Tragedy Looper is a scenario-based, one vs all, deduction game created in Japan by Bakafire in 2011 and translated into English in 2014. The game was heavily inspired by anime and this is reflected in its art and game terms like 'subplots'.
The game consists of a mastermind player and a team of up to three players known as Protagonists. The board consists of four fixed locations: the hospital, the shrine, the city and the school. These locations are inhabited by different characters which vary based on the scenario. Characters have special abilities that can be activated upon being befriended by the protagonists and a hidden Role specified by the scenario. Roles range from innocent bystanders (Person) to allies of the protagonists (Friend) or allies of the mastermind (Cultist, Witch, etc.).
Protagonists must work together and manipulate the characters over a series of in-game days (referred to as the time loop) to prevent the mastermind from achieving any of their goals. However, only the mastermind is aware of which scenario is in play and their goals for the session. The protagonists are given a sheet with a list of possible scenario components and must deduce which are in play based on the mastermind's actions. Should the protagonist fail to stop the mastermind by the end of the time loop, they may loop back to the first day, resetting all location and character stats, and try again. Protagonists may only reset the time loop a certain number of times. If the protagonists succeed in stopping the mastermind from achieving any goals in any instance of the time loop, they win. If the protagonists fail in every loop, they can still win by correctly guessing the Role of every in-game character (with the exception of the introductory First Steps scripts). If the protagonists also fail at this step, the mastermind wins.
Each scenario contains one main plot and one or two subplots, which specify the mastermind's goals. The scenario also determines characters, roles and Incidents. Incidents are events that can only take place on a fixed day if a fixed character's Paranoia stat is too high. If the conditions for an Incident are met, it will activate automatically. Incidents most often assist the mastermind but some can be manipulated by the protagonists to their benefit. Protagonists will know what Incidents are scheduled at the beginning of a game, but not who can trigger them.
Each day, gameplay consists of the mastermind playing three face-down cards from their hand. These cards can go on either a character or location, but no more than one card on each. Each protagonist will then play one face-down card each. All cards will be flipped and resolved. The mastermind and protagonists players may use any daytime character or role abilities available to them. After daytime abilities are resolved, the mastermind will resolve the day's Incident if there is one. Afterwards, the mastermind will resolve nighttime role abilities. At the end of a time loop (though sometimes the loop will end prematurely), the mastermind will announce whether the protagonists have lost. No information is given on why the protagonists have lost; they will have to deduce the reason based on the board's given state.
Tragedy Looper has had several expansion packs released since 2011, although some are only available in Japanese. Expansions available in English are the Midnight Circle and Cosmic Evil set, each a combination of two individual expansions.
In 2022, Wizkids announced it would re-release Tragedy Looper.
Tragedy Looper and its expansions provide examples of the following:
- Anti-Hero: The Protagonists are trying to stop a great tragedy but the methods they use to achieve this can be... questionable. In fact, strategically murdering characters is often a key part of identifying roles or stopping the Mastermind.
- Art Shift: There's a second westernized version of the game that ditches the anime inspiration for more conventional art.
- Asymmetric Multiplayer: The game is 3 players against 1 (actions being doubled up with less players). The mastermind needs to fufill one of his goals per time loop, while the protagonists need to prevent all goals from succeeding. The mastermind has a slightly different moveset, more suitable for increasing intrigue (required for some events). Protagonists can apply goodwill to characters to perform their abilities. Finally, if the protagonists cannot stop the tragedy time loop, they have a final chance to identify the script at the end of the game for a victory.
- Ax-Crazy: Serial Killers will kill anyone left alone with them at the end of the day.
- If the Paranoia Virus subplot is active, then anyone with a regular Person role and enough Paranoia will also start acting like a Serial Killer.
- Back from the Dead: With enough Goodwill, the Alien can revive one dead character every loop.
- Batman Gambit: Each day, a character can have two movement cards played on them. If the cards are not the same type of movement card, the character will move to a different location than specified by either card. If a player correctly predicts the other side's move, they can use this to make characters move diagonally (otherwise a mastermind-only ability) or prevent the opposing player(s) from getting the character to where they want.
- Big Bad: The mastermind player takes on this role.
- But Thou Must!: The mastermind must resolve any Incidents and mandatory role abilities whose criteria are met. This can become a huge headache if the protagonists are able to manipulate the situation to their advantage, like using a Murder Incident or Serial Killer to kill off an important mastermind ally.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: There are a few situations which can kill the protagonists themselves but as long are they are not on the final loop, all this does is reset the time loop.
- Do Well, But Not Perfect: The Midnight Circle expansion packs introduces the Action Gauge, which keeps tracks of how many Incidents occurred in the current time loop. Many scenarios from this expansions require the protagonists to let some Incidents occur rather than trying to stop them all as is usually the case in the base game.
- Driven to Suicide: The culprit of the Suicide Incident kills themselves if it goes off.
