secret thing

[young sonnet]

But definitely post it on this discord before making a reddit post like the Pacifist flow chart, cause I may want to debate a couple placements

[sour harness]

It should probably not be a simple 1D spectrum

Because as we've discussed it's not that simple

Maybe one axis is "it has to be at least this loud" and the other axis is "depending on how you play it can be this much louder", something like that

So in one corner and in another

[young sonnet]

I think one dimension is fine because of communication/understanding reasons, but yes, technically two dimensions would be better to encapsulate the complexity of this game

[sour harness]

I mean, an itemized list with details on all of them would be even better. But that's not what you're going for

Where would you put and in relation to each other?

If it's 1D

's existence is revealed pretty immediately but not who it is, meanwhile can come out immediately if they want and everyone knows WHO it is, but also they could go the whole game without killing anyone

[young sonnet]

When people talk about loudness it's not about knowing who it is

It's about knowing the ability is in play

[sour harness]

I mean the point still stands

[indigo osprey]

Tier 1: Vizier, Organ Grinder (always public)
Tier 2: Cerenovus, Witch, Psychopath, Devil's Advocate, Godfather, harpy (public effect, not guarantueed)
Tier 3: Widow, Pit-Hag (private effect)

you can go from there

You could perhaps do

[young sonnet]

Because if you have OG and Fearmonger in play in a 10 player game, you know any outsider claims are bullshit

(obviously unless there fang gu or Kazali or whatever)

[indigo osprey]

Tier 1: Vizier, Organ Grinder, fear monger(always public)
Tier 2: Cerenovus, Witch, Psychopath, harpy (public effect if triggers)
Tier 3: Devil's advocate, Godfather (public effect, detection not guarantueed if effect triggers)
Tier 3: Widow, Pit-Hag (private effect)

[young sonnet]

Cerenovus and witch aren't in the same tier as psychopath

You can't fake playing rock paper scissors to be executed

[sour harness]

Yeah

and feel like the same tier to me

Widow is more public than both but maybe not by a tier depending on how you do it

are probably close

[cursive cobalt]

I wasn’t planning to make it one

2d works best

[young sonnet]

Well I personally didn't want to do tiers

[cursive cobalt]

One axis is how loud a minion is

[young sonnet]

A chart is best

[indigo osprey]

like; I am sure you'll can finetune it

[cursive cobalt]

One axis is how much agency they have over revealing their presence

[indigo osprey]

but hwatever the ranking

I want more in the lowest tier

and now we can end this discussion and allow others to have more impact on the actual question

[sour harness]

That's a better way to word it than I did lol

[young sonnet]

Lmao

[sour harness]

Forgot about that

Uhhh outsider mod ‼️

Definitely hasn't already been said

Ooh also I wanna see a reason why a good player would pretend to be a minion and guess a damsel

Kinda niche but I still wanna see it

[sharp violet]

Poppygrower in play, a good player makes a Damsel guess to make the Minions think it’s been used up

[cursive cobalt]

Politician gaming

[indigo osprey]

I have guessed damsel many times

as good player

mostly on, indeed, poppygrower scripts

if I guess right, I am proving to the damsel that I am not a minion

[copper quail]

Poppygrower, Magician and Politician might do that and saw some good players guessing on day 1 so a damsel would be more comfortable to out to them
I also bluffed once as evil recluse guessing the damsel turned by the Huntsman and when I saw it didn't work I just said I tried to "spend" the damsel guess hoping I would register as evil
Never saw a ST spending the damsel guess because a recluse did it tho

[indigo osprey]

For good reason

[foggy grotto]

i see all these new messages and scroll up to look for the new question

only to realize you’re all still talking about the same question

[fast anchor]

i mean i can give a new question

but there's a ton of good discussion here

[foggy grotto]

no need

just thought it was funny

[cloud plover]

Late, but consultations! There's only a handful of roles that talk to the storyteller about stuff, and that means if you want to put an Amni or a Savant up, the same gang of Amni/Savant/Fish/PM comes out to help obscure the consistent consultations. Outsiders/Minons/Demons that like to consult, or roles that like to consult multiple times but maybe not every day would be especially interesting

[dense moat]

Tbf, the reason Minions and Demons don’t consult is because doing so would realistically result in players policing ST visits. And even having good roles who visit ST wouldn’t really stop it

That being said, Outsiders who consult like Puzzlemaster or stuff like OPG consults could be interesting

[cloud plover]

Maybe the consult could be a small advantage? Not central to the power, not enough that they demand nobody consult, but enough to make people squint juuuuuuust a little

[dense moat]

I’ve definitely seen homebrew designs that try to experiment. One has the Storyteller choose a public prompt if the Minion doesn’t do so privately. I’ve tried making a Minion who publicly outs to visit the ST for an execution effect. But in general, it’s a really rough territory since it can so often result in that bad dynamic

[cloud plover]

Sadge 😔

[cursive cobalt]

5/24: Favorite houserule/Bootlegger rule?

