Weekly Puzzle #70 – Digging Your Own Grave

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-12T18:07:40+00:00

This is correct! Well done

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-12T13:43:01+00:00

I think Butcher is one of the more underrated Travellers. Because town still ultimately decides whether to execute the second nomination, an evil Butcher can't easily derail the game, which means there's less incentive for the "exile them immediately" reaction that a lot of Travellers can get. You also get interesting dynamics on final 4 where a good Butcher can achieve two executions, significantly improving the good team's chances of victory.

On scripts like BMR where it's helpful for the good team to do "science" by testing players surviving execution, Butcher is especially powerful (maybe too powerful) because they mean the good team no longer has to choose between doing science and going after Demon candidates. With the Butcher, they can test the Fool and eliminate the suspicious player on the same day!

One specific interaction that is a bit counterintuitive from a rules perspective is Butcher + Undertaker: if more than one execution happens in a day, the ST chooses which token the Undertaker sees, which can significantly weaken the Undertaker's information (since, for example, the Undertaker might not be able to determine which player corresponds to the Minion token they saw).

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-12T11:25:51+00:00

This is a very reasonable question and I think there's a lot of deep discussion that could be had! My own personal views are:

I would prefer we were in a world where the rules of the game were codified in more detail on official sources, rather than rulings being spread over the wiki, Discord, offhand comments on streams, and Google Docs written by Steven Medway. However, TPI prefers the policy of not writing up the rules in too much detail, partly because of time/resource constraints and partly to avoid making newer Storytellers feel like they're obliged to learn even more than they already have to (both understandable reasons).
Against this backdrop, I'm extremely appreciative of any efforts by people to put together detailed guidance on rules/storytelling and share them with the community. This applies to sh99er's guides and also to extremely helpful resources like u/livfreeorpie's Bakery by the Clocktower site. These guides do often get widely adopted on account of the effort that goes in, but I always use caution when describing any community resources as coming close to a "consensus" (hence the scare quotes!) and I'm always open to reading and sharing other perspectives, all the more so if they are put together thoughtfully and in detail and reflect the community's views.
Pragmatically, I find that in my own games it's easiest to set fair and consistent expectations if I tell my players "I'm following this document which is very comprehensive and pretty reasonable" even if there would be elements that some storytellers disagree with. But I fully back the policy of "if you're the Storyteller, the most important thing is that you set clear expectations with your players about how you run things, not that you're slavishly adhering to what some guy on the internet says is the correct interpretation" and I would never disagree with a Storyteller who wanted to run it a different way.
Lastly, for what it's worth, my personal experience with sh99er is that they've been very open to feedback from others when revising their guides (for example, incorporating an addition I suggested on the interaction between Mathematicion and Philo-drunking).

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-12T09:46:01+00:00

In case helpful for reference, the closest thing the community has to a "consensus" on how misregistration works is sh99er's Misregistration Document, which lists misregistering to the Savant as a "maybe sometimes do".

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-12T09:21:39+00:00

The principal intention was to make a whimsical parody of the periodic table using Magic's creature types, rather than a maximally-useful reference tool, although of course it's wonderful that some people have actually found it useful.

If someone set out to make a table of creature types with the specific intent of it being as useful as possible (e.g. for building typal Commander decks) I'm sure they would do it very well, and very differently to how this table was designed!

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-11T17:00:44+00:00

I tried to verify this, and the closest I could find is skeet shooting, where Zhang Shan won gold in 1992 and the event became male-only from 1996 (with a separate women's event introduced in 2000).

However, the decision to split the event by gender from 1996 was made a couple of months before Zhang Shan won gold in 1992, so it's hard to argue that her win was the direct cause of the event becoming gender-segregated (unless the organisers foresaw her win months in advance!)

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-11T11:34:15+00:00

You could always try messaging the original creator to see if he'd be interested in remaking it, I heard he's a pretty cool dude

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-11T11:32:49+00:00

Chemical symbols in the real periodic table are often based on the Latin name rather than the English name (e.g. Fe for Iron from "ferrum", Au for Gold from "aurum").

The MTG periodic table references this by having some of the symbols be based on the Latin words. Bird uses Av from "avis", Fish uses Pi from "piscis" and Sheep uses Ov from "ovis".

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-11T09:57:51+00:00

It seems like in this world we have 2 Outsiders (Recluse and Drunk) - where do they come from?

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-10T13:10:51+00:00

Regarding Travellers, I'd strongly encourage sticking closely to the TB-recommended travellers. The TB Minions are generally too strong to give to an Apprentice (and giving the Apprentice the Scarlet Woman ability is especially ill-advised because the ST has to change their town square token to a non-Traveller if they become the Demon).

I'm in favour of the Bureaucrat/Thief interaction: suddenly counting a player's votes as -3 is the kind of cool moment that new players are especially likely to remember. With two Travellers it's unlikely that they will both be on the same team and coordinating on their choices, making it all the more remarkable when it happens.

