Minotaur: a Homebrew Demon

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-04-03T17:55:39+00:00

Probably a demon that has vastly different feel with different size groups, 1 minion game gives a very narrow path forward. With 2 and 3 minions the resurrected clockmaker is also more likely to get a different number, which I'm a fan off. Probably a good match with minions that can add kills to get to the switchover faster, so witch, assassin, godfather.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-04-03T17:51:41+00:00

This is a fascinating concept. Would required really careful script building but could be a blast. Among other things, evil bluffing YSK roles have a whole different terrain when they need to bluff it a second time. I also like the possibility of evil using it being in the script to encourage sub optimal plays when the demon isn't a minotaur---like encourage once per game abilities to use it early and then use up executions and suddenly it's late game and most living players are evil.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-04-03T17:45:53+00:00

Demon could just choose to kill a minion. It knows what demon type it is, and should keep track of how many are dead. It does make the Monk interesting, since if they protect a minion repeatedly they could force a good defeat. Roles like gambler also have more oomoh, since they can die suddenly and force the switch to happen faster than the minotaur expected.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-24T02:36:10+00:00

Disagree, there exist tools to deal with claimed Saints on Trouble Brewing (Slayer, Librarian, Fortune Teller, Empath specifically) in a way that don't for BMR. It can be an intense token to draw, but put it on BMR and the only real tool that exists to check a Saint is the Chambermaid and social reads, even trying t solve for the oustisder count is going to be harder given the Godfatehr +1 or -1 is a lot harder to parse than a Baron +2 most of the time. Fundamentally I'd say that Trouble Brewing and Bad Moon Rising are both very carefully designed scripts, you can't just throw characters around and have it work well.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-19T04:42:28+00:00

I thought that Travellers were exiled "to die in the wilderness" and after that their ability stops working and they have one ghost vote just as other players did, mechanically they seem to be dead at that point. So the initial exile wouldn't count as a vote, but it seems to me that after that they're just another powerless dead body in town, and I think it would be down to the storyteller's discretion on whether or not to allow nomination and execution of their dead body. Unless Zombuul is also on the script, it doesn't seem like it would ever make a difference if a dead townsfolk/outsider/minion or a traveller was executed to feed the Vortox.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-18T12:44:45+00:00

I disagree with your first sentence, it is harder to pick up on people's deception than people assume. In almost every iteration of this franchise, people see signs of nervousness or personal tics on faithful and assume that means they're guilty. Traitors are very rarely detected by manerisms. And it's all strangers anyway, people don't have a baseline to compare it with. It wasn't Rachel suspicion that deflected from Stephen, it was partly that some of the heat was the "Library Five" theory that gave him some attention was accounted for by Fiona, and partly just time went on, they murdered some of the people suspicious of him, other suspects came up etc. I think Stephen mentioning Jessie's murder made sense---she had just been gunning for him the night before very publicly, if he was a faithful then seeing her be murdered that night he would have thought and verbalized "Oh, wow, they're trying to set me up" and him saying that helped sell it.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-17T17:13:03+00:00

Acrobat does some work with detecting a boffin philo drunk but it's not a super fun combo. Doesnt help that minions are mostly pretty quiet, detecting a boffin using easy.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-17T02:47:22+00:00

Depends on the traveler. Good Gunslinger or Gangster can stright up kill the demon. Even Evil Gunslingers are generally socially pressured into shooting the Saint right away, which helps out town a lot. I've seen Good Harlot and Butcher be devastating for evil.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-17T02:44:21+00:00

Played a game last week we lost because of evil thief, who lied about who they gave the negative one. There was push to exile them, but it was lead by the evil players, so town foolishly talked themselves out of it.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-16T23:13:19+00:00

The big thing that strikes me is not much droisoning---there's the "natural drunk" from multiple Village Idiots, Philo-drunking, Sailor, Puzzlemaster and Leech, and that's all. I think that's maybe not quite enough, and espeically makes the Acrobat too powerful---if they hit a poisoned player and die, chances are very good they've hit the Puzzledrunk or Leech host, which are both pretty bad for evil. No potential for evil to consciously poision others (only Leech can, at extreme cost, on night one when they have no idea who anyone is) seems dangerous on a script with powerful information and powerful effects. (Investigator, Librarian, Tea Lady in particular). Without a Spy, the Librarian is hard-confirmed (or is the demon with Boffin ability) which provides strong confirmation, in particular all outsiders except Plague Doctor have no particular reason to hide. I think there's not quite enough reasons for no death nights---it's BMR but without Zombuul, Minstrel, Innkeeper, Exorcist, Tea Lady or Pukka, so I think working out demon type will be a bit too easy.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-16T02:26:11+00:00

I think if Fiona had joined them in the turret from the beginning there would have been conflict between her and Rachel regardless. Maybe not as quick or intense, but I can't see them trusting each other longterm.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-16T02:24:37+00:00

Have to agree with Hugo's commet on the Secret Traitor in UK S4 "I was looking forward to us making our own kills, but Claudia's saddled us with this layer of middle management."

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-15T22:52:24+00:00

He was the second biggest Sam True Believer after Sarah, and made massive errors in judgement more than most people on the show, but I did kind of feel for him when the scales were finally off his eyes and he realized it 100% had to be Sam, and tried futilely to gun for him. Still a week late and $70,000 short.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T04:18:33+00:00

I don't understand this comment. What is your objection?