[pliant grail]

Amnesiac can guess after death and Amne guesses are immune to droisoning

[fast anchor]

Disallowing immortal Lleech by changing the end text to “if (& only if) they are dead”

In terms of fun ones, Spy + Magician + Marionette removing the Marionette reminders to not instantly solve the Demon is fun too

[cloud plover]

I've heard an interesting one about "the Drunk/droisoned players might receive true info with Vortox in play?" Haven't actually seen it in play, but it feels like added flexibility that might be appreciated

[shrewd cloud]

House ruling around Vortox and Poppygrower is something I always do when running a script with those two characters. Also prefer the house rule Axolator mentioned over the official optional rule for Lleech

[fast anchor]

the one about the Drunk is just RAW since it’s not a TF. Never used the other ruling and not sure I like it tbh, it seems less fun

[indigo osprey]

you don't actually need the houserule and still give the evil team correct info :p

[fast anchor]

THIS IS THE DEMON points to Minions
THESE ARE YOUR MINIONS points to Demon

[indigo osprey]

exactly

[cursive cobalt]

Is that legal in multi-Minion games?

That would be like saying its okay to give the Dreamer two evil characters in Vortox

[cloud plover]

Ah nevermind then, I've been remembering things wrong again 😅

[cursive cobalt]

It'll be warping the confides of information

Rather than just making it untrue

[indigo osprey]

I have played with a bootleg rule that droisoned characters (not the Drunk) can get correct information in a vortox game; it worked for the script and I think it's a good rule for scripts with both poisoner and vortox

[shrewd cloud]

Honestly rather just cut the dumb interaction in the first place instead of trying to get around it. Also just easier and more visible to explain that I have a bootleg rule in place than that I could technically give good players in PG info but will never do that

[indigo osprey]

yeah, makes sense

[cursive cobalt]

Hopefully TPI overhauls it in one of their balance changes soon

Those have all been good so far

Theres hope

[indigo osprey]

I assume it will be jinxed at some point in the new wave of jinxes

[fast anchor]

I think Poisoner + Vortox is fine as is because you can poison your own demon

[cursive cobalt]

I would prefer a PG rewording tbh

[shrewd cloud]

It definitely should be a new jinx imo. Jinxes aren’t just for patching completely broken interactions anymore and I honestly prefer that

[indigo osprey]

preventing kills is just sad (nd doens't work on every script)

I absolutely love the positive jinx approach

like cerenovus-goblin, village idiot-pithag and whatever else is coming

[fast anchor]

Cannibal-Juggler is fun

[fast anchor]

Absolutely not

RAW you can’t falsify minions learning their team since they wake up together

But Minions learning Demon & Demon learning Minions is information I don’t think you can fake-falsify in any helpful way to evil

(such that you circumvent the need for a houserule)

[shrewd cloud]

Sameeeeee

I didn’t like how restricted it was for what interactions would be jinxed and which ones wouldn’t before. But now it feels like a lot more interactions that are bleh right now can actually become interesting or good

[foggy grotto]

Patters Huntsman

it’s actually a townsfolk now

[spiral pollen]

I want to try twice per game huntsman

[pseudo fulcrum]

Yeah, I doubt they will add many PG jinxes because I think a lot of issues will get patched with a rewording

[valid garden]

PG having [-1 outsider] in teensyville scripts

[hot orchid]

a Lunatic that sees Zombuul keeps picking while dead

[fast anchor]

would you also send the dead lunatic's picks to the real demon?

[hot orchid]

I would

[fast anchor]

that's spicy

[hot orchid]

it doesn't come up much but it removes a pretty consistent way of figuring out your state of lunacy

and technically cannot be RAW no matter how you interpret "you think"

[sour harness]

I was reading through this and for a while I thought RAW was just people saying the word "raw" in all caps lol

So nobody has to ask in case someone else didn't figure it out, it's 'rules as written'

Definitely agree with the amne ruling, which also technically works RAW

[cursive cobalt]

Amnesiac is its own Bootlegger

[sour harness]

Exactly

One of my groups occasionally runs (very very bad) joke games where an amne ability totally changes the setup

Also often goes well with bootlegger rules. It's very script dependent but sometimes evil abilities can totally mitigate the stormcaught character's ability without killing, and at that point why have a stormcatcher

So like "the poisoner cannot target the stormcaught player" in a lot of cases

Honestly stormcatcher should probably just be "this player is safe from evil abilities and cannot die by any means except execution" or smth like that

[indigo osprey]

this is a throwback to my most idiotic amnesiac move I eved did

I apologized after the game extensivel to that amnesia

[sour harness]

Well now you gotta elaborate

[indigo osprey]

I gave the amnesiac: ‘You are the king and choirboy: the demon knows who you are.’

