Behind the Curtain #3: Strategy. Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced.
More from Steven Medway, designer of Blood on the Clocktower..
Are you new to Blood On The Clocktower but familiar with mystery games in general? Are you totally new to deduction games? Maybe you are seasoned veteran looking to hone your skills? Here are some hints and tips to get you playing, and to reveal a few of the deeper strategies for different skill levels. This is by no means an exhaustive list. For more, please visit bloodontheclocktower.com/wiki
BEGINNER
If you are Good: reveal and share
The best first piece of advice I give to good players is: reveal your character and share whatever information you have. You don’t need to do this immediately, but do so at some stage during the game. When all good players talk and share, there is usually a lot of information for the good team to use. Some important players might die, but the team as a whole will survive, so this benefits everyone. The Demon can only kill one player per night, so even if a lot of good players share what they know, most of them will survive until tomorrow.
If you are Evil: pick a good character to pretend to be
The best first piece of advice I give to evil players is this: pick a good character on the character sheet, learn how that character works, and tell people you are that character. Give false information to the group. For example, if you are pretending to be the Empath (a character that learns how many evil players that are sitting next to), then tell the group you are sitting next to no evil players when in fact you are. Bluffing as a particular character will make you live longer, since players who don’t tell anyone who they are tend to die earlier, but it also creates false information to confuse the group .
You can vote as many times as you wish. You can choose to not vote at all. You can tie votes. You can vote for players you think are evil. You can vote for players that you know are good. However you vote, be aware of how many votes are needed to execute a player, and which players are voting for who. You can be somewhat frivolous with your voting for most of the game, but make it count on the final day. In particular, if you are dead, use your single vote token wisely – the dead as a group decide who dies on the final day, and this is the time you need your vote the most.
The most basic strategy in the game is geared around finding out who is evil. Watch and listen. Execute people that you have reason to think are evil. Easy, right? Not quite. There are, at first glance, two ways to determine whether a player is evil.
Firstly, watch their body language and pay attention to how they are acting. If they look shifty, or sound shifty, or act shifty, they might be evil! Unfortunately, many players act this way when they are simply nervous. Also, many good characters have something to hide, so that suspicious body language you are detecting may be for a very good reason… that they are on your team, but with a secret.
Secondly, is through game information. Does the information given by the Empath and the Fortune Teller match up? Is what the Investigator saying supporting what the Undertaker knows? If yes, then most likely you’ve found an evil player. If almost yes then you might have a good player with false information.
If you are fairly sure you have found an evil player – execute them! Is the Fortune Teller telling you that 1 of your neighbors is the Demon? Execute them. Is the Town Crier saying who a Minion is? Execute them. Although, the issue with this strategy is that the people saying that other people are evil, might actually be the evil ones. Or, they may be good, but have false information. It is up to the good players to weight the benefits against the risks.
Relax, and have fun! This is not a game about being paranoid and accidentally saying the wrong thing. This is a game about talking and sharing, lying and deceiving. As long as you don’t say “I’m evil!”, then whatever you say is probably going to help your cause. Talk. Talk. Talk. Listen. Listen. Listen. BOTC is designed to encourage communication, so feel free to say whatever you want to whoever you want. Do what you find enjoyable. Say what you find comfortable.
It may sound trite, but the better you feel, the better you’ll play.
Use your ability. Bluff as different characters if needed, and lie if needed… just make sure you get to use your character ability, even if it isn’t ideal. Any little bonus helps and a temporary deceit is worthwhile if it wins the game for you and your team. For example, if the Demon knows that you are the Ravenkeeper, they will never kill you, but if you can bluff as a different character in order to attract a Demon attack, and you choose a player to learn their character – the upside can be enormous. Once you feel that you have used your character ability well… share, share, share.
Find a way to overcome your negative character ability. It doesn’t matter how. Do whatever you need to do. If you are the Saint, do whatever you need to do, say whatever you need to say to not get executed. If you are the Butler, make finding a good master your number 1 priority.
Focus on making the group trust you. The number of Outsiders in play is listed on the Traveller sheet. There will typically be 1 or 2. If the number of Outsiders that have revealed themselves publicly matches this number, you know who the Outsiders are, and can be trusted. If the numbers do not match, you’ve found out that one of the Outsiders is lying about who they are… you know what to do next.