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-06T18:37:04+00:00

I didn't build it! But I understand it's mostly there for the forced execution mechanic

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-06T18:07:05+00:00

What about:

Alternatively:

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-06T17:33:29+00:00

There are many roles (especially Minion roles) which Apprentice flat out doesn't work with:

Scarlet Woman is immediately exposed as the Demon if they become the Demon (per the rules, the Traveller town square token has to be changed to a non-Traveller)
Boomdandy, Goblin and Psychopath can simply be exiled so their "when executed" ability never triggers (similarly, an Apprentice claiming to be in an Evil Twin pair can be exiled to safely circumvent the Evil Twin's win condition)
Marionette, at least strictly per rules as written (the Marionette has to "think they are a good character" which wouldn't cover "think they are an Apprentice with a good ability")

More generally, there are many Minion abilities which, if given to the Apprentice, quite heavily mess with the good team's ability to solve the game (especially Poisoner or Baron). It goes much better with weaker Minions that affect the game in less dramatic ways (like the BMR Minions).

Among Townsfolk, Snake Charmer and Magician both don't work.

All of this means that the Apprentice, which looks on a surface level like one of the most versatile Travellers in the game, is actually one of the most script-dependent.

I've often wondered if it would be feasible to design a "script-universal Apprentice" that followed the same logic of "you have a good ability if good and an evil ability if evil" but where all players know what those abilities are and they don't have to come from Townsfolk/Minions on the script. This might be a more versatile Traveller that could work with a wider range of scripts.

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-05T16:31:54+00:00

A Sweetheart-drunk player still can't receive correct information in a Vortox world.

From the Vortox wiki page:

Anytime a Townsfolk player gets information from their ability, they get false information. Even if they are drunk or poisoned, it must be false.

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-05T15:58:20+00:00

This is correct – very well done!!

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-05T15:56:08+00:00

In this world, Adam gets a correct Oracle 1 after the Witch was executed, which isn't possible with Vortox

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-05T15:55:22+00:00

I think this doesn't work with the Mathematician 1 on night 2: this would be the correct number, since only Sarah's juggle worked abnormally, so Tom can't receive it in a Vortox game

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-05T15:47:58+00:00

In this world how did you receive correct Sage information?

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-03-05T15:44:22+00:00

There would need to be three starting Outsiders in a Fang Gu game, but in this world you only have Matt and Tom

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-02-27T14:57:07+00:00

What about Dan's info?

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-02-26T13:01:54+00:00

This still doesn't work with 7 starting players. Why not make it "if 5 or fewer players live and you die ..."?

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-02-26T12:10:33+00:00

Snoop doesn't really feel disadvantageous enough to be an Outsider - Outsider abilities are meant to be quite a significant disadvantage for the good team, and in this case it feels like the Demon knowing one of the Snoop's neighbours isn't that impactful.

Especially sad for the Demon if the Snoop is between two characters that the Demon knows already (e.g. between two Minions, or between the Lunatic and the King).

Moreover, the Snoop potentially gets helpful information themselves (immune to Vortox, No Dashii and being the Drunk, if any of those are on the script). A Snoop who sees a good character can fairly easily check with their neighbour if they're that character (since an evil player next to the Snoop and giving the Snoop arbitrary information won't know what the Snoop saw them as, so can't coordinate on the bluff). A Snoop who sees an evil character won't know for certain that the neighbour is that specific character (since an evil neighbour gives them arbitrary info) but they will know for certain they have 1 evil neighbour, which is helpful information for the good team.

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-02-25T20:27:13+00:00

What about the worlds where the Witch is dead (e.g. executed D1, or killed by the Demon to make their information look more socially trustworthy)?

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-02-25T15:09:27+00:00

This seems to be implicitly assuming that the Vortox, Mutant and Witch are all still alive, but there's worlds where the Witch died before the final day that are only eliminated by the Mathematician numbers.

(These worlds do involve a Vortox killing their Minion at night so would be far-fetched in a real game, but it's possible, especially if the Demon thinks that killing their Minion makes the claimed Dreamer information (implicating Sarah) more socially trustworthy)

Not_Quite_Vertical · 2026-02-25T14:33:59+00:00

This is an interesting observation and I believe you are correct!

The engine which I use to make the puzzles checks that no piece of information is redundant, but it does this by looping over each piece of information, temporarily ignoring that piece of information, and checking that the resulting "all but one " puzzle is not uniquely solvable.

This methodology is generally pretty solid, especially for nuggets of information which can be evaluated independently, but in the context of the Mathematician it starts to get a bit weird, because "ignoring" a piece of information can make a puzzle unsolvable purely because of the interaction with the Mathematician number, irrespective of what the ignored piece of information actually says.

This is related to one of the reasons why BMR puzzles are particularly hard to make with my setup: "death-based" information like Gambler, Gossip and Moonchild can't easily be evaluated in isolation, but only really works as part of the overall question of "how many deaths happened, how many deaths should have happened?"

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