So the idea was: the demon has to work to get the amne executed, because he can’t just kill them, right?

I completely forgot that therr was a pithag in play.

[hot orchid]

Welp

[fierce reef]

What are some unpopular BOTC opinions from y'all? (it's been a lil' bit since a question here, and tbh this is probably a repeat question i'm so sorry)

mine is that i dislike snake charmer 🙈

[cursive cobalt]

That makes two of us actually

Uh
Amnesiac is mid
Catfishing sucks
and Pacifist is a fun to play and extremely useful Townsfolk with lots of nuance

[cloud plover]

Social roles (Priestess, General, Magician) SUCK

Give me mechanical info or give me death

(Opinion has been exaggerated and phrased aggressively for the purposes of comedy and content; no ill will meant to those holding cringe non-Chenry approved opinions)

[sour harness]

I agree on HP and general, not magician tho

[young sonnet]

I'm the exact opposite

Agree on magician, disagree on HP and General

[foggy grotto]

high priestess is a poorly designed role

legion is fun

investigator should stop pinging of the recluse 😭

[valid garden]

STs should be less willing to kill good players in legion games

Legion's power comes from their ability to execute good players during the day; if they aren't doing that, they're sinking kills

And the ST should not kill good players to make it "fairer"

I kill legion every night- if they want to get to final 3, they need to do it themselves

[indigo osprey]

I have never killed a good player in a legion game lol; why would anyone ever do that?!

[valid garden]

A lot of content-focused legion games do it to guarantee a final 3

Then a lot of STs who learned to ST from said games do it

[noble radish]

I just hate the fear monger and the barber.

[fast anchor]

as someone who has, mainly to buck meta; i usually put in extra good players to compensate

(eg put in 4 Townsfolk in a 11p game and kill the Ravenkeeper N2)

[indigo osprey]

that's probably fair, if the number of goods matches it

[fast anchor]

though it's worth noting that having more starting good players in legion can paradoxically give evil an easier time sometimes

since it's easier to kill good players; you have more good players that can vote incorrectly

[fast anchor]

poisoner should be on fewer scripts

[indigo osprey]

there is just not a good replacement for poisoner a lot of the times

[fast anchor]

i do wish we had more silent minions but poisoner is also incredibly swingy

you can make almost any world work as an evil player with enough red juice

[indigo osprey]

there are some good (imo) silent minions in the speculated list

[fast anchor]

||amaniti my beloved||

[indigo osprey]

among others, yes

[pseudo fulcrum]

||yet another reason for DoN||

[fast anchor]

and sometimes poisoner just does fucking nothing in a game

this is true of many minions (the mez can never turn anyone, the cere can lock someone as their own character) but is most common with poisoner in my experience

[cursive cobalt]

I feel this is a cold take

A lot of content-favored games throw game balance out the window in favor of “let’s make funny/exciting shit happen” anyway

You should pretty much never kill good in Legion

Because all that does is encourage lazy play from Legion themselves

[valid garden]

I have been yelled at for ending the game early by killing 1 legion per night

[cursive cobalt]

I think at max you should be willing to kill 1 good player

And that 1 kill should happen late game

And only if Legion has made active efforts to frame that player but failed due to external circumstance

[indigo osprey]

The enormous disdain for customs to learn the game, to advance from after tb, etc is absolutely irrational

[sour harness]

^^^

Start with base 3

And don't ST any customs with more than a couple characters you aren't already comfortable STing on base scripts

I made that mistake lol

Game got solved d2

[valid garden]

That is the complete opposite of what adrian said

[sour harness]

Oh I misread lol

Uhhh no I disagree then

(I didn't notice the double negative)

[indigo osprey]

I am not talking about ST'ing, I am talking from a player's perspective

there is some nuance in the sense that i understand and it's not that I think 'this is horrendeous advice'

but some have this sense of 'wait, you played a custom with a player who only played 3 games of tb? You heretic, you probably scared that person away for life' - I am exaggerating, but only slightly

[sour harness]

I mean I almost totally stopped playing the game bc 2 of my first handful of games were BMR and I had no idea what was going on

Most customs are more complex than BMR

[indigo osprey]

it's interesting that, if I may deconstruct your point in a different manner, your point seems to be: 'I played a couple of base 3 game and had such a miserable time, that I think a blank aversion to customs is justified'

whilst my conclusion is: yes, bmr & s&v can, in fact, be more complex than a well designed introductory custom, so there is no particular reason to just say 'no' to all customs

[cloud plover]

Ooooh, a well designed introductory custom? This is the first I've heard of those

[indigo osprey]

hahaha

fair enough

that 'well designed' does a lot of heavy lifting

[cloud plover]

