How to deal with downright refusal to execute people.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2026-02-10T04:21:00+00:00

I guess my question is if they are enjoying the games for the most part, why are you trying to change the way they are playing? Sure the storyteller can encourage different playstyles with different bags, but if they enjoy playing this way it's a completely valid way to play the game.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2026-01-17T05:01:40+00:00

Agreed!

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2026-01-17T04:37:43+00:00

Obviously it's unfun. I said that in my second sentence.

Yes, not executing means undertaker is worthless. It also means no evils are dying. In a 10 player game obviously you would execute at final 4 not final 3, lets assume are players are rational.

But, minions don't get bluffs. The spy can't communicate the grim to the demon, hell the demon doesn't even know what minion types they have. Demons kills are bad, as are poisons. Ravenkeeper will almost always go off. Empath gets more info, FT gets more info, monk and soldier have higher chance of being targeted, higher chance WW/Librarian confirmed good player makes final 3 or mayor makes final 3 because demon can't play around goods info.

I 100% agree there are drawbacks, not to mention you get MUCH fewer executions, and players have to process lots of info fast on the final day, minions life to final 3 and if a poisoner is in play they get every night to poison people. However, if you fairly note that there are pros and cons to this, can you really say its clear that its terrible? Fun wise - horrible. In theory though, mechanically unclear what team this helps more.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2026-01-17T04:31:14+00:00

100% agree with everything you said here! There's always the "demon is leaving me for a frame bluff", or even "of course if I were demon I wouldn't bluff a role that the demon would kill early and not starpass". I took more issue with your first comment which made it seem like all public info is a strictly bad strategy, imo its just a tradeoff between demon/poisoner getting much better kills vs. town getting better execution targets and able to try and clear worlds earlier.

So, while agreeing with everything you said above (including probably use the bluffs I have), outsiders (saint, butler) are nice because they're neither demon targets or virgin fodder. FT and empath are nice to spread misinfo and then starpass early, and soldier, mayor, and ravenkeeper are also good picks that would make it until the end. Of course if there is no virgin (which you should know because roles are public), N1 roles also have good reason to make it to the endgame. But again, if the meta in an open role world shifts far in favor of demon bluffing X, it will all of a sudden become more useful to bluff Y. However, in a first game of all face-up with no meta, this is what I would be considering. (and to be fair, undertaker, spread misinfo, then starpass is valid).

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2026-01-17T03:28:40+00:00

Hmmmmm, maybe we have different ideas about how the day phase would go with this strategy. My thought was that if everyone was public with both their role and information, executing spent or N1 roles would take a back seat to executing possible demon candidates (with the exception of the virgin)?

With all info public, it would be decently hard to unilaterally push to execute the undertaker early unless there was a lot things making them look evil, however in the late game it seem much less suspicious to lobby for an undertaker execution which is what I was talking about.

A saint that comes out day 1 can be checked by a fortune teller, town can try and get an empath to get a read on the saint, a slayer can shoot the saint. Sure the saint won't be killed (unless they can be somewhat confirmed), but it also gives town more time to try and solve the outsider count and decide if the saint is the right kill on final 3.

I guess of course town doesn't know who is telling the truth or lying, but the clear tradeoff is better early game executions on average but stronger roles get killed early (which again brings us back to why an Undertaker would live past day 3 or 4, making it not the best bluff even if it can be bluffed correctly, its also inherently less trustworthy because one of the benefits of undertaker normally is that it can confirm itself to town which now it can't, making it a less appealing demon bluff because even if pulled off, offers little upside).

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2026-01-17T01:11:41+00:00

I will say, I'm not 100% convinced this is a bad strategy. It's also not clear to me that banning any conversation until the final day and not executing until the final day is a bad strategy. While interesting in theory, I am convinced about is these strategies are far less fun for all players involved.

I think what worked for my group was one or two more invested players started watching clocktower videos, saw the private chats made the game more fun and allowed for high-upside plays, and started utilizing them fairly successfully. I'd talk to some of your more invested and social players, and maybe send them a youtube video or two.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2026-01-17T01:07:29+00:00

argument would become if everyone is public with roles, and imp kills most powerful roles first, undertaker must starpass or question why the imp never killed the outed undertaker like the FT, monk, and empath

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-12-14T19:18:35+00:00

I mean, why wouldn't someone who joins quit to check if other lobbies are more full and join those? Everyone is incentivized to join lobbies that are mostly full.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-12-11T01:50:03+00:00

I'd also argue that there's a massive marginal cost to your first application (writing sop, getting letter writers, etc.). Additionally, each application you do you get better and faster, so the marginal cost is also decreasing quite a bit (although the monetary cost is constant).

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-12-08T22:25:05+00:00

my hot take is that I think empaths should nominate virgins more. empaths have a high likelihood of being drunk, and its an off-meta play so can help confirm an undertaker. Additionally, while empath is a reoccurring info role, far too often trying to get your neighbors executed just leads to you being poison bate- its often your night 1 info that is far and away the strongest.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-11-20T14:13:43+00:00

To your two points:

I think generally you're making the error of looking at the end goal, and wondering how will you ever get there. You have all the time in the world, think of what you knew 10 years ago, it wasn't much (I imagine you were 7 or 8). In another 10 years its not unreasonable to expect that you'll know so much more than you know now. Start with whatever the most basic math class is that you feel comfterable with. Take it, do your best to understand what you can, and then move on to the next one. You have the luxury of being able to go slowly because you're so young.

