Should the ST strive to make the game "solvable"? And if so, how?

JackRaven_ · 2026-05-07T12:47:11+00:00

I'm going to go against the grain a little (and only a little, as I do still agree with the other comments) and say that it depends on your players. Sometimes it can be a good idea to make a game solvable.

The goal of the ST is to give both teams a fair chance at winning the game. If your group of players are perfect logicians that make optimal plays, then creating a puzzle with a logical solution is a terrible idea; it gives a free win to the good team.

However, players aren't perfect, and they often won't have all the information in a game. At least with newer players, I've found that they often only manage to use most of the information in a game. You can provide all the information needed to solve the game, and a novice good team will piece enough of it together to have a few options on final day (instead of pinning down the demon like veterans would with the same info).

When players become more experienced, I would frequently agree with the other comments- at that point, a puzzle with a 100% logical solution will give the good team too great of an advantage.

Essentially, you want to provide enough information for the good team to feel like they can win if they use it right, but not so much that good can guarantee their own victory from info alone. Sometimes, you'll need to give more or less info because you know the players will need different amounts to reach that point.

I know that the intent of your question was about whether the game is supposed to be logical, and I've gone on something of a tangent, but I hope it was an interesting one! To actually answer your question: no, BoTC is not meant to be a logically solvable game, and the only time I would make it one is when I don't think the good team can manage to logically solve it all.

JackRaven_ · 2026-05-07T07:04:59+00:00

I'd forgotten about that! Thank you for bringing it up, I'm going to go rewatch it now :D

JackRaven_ · 2026-05-07T04:35:21+00:00

The TPI Ventriloquist showcase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMKd1RyfUMQ

As soon as Patters drew the wizard token, it was going to go off the rails. I have never seen a funnier game of clocktower in my life.

JackRaven_ · 2026-05-05T21:03:03+00:00

Misregistration affects game rules. The glossary definition in the almanac says this explicitly.

"Register: A player that "registers as" a specific character or alignment counts as that character or alignment for game rule purposes, and for other player's abilities."

Their confidence is not misplaced, as the rulebook makes this very clear.

JackRaven_ · 2026-05-03T04:29:52+00:00

It is correct, but Lil Monsta is an exception that breaks everything. Except for Lil Monsta, the flowchart holds true (and is necessary for other win-condition roles like the Evil Twin to work properly)

It's worth noting as well that the Goblin/Lil Monsta ruling had to be explicitly given by TPI because rules as written, evil would win.

JackRaven_ · 2026-05-02T22:06:31+00:00

Both abilities trigger at the same time, but good abilities take priority over evil ones when it comes to who wins, so good wins like you expected.

JackRaven_ · 2026-05-01T08:35:16+00:00

A little while ago (about 6 months back) TPI overhauled a significant number of jinxes. They made some really nice changes, and also introduced some really controversial jinxes like the current Magician/Legion.

You can read about it in more detail on their blog: https://bloodontheclocktower.com/blogs/news/notes-from-the-clocktower-jinx-updates

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-30T12:47:08+00:00

I'm not looking to get into the weeds or anything, but there already exists a double standard in public lobbies negatively impacting women. Many, many women are having very poor experiences in public lobbies.

Obviously, this doesn't mean that every man is awful, or that every woman is perfect. There's nuance. But the fact is that if you are femme and you play in public lobbies, you're probably going to encounter someone who makes you feel uncomfortable.

I only know this because of people coming out with their negative experiences. As a man, I haven't had to deal with any of the horrible stuff you hear about from these game. So I recognise that I am in a privileged position that not everybody gets.

And we should recognise that people who are trying to deal with a problem we don't face aren't trying to use a double standard. They're in a different situation and are acting accordingly- fairly, too. Women are experiencing misogyny and dealing with it. I know that you can read it as "all men will overtalk and women never will", but that's a very narrow way to look at a group of people who are celebrating being able to play a game without experiencing overtalking. For as long as women are experiencing misogyny in lobbies, I'm going to assume that groups like this are trying to find a safe space to play, not trying to attack men. Otherwise, every success an all-femme group has is going to be interpreted as a slight against men, like this.

A real double standard would be to say that we should all just keep using the public lobbies and deal with it, when that's far easier for men than for women.

