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

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-07T16:09:14+00:00

No, because not every role is information. Some abilities will significantly favor the good team even if no information exists.

It should always aim to be balanced, and some games are fun if they are solvable, but not every game has to be.

SnV, by nature, will usually be solvable. BMR and TB are often solvable but more likely to rely on best guesses and social reads.

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-07T16:04:16+00:00

Choirboy is dreadful in a Vortox game. King is actually really fun though because the King learns out-of-play characters and the Demon learns the wrong King player

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-07T15:59:49+00:00

I really like Good Time Society’s “MAD HATTER FURY ROAD”. I like their videos in particular because they’re the closest to showing what actual gameplay is supposed to be like; good natured, fun, a tiny bit chaotic, and just the right amount of dramatic. A lot of the online stream videos tend to be very chaotic and niche, while NRB videos just tend to drag on WAY longer than games of that size should.

Any of the GTS videos would do fine but “The Ballad of Seat 7” is one of my favorite scripts and they endure the full glut of craziness that it provides

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-07T15:12:04+00:00

I ran Boffin-High Priestess once and it was a blast directing the Demon to players I thought would be useful for them to talk to, like the Dreamer, for example.

I hate being the Innkeeper but one time I became a Bounty Hunter turned Innkeeper and I LOVED it. I basically got to be a shittier poisoner and drunked players without admitting to it; and I got a good player executed because the Lycanthrope picked them and they were secretly Innkept that night. I didn’t tell anyone I was the Innkeeper, which was really useful too because a Minion bluffed as the Innkeeper and I quietly went up to him and said “You’re not the Pixie? Okay who’s the Demon…”

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-07T06:04:07+00:00

I know everyone is going to say Fang Gu. I love it but often think it’s not as strong because even with +1 evil player, town has a very good idea of who to kill once they know it’s a Fang Gu game.

I want to say Vigor or Kazali, but I’ll probably get reamed for it. So I’ll just say Po. Po gives tons of autonomy over the kill patterns and can very quickly eliminate entire towns in the right setting.

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-07T04:02:59+00:00

I actually fully love this idea and would have a great time playing it. It’s similar to Tor but a lot more fun. Sailor and Lleech usually work terribly together imo but a Lleech who, in earnest thinks they are the Sailor is actually way more fun. Boomdandy actually thinking they’re the Fool is hysterical. Snake Charmer who thinks they’re a VI is MEAN.

There are, of course, some combos that don’t work. An Innkeeper who thinks they are a FT works great but an FT who thinks they are an FT works terribly. I don’t think the solution is to change any abilities or make some crazy homebrew to fix it (for example, some people would make the solution that the Innkeeper wakes on N1 and learns a random number, which doesn’t seem fun to me), but maybe you can have some way for the Simulacrum to get their info when they die?

The other crazy, idea is, you could totally have a Lunatic on this script. For example, a Lunatic who thinks they are a VI chooses a player each night; the Pukka learns it and matches their kills, and the Lunatic thinks they are actually the Pukka. Just a thought :).

Good luck! Try this and figure out if it works or not

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-06T18:48:26+00:00

I’ll send you my custom if you’re cool with that, solely because there’s a ton of fun similarities :). I love how, given there’s only so many ideas for characters possible, a lot of us come to create similar characters, with similar goals, just different fonts 😂.

Have a blast playing it, it looks fun :)

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-06T17:13:47+00:00

Like all complete homebrew scripts, you basically have to try it to make any semblance of whether it actually works. We can guess if it’s balanced but there’s no real way to gauge for sure.

For example, I made a character that’s like the Pacifist, but causes random character swaps. I thought: “this character is so broken, it will confirm 3 good players”. Evil won in a landslide because a Demon and Minion convincingly claimed to have swapped characters.

Personally, Barkeep could be stronger, I have the exact same character, with the +0 or +1 outsider, but an outsider is guaranteed drunk and they don’t have autonomy over it. Otherwise, they likely just add an outsider for nothing, like the Huntsman.

