Tabletop Game / Blood on the Clocktower

We must keep our wits sharp and our sword sharper. Evil walks among us, and will stop at nothing to destroy us good, simple folk, bringing our fine town to ruin. Trust no-one. But, if you must trust someone, trust me.

— The Imp

Blood on the Clocktower is a tabletop Social Deduction Game for up for 15 players (plus 5 travelers). Similar to games such as Mafia or Werewolf (1997), players must discover and team up with their allies, while exposing and destroying their enemies. The good team must try to kill the evil team's Demon, while the evil team must protect their Demon who is hidden among the townsfolk, and who kills a player each night.

There are 5 types of characters in game, Townsfolk and Outsiders who are on the good team, and Demons and Minions who are on the evil team. Townsfolk characters use abilities to help them figure out who the demon is, while Outsiders are good team members who are a major handicap in some way. Minions have abilities to protect their demon or tamper with the good team's abilities, while Demons try to get townsfolk killed, and are the primary antagonist who must be defeated for the good team to win. The final character type are Travelers, whose identity is known but not their alignment. They have great power but no information. They are designed for players who arrive late/have to leave early.

If the Demon is executed by the good players, good wins. But if good cannot solve the puzzle in time, and the Demon continues to eat player after player each night for much longer until only 2 players are left alive (including the demon), evil will win. What exciting stuff!

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This game provides examples of:

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: The Gambler gambles on their life every night. It's usually worth it for them because they get an insane amount of confirmable info, and how much the rest of the good teams info can be tampered with.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy:
  • The Drunk believes they're a Townsfolk, but they're not. If their false role should gain information, it's random garbage, and if they should be able to affect the game state, it doesn't work.
  • One half of the Sailor's ability is that they cannot die by any means (save for an Assassin stab), but the other half of their ability is that they must choose a player to drink with every night and either them or that player gets drunk. This results in either the Sailor becoming drunk and losing their immortality or the other player they chose becoming drunk and their ability malfunctioning.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • If a game contains a few newbies among many veterans, the Storyteller may activate the Angel, protecting the newb(s) by causing something bad to happen to whoever causes their death.
  • Conversely, if the game contains a few veterans among many newbs, the Storyteller may activate the Buddhist, forbidding the veterans from speaking for the first two minutes of each day phase.
  • If a player has a disability making communication difficult and needs assistance, or a newbie needs someone's help to figure out the game, or if two players don't feel comfortable lying to each other, the Storyteller may activate the Revolutionary during set-up, tying those players' roles together so they can safely cooperate.
• Bad Powers, Good People: The Alchemist is a Townsfolk that has a not-in-play Minion ability. It can be tricky for the Alchemist to convince the good team that they really are the Alchemist, however, especially since a Minion can easily bluff that they are the Alchemist who got their Minion ability.
• Becoming the Mask: The Pixie is told an existing good character at the start of the game. If the Pixie pretends to be the character (known as being "mad" about the character) convincingly enough for the Storyteller, they become the character upon the original player's death (even if that player changed characters themselves for whatever reason).
• Big Bad: The Demon obviously fills this role as the primary member of the evil team that the good team must kill. But some minions such as The Mastermind or The Evil Twin also serve this role after their Demon dies, for their ability to steal the win away from good. ^note The Mastermind does this by causing the game to go for another day after the Demon is executed, possibly causing the good team to lose if they execute a member of the good team that day while the Evil Twin does this by getting the good team to kill the wrong twin, if the good team kills the Good Twin they lose the game; not only that, the good team also has to make sure that the Evil Twin dies, since as long as the Evil Twin lives, the good team can't win.
• Blessed with Suck: The Bounty Hunter starts out knowing one evil player and will learn the identity of another evil player whenever their current 'target' dies, which would be an amazingly powerful ability if it didn't come with the huge drawback of one of the Townsfolk players being turned evil at the start of the game which gives the evil team an extra member and vote on their side. The Bounty Hunter's ability being so obviously powerful also makes it a lightning rod for death or poisoning if the evil team gets the slightest whiff of their identity.
• Brainwashed:
  • A Cerenovus will make one player mad every night, forcing him to claim a role... Or suffer death.
  • A Harpy will make one player mad that another player is evil every night, failing to do so might cause both of those players to die.
• Damsel in Distress: The Damsel must avoid detection by the evil team because if a minion correctly guesses their identity before the Damsel dies or is 'saved' by being turned into a Townsfolk by the Huntsman, the evil team instantly wins.
• Demonic Possession: The first time the Fang Gu kills an outsider, they turn the outsider into a Fang Gu, and turn them evil, while killing the old Fang Gu, corrupting a good player, and allowing the demon to get away scot-free.
• Disaster Dominoes: This is especially common in the Bad Moon Rising setup, one example is if the Moonchild, Godfather and Po are all in play, a badly timed execution by the good team and the Po charging their attack and coordinating with the Godfather means that its possible for 5 players to die at night.
• Dragon Ascendant:
  • If the Demon dies while there are 5 or more players alive, then the Scarlet Woman will take over for the Demon, so the evil team can breathe easy even if the Demon has a lot of suspicion on them.
  • The Imp can choose to kill themselves at night and have a minion take over as the Imp. They can do this at any time, but unlike if the Scarlet Woman is in play, if the Imp gets executed the evil team still loses.