Not even being ironic here 😆

[indigo osprey]

you are correct

oke

let me rephrase

[cloud plover]

As a certified TB enjoyer, custom scripts that work like that would actually be really interesting to me 👀

[sour harness]

Yeah most customs don't even work, let alone teach the game well

[indigo osprey]

'a half way descent' script

[sour harness]

I think that's more what I'm getting at

[indigo osprey]

this is the blatant hate I think is just plain weird

[sour harness]

TB teaches the game mechanics pretty ok

[sour harness]

I mean the point isn't hate

[indigo osprey]

so thanks for confirming that I answered this "What are some unpopular BOTC opinions from y'all? " correctly lol

[young sonnet]

YES!!!! Finally someone who understands
||Amaniti is high key my most-anticipated leaked minion||

[cloud plover]

If we speak from a strictly statistical standpoint, I think it's inevitable that most custom scripts are bad the same way that most things people write are garbage, and it's only the really polished stuff that floats to the top and gets published. I remember people absolutely demolishing my first actual attempt at script building, and it was for good reason 😅 In that sense, yes, most customs probably don't work.

[sour harness]

Yeah that's what I'm referring to. I don't wanna discourage people from trying tho lol

[cursive cobalt]

Oh I completely agree with this

[indigo osprey]

I mean: generally speaking, people don't play scripts randomized and the question if imperfect scripts can still learn the game, be fun and, more importantly, be less overwhelming for new players than BMR/S&V or perhaps play similar than TB

[sour harness]

I mean the base scripts are also imperfect

[flat lintel]

No u /j

[sour harness]

Art is hard y'all

[cursive cobalt]

Poisoner is either

[indigo osprey]

I have a few scripts, that all have an issue one way or another, that I have used in the past when there wer new people but people asked to find an alternative for TB

[cursive cobalt]

Hard carry evil and leave good with no hope of a solve whatsoever

[flat lintel]

How’d I know there was going to be a Pacifist comment? 😂

[cursive cobalt]

Or

Vanilla Minion

[flat lintel]

investigator the recluse the goat????

[flat lintel]

Situationally yes

[cloud plover]

Me when I miss every poison on every single night 😎

[indigo osprey]

High Priestess is one of the strongest characters in BOTC on a lot of scripts lol

[flat lintel]

But every action you do in Legion will be read by good intensively, so if you kill the FT N2 because they’re going to solve for Legion, town will probably believe said player is Legion

[cursive cobalt]

Because I’m in this thread obviously

[cursive cobalt]

That’s not a good thing

Legion already has majority and literally cannot lose until the final day

[flat lintel]

It’s to help balance out the game. The same way you sometimes need to kill evils in LM, is the same for good in Legion. If Good has 5 players alive vs 2 Legion, that’s not a fun game for evil. So you have to try to bring that down somehow.

[cursive cobalt]

Kicking good while they’re down by murking one of their members early

Is unfair in pretty much all scenarios imo

[flat lintel]

Sorta agree on Fearmonger. Barber yes until Hatter came in. Hatter with additional rule SUCKS.

[indigo osprey]

if evil can't maange to execute good characters, that's their loss: like, this is different from evils in lil monsta imo

[foggy grotto]

no it’s not

it completely destroys the information of a character

[flat lintel]

yeah, but we need another variant that isn’t just widow

[foggy grotto]

and it usually confirms the invest because they come out with the info before the recluse outs

and STs do it waaaaaaaaaay too much and it makes invest unbluffable

[valid garden]

If the imp chose to kill all their minions I wouldn't stop them

If legion is getting legion executed every day that's on them

[flat lintel]

Is this truly a problem? I mean having fun is the main objective of the game, so shouldn’t you be trying to strive for that?

[foggy grotto]

fun for who though

[valid garden]

Making funny stuff happen =/= making a fun game

[foggy grotto]

proof: atheist

[flat lintel]

Agree. It’s not that bad to not play TB as your first game. Someone played an Ogre reveal game as their first and they had fun. I played as a Lleech host, and had fun. TB is okay, but it’s not like holy as we treat it tbh.

[flat lintel]

The what?

[young sonnet]

It's a leaked character

[flat lintel]

It is situational. I ran one of my top 5 games as a Legion game and I killed the Farmer around N3, after chef got executed D1. Evil narrowly won I believe, but that’s my point. If good knows that every player who dies at night is Evil, that’s some powerful info. That’s why we have starpasses, Zombuuls, assassins, jumps, Lil Monsta to try to sway people away from that confirmed chain of thought.

[flat lintel]

Can you dm me it

[young sonnet]

Yeah

[flat lintel]

sarcasm buddy.

its okay: Either you are using an Outsider like it’s meant to be used and semi confirming them or your giving the investigator sober info. Either way, it’s okay in my eyes.