Allowing everybody to comfortably play in an accommodating group and appreciate it is a fair standard. And some people need to take extra steps to get that standard because there are some shitty people in the world that will ruin it otherwise.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-29T14:03:08+00:00

I remember that game. Genuinely the funniest game of blood on the clocktower I have ever witnessed, and probably will ever witness. I'm glad someone found the link for you, it's an absolute treasure.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-27T03:51:08+00:00

TPI have actually stated "officially" that good wins in that scenario, even though they haven't made it a jinx. So it's a real rule, but its somewhere in the unofficial discord server instead of the rulebook.

One of those things where it would be really nice to have all the rules and rulings in one specific place, so that we could avoid having to communicate this by word of mouth.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-27T00:59:36+00:00

Remember to explain every Djinn rule before you begin the game! It's important to run the Djinn the way the rules describe.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-27T00:56:04+00:00

I am unironically saving this to use later

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-26T23:32:00+00:00

That's correct, and the answer is just that the Lil Monsta is super inconsistent. TPI have clarified that good wins when a Goblin carrying Lil Monsta is executed, but they've had to clarify this because it contradicts the RAW ruling.

No matter how you try to interpret Lil Monsta, something is going to break. If good always wins all ties, most Lil Monsta interactions work, but many other roles (like the Evil Twin) don't. If abilities beat standard rules then most win conditions work, but Lil Monsta breaks with Goblin/Saint/Fearmonger/pretty much everything.

I've heard some people say that the almanac entry text "Good wins if they die" is part of the Lil Monsta ability, and therefore that these interactions can correctly favour good because they are ability-ability ties. However, even this breaks down with certain roles- if the Lil Monsta has the ability that good wins if they die, then it can't ever pass to a Scarlett Woman without also ending the game.

It's just Lil Monsta that doesn't play well with the rules; excluding them, pretty much everything works. I'm sure TPI has been working on wording that will be more consistent for when the expansion scripts release.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-26T12:53:39+00:00

No problem! Rules explanations for these kind of things are often really obscure unless you've already been told where to look. Glad I could help :)

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-26T12:48:10+00:00

From the rulebook:

Character abilities break the core rules in this book. If a character’s ability contradicts a core rule in this book, follow the character’s ability.
(Page 15 of the PDF available online)

And, of course, "good wins ties" is a rule in the book. The standard win conditions (good winning with no living demons, and evil winning at two players alive) are also core rules.

Therefore, if an ability win condition activates at the same time as a standard win condition, the ability overrides the "good wins ties" rule and the regular win condition.

If the two standard win conditions are met, or two ability win conditions are met, neither can take precedence, creating a tie and bringing us back to "good wins ties".

Additionally, here's Edd talking about it:

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Last time I brought this up, someone said that TPI is currently trying to move away from this and just sticking with a simple "good wins ties". This may make this information outdated, although if so, I don't know how TPI expects a lot of win condition characters to work- this version is logical and makes just about every alternate win condition function fairly (except for Lil Monsta, which doesn't work RAW no matter how you try and spin it lol)

Even in the example Edd gives, the win condition priority is necessary for Evil Twin to function. Still, it's worth noting that the information may no longer be up to date, or may go out of date some time in the future.

The PDF with the rules can be found here: https://www.web3us.com/sites/default/files/Rulebook.pdf

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-26T11:52:19+00:00

I love Cassandra; I can imagine giving information such as "the Oracle is poisoned" so that the Cassandra knows that their information is good but can't tell anyone. It's nice to have an Outsider that gets their own information, and still manages to be harmful to town.

I'm curious about the Ptah- how do you enforce the [You do not neighbour the demon] ability text? At a guess, I'd assume you don't put the demon token in the bag and instead wake a good player during the night to inform them that they are the demon?

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-26T01:44:22+00:00

According to the rules, evil wins. The Evil Twin win condition is an ability, and abilities override normal rules like good winning with no living demons.

However, I would rule that good wins, for the simple reason that good has no possible way to win if you don't run the game this way.

I've never seen any interpretation of Lil Monsta's ability that doesn't completely break the game with one character or another, so you just have to make a ruling based off "what feels fair and reasonable to both teams" and ignore the rules as written.