• The Empath: One of the character roles, whose ability is that they learn every night how many of their alive neighbors are evil.
• Escort Mission:
  • The Lleech must choose a player on the first night to be their host. As long as the host is alive, the Lleech can't die, but they will die if the host does, which means that the evil team must make sure the host stays alive for the entire game even if the host is on the good team.
  • In a Lil' Monsta game, the Demon is a baby and the Minions must decide each night which one of them will babysit the Demon for that day. The Lil' Monsta still dies if the Minion holding its token gets executed, so the Minions will often pass the Lil' Monsta token among themselves depending on which one of them is currently under the least amount of suspicion from the good team.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • The Snake Charmer becomes the Demon if they select the Demon player during the night.
  • The Mezepheles knows a secret word that will turn the first good player who says it evil.
  • The Politician has the ability to change alignment and win with their new team if they're deemed the player most responsible for causing their original team to lose.
• Forced Transformation: The Pit-Hag can turn useful and important townsfolk into useless outsiders, or into single use townsfolk such as the Clockmaker to nullify their ability for the rest of the game.
• Game Master: The Storyteller chooses roles, activates Fabled characters when necessary, and adjudicates actions. ^note For example, the Mutant might die if they're "mad" about being an Outsider. This usually means they need to keep quiet or die, but if they decide to reveal on purpose to get killed and confirmed, the Storyteller has the option of letting them live, throwing their claim into question.
• God Is Evil: If there is an Atheist in the game, none of the players are evil and they must execute the Storyteller — who chooses the deaths at night and can break the rules whenever and wherever they want in an Atheist game — to win. (In this case, if the town gets down to two players alive and the Storyteller hasn't been executed, then evil wins.) However, if the players do execute the Storyteller and it isn't an Atheist game, then good loses.
• Good All Along: The Lunatic starts the game believing that they're the Demon, but they're actually good and will usually figure this out fairly early on when their "Minions" say that they're not Minions at all or the real Demon doesn't follow their nightly "kills".
• Gossipy Hens: The Gossip, fittingly enough. However, unlike a normal chatterbox, their words can and do break bones.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Travellers are designed to function like this; their abilities are quite powerful but are intended to be primarily given to players who might not be able to stick around for the whole game, so they're capable of making a clear impact on the game in the short term (ex: giving another player an extra vote, making a second execution possible per day) but can leave the game partway through without harming the game in the long term.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power:
  • The Baron adds two extra Outsiders to the game and otherwise has no ability, which might seem lame compared to all the other Minions that have cooler abilities like poisoning players or learning all players' roles especially since the Baron doesn't even get to choose or know in advance which Outsiders are added, but the good team losing two powerful Townsfolk roles and getting two Outsider roles that have major drawbacks like "instantly loses the game for their team if they ever get executed or die and pick the wrong player" can be potent enough on its own to swing the game in evil's favor. It also gives the evil team an opportunity to bluff as the extra Outsiders if the added Outsiders are reluctant to identify themselves.
  • The Golem is an Outsider who can nominate only once in the entire game and the player they nominate instantly dies unless they're the Demon. This might seem like a massive drawback but with enough info and savviness, the Golem can use this power to instantly kill a Minion that would otherwise be extremely difficult or risky for the good team to execute like the Boomdandy, Goblin, or Psychopath.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • A demon who was chosen by the Snake Charmer swaps roles with the Snake Charmer and becomes good, while the Snake Charmer becomes the Demon that the town was hunting for. The Demon turned Snake Charmer can now help the good team with all their inside info on the good team.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: The Goon (who changes to the side of the person that picks them at night) and the Cult Leader (who becomes the alignment of a living neighbor each night) will be switching sides a lot during the game, with the good team having no idea whose side they are on until the end of the game.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • The Gambler can sacrifice themselves to prove if someone is lying about their character. This is usually worth it because sacrificing a good player to confirm someone as lying is very strong for the good team.
