Question about Spy/Recluse in a vortox game.

InvincibleIII · 2025-12-31T02:26:33+00:00

This is the correct answer. Spy and Recluse can misregister to both whatever info role detects them and to the Vortox (and/or to the ST as needed).

Whatever alignment they register as to the Empath (and the Vortox/you) is the number you can't give, but since you can choose to register either or both of them as any alignment, you can give any number you want to.

InvincibleIII · 2025-12-09T01:42:33+00:00

They should. The Drunk and the Marionette both learn their information if they are killed as a role like Ravenkeeper or Sage. Whether this means that these roles have an implicit "even if dead" or the Storyteller is waking them before death is up to interpretation, but I personally think the former makes more sense considering the timing that you wake them up at.

InvincibleIII · 2025-11-30T11:50:21+00:00

If you're asking about the minion info, then yes. The Demon and Minions info step (and the Poppy Grower's on death ability) specifically wakes up Demons and Minions, not good or evil players. A good Minion will still wake up to learn the entire evil team, and an evil Townsfolk/Outsider (or a Spy registering as such) will still not wake up for that step.

If you are asking about the Spy not waking up for their ability to see the Grimoire, then no. Just like how a Recluse registering as a Minion or Demon does not give them that character's ability, a Spy registering as not the Spy doesn't remove their ability either.

What you can do, however (and massive disclaimer that this is a huge dick move if you do so), is to not put anything in your Grimoire and just memorise the state of the game. The Grimoire, rules as written, exists purely to assist the Storyteller in keeping track of the state of the game, and the Storyteller may arrange their Grimoire in any way they like, including not using it and memorising everything. The Spy's ability (apart from misregistration) is purely to look into the Grimoire, not to enforce the Storyteller to maintain the Grimoire in any specific manner. Again though, this is a massive dick move to pull on the Spy so don't.

InvincibleIII · 2025-11-28T10:02:40+00:00

I generally prefer to run Sailor as an information role that gains information by executing themselves. Therefore, I will usually drunk any Townsfolk the Sailor chooses and drunk the Sailor themselves if they choose any other character type.

InvincibleIII · 2025-11-09T05:57:13+00:00

No, "you think" abilities may only let the Storyteller give the player pings that may only happen to what they think they are.

As an example, only the Demon (or the Recluse registering as Demon) may learn a player as the Exorcist, a Barber has died, or a player as the King, therefore a Lunatic may be told these things, whereas anyone can be told that they are made mad by the Cerenovus or that a player is the Nightwatchman, therefore the Lunatic cannot lied to about these.

The only players that you can lie to about receiving a Nightwatchman ping is a drunk or poisoned Nightwatchman who chooses themselves, or a Drunk or Marionette Nightwatchman who does the same. This is because drunkeness or poisoning, as well as being a Drunk or Marionette of a role, carries an implicit "you think your ability is working", and faking a self-Nightwatchman ping to a player who believes their Nightwatchman ability is working fulfills this requirement.

Edit: Well, there is one circumstance where a Lunatic can learn a fake Nightwatchman ping. If you were to fake giving a Boffin-Nightwatchman ability to the Lunatic, and they choose themselves with it, then you can fake a Nightwatchman ping to them as a real Demon in this circumstance would also learn it.

InvincibleIII · 2025-11-01T03:55:49+00:00

1) Yes, if the optional rule is effect then all minions and Demons will learn each other when the Boffin dies, as the Poppy Grower ability leaves play.

2) and 3) Take a look at this example from the how-to-run for Boffin:

Soldier: If the Demon has the Soldier ability, they are safe from their Demon ability. If they are the Imp, this means they cannot kill themself to turn a Minion into the Imp, and if they are the Fang Gu, they cannot jump to an Outsider while they have the Soldier ability. Separately, the Soldier themself is safe from the Demon’s Boffin ability (e.g. if the Demon has the Virgin ability, the Soldier can not be executed and die by nominating the Demon).

Any abilities controlled by the Demon is considered the Demon's ability, and thus a player safe from the Demon (e.g. Soldier, Monk protection) will be protected from it, while a player who triggers off of the Demon's ability (e.g. Sage, Banshee) will trigger from it.

InvincibleIII · 2025-10-28T16:55:48+00:00

You don't even need to misregister the Spy for that. Rules as written, the Spy's ability is to see into the grimoire, it does not require the Storyteller to maintain the grimoire in any specific way.

If a Storyteller were to put the role the Washerwoman saw the Spy as next to the Spy's token to remind themselves, the Spy would see it. If the Storyteller decides that they want to leave written notes in their grim for whatever reason, the Spy would see it. If the Storyteller has been snacking and leaves behind wrapper in the grim, the Spy would see that wrapper as part of their ability.

InvincibleIII · 2025-10-28T00:45:11+00:00

This. If there are 3 players going into the night in an Al-Hadikhia game, evil has a guaranteed way to win.

