A Forum Game of Blood on the Clocktower (GAME IS NOW OVER)

Welcome to Blood on the Clocktower, a game of social deduction, bluffing, and death!

A demon stalks the town of Ravenswood Bluff, killing citizens each night. It’s up to the loyal townsfolk to deduce which of them is secretly this demon and to execute them before they all succumb to its machinations.

We will be using the Trouble Brewing “script” for this game of Blood on the Clocktower. More information about which roles are available and what they do can be found here:

https://bloodontheclocktower.com/wiki/Trouble_Brewing

A “cheat sheet” with all of the possible roles and their abilities can be found here:

And the Order of Operations at night can be found here:

Basic Gameplay:

Each Night Phase, the storyteller (that’s me) will message each player with an ability that functions during the night and resolve those abilities.

Each Day Phase begins with a report of who, if anyone, died the previous night. Then, players can discuss and share information. Finally, players can nominate one another to be executed.

  • Each individual player may only nominate someone for execution once each day
  • Each individual player may only be nominated for execution once each day

When nominated, a player will be given the opportunity to present a defense. After that, I will call for voting. Voting is done openly and in thread. Open discussion is permitted during the voting period, Private discussion is not. After all players have voted, or 24 hours have passed from when the vote was called, the votes will be counted. If there are a number of YES votes greater than or equal to half the number of living players, then the nominee is “about to die.” If not, then they are safe for that day.

After a vote ends, nominations continue. If another player is nominated and receives a greater number of YES votes than the player who is “about to die” then they become “about to die” instead. If another player receives the same number of YES votes as the player who is “about to die” then neither of them will be executed at day’s end.

The day ends when there are no further nominations, either because the players choose not to nominate anyone else, or because the players cannot legally nominate anyone else.

Note: There can only ever be one execution per day. This means that if a player’s ability executes someone (actually executes, not just kills them) during the day, the day will end immediately.

Death:

When a player dies, their ability ceases to function (unless otherwise noted), and they are given a vote token. They can spend this token to vote YES on any ONE nomination. Dead players can still participate in discussion and do not gain any new information upon death (unless their character ability states otherwise).

Victory conditions:

  • The GOOD team wins if there is no living demon. The EVIL team wins if there are only two players left alive, the demon and one other.

  • There are character abilities that can provide alternate victory/loss conditions. For this game those characters are the Mayor (good wins if there are three people alive and no execution) and the Saint (good loses if the saint is executed)

Role Categories:

  • Townsfolk: Townsfolk are on the GOOD team. Their abilities help their team achieve victory
  • Outsiders: Outsiders are on the GOOD team. Their abilities hinder their team. There are a limited number of outsiders in play based on the number of players in a game
  • Minions: Minions are on the EVIL team. Their abilities disrupt the good team or provide cover for the demon. The minions know who the demon is and who each other are, but don’t know the other minions’ specific roles.
  • Demon: The demon is on the EVIL team. The demon kills someone each night. If the demon dies, the evil team loses. The demon knows who the minions are and knows three roles which aren’t in play, but doesn’t know the minions’ specific roles.

Final notes:

This game allows for private conversations between players, so long as the fact that players are having a secret conversation is itself not a secret. To that end, if you are having a private conversation with another player about the game, please indicate in thread with a post such as “Player A whispers to Player B” or “Players A, B, and C are having a sidebar conversation”

Please let me know if things seem confusing or if I missed anything and I’ll be glad to clarify.

Currently, there seem to be 7 people interested. We can run with that many, or wait a bit to see if more people will join up. The maximum player count is 15 so there’s plenty of room.

So far, I believe the following people are interested:
@scottagibson
@Dave_Perkins
@CaseyRobinson
@Matt_W
@rowe33
@Lantz
@Knightsaber
@Perky_Goth
@jostly
@Juan_Raigada

Looking forward to it. The notes on each character from the scenario link are pretty helpful.

Sounds interesting, I’ll join if there are still open spots.

Indeed there are!

Ok, I’ll join. Sounds like it could be fun.

I am curious about this game so interested to try but generally terrible at social deduction games…

How often is posting “required” / expected?

(LONG ago, I tried PbyForum Werewolf at BGG and it went fine… but twas annoying that people were suspicious of others, in part, merely because of the infrequent nature of their posting)

Well, being quieter is a good idea for several of the good roles, it seems.

I watched the SUSD video, I’m sold. Sign me up, though I still have to read the rules soon.

I think that frequency of posting is rarely an issue as far as suspicion is concerned as long as you’re making some kind of contributions. If you are checking in occasionally and joining the conversation then it doesn’t really matter much.

That said, it is a very common tell by newer players that when they are are evil and accused they fail to mount a defense of any kind and just accept it despite the fact that in an asymmetric knowledge games just because one person knows you are evil doesn’t mean everyone knows it.

Another aspect in these games is that good generally wants there to be a decent amount of table talk happening so good players with some level of knowledge can try and get that information out without being too obvious.

@Lodgium how do you think we should manage sidebars? Players can pm with you on the chain and with an in-thread notice that a sidebar is happening?

Yes, that seems like the a good way to handle it. I have updated the initial post with a bit at the end about sidebars.

Given that this is generating a bit of interest, I’ll go ahead and give it another day for people to trickle in before I finalize the setup.

Okay, the current player list is:
@scottagibson
@Dave_Perkins
@CaseyRobinson
@Matt_W
@rowe33
@Lantz
@Knightsaber
@Perky_Goth
@jostly
@Juan_Raigada

I am going to setup the game in one hour, in case there are any last minute arrivals or departures.

Night 1 Has begun! Private information will be sent via pm in short order.

Day 1 Dawns, and the town square looks like this:

Town Square
@scottagibson Alive
@Dave_Perkins Alive
@CaseyRobinson Alive
@Matt_W Alive
@rowe33 Alive
@Lantz Alive
@Knightsaber Alive
@Perky_Goth Alive
@jostly Alive
@Juan_Raigada Alive

For purposes of adjacency and seating, that is the seating order. Note that the top and bottom are also considered adjacent (it’s more of a town circle, really) so @Juan_Raigada and @scottagibson are sitting next to each other.

This is a 10 player game, so the unmodified setup is:

7 Townsfolk
0 Outsiders
2 Minions
1 Demon

Although certain roles can mess with these counts, if they are in play.

The game has begun!

As a help-the-moderator thing, everyone should reply to their PM to help Lodgium manage the PM’s easier.

The sun has risen, but I have yet to wake. Was up late!

Does anyone have any first round info they want to share?

So, to be clear (in case there is any confusion): Night 1 is completed. Everyone who gets information or otherwise acts on the first night has acted (if there’s a poisoner, they poisoned someone, chef, investigator, washerwoman, librarian all got their starting info, and so on). It is now Day 1, so people can discuss things either openly or in sidebars (remember to post in thread who you’re conversing with if you’re having a sidebar).

(If you want to check who gets to do/know things on night one, there’s a picture up in the first post)

Someone must. Maybe they don’t want to share, i guess.