[foggy grotto]

???

you just said it was sarcastic (which btw this is the internet you were using text how was i supposed to know that) but then you defended it so you’re not being sarcastic?

Also, I’m not saying you should never do it, I’m just saying you should stop doing it every single time like I see a lot of STs do

maybe like 10% of the time

[flat lintel]

if good can’t execute evil players, that’s their loss and we shouldn’t do anything to help them than too? no, the whole job of being an ST is trying to balance things out. its not preposterous for me to suggest that you can kill good players in an evil majority legion game to balance a game out and break hard confirmation chains, just like it shouldn’t be preposterous for me to kill an evil in a good majority LM game to break chains and hard confirm players.

[cursive cobalt]

^^^

[flat lintel]

the comment of the goat. From what I clarified, I don’t think it is the goat, was being sarcastic about that, and I just explained my sorta indifference to the situation a bit more.

[cursive cobalt]

Losing to ST fiat or having your own efforts nullified because it’s “funny” isn’t fun

[foggy grotto]

🤙

[valid garden]

Legion is powerful because they kill during the day, not because the ST makes them win

[flat lintel]

It can. Just depends on how you execute it. As a funny ST, I’ve had games go really well due to the funny nature I’ve presented and maybe have become memorable games in people’s history, but also had games go bad. However, isn’t this the same with a normal storyteller? All storytellers have ups and downs. Sometimes funny STs make bad decisions, but also do regular STs, than what? On top of this, from my standpoint, you should almost always be trying to win, but also acknowledge funny things and have fun in a way that doesn’t involve game throwing.

[valid garden]

I'm not sure what your argument is there

My point is just because the ST finds it funny doesn't mean the players will find it fun

I understand that sometimes they do

But also sometimes they don't

[flat lintel]

P sure they need to deceive good to kill in the day

[flat lintel]

Just like any other ST

Sometimes things hit, sometimes they don’t

[valid garden]

What do you mean any other ST?

[flat lintel]

Don’t know how to rephrase that

[valid garden]

Sometimes the ST making funny things happen is fun for the players

And sometimes it is not

They're not equivalent

[cloud plover]

Not equivalent. It's not that they're mutually exclusive, but having one doesn't guarantee having the other... I think that makes sense

[flat lintel]

Don’t know where we’re really getting with this considering we’re just slightly restating things so I guess we should stop or let other people say their opinions?

[sour harness]

Ok I'm curious how hot of a take this is: saying "I'm the mutant" in order to prove that you're not the mutant is not a madness break. Same applies to other madness, if someone thinks you're mad and asks you to say something that would break madness, then doing so to prove that you aren't mad is literally the opposite of breaking madness. Obviously if they're trying to imply that they are mad while they do it that's different

[flat lintel]

What did you just say?

[fast anchor]

it's not a sincere attempt to convince people you're the mutant --> not a break

[pliant grail]

It's ok to play this game as a 'social, hang out with friends' game instead of the logic heavy deduction game it's made to be

(Came to this realization after watching the smosh video)

The point of the game is to have fun. If your whole group is going that even when you're misunderstanding rules and roles, that's great. If you prefer the social comedy and tension to the puzzle of solving the game, that's fine. It's definitely a different game if your group plays like that, but the game still works

[pliant grail]

Also evil amne is perfectly fine as long as it's done in context, is solveable, and balances at setup

[indigo osprey]

you should killl evils in a LM game for completely different reasons

because there is no way for good to know which evil is holding LM in the final 3

[valid garden]

^

[indigo osprey]

I have had people who were in SNV like "I'll proof I am not mad! I 'm the clockmaker! I am the savant! I am the mutant! See the ST Isn't executing me, because I am actually the math." (SPoiler: they were the sage mad as the mathematician.) And that's fine: none of this is a madness break: saying this isn't breaking madness.

[severe raven]

2024-05-26: Have you ever had a game where the town was unable to build any consistent worlds, despite their best efforts? (early surprise game ends don't count, it has to get to game-solving mode)

[indigo osprey]

The one atheist game my players lost

there were 2 people claiming atheist, everyone had different evil pings, 2 outsider-claims (hatter and plague doctor) even though the demon was 'confirmed' vigormortis + one of the two people claiming atheist then 'had' to be 'ht edrunk', etc.

And they still managed to think there was an actual evil team

[valid garden]

ht edrunk

[sharp violet]

Washerwoman is one of the strongest Townsfolk in the game, esp at lower player counts

[indigo osprey]

how is that... an unpopular opinion?