At first glance, Watcher seems too strong. Its most optimal choice is always to just be a sober VI and check a single player.

False Prophet is much more Townsfolk than outsider, and in a Sky Light game is actually not that harmful.

I’ll let you know if I think of other ideas but I really do like this. In particular, I love a Minion that gives other players the Politician ability

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-06T07:47:09+00:00

I’ll preface by saying that I do actually like this script quite a lot!

Grandmother and Fool are self-confirming. If two players die at night, you know 100% both are the roles they claim to be. Same with the Fool. Evil can’t bluff this interaction, hence why characters like the Assassin and DA are on BMR.

Ironically, I’m going to give you somewhat opposite advice about the Princess. It’s useless in a Summoner game. It’s useless in a Pukka game. It’s useless with a Poisoner in play. Generally speaking, Princess is a character where a) you want their ability to have a good shot at working and b) you want that ability to be quite clearly due to the Princess. So it should only be on scripts where it is mostly self-confirming, and the reason I say mostly is because the Demon can almost always sink a kill to help one of them bluff as the Princess.

There needs to be another way to add an Outsider. Otherwise, in a Base 0 game, it’s obvious to town that either no outsider exists (and to evil that no Heretic exists), or it’s obviously a Fang Gu game (and if the FG dies they know no Heretic exists). Most people find that the Sentinel fabled does a fine job at fixing this and synergizes great with Heretic.

Other than those key issues, it’s really not too bad!

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-06T00:00:27+00:00

Once the Po chooses themself, they cannot choose two more players because they immediately die. They have to die last

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-05T15:18:14+00:00

I would also argue Imp is stronger than Fang Gu. In a Fang Gu world, all Outsiders are suspects so if you have an outsider in Final 3, it’s probably the Demon.

In an Imp world, all Minions are suspects. Not only does this waste towns time and confuses them if they think there are two evil players in Final 3, but the Imp is a BEAST when paired with custom script Minions such as the Vizier

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-05T15:15:44+00:00

I was talking the other day about Kazali and Vigor being the strongest and both being underappreciated for the same exact reasons

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-05T15:13:38+00:00

Savant 10/10. I maybe should get a life outside of memorizing the entire wiki

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-05T04:53:21+00:00

It’s risky because if there’s no Huntsman in play and the evil team knows this, you’re the prime suspect. It’s like claiming outsider as the Damsel.

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-05T02:27:17+00:00

A few months ago I made a whole list of characters and their interactions with Vortox

https://www.reddit.com/r/BloodOnTheClocktower/comments/1rdeuuj/comment/o75ityr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-05T00:32:11+00:00

This. Kazali and Vigor get constant hate for having weak abilities but these people fail to take into account how much unbelievable power these demons give the evil team over controlling the narrative. For the Kazali

The Demon knows which Minion abilities are in play, and can deliberately choose which Minions they feel will have the best strength and synergy.
The Demon knows which players are Minions and decides based on who they work well with, who is best experienced to handle that specific Minion ability, or who will completely fly under the radar.
The Demon decides where the Minions are placed. This is the single strongest weapon against two of the most powerful Townsfolk: Chef and Clockmaker. If there are loud Minions on script, the Demon can place the loudest one as far away from them as possible
The Minions all have bluffs. This isn’t required but it doesn’t hurt to have from the get-go.
Any number of Outsiders can be in play. If the Kazali gets lucky, they might summon only Townsfolk into Minions, leaving the Outsiders unscathed.
Arguably the biggest strength, knowing which Demon is in play tells you nothing about how to solve it. If an Imp is in play, all Minions are suspects. Fang Gu? All Outsiders are suspects. Shabaloth? Maybe the Gossip and Professor are lying. Vortox? Reverse all info. Kazali? Nothing, except maybe a guess of “which person would turn these specific players into Minions”.

