assassin kill or an Ojo miss! To fight this, the good team has quite a few ways to check someone's character: the Washerwoman, Librarian, Dreamer, Undertaker, and Ravenkeeper can all help identify or rule out various Drunk candidates. Wrapped in a TB-like shell, Tour helps to bridge the gap between the intermediate base scripts and other higher-complexity customs.

For the most part, bagbuiding Tour is pretty easy. The one piece of advice I'll give is that in 1–2 minion games, No Dashii and a Godfather adding an Outsider is usually too strong a combo to put in the bag together — however, pairing the Dashii with a GF-1 is an excellent use of both abilities, since bluffing a misinfo Outsider can help hide the No Dashii poison.

Some notes:

The Oracle and Undertaker, while checking the characters and alignments of dead players in different ways, can be redundant when put in the same bag together, especially at lower player counts. Consider one or the other (or neither) instead of both?

Remember that the Barber can refresh once-per-game abilities! This is most relevant with the Assassin, who can get Barber-swapped to score another kill!

Niche interaction: The Spy can register as an Outsider to the Godfather when executed, allowing them to get a kill. While this is an evil-sided decision, it's one you should definitely consider making at least some of the time, especially if evil is on the back foot.

The Pukka's a little weird here, so just a rundown of notes about it:

The Pukka kills players as they're poisoned before they become healthy, so a Pukka-killed Ravenkeeper gets poisoned information, while a Pukka-killed Barber doesn't proc.

When the Scarlet Woman catches the Pukka to become the new Demon or when the Pukka gets Barber-swapped, no Demon kill happens that night — they have to take a night to set up the poison again.

If you're reading this writeup, there's a good shot you've read my essay on the Ojo. Big thing — the Ojo is intended to be able to multikill on a miss on this script, to simulate a Godfather or Assassin kill. If your Ojo intentionally misses to try and simulate this, give them the doublekill! (Maybe not if it would bring the game to 2 living players, though — prioritize what's fun and fair.)

That's about all I have to say on this script! If your group is new, definitely give this script a shot — and let me know how it goes!

The Certainty Paradox has seen a ton of iteration since its first versions over on the Unofficial. Since then, it's grown into its own beast, where players both good and evil are incentivized to bluff to the nines for their own benefits and trustfall into the right players, or face certain doom. A too-forthcoming good team can easily get taken advantage of by the Ojo, Assassin, and Cerenovus, and the Damsel might get sold out if they aren't careful. If they reveal too little, however, the good team risks killing into confirmation chains created by Townsfolk like the Grandmother, High Priestess, Village Idiot, Gambler, and Acrobat. A good team that's too cagey might kill their Poppy Grower or Lycanthrope early, or fall victim to the Organ Grinder causing ties and getting the wrong players executed.

Meanwhile, the evil team has their own puzzles to solve — even if it's not a Poppy Grower game where evil has to find each other in order to coordinate, evil players must work together to combat the many power roles onscript like the Alchemist, Lycanthrope, and Innkeeper, among others. Failure, of course, risks being cornered by the information with no way out. Characters like the Assassin, Wizard, and Cerenovus greatly benefit from high levels of evil coordination — which, of course, can only happen if evil's willing to take some risks with who they trust.

Bagbuilding Certainty Paradox takes some effort. Given the prominence of several power roles on this script and how swingy they tend to be, you may find that a game can quickly swing one way or the other through no fault of your own as the Storyteller — don't lose your cool! Keep things fun, fair, and balanced above all.

In regards to actual tips — there are some obvious considerations, like avoiding too many game-accelerators (Gambler, Acrobat, Grandmother, Godfather, Assassin) in smaller games. Compared to most other scripts, you can actually more easily put louder Minions in-play together without hardconfirming the Outsiders (via a visible lack of Godfather), since both Alchemist and Lil' Monsta can explain where extra Minion abilities are coming from and the Outsiders are quite hidden themselves (Zealot is the only one that is somewhat obvious).

In Lil' Monsta games, consider leaving some of the "free bluff for evil" characters out of the bag so evil can find bluffs more easily, especially in a Poppy Grower game — maybe don't rack triple VI + Pixie + Poppy Grower + Huntsman + Damsel, because the evil team might have a tough time not getting into doubleclaims or safely backing out of them. In an Ojo game, since they can snipe the Poppy Grower sans interference from Lycanthropes and Innkeepers, you're usually more okay to stack the bag this way, but still be careful.

Some notes:

The Grandmother can be a bit weird with these Demons, since Lil' Monsta's kills are entirely ST-decided and the Ojo can miss. In general — if the evil team knows about and wants to kill the Grandmother pair at night, I'd usually do it at a point that felt balanced. If they want to frame them as being co-evil, don't rain on their parade by nightkilling the Grandmother pair, since it's pretty hard for evil to bluff.