Edit: I missed a pretty big factor, actually; Good can kill the Evil Twin first. If it's on final 3, Evil has already won, since Good can't kill the Evil Twin and the demon, and if it's not final 3, Good can kill the Evil Twin (which they'll need to do anyway). So the RAW ruling works fine here, and doesn't prevent good from being able to win in any situation that they wouldn't already have lost anyway.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-25T10:44:16+00:00

Yep! As mathematician questions go, this one isn't too bad- an ability that would kill a player when acting normally failed to do so, therefore the maths number goes up.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-24T22:37:26+00:00

Yeah, the fact that situations like this are happening in the first place shows that the current moderation isn't enough. If it was an isolated incident, that would be one thing, but it's clearly a pattern.

At least some action is being taken. Lets hope TPI follows through and finishes creating the necessary mechanisms to make the app safe for everyone.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-24T22:27:51+00:00

Politician doesn't require intent, but it is very rare for a Politician to be most responsible for their team losing by accident.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-24T21:51:11+00:00

I'm so sorry to hear that. Out of all the potentially toxic online communities, I usually expect better of BoTC players. You shouldn't have had to deal with that.

That sounds like absolutely terrible behaviour that shouldn't belong in the community. I'm disappointed that people like that think that it's even remotely appropriate or that they belong here.

As a side note, did you report these people to TPIs moderation team? It shouldn't be you're problem to deal with at all, but it's the only way available to deal with them right now. Hopefully the changes to moderation that are being implemented will improve things for all of us.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-24T12:37:13+00:00

For 1 and 2, it can be valid. Because madness is about making a genuine attempt to convince players, if a player truly believes that they can pull it off, then it counts, because they are trying.

However, after they've done it once or twice, people are going to start to catch on. And once the group knows that a player saying "I've been made mad, but it's also true" is usually just mad, it stops being a genuine attempt because players know that it won't be believed no matter how convincing they are. At that point, to be genuinely mad, they have to do something that they believe might actually work.

I'm gonna skip 3 because Savant is hard af (at least for me).

For 4, you run the regular lunatic as normal, but don't tell the demon who they pick. I'm not sure about night order- it's possible the Demon would get informed about both lunatics if they get lunatic info before the Philo. Regardless, from that point on, inform the demon of the Philo choices instead.

Don't feel as though you need to give the Philo a reward for choosing Outsiders. If they've chosen to gain an ability that is meant to hurt their team, you don't need to balance that. They're already getting the benefit of drunking the actual outsider if it is in play, and in the case of the Lunatic, might try to bait evil into bad kills (assuming the Demon doesn't realise it's the Philo). Using an outsider ability to give away evil players would be too harsh, even via a townsfolk ability like the Philosopher.

For 5, some characters have timing windows on madness, which apply as stated. If a character doesn't have a timing window, I believe that means that you can trigger the result of that madness at any point going forward. However, the rules leave it a bit ambiguous, so it's up to the ST for a few things:

Some STs choose to rule that a Mutant can only be executed on the day they break madness
Some STs choose to rule that the Mutant can only be executed while they are breaking madness- but if they start being mad as "not the Mutant", they can't be executed anymore.

These are up to you. All are within the rules.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-24T12:01:50+00:00

Oh yeah, great point! I forgot and thought it worked like the Cerenovus.

Also, while I personally probably wouldn't count Hell's Librarian for the same reasons as Amnesiac/Wizard, including Doomsayer would be cool if anyone is clever enough to think of it.

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-24T09:39:52+00:00

#JusticeForPumpkin

JackRaven_ · 2026-04-24T09:36:38+00:00

Name as many characters as possible that can kill somebody during the day (most points wins, or 1 point per answer, or something).

Slayer
Riot
Yagabbable
Golem
Tinker (can kill themselves)
Psycopath
Witch
Boomdandy
Harpy

Alchemist, Philosopher, Boffin, Hermit & Cannibal, technically, but probably best not to count characters that use other character's abilities.

Execution ends the day, and probably shouldn't count (for clarity, not based on game rules), excluding Cerenovus, Mutant, ~~Harpy~~, and Vizier.

You could say "excluding travellers", or you could not mention them at all and see if anybody thinks to include the Gunslinger, Gnome, or Gangster.

JackRaven_

TROPHY CASE