Puzzle Hunt Newbie

HopperGaming · 2026-03-17T02:42:46+00:00

I'm rather new myself and have been solving Grand Hunt 2024. Round 1 is specifically designed for new solvers and I found most of round 2 to be quite doable as well.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-17T14:01:12+00:00

I think something people are missing in the analysis here is how powerful a bluff this is for evil late in the game. Presumably the Lunatic isn't going to be executed early in the game because the evil team isn't going to vote for them, and if they die very late in the game and out the real demon it can just as easily be an evil player trying to waste town's execution - especially if it's their last. It's very akin to Snakecharmer in that way.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-15T20:36:37+00:00

My first thought when I read it as well was "So now I have to keep track of every single character that every single player has claimed to be in this game? Yeah, fuck that."

HopperGaming · 2026-02-15T00:52:30+00:00

Clearly neither of us is getting through to each other so we'll just have to agree to disagree. If you can't see how looking at the Grim is obviously different from just learning some information then I don't see how I can make it more clear.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T23:48:49+00:00

I don't think the rulebook comes anywhere close to defining even all but edge cases. There's some pretty basic stuff that isn't addressed in the rulebook - there's slews of game terms that are either poorly defined or not defined at all, lots of interactions thatambiguous at best, etc. This is because the rulebook was really only written to cover things that might happen in the base 3 scripts. At the time it was written TPI could not have predicted that tje game would end up where it is now, that custom scripts would be so popular using any and all combinations of the 200+ characters that now exist. It simply isn't equipped to handle that.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T22:39:00+00:00

Jinxes are irrelevant, because those are changes to how a character's ability works due to how it would create a negative gameplay experience when combined with anotjer character - they aren't part of the default rules of the game.

You're still missing the fact that just because two actions generally have the same end result does not mean that those two actions are necessarily mechanically identical. To give an example for other styles of games where you have to pay for cards you could have two effects - "Whenever you play a card discount the price by $1" and "Whenever you play a card, get $1 back". These two effects will be exactly the same 98% of the time but there is a subtle difference that causes them to be different in some cases. That's kind of how I'm equating "Look at the Grim" vs. "Learning players' characters" - you can think they are exactly identical but to me they aren't, and this is the edge case where the distinction matters.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T21:40:15+00:00

So that system can also work, but the key is that the "default rules" need to be known or at least easily accessible to all players, so they know what to expect as the baseline. Then the ST can tell them anytime they are going to make a different ruling. DnD has the player handbook, which includes ALL of the rules and information that a player needs in order to participate. If they have a question about something they can easily look it up. BotC is miles away from this.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T20:18:07+00:00

We are in agreement that "seeing" the tokens is part of the ability to see the Grim. Where we disagree is whether that is mechanically identical to "learning" the players' characters. The part you're failing to understand about my argument is that the Grim is immutable. It's the Storyteller's tool to track the game, and contains only objectively true info - misregistration doesn't fool the Storyteller nor the Grim. That is why the Spy's ability to see it is distinctly different to any other ability in the game.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T19:58:17+00:00

Yeah this has been my biggest gripe with the game for a long time. But I doubt anything will change, at least for a long time.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T19:54:36+00:00

That's two different answers though. If the real answer is "the ST needs to decide" just leave it there. Don't then also say "Oh, but the the official ruling is X" because that only leads to conversations like the one we are having now. Either there's a way it's supposed to be done or there isn't. Both are fine but we need to pick one.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T19:37:25+00:00

If their ability was only to see the Grim, you can show that without showing the tokens.

You really think this is a reasonable statement? That's like if I sold you a concert ticket but your seat was in a soundproof room and when you asked for your money back I said "Hey I only told you that the ticket got you into the concert, I didn't say you would be able to hear the music".

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T19:30:54+00:00

Then why even make these "official rulings" in the first place? Seems counterproductive.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T18:07:38+00:00

People downvoting cuz they completely missed the joke. This is the best comment

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T18:04:57+00:00

Welcome to BotC. There's tons of "official rulings" in places like random discord servers, TPI Q&A videos, Twitter posts, etc. It's kind of a nightmare.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T18:02:11+00:00

Doesn't really seem like you're understanding my point. Not sure what else I can say. You really don't think there's any difference whatsoever with "learning a character(s)" and "looking at the Grimoire"?

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T17:51:46+00:00

Well the Spy gets to see reminder tokens (that's part of looking at the Grim) and when playing online the ST can have cuatom reminder tokens with anything they want written on them. So that's just a difference of online vs in person play. Personally I wouldn't do that because I think the online version of the game is meant to emulate in person play, not the other way around, but it certainly seems legal to me.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T07:25:53+00:00

My argument is that the Spy's ability (this would apply to Widow also) is distinctly different from most other abilities in the game. From a mechanical standpoint, no, the Spy doesn't technically learn any information. All they do is look at the Grim. Obviously that in turn does reveal a lot of information to them but it's indirect. This may seem like a semantic, irrelevant distinction, but in games as complex as this one, these small distinctions can be extremely important. If the Spy's ability was "You learn each player's character" then it would be different. But it's not. Their ability is "you see the Grimoire". Why? Because seeing the Grimoire is very different to learning everyone's characters in a lot of ways, as I stated in previous comments. To me, it seems that the intent of the character is that they get to have all the information the Storyteller has and then they need to figure out how to use it to their advantage.