- Difficulty Levels: Scenarios usually come with a couple of difficulty ratings, where the only difference is the number of times the protagonists can reset the time loop. Players can also increase difficultly by only allowing the protagonists to talk to each other at the beginning of each day or only at the beginning of each loop.
- Dub-Induced Plot Hole: Most of the English translation is fine, but the Midnight Circle expansion has a few translation errors that can ruin or completely change scenarios. It is recommended to check the online forums
to see what needs correcting.- This is again played straight in the 2023 re-release where there is a critical typo in one of the victory conditions. (The Giant Time Bomb win condition mistakenly says 'Brain' instead of 'Witch'.)
- "Everyone Dies" Ending: Allowing the Hospital Incident to occur at max level will force an early time loop reset as every character in the hospital is killed along with the protagonists themselves.
- The expansions introduces a similar Incident that occurs in the City instead.
- Everyone Has a Special Move: Every character except the Patient has at least one Goodwill ability that can be used once the protagonists befriend them.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: The Protagonists begin the scenario with no information about the mastermind's plans... But somehow, still managed to put together a spreadsheet of every possible plan they could have, even though the options have no relation to each other. Likewise, the Protagonist know who are the pawns in the mastermind's games and have a list of Incidents tied to these pawns, but they have no idea who was involved in each Incident even when it's as self-evident as a suicide.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Protagonists set up a time loop spanning several days, hoping their influence corrects what happens. However, there's only a finite number of loops.
- I Know You Know I Know: Protagonists are required to communicate with each other in front of the mastermind, meaning the mastermind knows what they're up to. The mastermind must then decide whether to adjust their plans or assume the protagonists will account for that.
- Instant-Win Condition: If you are playing with any set outside First Steps, the protagonists may stop the game at any point to guess the role of every character. If they are correct, they automatically win. If the protagonists are wrong though, it's a mastermind win.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: A strategic element for both sides. The protagonists may be unable to stop the mastermind in a loop and instead should switch to gathering information for next time or take advantage of unavoidable incidents (ie.using the Hospital Incident to kill off as many characters as possible). Similarly, part of being a good mastermind is recognizing when a current plan has gone Off the Rails and adjust accordingly.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: At the hardest difficulties, protagonists may only communicate with each other at the beginning of a time loop, implying their characters are doing this for the rest of the loop.
- Let's You and Him Fight: One of the best ways to deal with a character with a hostile role like the Brain is to throw them into a location alone with a Serial Killer.
- Loads and Loads of Rules: There is a lot of information to be absorbed before playing the first game. It's very difficult to get into unless you have at least one experienced player who can be the mastermind.
- The Power of Friendship: The protagonists' friendship level with an individual character is represented by their Goodwill stat. Level up your friendship with a character enough and the protagonists will unlock abilities such as calming panicking characters and bringing back people from the dead.
- Notably, befriending the Shrine Maiden is the only way to reduce Intrigue in the shrine in the base game.
- Certain roles (usually Mastermind allies) avert this trope and will refuse to use their abilities no matter their friendship level.
- Protectorate: The protagonists must protect anyone with the Key Person role or they will automatically lose the loop. They also need to protect those with the Friend role, but won't learn the failure until the end of the loop.
- Red Herring: It is critical for the mastermind to set these up to disguise their true goals and the characters' roles.
- Sanity Slippage: Paranoia tokens represent this. With certain amounts of Paranoia, characters may unlock new abilities. If a character's Paranoia level matches or exceeds their Paranoia Limit, they can experience a Freak Out and trigger an Incident.
- Schmuck Bait: Each scenario comes with a little opening blurb that sounds like the preview text of an anime episode. Masterminds may think they should read this out loud to the protagonists before starting the game, but doing so will often give away key information to the protagonists, all but ensuring the mastermind's defeat. Instead, this should be read after the game is played or not at all.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: One of the main plots, "The Sealed Item", fails if there's two intrigue on the shrine. This implies that a tragedy occurs if the item is found.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The game in a nutshell. For the protagonists, at least.
- Single-Use Shield: The Police Officer's second Goodwill ability allows him to protect one character from dying once.
- Uniqueness Rule: Only one "Forbid Intrigue" may be played on a given day. If the protagonists accidently plays a second one, they both get cancelled.
- Unwinnable by Design: It is impossible to stop the mastermind from achieving their goals in some scenarios. Instead, the protagonists need to realize this in time and focus on deducing the character roles.
- This is especially true for scenarios in the Mystery Circle set, which focuses on deduction.
- Would Hurt a Child: Many characters in the game are young students. Expect both sides to be killing them willy-nilly.
- You Lose at Zero Trust: A character with the Time Traveler role will cause the protagonists to lose unless they play 3 Goodwill on them during the loop. While the mastermind can normally forbid goodwill from being assigned to a character, goodwill cannot be blocked on the time traveler.
