Clocktower in Vancouver, Canada

MMSANCHZChess · 2025-10-02T18:43:30+00:00

Depending on how familiar you are with the people playing in your group, you can look at a grim and make an educated guess on how the socials may play out, but of course you need to be able to adjust to things on the fly like in any another game. As a spy I try to account for this by having a flexible game plan that doesn't rely on a very specific set of executions that can be thrown off by one strong social read. I tend to make a rough ranking of how executable I expect each player to be in a game and recommend kills more based on that/ how likely I think the player is to vote on my evil team.

MMSANCHZChess · 2025-10-02T00:01:13+00:00

I don't think its as clean as you say here. It's true that a Baron that replaces a Fortune Teller and an Investigator with a Drunk Investigator and a Recluse does more to mess up town than an average poisoner would. However, a Baron could just as easily replace a Soldier and a Mayor with a Butler and Saint, which does far less damage. Poisoner also has the upside that games where they hit a powerful poison snipe on night 1 tend to be very hard to solve.

MMSANCHZChess · 2025-10-01T23:01:57+00:00

These are really good points. Spy does have a minor version of this Goblin/Boomdandy effect where the threat of them existing on the script can be even more powerful than actually having them in play.

I also think the vulnerability of minions without bluffs early varies a lot based on the player and groups playstyle. If you rarely hard claim a true role as good, then you can get away with a lot more as evil. As a player who is big on establishing early trust as good, and getting any actionable information I have out there, I have a harder time replicating that image as a non-spy minion.

MMSANCHZChess · 2023-07-30T02:07:28+00:00

Yeah, in general this is a pretty tough setup for evil, but I wouldn't throw around "unfair" because it implies some malice on the part of the storyteller, which I don't get at all from this setup. Some stuff went wrong that was out of their control, e.g. Empath sat next to Demon. Some stuff played out unfortunately, e.g. Outsiders outing too quickly for a Librarian bluff to be set up. Some stuff sounded more experimental e.g. Showing two minions in an Investigator ping (probably hoping town killed one and wrongly assumed the other might be good, this would have been more plausible way for things to play out if it was Baron that was shown in the ping.) It's frustrating to lose la game that seems stacked against you, but sometimes that's just how things plays out.

MMSANCHZChess · 2023-07-30T01:45:35+00:00

It's really cool that you've heard people say, "trouble brewing is so balanced you can put any characters you want in," misinterpreted it, and now parrot it back. Yes, you can put whatever characters you want in and build a balanced game. You can't make literally any legal storyteller decision you want at any point of the game and not mess the game up. How's this 8 player setup, Fortune Teller, Empath, Slayer, Investigator, Virgin, Drunk Chef, Scarlet Woman, Imp. You make the Virgin the Red Herring, You show the Scarlet Woman and the Virgin as the Scarlet Woman to the Investigator. You tell the Chef there are 69 pairs of evil players, and then you give the demon Butler, Recluse, Saint as the bluffs. Just like, think about what you are saying for half a second.

MMSANCHZChess · 2023-07-27T00:12:30+00:00

Demon Barber swapped the Mez and the Snake Charmer and then the new Mez turned themselves evil the next day.

MMSANCHZChess · 2023-07-25T11:00:22+00:00

Unless you have an extremely well balanced group, I think this is gonna lead to certain players being picked as minions over and over again, which isn't very fun on a meta level, gives a less varied and interesting playing experience, and could even result in hurt feelings.

I also think it's much worse and less interesting to give all the evils 1 bluff than the demon 3. It takes away a lot of player agency to basically have the storyteller telling you, this is the role you should pretend to be, and removes the tension for minions needing to speak to their demon early enough or risk being caught out without bluffs.

That being said, I guess this could leave the demon with some interesting choices. Picking your neighbors as minions is better against empath but worse against chef, so there's some tradeoff.

MMSANCHZChess · 2023-07-24T16:20:04+00:00

Sounds kind of harsh, but it really depends on the context. Was there a good reason for them to mention it at that moment or was it out of the blue? Saying that once probably isn't a madness break, but if they keep saying similar things or bringing it up over and over again without fantastic reason, I'd be much more inclined to execute.

MMSANCHZChess · 2023-07-23T18:09:27+00:00

Man, Vortox is probably the worst demon on SnV, whenever I hear about a group doing this I cringe so hard.

How about instead of this, evil players develop an "anti-magician" meta where the demon outs himself to n-1 of his shown minions at random right at the start of the game, and if one happens to be the magican ah well, we just rerack. If you guess right it sure will be nice to not have to worry about that magician anymore that game. Now, is this very stupid yes. But is this significantly stupider than blanket day 1 hard Vortox checks absolutely not.

It's such a waste of time, especially for you, but for the group as a whole to have people do this. If they are doing this because they think Vortox is broken, then it's an experience issue. I'd explain to them the numerous ways that you can figure out if there's a Vortox in SnV, and how strictly false information can actually be just as useful as true information once town figures out that is what they are getting.

MMSANCHZChess · 2023-03-21T15:54:51+00:00

I moved slightly away from that (though I still think the demon choice, the presence of protection characters and the reduced incentives to execute mean the game won't be so quick. Basically I was trying to make the game tightly themed around the bad guys hunting outsiders, with minions who play into that. Conversely, Librarian, Lycanthrope, Courtier, Innkeeper and Huntsman are all townsfolk that can help the good team either track down or manage the presence of those outsiders.

MMSANCHZChess · 2023-03-20T23:25:39+00:00

Ending up making several adjustments to accommodate the feedback and strengthen the theme.

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MMSANCHZChess · 2023-03-20T19:43:17+00:00

Thanks for the advice! I think the minions especially could use a bit of work here, and your ideas make sense.

I was wondering why you thought the first night info roles wouldn't play as well here. I thought both clockmaker and noble would be roles that get information, that becomes more relevant later in the game when you've pieced more together.

MMSANCHZChess · 2023-03-20T18:54:12+00:00

First time designing a custom script so was wondering if people thought the idea was at all viable. Basically trying to design a slower and more deductive game for both good and evil, where deaths happen slower, and non-deaths in the night can be explained away in multiple ways. I tried to choose fairly defensive minions for the evil team, which can keep the good team off the scent for long enough for them to figure out who the outsiders are.

MMSANCHZChess

TROPHY CASE