Be bold! Tell outrageous lies! Claim to be whatever character you want! Claim to be the same character as another player! Your role is to cause as much confusion as possible. Do this well, and the good team will not have enough information to go on once the final day arrives.
Die. Yep… die. As long as your Demon is safe, it is perfectly fine if you die, and it is often preferred. If you are being executed, then the Demon isn’t.
Hide. Play it safe. Pick a bluff that you are confident will be believed, and that is within your skills to maintain. Be helpful, but fade into the background a little. As long as you can weave a consistent narrative, and are claiming to be one of the 3 characters shown to you at the start of the game as “not in play”, then you should be safe for a while.
If you are Good: play the logic
Every character grants information if used in a clever way. Whilst the Empath simply learns how many of their living neighbors are evil each night, that information changes as players die and the Empath gets new neighbors – maybe it’s time to “help” certain players die so that you get more information? The Exorcist prevents the Demon from acting if chosen – if you can prove that the death last night was due to a Minion ability and not a Demon ability, then you’ve found the Demon.
Each game of Blood On The Clocktower is designed so that an incredible amount of information is available to the players… if you know where to look. Sure, you can’t trust ALL of it, but you can trust most of it. Form theories. Test them. Develop paths of logic based on the information available from the stated character abilities, and ignore body language and social clues. For example, if the Savant has learnt that either Evin or Sarah is the Witch, or that there is a Snakecharmer in play, then investigate both of those possibilities and see where each path leads. Only one can be true. Every piece of information that you get due to your ability, or that others get from their ability, shouldn’t be taken at face value – it is a starting point for investigation, a beginning of a chain of logic for you to combine and compare.
The game is not about accepting your information passively and hoping for the best, it is about using your information as a starting point for action and theory testing. You are the Chambermaid but don’t know whether you are actually the Drunk? Instead of crossing your fingers and shrugging your shoulders, nominate the Virgin and find out…
See a previous post “Behind The Curtain: Total Chaos? Sort of.” For more information.
If you are Evil: disrupt the logic
You can’t simply stay silent and expect to be ignored! The good team will be learning information, collecting information, combining information, and testing information… you’ll need to put a spanner in the works.
Spread as much false information as possible. Claim to be the Investigator and throw 2 good players under the bus! Claim to be the Tea Lady and act shocked, shocked! when one of your neighbors dies. Whenever you put a single piece of false information into the mix, it doesn’t need to be believed… it just needs to conflict with the other information at the table. When the good players are tangling with 6 pieces of information and they don’t know which 5 pieces are true… they are likely to pick the wrong ones.
If you are good, don’t be afraid to be executed… you continue playing, so it’s not the end of the world. If the good team thinks you are evil, it is often better to get executed sooner rather than later – you can prove that you are good if the good players think the Minion is still alive. Attract the Demon’s attack at night time if you believe that there are more useful Townsfolk to keep alive.
If you are evil, don’t be afraid to sacrifice one of your number in order to win the game. It is not about who lives… it is about who wins.
If you are good, then trust other people as a default. You most certainly will be making an error if you trust everyone, but it is a bigger error to trust no one. So, trust others until you have a reason not to. Use your abilities to confirm that what they say is true or false, and form alliances with them. The game is not about you, using your ability in isolation, but in combining your ability with the abilities of the other players.
If you are evil, combine your bluffs so that they support each other. For example, if a fellow Minion is claiming to be the Grandmother, claiming to be the Grandchild will make both of you look more trustworthy. Most characters are set up this way – so that when more people bluff within the same narrative, the bluff gets stronger. Similarly, co-ordinate the use of your abilities. For example, if you are the Poisoner, you’ll want to be poisoning a different player than the Imp is killing. Or if you are the Devil’s Advocate, you’ll need to communicate with the other evil players on who to execute. Co-ordination with your teammates is key, no matter your alignment.
It is a beginner strategy to focus attention on who is evil. But, it is often more useful (albeit more subtle) to find out who is good. This is MUCH more helpful than finding out who is evil. If you find out who is evil, you can execute them, and the game continues (assuming they were not the Demon). However, when you find out that a player is good, you can keep that player alive, reducing the pool of possible Demon suspects by 1. If you know 2 good players on the final day… you know who the Demon is by a process of elimination (pun intended). Additionally, if you know that a player is good, then you can trust that they are telling the truth, and therefore can use the information that they are giving for your purposes. It’s a double bonus.