[copper quail]

I had once a TB game where my Imp killed me during the night (as the poisoner) which really confused the town and they were not able to ever consider me as evil
But since we were bluffing a Washerwoman pair together, it gave them a very solid bluff to the point where they were not nominated for the rest of the game 🙈

[sharp violet]

dunno, never see it

[indigo osprey]

washerwoman is little used on scripts because it's so strong (you basically need spy or widow to comfortably bluff it)

[cloud plover]

#catboy-conspiracy

Was a game of Miss Register. UT claimed Goblin and completely blew up worlds all the way up to the very end. Demon was a Juggler confirmed General; Juggler was Drunk, but Drunk was hidden by Spy claiming Politician and Demon picking very strange night kills

[sharp violet]

where would you place its strength overall

[indigo osprey]

A+ tier, perhaps even S-tier

[sharp violet]

yea, I see it as S tier

[indigo osprey]

immediate confirmation of 2 townsfolk so if town manages to confirm one of them someway, that's amazing

the only 'downside' is that it doesn't do much more than that and is somewhat easily bluffed by an evil pair

but still

A+ at the very least, probably S-tier

[sharp violet]

ig when I see things like professor, poppy grower, lycanthrope mentioned as broken and washerwoman to me is like just below those in power but almost never in the discussion

[indigo osprey]

because all 3 of them are stronger, imo

[sharp violet]

yea

[indigo osprey]

and washerwoman is just...not impressive, you know

it's strong

but not like: 'oh, cool, look at me doing the cool thing'

you go to 2 players, confirm your ping, done

poppygrower and lycan at least have something interesting to do

[sharp violet]

So far, it happens regularly in every script except TB 😅

[severe raven]

(I ask because in most of the evil wins I see, town has too many worlds)

(and for some reason I prefer being stumped with zero worlds than making random decisions with too many)

[sharp violet]

Ah, ig it's more like town isn't even building worlds moreso trying to figure out what their character is doing in this case

But it's really single-digit playcounts of SV and BMR so far, I think they'll warm up to it

[tall raft]

Washerwoman is very strong, but imo it's dreamer levels of strong (less so to me), not PG/Lycan/Professor levels, because those roles are crazy strong and don't really have good evil foils

[indigo osprey]

I mean: I have a script where all 4/5 evil minions counter the lycan (edit: you could even argue 5/5)

lycan is strong but manageable with commonly used minions imo

[sour harness]

could counter it, what else

[valid garden]

PH

In more than 1 way

Mez too

[indigo osprey]

The script in question has poisoner, widow and pithag (direct counters) and organ grinder and scarlet woman (semi-counters).

[sour harness]

Right pithag exists

How are those semi counters? That just seems like them using their abilities

[indigo osprey]

… I’d sqy that counters are defined by ‘if the minions use their ability, the power of someone is less than before’

[tall raft]

Niether of those are counters

But the first 3 are, yes

[valid garden]

I'd argue OG is a semi-counter

[indigo osprey]

og and scarlet woman are semi-counters

an organ grinder 'hit' by the lycantrope can waste time

if the demon is hit by the lycan, the scarlet can take over and vice versa

[tall raft]

Not really, like they kinda counter the find evil kill evil part of lycan
But that's not the strong part

The strong part is making all the kills be ones that benefit good, as in demon candidates, YSKs, and other useful to good kills

And neither of those fix that part

[indigo osprey]

that's fixed on the script issue

[tall raft]

Yeah
There are counters to that part

OG and SW are just not that

[indigo osprey]

well, no

those are counters to the other part

hence: partial

so we have 3 strong and direct counters and 2 counters that weaken the other ability

it has never been an issue

so far

[valid garden]

OG helps Evil kill the lycanthrope

[indigo osprey]

I have a funny anecdote regarding lycantrope btw

[valid garden]

But isn't 100% accurate

Its easier for evil to kill during the day if voting is blind

That's the point of OG

Similarly, Vizier is a partial counter to lycan

But PH, Assassin, Poisoner, Psycopath, & Widow are perfect counters

[indigo osprey]

yeah

at leaast 3 of those are commonly used I feel

[valid garden]

I'd put Mez as partial counter

[indigo osprey]

agree

the presence of Mez just creates suz on the lycan

regardless of what he does

I mean

even in games where there was no minion to deal with the lycan

[valid garden]

Oh I meant evil can turn a lycan and then it doesn't harm the evil team too much

[indigo osprey]

I have never seen a lycan make it to final 3

never

[valid garden]

Because evil still controls the kills

[indigo osprey]

that's what I meant and even if the mez didn't turn the lycan, it's still a possibiluty

[valid garden]

I think that's out of the scope of minion counters

[fierce reef]

thanks for the plentiful discussion y’all, it’s so fun to read

[sour harness]

Ok I get this but what does SW have to do with any of it

[valid garden]

It doesn't

I imagine the logic is "If the lycanthope chooses the demon, who is then executed because the lycanthope didn't kill them, then they have a SW"

[sour harness]

That applies to any demon finder or evil finder

[fast anchor]

#1231747493268684912

self-explanatory from the archive name. People couldn’t trace the Vortox getting poisoned for two nights in a row, causing none of the information to line up, making the Vortox one of the most trusted players as the Poisoner got bussed in F3.