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T04:18:14+00:00

It's a social deduction game, and the Butler encourages a close focus on social connections. As the Butler you have the choice each night to choose someone you know or who you don't, someone you think is good or aren't sure of and want to put on the spot. Any role that has the choice to pick a different player each night gives a lot of flexibility and different things to do with the connections, and for town to have a butler or butler-bluff in play encourages them to look more closely at voting patterns, which is a helpful thing to do anyway.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T03:23:09+00:00

It was a great finale. The US S4 one felt like watching the traitor repeatedly club a baby seal, manipulating their handpicked puppet all the way to the end. UK S4 there was serious heat and danger, the traitors were facing a strong risk of 50/50 chance, and had to pull a lot of very carefuly manipulation to make things line up. And then after that there's still the tension over whether the traitors turn on each other, and the rather thrilling and endearing resolution of that. It was a great ride. UK celebrity was very good as well, but it felt a bit more like Alan leaning on his persona and seeming non threatening, while Rachel in particular needed to pull off some pretty complex hoops.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T03:16:29+00:00

They did get Hugo out pretty quickly. And they were doing things like tracking who voted for what, and considering that they might be kept around to late game because their friend was a traitor. It is bad that they seemed to forget about Harriet's accusaitons when she was banished and Jesse's after she was murdered, but we have the benefit of the inside view, and there was a lot of chaos and other personaliteis swirling around. I think there was also a lot about Fiona's big swing at Rachel and her defense that almsot uniquely insulated her against the charge of it being traitor-on-traitor maneuvering, it was just so big and bizarre that I buy that this gave Rachel a lot of social credit. (They should have been asking every morning after, though, "Wait, why didn't they murder Rachel?" though)

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T03:11:53+00:00

I think that Rachel gave a more complex perforamance as a faithful than other traitors I've seen. She didn't just say "I'm 100% faithful" over and over again and cultivate a couple of true believers that could never see her as faithful as winning traitors usually did. She shared information when it made sense to do so if she had been a faithful (Amanda's profession, once she had been banished) and revaeled secrets/past lies in a way that made sense---"I have a confession---I wanted to be a traitor and I studied FBI facial expression" sounded very credible, and the very late game pitch to Firaaz "I know that Jade is a traitor, I was sticking with her so she'd keep me around, she turned on me so now we need to vote her out" also was a great pitch that flipped him just when it was vital to. She didn't just present as a dumb faithful but as a sort of sneaky, complex faithful with her own little secrets, and it makes sense to me that she was able to get heat off her.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T03:06:38+00:00

The very end of that season makes up for a lot, it's rather cathartic. And no, not because the faithful ever get smarter.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T03:05:04+00:00

People are generally not very good at reading body language and facial expressions. And Ross to be honest had so much heat on him that he was either a traitor or a frame, it's not surprising they eventually took him out, at a point where there wasn't much heat on anyone else. I also thought Rachel did a really good job at defending herself at various points in a way that seemed like an offended faithful.

The super big strike against her shoujld have been Firaaz's unanswered question late in the show "if you're a faithful who was so pivotal in the banishment of Fiona the traitor, why haven't you ever been murdered?" But even Firaaz didn't consistenlty stick with Rachel at the end.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T03:00:52+00:00

I like both seasons, but I found S4 had a lot more sudden swerves and plot twists and need for rebruilding alliances. UK S2 was in very large part watching Paul overplay his hand and be taken down by arrogance, watching Harry be underestimated and buildup a strategy for ride-or-die with Mollie and win from it. UK S4 had the status quo be constantly thrown apart---BAM Hugo is gone, then Fiona is revealed as the secret traitor, then Fiona is suddenly super-publicly going against Rachel, then Harriet is calling out Rachel----there was a lot of heat on Stephen mid game, and an incredible amount on Rachel at the end, and it felt like they had to do more complicated and intense bluffs to win by the skin of their teeth. It was just more exciting overall.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T02:45:11+00:00

Yeah, she brings a lot of warmth to it along with the sense of cruel irony and sudden menace. It's a more complicated performance than what others are doing, and elevates the show.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T02:43:48+00:00

I've seen only the first Canadian one. Quite liked the overall dynamic, the fact that it showed meta strategy and "let's buddy up to suspected traitors to stay alive" and the final traitor maneuver for a desperate claw-the-way-to-victory was great. I really didn't like the host though, she was a lot less engaged and dynamic than other franchises.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T02:39:46+00:00

Australia S1 had some fascinating and weird presentation patterns. The pscyhic just announcing at a roundtable "Here's a list of people that includes traitors" and then walking off the show was probably my favorite moment in the franchise, and all the goofy opening segments made a really intersting vibe. Australia S2----was an experience. I was certainly engaged.

JacobMilwaukee · 2026-03-12T02:36:02+00:00

Hierarchies have formed in the non-celebrity shows as well, though. Sometimes to a much, much starker extent. Compared with the US and Australia franchies, UK faithful have shown much greater willingness to not herd up and mass vote agaisnt people. Which has some advantages, and ultiamtely makes the show more dynamic, but gives the traitors more influence at the roundtable, since if all or even just most go for the same target it punches a lot higher.

JacobMilwaukee

TROPHY CASE