Ooh, and remember that if a Minion currently babysitting Lil' Monsta kills the Grandchild, the Grandmother dies too! (In the case of the Cerenovus — if they're currently babysitting and the Grandchild gets cere-executed, the Grandmother drops dead on the spot!)

I’ve talked about High Priestess enough here, but to summarize — The High Priestess is most interesting when they’re incentivized to have conversations with their pings and socially read them: the operative word in the High Priestess’s ability text is “talk”, and their role is to facilitate useful conversations that would not happen otherwise. A High Priestess should expect to be shown players who benefit from being talked to, like a Poppy Grower who needs the social trust or the Organ Grinder in a hard doubleclaim with them. Who is most important to talk to is somewhat subjective and might change depending on which player pulls the HP token: keep your group in mind, and do what’s fun.

When choosing where to put the Lycanthrope's Faux Paw (the one good player that registers as evil to everyone), think carefully about who the evil team might want to frame, and help them out by placing it there. Characters with a tendency to hide are great choices, along with ones that are easier for evil to bluff. For instance, evil can typically know if characters like the Poppy Grower, Huntsman, and Damsel are in-play or not, so making them the Faux Paw can be incredibly potent. Same for characters like the Drunk, since their ability won't work, which'll make them look even more evil!

Just one quick note — I'd strongly advise against making the Lycanthrope their own Faux Paw. Especially with Lil' Monsta on-script, the Lycanthrope might want to target themselves to allow the ST to kill Minions at night with LM's ability — denying them this opportunity can feel really bad in practice.

The Alchemist has a host of fun abilities to choose from here. Of them, the Godfather's one of the more centralizing ones, since if they can find out they're sober, they make it near-impossible for evil to bluff as an Outsider. Consider making them the Drunk sometime — it's good fun. When they're sober, though, I'd remove an Outsider more often than I'd add one — both because if the Alch-GF dies early, it can hurt town to add an Outsider to the game, and because if the Alch-GF gets multiple kills, it can be rough for evil.

If the Plague Doctor dies, don’t be too harsh on the good team. Ending the game after town executes on 5 by using a duplicated Assassin ability isn’t particularly fun for either team. I'd almost always gain a not-in-play ability, and use it in a way that keeps the game fun and interesting while giving the PD something to chew on as they solve for which Minion ability they gave you.

The Wizard is a tricky character to run, but my number one tip: remember that you can veto a wish!!! If something seems too hard to cost or too challenging to run or too unfun, you can always say no and ask the Wizard to make a different wish.

I've talked about many a Lil' Monsta script here before, but your reminder that the ST should be killing Minions at night in a LM game to ensure that only 1 evil player is alive in final 3. This might get disrupted by Innkeepers, Lycanthropes, etc., but in general, if more than 1 evil player is alive in final 3, it's not particularly fun for the good team to have to play a shell game.

I assume if you're reading this post that you've probably also read my essay on the Ojo. In general — if the Ojo misses with the intent of causing a doublekill (to bluff, e.g. a Godfather kill off an executed Outsider or an Alch-Assassin kill), give them the doublekill. The Ojo being able to multikill is a huge part of how the script functions!

If you've been attentive, you might already recognize Wolf in Sheep's Clothing from when I briefly covered it in the Scriptbuilding Seminar post on Lycanthrope. Since then, the script has gotten some tweaks to help house its titular Lycanthrope more comfortably.

WiSC, at its core, examines the Lycan's interactions with BMR-like science in a less multikill-heavy environment than a full BMR-like like Cannons Rip The Sky. There's a lot more hard info for town to parse between the Balloonist, several VIs, Town Crier, and Seamstress — though characters like the Plague Doctor, Spy, Puzzlemaster, and Goon can all disrupt this. Rounding out the script are BMR staple extra death characters, a Witch to get in on the fun during the day, and 3 Demons which use their nightkills in very different ways: LM is ST-controlled, Ojo can snipe problematic power roles or miss to doublekill, and the Vigormortis can mimic confirmation and get its Minions trusted by killing them early.

When bagbuilding WiSC, first consider if it's a Lycanthrope game, and leave some stuff out accordingly. Evil players will want to have good-sided reasons to survive a Lycan attack beyond being the Faux Paw - Innkeeper, Tea Lady, Mayor, Goon, and Recluse are all good options. It also might influence which evil characters you put in, so they have options to fight the Lycan beyond "wait for them to pick an evil and stab them". Consider the evils on the team, and balance the rest of the good team around what's in play, and make sure that there isn't too much confirmation, or else evil can get steamrolled.

Quick note - LM, Lycanthrope, and Devil's Advocate all together can be extremely difficult for good to fight. The Lycanthrope is prone to shooting itself in the foot in LM games, since it blocking kills means that LM can't kill Minions at night, which can make final 3 something of a shell game. The Devil's Advocate exacerbates this - while the Bootlegger rule helps to some extent, you'd really rather kill the D/A at night sooner rather than later in LM, and Lycan can make that hard.