[sharp violet]

5/27/24: What's the best game you've been in that featured a Traveler?

[sour harness]

Well the worst experience I had as a traveler (dw it wasn't that bad) was in bmr when all 3 minions had died and I'm pretty sure the zombuul died once already, then I traveled in as the apprentice. Rather than making me mastermind or something, the ST had the bright idea to give me the minstrel ability, making me strictly an outsider

Best?... Might be when I STed snv with an evil bone collector who didn't realize their demon didn't learn them, and eventually gave the dead artist a second question. I think evil won that game despite all that

[cursive cobalt]

Good Judge prosecuted the Damsel I was about to Huntsman turn because "it was funny"

Ah, no, the question is best.

[young sonnet]

How did the good judge know they were the damsel?

[cursive cobalt]

They didn't, they just didnt like that specific player because that player executed them last game when they were the Judge

So they traveled in, slammed them, then immediately left

[young sonnet]

Oh lmao

That is pretty funny you gotta admit xD

[foggy grotto]

apprentice DA picked their demon as they had just traveled in and didn’t know the minions. godfather then kills the zombuul that night, but they are still DA protected as they were living when DA picked. DA then pushes to tap the zombuul, therefore “clearing” them from being a zombuul and winning the game. fun for evil, pretty miserable for good though

[valid garden]

I was the apprentice pit-hag & the evil team didn't tell me anything

And so I accidentally made the good twin into the widow

[hot orchid]

Good Judge took out the Psychopath claiming Alchemist when Town couldn't muster the votes because they were split

Best rock paper scissors gameplay I've ever seen

[sweet birch]

Okay tbf that one's on you lol

[valid garden]

The demon told me the wrong twin was the evil twin, and the goblin told me the right one

I believed the demon

[flat lintel]

I've had some funny traveler games.

One of them was a livetext game where I insta shot my Baron as the EVIL Gangster, than somehow down the line convinced a good player to shoot another "confirmed" goodplay at F4. It was a lil monsta game and I could've held the baby, but in my classical chaos fashion, I never really did. evil won that game so very fun stuff for me.

Also gangster shooting @sly crescent was great that one game.

Huge shout out to the Quilava play with Gangster! Shooting the Minstrel was a really hard move to pull off but Quilava did it!

[lucid crag]

Once was mad as klutz then sweetheart then mutant as bonecollector, I also bonecollected the mutant n2 who got exed day 2 normally and day 3 via mutant madness. I then claimed evil during the night and begged the cere to leave me alone, which worked and my fellow traveler the evil barista told me the evil team.

oh

and I was good, naturally

[sharp violet]

Worst Townsfolk besides Huntsman?

[indigo osprey]

Soldier

I stand by this message: #1104980997470171177 message

[young sonnet]

Given the fact Cult Leader can just turn evil and give them an alt win condition, yeah

Also the fact statistically just always joining all cults day 1 is a near-optimal strategy

[cursive cobalt]

And my statement stands even if we include Huntsman

[sharp violet]

Hopefully those 2 are the ones getting reworked

[young sonnet]

Huntsman is almost assuredly getting changed in someway

Idk if it's enough to classify a "rework" or if it's just a buff to twice per game

Cult Leader I doubt

But if it does, it'll just be so that it can't permanently become evil when they die

[sharp violet]

I like Soldier, I think it's a specific use case character but strong in that niche

[young sonnet]

And that won't even make it that much better

[indigo osprey]

I liked the rewording of cult leader as:
"Each night, learn an alignment of one of your living neighbors. If you form a cult that day, become that alignment and win." Something like that (you get what I mean, wording isn't perfect)

it's marginally better and doesn't make cult leader into a basic goon

[sharp violet]

Yea I kinda dislike Cult Leader and Mastermind since their best use case is usually unfun

Boomdandy I'm more ok with

[indigo osprey]

Mastermind definitely needs more usecases

[cursive cobalt]

Boomdandy is Jester in BOTC

Mastermind is no death cover

Thats it

No death cover + probably wins if its put in the same bag as an Assassin

[tall raft]

Cult Leader is nearly unusable in my opinion as a script maker
because it's so weak, time consuming, and turns evil (so you can't add it to scripts with other evil turning characters)
Huntsman can be used on scripts

CL is the worst townsfolk straight up

Boomdandy is a character I love

[pliant grail]

Yeah cl feels so jank

It doesn't feel like the rest of clocktower at all honestly
It's the most arbitrary AWC I've ever seen

[young sonnet]

I mean it's kinda just like a haha funny character

Like that's it's theme

So like that's why it's so jank

[sour harness]

I mean I think the idea of publically proving that a given group of people does or doesn't include the entire good team is pretty cool mechanically

The execution of it is just bad

[cursive cobalt]