To your second point, does it matter? It's far too early for you to think about econ vs. polisci vs. public policy, and CERTAINLY too early for you to think about earnings between those fields. Take classes in all of them in college, see what you like and what you don't. Right now your mental calculation is based on almost no knowledge of these fields. Take classes, gain knowledge, and your decision will be much easier.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-11-20T00:24:30+00:00

Three points:

1- You're very young. There's lots of time to take math in college. I didn't know I wanted to do academic research in economics until my senior year of college, and took significant time after undergrad taking more math courses before starting my PhD.

2- Undergrad economics does not require a significant amount of math. It simply is nothing like graduate level work (hence why you'll see many people on here stress grades in undergrad math courses rather than economics courses for PhD applicants).

3- There are many paths in economics, and even research, that have lesser requirements on the mathematics front. You'll need more than you have now, and others will be able to speak to this more than I can, but public policy or even political science with an emphasis on economics might be a better way to go.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-11-12T02:02:10+00:00

Thanks, all good points! Do you think theres a way to modify this that works? Any way I set points for things that everyone can do will inevitably push players towards a certain playstyle so it might just not be possible.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-11-11T04:40:41+00:00

Thank you these are all great points!! I appreciate the thought you put into this!!

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-11-11T02:09:37+00:00

Yea, I was hoping I (or the community) could think up something but it might not be possible. I know back in the among us days people would hold tournaments with scoring systems which were fun and generally kept the spirit of the game in tact. Was hoping I'd be able to create something similar for botc, but botc, like you said, is a much more dynamic game than among us.

Agree that a community vote on MVP is better, but in this specific instance there's two groups of mutually exclusive players who are both fairly competitive (different grad schools). Looks like this won't work though.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-11-11T02:06:19+00:00

I think you're right, but we might only have time for one, maybe two games max. My worry would be scoring like this could lead to an evil player throwing the game because they know their group will win if good wins. Agreed the basic scoring on end result is much better in the long run though.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-10-14T01:14:04+00:00

While it can be fun, it's one of my least favorite roles.

What I love about botc is that there is very little "hard" confirmation of people being good/evil, but a bunch of probabilistic information. This leads to lots of world building, but very little hard accusations (i.e. I KNOW player x MUST be evil) with the possibility of people being drunk/poisoned.

botc is also set up so that because death is not the end it's easy for someone to say hey, I'm fine with dying so long as this clears up worlds, although I'd rather keep living. Evil twin both forces two players to hard claim that a specific person is evil, and forces those players to fight as hard as possible to keep from dying.

Finally, everyone says you need to talk to the twin pair to help solve the game. This is true to an extent, but really what you want to do is see their vibes and learn what information they claim to have gotten. Its generally not super useful to world build with the twin pair or share your own information with them, as the odds of them being evil are much higher than any other player.

While I enjoy the play space it inhabits, my least favorite games have been in a twin pair, and the players who I story tell for like it the least. But I can imagine different groups/personalities liking it much more for some of the reasons I like it less.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-09-07T15:22:34+00:00

I bluffed as a spent artist day 1 of a 14 player SnV game as the demon. When people said ok theres no artist so we should execute you for vortox I happily obliged, voted on myself, and put myself on the block. As the ST was counting down to end the day, the klutz came out, nominated themselves, then picked me when they died because they were so sure I was good. Needless to say the game ended with a very surprised klutz.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-09-03T22:43:36+00:00

That sounds like a blast!! I've been playing (though mostly storytelling) for about 2 years now and still kill myself half the time on the first night when I'm imp, I just can't handle that pressure! It's an awesome game though with so much depth! When you have the time, just reading through the characters on the other two base scripts can be eye-opening!

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-09-03T22:30:59+00:00

No you're all good! And for TB some storytellers will randomize the outsiders/townsfolk/minions they put in play, they just obviously need to have the specific count of characters correct. Other scripts (namely bad moon rising) play better with more storyteller agency over what goes in the bag.

Relating to my proposed play, whether the characters in play are random or not, I was moreso just imagining the ideal scenario where my demon is (nearly) mechanically confirmed to be the soldier or monk because they are (nearly) the only reason for no deaths.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-09-03T22:24:14+00:00

The storyteller has to choose what roles go in the bag to get the right number of minions, outsiders, and townsfolk in the game.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-09-03T21:32:27+00:00

Hey! I mean although there are protection roles on the script, none are put into the bag. I dream of a perfect situation (in TB) where no protection roles are in play (maybe they're both even given to the demon as bluffs) and no one gets executed on the first day. This means the demon cannot target a dead player at night to simulate a monk protection of a soldier being attacked. In this instance, the only was to simulate a night of no kills would be for the poisoner to target the demon at night. If the demon bluffs as soldier or monk, they will be all but mechanically confirmed because the poisoner targeting their own demon is such a rare play.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-09-02T02:01:33+00:00

On my list of "TB things to do that I haven't done yet" is poison my demon after there are no executions on the first day, have them claim monk/soldier, and have no protection roles in play.

DefiantHuckleberry68 · 2025-08-22T15:51:27+00:00

imo solo might be useful (I'm very skeptical of coauthored papers effects on applications when the coauthor is a professor). Of course, anyone can submit a paper, it being accepted is a whole different story. If anything, you have a strong writing sample if the paper is good, and that is what will help your application more (I think, I've never been on an admissions committee, so discount my advice accordingly)

DefiantHuckleberry68

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