If you are the Demon, you’ll definitely want to kill confirmed good players as early as possible. They’ll be a huge problem later in the game if they stay alive.
Specific characters: find out what your job is
Often, when people ask “What are the best strategies in the game? Give me the REALLY juicy tricks and traps.”. This is a difficult question to answer, because each character has multiple strategies, and these strategies are dependent on which other characters are in play, and in what order.
However, there is one great piece of advice that is useful in order for you to find a great strategy: read your character ability and ask yourself “What is my job?”. Alternatively, “How can I use my character ability to the absolute maximum? What is the most ideal end scenario for me?”. Or, more simply, “what is my personal goal?”
For example, if you are the Poisoner, your “job” is to find out the best good players to poison, and then poison them at the perfect time, so that it causes maximum confusion. If you are the Soldier, your “job” is to get the Demon to attack you… multiple times if possible. If you are the Sweetheart, your “job” is to stay alive by any means. Once you know what your personal goal is, your unique strategy reveals itself. As the Poisoner, you’ll find yourself having private conversations with people, finding the Slayer, and poisoning the Slayer on the same day that you convince the Slayer to slay the Demon, then convincing the group that the Slayer is a good player – because if the group believes the Slayer is Good, then they’ll believe the player the Slayer tried to slay is NOT the demon! As the Soldier, you’ll bluff as the Fortune Teller to attract the Demon’s attention, then cut a deal with the real Fortune Teller for them to pretend to be the Monk and claim that they protected you at night – confusing the Demon and getting them to keep trying to kill you after the real Fortune Teller dies! As the Sweetheart, you’ll pretend to be the Artist, and ask a question of the storyteller in private to give the impression that you have used your Artist ability and are therefore a poor choice for the Demon to kill… but also give fake Artist information to the group so that they trust you!
The possibilities are endless. For tips and tricks and strategies for particular characters, see their particular character entries at bloodontheclocktower.com/wiki
Advanced good players bluff too. They always have the greater good in mind – the good team winning – but will trick other players in order for this outcome to be achieved, revealing their true character and deception later in the game once their goals have been achieved. Don’t feel bound by the truth, even if you are good.
The perfect bluff when evil
Whilst many intermediate players will bluff as any good character, which is helpful, a particularly advanced evil player often waits, watches, and listens. When the web of information is revealed to the group, they notice a particularly soft point in the hierarchical structure of facts that the good team is putting together, and create a lie accordingly. It is much more effective to disrupt the tree of knowledge at its roots compared to its branches. For example, if facts A and B when combined, create facts C + D + E + F, and those facts create the possibility that your Demon is actually the Demon, then disrupting fact A or B is much more effective than disrupting facts C, D, E, or F, or simply creating the possibility that a different player is the Demon. Noticing what the good players know, and getting very careful and specific with the lies you tell, can be much more effective than simply throwing a pile of misinformation into the mix.
Bluff as only one character? Pfffft. That’s for amateurs. Whether you are good or evil, having an initial bluff, then a backup bluff in case the first bluff fails, plus a good reason why the initial bluff was necessary, can be a huge help. Even the most talented players get caught out in a bluff that doesn’t hold water every so often. Plan B is rarely needed, but always handy to have.
For example, you are the Sage. You bluff as the Savant, visiting the Storyteller each day, and telling the group bogus information that you made up. It becomes apparent that your information is inconsistent – but never fear! You tell the group that you were only bluffing as the Savant to confuse the Demon, and the truth is that you are actually the Flowergirl, learning about who is and isn’t voting (but you can’t seem to make sense of your Flowergirl information). The Demon, wanting to kill the Flowergirl, attacks you, which was your initial plan, and because you are the Sage, you learn who the Demon is. Cunning.
I hope this peek into the design ideas behind Blood On The Clocktower has helped you determine whether Blood On The Clocktower is the game for you and your group. And if it is, I hope that these Behind The Curtain articles will help you really get the most out of the game - whether you are a player looking for strategy and insight, or a Storyteller looking for ways to engineer more fun for your players. - Steven Medway