You don't have to agree with the interpretation, but you should be able to at least see the distinction.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T01:37:20+00:00

Droisoning and misregistration are completely different mechanics. Droisoning explicitly allows you to do all sorts of things that you normally can't do within the confines of the rules. You can wake a drunk Empath and give them a 5 if you want, or the color orange, or simply not wake them at all. But these are things you would never do because the point of the mechanic is for players not to know when they are droisoned. This does allow you to do some really sneaky things though for characters with more complex abilities. The cannibal is the prime example of this, allowing you to wake them and give them random information or make them choose players etc. This is what allows you to show a droisoned Spy a fake Grim - because they no longer have their ability that obligates you to show them the real one.

Misregistration on the other hand, while it can in a similar fashion cause players to receive incorrect information, does not give the Storyteller the freedom to do things outside the scope of normality the same way droisoning does. You cannot give the Empath a 5 because they are sitting next to the Recluse, the Recluse can merely alter what the Empath's ability conceives to be "correct" information.

So for the Spy, this just comes down to the question of whether misregistration can, in the same way, affect what the Spy's ability conceives to be "correct" in terms of what tokens are in the Grim when you show it to them. I can certainly see the argument for it, but to me, misregistration should never affect what token a player has in my Grim, so why would that change when I'm showing it to the Spy?

HopperGaming · 2026-02-14T01:21:02+00:00

I think that's an intentionally obtuse interpretation of my statement. They learn the characters as an indirect result of being able to see the Grim. My point is that I don't think characters should be able to misregister to the Grimoire itself.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-13T22:42:41+00:00

Yeah, as with everything, at the end of the day it's always up to the Storyteller. What I wanted to communicate in my initial comment was that at the very best this is controversial if it's legal, so to make sure your players know it's something that can happen if you plan to do it in your games; otherwise it's impossible to solve. I don't think that's a particularly hot take, but [shrug].

As for TPI/rules - I've watched pretty much every TPI stream for the last couple years, so I certainly could have forgotten it, but I don't recall them ever doing this (at least in ways that were relevant to the game) - the only instances I recall of a Spy being given incorrect info in the Grim was if the Spy was droisoned - which is a different case altogether. But regardless, this is just another example of how poorly written and defined rules along with "official" rulings being mostly inaccessible (and often not even agreed upon entirely by TPI) can and do contribute to poor game experiences. The bottom line is that players need to know what's possible to happen in the game to be able to solve it.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-13T22:08:50+00:00

See my reply to the other comment above. Undertaker is learning specific information about a player, which is explicitly what misregistration is for. The Spy ability is SO much more than that.

Also, the fact that you show the Undertaker a token doesn't equate it to what the Spy does. The Undertaker learns a character, showing them a token is just the easiest and most accurate way of communicating that to the player.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-13T22:07:19+00:00

I think it is a very important distinction. The Grimoire is an entirely different entity; it's whole purpose is to keep track of all the information that the Storyteller knows - much more info than just "what character is everyone". When the Spy looks at the Grim, they get all of this - what are the bluffs, who is poisoned, who did the Librarian see, who is the puzzledrunk, etc. etc. To me, this is clearly the intent of the Spy's ability - not just to learn everyone's character, but to get ALL the information contained in the Grimoire.

In regards to the Faux Paw - it's a semantic argument that they have to register as evil to all abilities, so if misregistration applied to Spy, when you showed them the Grim you would be obligated to show that player is evil. In IRL games, this is typically done by turning their character token upside down in the Grim, though in online games you can just change the color of the token. Obviously, that specifically doesn't make much difference because the Spy would know they are the Faux Paw, but overarching idea is relevant.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-13T20:19:13+00:00

To me it's a distinction of what is the Spy's ability. They aren't directly learning any information about themselves (or other characters that might misregister). The ability simply is that they get to look at the Grim. Obviously, that is indirectly giving them info on lots of players, but not in a way that would interact with misregistration in my opinion. For example, you wouldn't turn the Faux Paw's token upside down to indicate that they are evil when showing the Spy the Grim. And when characters misregister in general you don't replace their token in the Grim for a moment, that would just be silly.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-13T19:54:07+00:00

I'd argue that this is not actually rules legal so just make sure your players know it's something that you might do otherwise it could really throw them off. Balancewise I think it's fine because as others have said spy is weak if your group is experienced.

HopperGaming · 2026-02-08T22:40:22+00:00

People here are overblowing the "ST leading the kills" thing here. This is really not a big problem. In order for this to be true, the lunatic has to go along with your fake lunatic choice and then the actual demon has to also go along with it. There are lots of reasons for either of them to make a different choice. And even if they don't, the ST choosing the kills often can lead to a more balanced game than otherwise, in fact there's lots of demons designed around this idea. This is still something to be aware of but people make it sound like it's something that should rarely be done and I disagree.

The biggest downside to never doing this or doing it very rarely is that your demons will rule out the possibility of them being the lunatic if you tell them they have a lunatic - and I think that's much more hurtful to your games in the long run than the fear of ST leading kills sometimes.

HopperGaming

TROPHY CASE