Some notes:

Grandma jank: if a Minion babysitting Lil' Monsta kills the granchild, the Grandmother dies too. This means that if the babysitting Witch kills the grandchild during the day, the Grandmother drops dead on the spot!

The Balloonist is incredibly powerful on this script. Consider showing more hidden Outsiders, like the Goon or Plague Doctor, before or after a Townsfolk ping, so as to obscure whether or not the Balloonist is being shown evil players or lying good players. It also gives evils caught early a good claim!

Vigormortis and Innkeeper together can make for a slow game, from experience - a 1 kill per night Demon can get blocked repeatedly. If you're putting both of them together, consider adding extra death among the Vigor's Minions to pad that weakness, or a Spy so the Vigor can snipe the problematic Townsfolk.

Interaction note: If the Gambler dies at night, then the Lycanthrope chooses the dead Gambler, you have to prompt them to choose again, since the Lycanthrope can't choose a dead player. This is incredibly powerful hard-confirmation — put the two in the bag together at your own risk.

The Lycanthrope is a central character to this script, but it can be a little tough to place a Faux Paw. In general — the Faux Paw should be a character that's a good frame for the evil team, since it'll register as evil to everything. An extra VI, an Outsider in a Godfather game, the Pixie — you can get creative about who you put the token on!

Faux Paw shenanigans:

They cannot be the Grandchild

They register as evil to the VI, Seamstress, and Tea Lady

The Pacifist cannot save them

If they choose the Goon with their ability and become drunk, the Goon flips evil

The Fisherman shines on this script (as it does on many scripts with science on it) because it's more suited toward figuring out what actions to take — "execute X tomorrow" or "don't waste time doubletapping Y" can be surprisingly effective depending on what the Devil's Advocate, Tea Lady, and Pacifist are up to.

The Mayor can end up getting confirmed good more easily than on scripts like Trouble Brewing, due to characters like the Tea Lady, Gambler, and Pacifist. With this in mind, if the Mayor is hardconfirmed good or extermely trusted, strongly consider killing them instead of bouncing a Demon kill.

Oh yeah, and if the Lycanthrope attacks them, frame the hell out of the Mayor! Whether you bounce it to an evil player to let the Demon kill or just bounce normally is up to you — but think before letting them die.

Be careful with the Goon here - there are quite a few choosing roles at night, but most of them (VI and Lycan especially) act after many of the evils, like Witch and D/A. Make sure that Goon can stay good for a bit!

Keep things fun and fair with the Plague Doctor. Ending the game after town executes on 5 with a duped Assassin ability isn’t particularly fun for either team. When you can, gain a not-in-play ability, and use it in a way that keeps the game fun and winnable for both teams while giving the PD something to chew on as they solve for which Minion ability they gave you.

The Puzzlemaster is much more devastating to good in a Lil' Monsta game - even if they guess right, the Demon can just move the following night! That's not a "never put the two together", for what it's worth: just be careful when you do, and maybe drunk someone less important.

Remember the Bootlegger rule with Lil' Monsta, and note that it stacks with the D/A's inability to pick the same player twice in a row. So if the D/A protects the Godfather holding LM, then they start holding the baby, they can't protect themselves or the Godfather player that night.

Don't witch-kill a Tea Lady-protected player! They're safe from all death, including that of a Witch-curse.

The Spy fills an interesting niche here with its misregistration and its grim-peek. Notable interactions:

Make the Spy the Grandchild, so that both die when the Demon kills the Spy (better in LM and Vigor)

Register the Spy as good and have them die to the Lycanthrope

Register a day-killed Spy as an Outsider to the Godfather, so they get an extra kill

Be careful with Spy/LM: If the Spy continues to babysit, start more aggressively registering it as evil so good has a chance to figure out who is evil. Otherwise, kill the Spy at night if you can, to help the "confirmed good" Spy push worlds with their social trust.

In a Lycanthrope game, consider killing evils more aggressively with Lil' Monsta - you won't often have the chance to, and the Lycan potentially making final 3 have multiple evils in it isn't very fun. (I think that more STs could do with killing evils earlier in the game for social trust, anyway :p)

If the Lycanthrope chooses a non-babysitting Minion, think carefully before deciding to kill the player the Lycanthrope selected with LM's ability. It'll make the Minion look "confirmed good", which might not always be what you want!

The Vigor's Minions are all pretty good kills here, but Devil's Advocate and Assassin are the stellar ones to consider including when bagbuilding. The others are great support, but a Vigor/Witch/Spy team will be fighting something of an uphill battle.

That's about it from me! This script is super unique and a ton of fun, so give it a try!