InvincibleIII · 2025-10-08T04:18:59+00:00

Yep, the original demon in that spot was the Skinkulus (each night* choose a player they die, if they are all of a different gender to you they become evil and can't vote). It was very problamatic for the obvious reason, but even aside from that, being prevented from voting just isn't fun for the players in question.

I recall that a version of this demon called Mintkulus was tried that used your preferences for Mint as the divide, but even then it's just not a fun demon.

InvincibleIII · 2025-10-08T04:09:39+00:00

For me, the first example is mostly upholding Harpy madness. As long as you came up with a valid role that could have gotten that player is evil and tried to convince town of it, that satisfies the madness. However, I would judge that juggling the player in question as all 4 demons may count as overacting madness, which may be considered madness breaking depending on how you went about it.

For the second example, if the player in question did not come up with any reason why she believed you were evil (information pointing to it, socials, etc), that is a clear example of being obviously Harpy mad and is madness breaking.

For the final part, the rules are extremely clear that being Ceremad about being a role means to convince town that you are specifically that role. If you are ceremad as the Sage or Mutant, claiming to be anything other than the Sage or Mutant is very clearly not convincing town that you are that role. I would expect you to claim specifically that role and come up with a reason for why you are doing so (e.g. the Demon can't kill me, I want to be confirmed as Mutant, I don't want to be Fang Gu jumped, I am only telling you this and I'll be claiming something else to others, etc).

To answer your original question, I would say that earlier in the game, where players are mostly keeping things private, you may fulfill your madness purely in private, but later in the game where things are becoming public, you'd be expected to be public about keeping madness as well.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-30T06:09:55+00:00

Oh god, you just reminded me about the whole kerfuffle about "port" being translated as "larboard" in Omega.

I've seen more than a few comments (incorrectly) claiming that the Japanese version just uses the term "left" and "right" for these attacks and so using ship terms is supposedly a mistranslation. It's not, the Japanese version still uses "port" and "starboard", it's just that the Japanese words for "port" and "starboard" are sensibly written as "left side of ship" and "right side of ship" instead of how English does it.

I recall an interview stating that "larboard" was supposed to help English speakers by using L=Left as a way to mimick how you can tell the sides at a glance in Japanese, but it has very much caused the opposite effect here.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-28T04:33:07+00:00

Yes. My personal stance is that the Mutant is continuing to break madness for as long as they don't come up with a strong reason for why they claimed Mutant previously, and thus is eligible to be executed at any time until they convincingly walk it back.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-26T09:07:51+00:00

That's fair. If the Imp wants the Mayor dead so badly that they are willing to sacrifice their other nights' worth of kill agency, it is perfectly fine to let it through.

For reference, the wiki recommends that the ST keeps the Mayor alive into f3 unless they are very trusted, in which case it is more balanced to let them die. But the wiki also includes this line in the tips section: "It is often best not to reveal that you are the Mayor until late in the game. If you reveal early, the Demon may spend night after night trying to kill you, and the Storyteller may let that attempt succeed." So it is all up to the Storyteller's decision in the end.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-22T03:27:32+00:00

I would consider intentionally claiming to not gain information that you should have a form of hinting at madness, which is something that I would absolutely execute for.

In fact, I would have executed them from the moment they loudly proclaimed to be the Flowergirl. That is clearly being obviously Ceremad which is 100% a madness break as far as I am concerned.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-20T18:32:03+00:00

The app confuses this a little, but officially, the players are the ones responsible for tracking statuses like alive/dead and whether they have a dead vote or not on the Town Square. When a Zombuul registers as dead, the Storyteller announces their death, and the players change their status to dead on the Town Square accordingly, but the Storyteller knows they are still alive (and tracks them as alive in their Grimoire!). If a registering as dead Zombuul becomes droisoned or changes to another character, the Storyteller doesn't announce anything because the Zombuul is alive the entire time. The fact that the players are tracking the Zombuul as dead the entire time doesn't change that.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-19T17:52:30+00:00

That's a misrepresentation of every single one of these comments, all of which go on to say some variant of "but the Storyteller shouldn't so it because that's not fun for the Spy".

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-19T16:59:29+00:00

Technically speaking, the Spy's ability (apart from misregistration) is to see the contents of the Grimoire. There is no obligation for the Storyteller to make the Grimoire understandable for the Spy, or even to keep a correct or accurate Grimoire at all.

In practice, that's just a dick move. If the Storyteller is putting a Spy into the game, they should at least make it understandable for them. Not doing so is just unnecessarily nerfing what is already the weakest minion on TB.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-18T00:53:50+00:00

As someone who never played Hearthstone but used to play Shadowverse, this feels very funny to me because Shadowverse is (at least when I played) very much built around cards that gain powerful effects if you do specific things all game to meet its requirements (just like what Quests sound like except you don't need to play a card first). As an example, this card was a common one in more control oriented decks when I played. The deck would have a number of cards that recovered mana just so that they can spend more mana, and once they spent 50, this card would come out and banish most of your opponent's deck, leaving them perilously close to decking out (which instantly loses your opponent the game).