  • A Townsfolk (not an Outsider) can deliberately nominate the Virgin so they can get executed and be confirmed as good. However if the evil team figures out who the virgin is (because of a Spy, or hearing it from the grapevine) then they can nominate the Virgin and waste their ability.
  • If a Vortox is suspected to be in play, then a character such as the Clockmaker or Artist can get themselves executed so that a more powerful good player isn't executed.
• I Am Spartacus: If a Gossip or Juggler is on the script, multiple other players will often publicly claim to be that role so that the Demon won't know which one of them they should kill before the real Gossip or Juggler gets their information.
• Instant-Win Condition:
  • The Mayor: If only 3 players live (including you) & no execution occurs, your team wins.
  • The Evil Twin: You & an opposing player know each other. If the good player is executed, evil wins. Good can't win if you both live.
  • The Fearmonger: Each night, choose a player. If you nominate and execute them, their team loses.
  • The Goblin: If you publicly claim to be the Goblin when nominated and are executed that day, your team wins.
• Kaizo Trap:
  • Normally, if the Demon is killed, the game ends... however, there are a couple roles that can force the game to continue:
    • If there's a Mastermind alive, it goes on one more day, and if town executes an innocent that day, they lose.
    • If there's an Evil Twin alive, the game continues on, because the town can’t win as long as both the Good Twin and the Evil Twin live.^note And since they both know each other, it's almost guaranteed that the Evil Twin will let the demon know who the Good Twin is so that a point of failure is preserved for the good team.
  • If there's a Heretic in play, the win-loss conditions are completely reversed so that the good team actually loses when they would normally win (like executing the Demon) and the same is true of the evil team.
• The Load: Outsiders serve this purpose for the good team. While most players on the good team help their allies in some way, outsiders are a detriment that must be worked around. While some such as the Butler ^note Each night, choose a player (not yourself): tomorrow, you may only vote if they are voting too are not too hard to work around, there are also others that can potentially lose the game for the good team, such as the Saint ^note If you die by execution, your team loses.
• Lost Lenore: If the Sweetheart dies, another player is drunk, and their ability malfunctions for the rest of the game.
• Misère Game: If the Heretic is in play.
• The Mole:
  • The Spy is usually one for the good team, since they can register as a good player even when dead.
  • The Magician is one for the evil team; they are seen as a Minion by the Demon and a Demon by the Minions and will typically act shady to confuse the evil team on which players they can trust.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Very common in Blood on the Clocktower, starting from Trouble Brewing:
  • The Saint: If you die by execution, your team loses.
  • The Mastermind: If the Demon dies by execution, play for 1 more day. If a player is then executed, their team loses.
  • The Klutz: When you learn that you died, publicly choose 1 alive player: if they are evil, your team loses.
  • The Evil Twin: You & an opposing player know each other. If the good player is executed, evil wins. Good can't win if you both live.
  • The Damsel: If a minion publicly guesses you (once), your team loses.
  • If nobody is executed during the day while a Vortox is in play, the good team immediately loses.
  • If the Demon is turned into a non-Demon character and there are no other Demons in play, evil immediately loses. This is normally impossible to do or something the evil team would never let happen, but if there's a Pit-Hag who doesn't know who their Demon is due to a Poppy Grower in play or a Snake Charmer swapping places with the Demon and they happen to get unlucky with their pick, well...
• Obliviously Evil: The Marionette starts the game believing that they're a good character, but they're actually evil and seated next to the Demon.
• The Omniscient: The Spy and (to a lesser extent) Widow know every role in play: the first may also appear as good, and the latter poisons one player at the start of the game.
• Power Nullifier:
