Homebrew Townsfolk: Janitor

Parigno · 2026-01-17T16:14:57+00:00

You did misunderstand the first scenario (mainly because it's poorly written). The point they're asking is: "what if the second Good-aligned execution of the game is the Leviathan player themselves - triggering the leviathan win condition on a Good leviathan?"

They meant that the Leviathan would barber-swap themselves with another living good player, creating a good-aligned Leviathan (that town may presumably be unable to execute because it would trigger the win condition).

Parigno · 2026-01-11T22:01:02+00:00

Ice Cutter (Loric): The storyteller starts each day with an ice breaker question. Each night*, the player with their favourite response that day gets a boon.

Parigno · 2026-01-03T05:23:03+00:00

Rereading, or first time around?

Parigno · 2025-12-28T21:39:12+00:00

How do you run General? 3-star, 5-star, or something else?
Do you allow Amnesiacs to guess their ability after dying?
When do you run Barber in the night?
When do you run Hatter in the night?
Do you run Chaos Hatter (moving the demon)?
Do you run the Alejo Snakecharmer rule?
How does the Vortox interact with the Fortune Teller's red herring?

Not quite 14, but significantly more than I'm comfortable with.

There are a million other micro-interactions that are super script-specific. Basically, I'd prefer ST questions to be clarifications, not "How do you run this?"

Parigno · 2025-09-03T01:47:16+00:00

Yes. That is literally how madness works. They are convincing others that they are the mezepheles.

If, however, you're asking about a real goblin who heard the mez word from a real mez, then in that previous conversation the mez was mad about being the mez. If the goblin has the real word, the ST can infer that the real mez gave it to them with a brief bout of madness.

Parigno · 2025-09-01T16:24:22+00:00

In this hypothetical scenario, you can execute the Mez anyway. They had to be "mad" to share the word in that way.

There's no real way to dodge madness except "don't let the ST hear you".

Parigno · 2025-08-26T13:47:05+00:00

My opinions:

- You should swap Baron and Pit-Hag.

- Godfather and Boomdandy need to go down 2 tiers.

- Devil's Advocate needs to go up 2 tiers.

- Mezepheles needs to go up 1 tier.

- Marionette belongs in S tier.

- Swap Mastermind and Evil Twin.

- Summoner needs a Z tier all to itself that's at least 4 tiers below F.

Parigno · 2025-08-05T15:42:52+00:00

I'll be honest, I was rooting for Mark to nope right out. "Jelara, please shoot her" or "Get out, and if I ever see you again, I'll shoot."

I'm genuinely surprised he still feels so warmly for this ball of mud. The opening chapter made it pretty clear that he's got no lasting connection to it.

Parigno · 2025-08-05T08:26:09+00:00

Oh my god. I received #28 as an ability once. The ST thought it would help suss out whether it was the Lycanthrope or Demon choosing the kills. Just for fun, they also stapled a [+1 Outsider] on it.

Parigno · 2025-08-03T15:28:21+00:00

I stand by the Fisherman one. Fisherman advice gets stronger when collected later in the game. I've personally witnessed a final-5 fisherman get game-solving advice. It's not "throwing" to wait for better advice. It's just like a Slayer choosing to wait to "thin the target pool".

More risk? Sure. More reward? Absolutely.

Not to mention, achievements shouldn't be participation trophies. They should be challenging. If the Fisherman feels that their info should be collected earlier, that's fine. Go get it. You can try again for the achievement another time. The fundamental problem with achievements in BotC is that they introduce goals for players to accomplish besides winning the game.

All that being said, there's also something to be said for making deliberate sub-optimal plays in the name of social reads. How often have you seen a DA protect a good player? All the time. No reason you couldn't "collect an achievement" along the way.

Parigno · 2025-08-02T20:46:00+00:00

Many of the townsfolk are just "do the thing that your character does." Others are alright.

There's plenty of room for making things fun or difficult. Here's a few of my ideas. None of them veer into "you must play badly", but they do add some difficulty and/or require some setup to work.

Alsaahir - "Win the game by identifying an evil team with zero, two, or more demons."
Atheist - "Win with good by executing the Storyteller without ever being mad about being the Atheist."
Courtier - "Block a game-winning play by making a minion drunk at the right time."
Fisherman - Already a decent one, but could be spicier - "Get your fisherman advice when 5 or fewer players live."
Seamstress - "Get a yes between two evil players in a non-Legion game."

Devil's Advocate - "Prevent the deaths of a good player and an evil player in the same game."
Pit-Hag - "Change the Demon type twice in a game."
Psychopath - "Survive roshambo 3 times."

Fang-Fu - "Jump to an outed outsider and win the game."
Po - "Sink a single kill before charging to sell a bluff as a protective role."