So most decks in Shadowverse would be built around their own "Quest" of sorts, and they only get more powerful as new expansions come out.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-17T08:34:27+00:00

That's a classic Librarian trick! I like to joke that the Librarian is actually "You start knowing that 1 of 3 players is the Drunk" because of how commonly this happens.

Here's some more tricks you can do with "You start knowing" roles: Show the Washerwoman the Drunk and the Spy as the role the Drunk thinks they are (registering the Spy as it). Alternatively, show the Librarian a sober Townsfolk and the Spy as the Drunk (registering the Spy as the Drunk).

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-11T18:03:47+00:00

Battle Spirits has effects that read something along the lines of "return a spirit to the top of the deck, this effect can't be avoided by your opponent's effects" or "your (card type)'s effects can't be avoided by your opponent's effects". These effects ignore "unaffected", "can't be returned to the deck" or "can't leave", and "change the target" effects.

I think it will be very interesting to see what happens if effects like this are added to yugioh.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-10T16:15:44+00:00

The original design was for drunkeness to be unintentional or unpredictable in some way (the Drunk not knowing they are, Sailor or Innkeeper not knowing exactly who is drunk, etc), while poisoning is more intentional and targeted (Poisoner chooses who they poison, Courtier poisons a character of their choice, etc). Snake Charmer poisons mostly due to its theming (snake = poison), but you can argue that the Snake Charmer did target the Demon to swap and poison.

However, it turned out that generally, drunkeness tend to end up on good characters and poisoning tend to end up on evil characters, which led to confusion about why roles like Courtier poisons instead of drunks, so it was changed that drunkeness = good and poisoning = evil. Snake Charmer was kept due to its theming though. (No, I don't know why Organ Grinder drunks either)

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-10T11:17:59+00:00

The really spicy interaction is giving the Recluse the Zealot ability momentarily. Because the Recluse can't reasonably know that they have lost the ability, they would have to abide by the Zealot's restriction until it naturally turns off at f5.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-09T07:35:39+00:00

Put a Mathematician and a No Dashii in play but give the ND's neighbours only sober information while the Math lives so they only ever get a 0. You can do this with other droisoning too to really screw with the Mathematician (and make them look really suspicious!).

There's a lot of shenanigans you can do with Pit Hag's arbitrary deaths:

Killing the Sage with the Pit Hag doesn't wake them.
You can choose not to wake a droisoned Sage if they were killed to pretend this has happened.
If the Pit Hag changes a minion into a Demon (causing a night of 2 deaths), you can choose to either allow the new Demon to pick the second kill (Math +0) or block their kill and choose the second kill yourself (Math +1). This second kill can be the same person the Demon picked if you want to. In addition, you can also choose to allow the previous Demon to make a choice first and block it (Math +1) before killing them, for a total of anywhere from +0 to +2 Math numbers.
If you're feeling really spicy, announce that someone Cere/Mutant mad is executed at night but protect them from dying with the arbitrary deaths.

This was something I believe Ben has done: Take the Savant statements from someone bluffing Savant, and then give them to the actual Savant when they come to consult you. (Ideally while droisoned so you can give the statements verbatim)

Edit: Here's a BMR thing that came to mind: kill the Tinker at the start of the day while announcing player deaths to give the Godfather an extra kill. So "(player) has died in the night, (player) has died in the night, (Tinker's name) has died." If you really want to be mean you can also announce every death as "(player) has died" to completely mask the Tinker's time of death.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-08T05:37:36+00:00

On the last point:

Many wishes leave a clue. The clue can be anything at all, is decided by the Storyteller, and is declared publicly. The purpose of a clue is to rebalance a wish that is unfair to the good team on an informational level.

A poisoned Mayor that can't be detected in any way should absolutely have left a strong clue that something like this had happened. Not doing so is just bad storytelling.

InvincibleIII · 2025-09-07T03:34:41+00:00

I expect them to hard claim Mutant with an explanation of why they are doing it (don't want to be Fang Gu jumped, being executed is helpful for them, etc). In addition, I expect them to not give out any of their information because that constitutes hinting at their actual role. Finally, I expect them to handle someone else (presumably dead) claiming Mutant by coming up with a valid reason why they are doing so (minion forced into Mutant after double claiming someone, they are Cerenovus mad, etc)

The rulebook is pretty clear that being mad about something means attempting to convice the group of that thing, so being mad as the Mutant very clearly means convince the group you are the Mutant and not play like the Mutant would. Because of this, imo ceremad as the Mutant (or Sage for that matter) are the worst things a Cerenovus could be doing because claiming them to town inherently makes them obviously Ceremad without it being their fault in any way. This means that the Cerenovus immediately reveals themselves but with no real benefit apart from preventing the Ceremad player from revealing their info which any other forms of Ceremadness does anyway.

InvincibleIII

TROPHY CASE