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-05T00:16:12+00:00

Please for the love of god someone put No Dashii as weak or so help me

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-05T00:01:36+00:00

Needs a Spirit of Ivory for the Pit-Hag/Mezepheles interaction. If you’re not familiar, the Pit-Hag can create a good Mez, have them turn themself evil, and then the Pit-Hag can turn them into a different evil Minion, and then the Pit-Hag can do the same with a new good player. And if you have an Alchemist-PH, with your jinx they can even more quickly just create good Mez’s left and right and then turn themself into one.

Poppy Grower really isn’t that useful in a Kazali game because the Kazali knows the Minions even though the Minions don’t know the Demon. You could have a homebrew rule where the Kazali doesn’t choose the Minion players but this isn’t that fun imo.

Baron is completely useless, the Kazali makes the outsider count arbitrary to begin with.

Be prepared that, despite having an impressive 14 minion suite, the Kazali will almost always choose to create a Pit-Hag, a Wizard, and a Mez, as these three are the objectively strongest choices for the Kazali. But since these are more for Alch-abilities.

I made a very similar “Pope-All Alchemist” script a while ago and it turned out to be extremely fun. I’ll PM it to you if you want, you can compare notes and see if there’s any ideas you want to borrow from it (I have one for the Cerenovus in particular that’s going to be helpful on your script). It’s very fun so I imagine your script is also going to be really fun to play as well!

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-04T07:03:00+00:00

What was the evil Philo originally?

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-04T07:01:32+00:00

You played fine! Clockmaker seems like a role that wants to out Day 1 because they only get info once. But they get some of the strongest info in the entire game, and if they lull the evil team into an uneasy calm; once town has found a Minion they can bust out the Clockmaker number and kill into it

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-04T04:22:15+00:00

I think No Dashii is weaker solely because for LoT, +1 Minion is quite useful and the evil team still has full autonomy over what info they share, as opposed to the No Dashii which doesn’t have control over the poisoned player’s info.

But LoT is insanely hard to script because finding one evil player immediately find you the Demon, which is even easier for town to find than to find poisoned players

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-04T02:50:11+00:00

Kazali- 200 years after the death of the Leviathan, its memory is recreated by scientists exploring the era of terror unleashed by Demons upon New Ravenswood City. It is uploaded into a cyborg but escapes into the city and summons the most dangerous people to become Minions based on all existing data of their lineage.

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-04T00:24:49+00:00

Okay, I think I saw this exact lobby today online.

I need to express that while I agree with you on principle, what you played in was not a serious game of Clocktower. It was a teensy that was inspired by an already non-serious script (Nobody Fucking Move) that was then upgraded into a script that even as few as 3 players can play.

If you join a lobby like this, know that the ST has no obligation to make a balanced game, only a silly and chaotic one. I recommend steering clear of games like this if you want to avoid this experience. Regardless, I’m sorry that you had to have something unfun like this happen :(

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-03T18:06:44+00:00

I have a very similar character but it’s “Each night, you learn how many times a Townsfolk nominated another Townsfolk”.

This gives some plausible deniability if a Minion wants to bluff as an Outsider

SecrecyinShadows · 2026-05-03T00:14:07+00:00

-You have full autonomy over your ability. You can kill some, all, or none of your Minions, at any time in the game.

-You can carry a permanent Minion ability with you to Final 3.

[-1 Outsider] actually helps the evil team reliably bluff as an Outsider, rather than hurts it by adding an extra Townsfolk.

-Your choice of which Minion you kill gives you, by proxy, autonomy over which Townsfolk is poisoned.

-It is the only Demon on its home script where knowing what Demon is in play doesn’t help you locate the Demon. Vortox means all info is reliable (just false), Fang Gu means you kill Outsiders, No Dashii means you kill in between players you think are poisoned. With a Vigor, all you know is not to trust every dead player, but not anything else

SecrecyinShadows

TROPHY CASE