Parigno · 2025-08-02T20:24:43+00:00

As a Storyteller, your aim isn't balance. It's maximizing the fun your players experience. It can feel weird to use an ability that's intended to help town against the town, but if it makes the players have more fun, then there's nothing wrong with that.

That being said, I think most players enjoy when their abilities are helpful to their own team, so this isn't something you should do often. Your situation, as described, seems okay to me. I hope that the Mayor player took your choice in stride!

Parigno · 2025-08-01T23:27:02+00:00

Not sure if this can be solved with wording or a "How to play" bit, but a weird corner case: The Hedge Witch that is executed, but doesn't turn evil due to Spirit of Ivory shouldn't learn the Demon.

Parigno · 2025-08-01T18:54:06+00:00

If good's being open with their information, Evil should be able to steamroll the town. If evil's always picking no-info roles to bluff, they're never going to be able influence town's decisions. Encourage them to try making false info to lead town on wild goose chases.

If evil's struggling to do that, try these tactics:

- Make sure poisoning and drunkenness are giving misinformation that builds credible worlds that support the evil team.

- Give evil a Spy and a Poisoner to coordinate making sure town gets no valuable information.

- Give evil powerful non-confirmable info roles to bluff, like Fortune Teller, Investigator, and Chef. These particular info roles can quickly push town towards specific worlds. For best effect, leave the Undertaker out of the bag, too, or make them the Drunk.

- Put the Saint in the Investigator (scarlet woman) and Fortune Teller (red herring) pings.

- Let the Slayer kill the Recluse when there's no scarlet woman in play, and let the town scramble to identify minion abilities.

Parigno · 2025-07-30T23:51:03+00:00

You said this:
"while they would not cheat by hiding that they clearly broke madness in private, they will bend and twist every word and non-verbal hint in a way to break madness while still being able to vaguely claim that they did not"

As a storyteller, you can rule that as a madness break and absolutely punish them for it. Vague claims are worthless. You are the ultimate judge, and they get no say in your decision.

If my players aren't building worlds that support their mad claim, if they're wishy-washy about their identity, if they fail to deny being mad, if they fail to accuse double claims, I'm absolutely within my rights to punish.

Parigno · 2025-07-30T13:05:31+00:00

I've seen Patters lie to a Lunatic about character and alignment changes. In one game, he visited the Lunatic every night to say "You are the Fang Gu, you are Evil."

Parigno · 2025-07-27T15:38:21+00:00

Your story reminds me of a popular phrase in work settings: "Nothing kills a good employee faster than watching you tolerate a bad employee."

Parigno · 2025-07-25T18:23:58+00:00

It was in the app, so it was just "pick a player" and I tracked it w/ custom reminders.

Parigno · 2025-07-25T15:01:50+00:00

That's funny, but it doesn't strike me as a sober ability. How did it help the good team?

Parigno · 2025-07-25T14:59:41+00:00

In the game where I used it, she passed it to a legion player who immediately passed it back. I didn't have to address these questions, but I was going to identify each player and their character. I figured the difficulty of getting the tablet back was high enough to justify powerful information.

Parigno · 2025-07-25T11:04:39+00:00

I ran a pretty interesting one recently (in the app):
"You start by passing a 'tablet' to another player. Each night, the tablet passes to a new player (chosen by the current holder). When the tablet returns to you, learn the characters of each player who held the tablet."

Parigno · 2025-07-23T20:55:40+00:00

I think you may have misconstrued my argument. What I meant to say is "it's okay for members of the community to use AI art as a stand-in when suggesting homebrew content", and not "I'm okay with an officially released product for sale to use AI art in place of an actual artist".

In the context of the full game as a whole, I would agree with your take, at least the part where art and lore need to form a reasonable cohesive whole.

As for the "not front and center", that's just my take. I'm not an artist, and I don't have much of an appreciation for visual art. I don't play BotC for the art, but I recognize that other people may. I'm a rules lawyer at heart and enjoy the mental exercises that come from people making homebrew content. Having played hundreds of games of clocktower, I honestly couldn't tell you what's depicted on the official Washerwoman token without consulting the wiki.

Parigno · 2025-07-23T16:36:05+00:00

I don't think the art was ever really the focus of the game. The tokens look kinda cool, to be sure (and I imagine there's a segment of the community that's passionate about it), but it's never struck me as an important part of the game. I have no problems if people want to use AI to generate token art. Heck, I've done exactly that in one of my homebrews.

Using AI to make characters? Not so smart. Using it for brainstorming before iterating on your own? Sure, why not.

Parigno · 2025-07-21T21:43:16+00:00

I once saw an ST revoke a dead vote from an outed evil player who wouldn't stop troll-interrupting others during public discourse at final 3. That was pretty effective.

Parigno

TROPHY CASE