  • The Courtier makes a character role drunk for three days and nights, provided that the role they pick is in play.
  • The Preacher shuts off the abilities of the Minions they choose at night for as long as they're alive and sober.
• Prisoner's Dilemma: The Al-Hadikhia selects three players per night who each have to choose whether to live or die; if all three players choose to live, all of them die instead. This means that even though each player will want to live, it's in their overall best interest for one or two of them to choose to die.
• Red Herring:
  • The Fortune Teller is a powerful role that learns if either of the two players they select is the Demon... but has the catch that one of the good players will falsely register as the Demon to them.
  • The Recluse, a good Outsider who might register as evil even when dead, can seriously mess up the good team's information on which players are evil.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: Since the Psychopath is outed evil, but too powerful to make completely unexecutable, this game crops up as a compromise: if you beat the Psychopath in a game of this while trying to execute them, you succeed.
• Swapped Roles: If the Barber dies, the Demon can swap the character roles of any two players.
• Take Up My Sword: The Pixie learns of a specific role in play and will become that role if the original player with that role dies and the Pixie made enough of an effort to act that role beforehand.
• Thanatos Gambit:
  • The Ravenkeeper and the Sage both actively want to be killed by the Demon at night because their abilities activate only after they're killed at night or by the Demon and enable them to, respectively, learn a player's role or that the Demon is one of two players.
  • Some Outsiders with an undesirable ability, like the Saint who causes their team to die if they get executed or the Damsel who causes their team to lose if a Minion correctly identifies them, will often try to die by execution or Demon kill to remove the possibility of their ability causing their team to lose on the spot.
  • The Zombuul won't actually die the first time it appears to die which means that if they willingly 'die' at some point in the game, the good team might waste time executing alive players instead of realizing that the Demon is one of the assumed dead players.
  • The Goblin wins the game for their team if they get executed after they publicly claim to be the Goblin. Since the Goblin is almost always an evil player, this usually leads to the Goblin trying to dupe the good team into thinking that they're really the Demon who's falsely claiming to be the Goblin to avoid execution and calling their "bluff" by executing them.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change:
  • The Psychopath is the only character who triggers a minigame when executed: they play roshambo (AKA rock-paper-scissors) with the player who nominated them and die only if they lose.
  • The Organ Grinder completely changes the voting process by forcing all players to keep their eyes closed while voting and having the Storyteller not give them any information on how many players voted or even if the nominated player got enough votes for execution.
  • Riot is an extremely unusual Demon that makes nominated players die instantly but be able to immediately nominate another player afterwards who in turn will die and be able to continue the cycle of deadly nominations, and evil wins if at least one Riot player is still alive after the third day. This transforms what is normally a lengthy game of careful deduction and social strategy into a rapid-fire blitz of panicked nominations and mass deaths.
• Virgin Power: Unfortunately, it's a mostly negative power — the first time the Virgin is nominated for execution, if their nominator is a Townsfolk, that person will instantly die. This can occasionally be used to the town's advantage, such as by confirming someone's role when town is doubtful, but even then it means town doesn't get to choose the execution that day.
• Wicked Witch: The Witch and Pit-Hag. The Pit-Hag can transform good players into useless characters such as Outsiders, evil players into Demons, to potentially save the game if the demon is about to be executed, or Minions into other Minions. The Witch can cast a deadly spell on a player each night, that makes them die if they nominate, potentially triggering the terrible side effects of characters such as the Sweetheart or Klutz
• Wistful Amnesia: The Amnesiac will know they're good and that they have a "forgotten" powerful ability: each day they'll ask the Storyteller a question to discover it.
• You Are Who You Eat: The Cannibal gains the ability of the most recently executed player, although they will be poisoned instead if the last executee was an evil player.

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