CL is like

four cool concepts

All tied into one role with absolutely horrid execution

If you disassembled it and turned it into four separate roles with cleaner designs, it would be completely fine

[sour harness]

Yeah that's true

[young sonnet]

I agree but no one does that

Or at least the games I've seen online

(I haven't played with it yet)

[sour harness]

I mean, people do call for cults

[young sonnet]

Yeah they do

[cursive cobalt]

The one time I was in a CL game, I was the CL and got an evil win D1

[young sonnet]

But I almost only see them hit less votes than the # of good players or all players

Never a number in-between that, which would be useful

That's my point

[cursive cobalt]

(It was a Riot game and no one really cared)

[cursive cobalt]

Honestly, one homebrew role I see expand CL's dynamic pretty well is Spice Trader

[young sonnet]

Agreed

[sour harness]

What does it do

[hot orchid]

Cult Leader is cool it just has the added caveat of adding an extra evil and sometimes ending the game

[sour harness]

I mean that's most of what the ability is

[night ingot]

Sounds like a game of kaboom!

[sly crescent]

if Bounty Hunter self-turned 70% of the time and learned the demon as first name a bit more often they'd be doing a similar thing

[warped fog]

spice?

[cursive cobalt]

Each night*, learn how many evil players voted today. If none did, you are drunk.

[fast anchor]

it’s not as flexible as people think it is in terms of scriptbuilding

possibly the hardest TF to put on a script and yet it’s everywhere

[cursive cobalt]

I have not met a single person ever who has said Minstrel is anywhere near flexible for script building

[fast anchor]

clearly the people who put it on every kind of script do

because there is no reason for minstrel to be on 90% of the customs it is on

[spiral pollen]

maybe engineer

It's too powerful

Not very fun either?

Ime

[sour harness]

Yeah ok it's similar

[sly crescent]

Minstrel and Engineer are almost impossible to put on custom script with balance, but their abilities work and they work in favor of good team, it's a stretch to call them out as bad townsfolk

Balloonist on the other hand 😆

[fierce reef]

nahhhh i have a feud with engineer 😭

like i keep seeing it on scripts with marionette/baron and i might be misunderstanding interactions but like ⁉️

[sly crescent]

those are just sus scripts. like any scripts that have Balloonist+Poisoner, Legion+Atheist or Minstrel outside BMR - someone failed some wisdom roll

[fast anchor]

oh, in terms of strength when they're in play i agree they're not harmful at all

i guess i took the question of "worst" differently

[fast anchor]

no, you're right, the optimal play is just to turn people into barons and marionettes and kazalis which isn't very fun for evil

[sly crescent]

yeah for sure "bad" without context is open to interpretation

i always also argue that having an optimal choice isn't fun for the Engineer either

[fast anchor]

true true

thoughts on giving Engineer an asterisk?

(that is, having it only be able to act on N2 and after)

[sly crescent]

personally i'd say no, it's not better in any way

[spiral pollen]

Having it not be immune to most droison would be nice

[sly crescent]

my basic logic is that by nature of bluff/droison, having someone spread for example "you don't have to worry about SW entire game" starting from D1 is very nicely balancing all the times Engineer is allowed to actually remove the scariest minion/demon ability

and moving it to N2 only makes script-making harder because it makes the choice to hold for them and they can easier prove themselves against some minion abilities or use all kinds of d1 info (Psycho/Vizier in particular, but also Cerenovus/Harpy to some extent)

[cursive cobalt]

Just had an idea

Engineer + Kazali: if the Engineer makes a Kazali, the Kazali wakes and may change the characters of each of their Minions.

No duplicates ofc

[cursive cobalt]

This would be a good fix for one of its issues, but it’s not enough

Would be putting duct tape on a wrecked car

[sly crescent]

what exact issue would it solve? i feel like there's something obvious i'm missing

[cursive cobalt]

The “evil have no counterplay to Engineer” issue

Engi can’t be stopped

It goes before Poisoner Widow and even Lleech

That’s ridiculous

[sly crescent]

huh yeah just Sailor

[cursive cobalt]

It also keeps the “no character changes N1” precedent set by most other roles

But that’s less relevant

[sly crescent]

it kinda makes sense because with strict night order you don't want those minions to also miss a night of doing stuff

[cursive cobalt]

Yeah but

N1 Engi is still dumb

[sly crescent]

Engineer just suffers the same issue as Alchemist. rest of the game is developped without it in mind, so it has no place unless you force it in

[cursive cobalt]

Yep

Hence my comment on why it’s inherently flawed

And can’t be fixed while retaining its current magnitude

[sly crescent]

ye i change my answer just don't put it on scripts wait for hopefully complete rework ;p

[sharp violet]

5/30 What are some traps that you find intermediate level players fall into?

[indigo osprey]

Cue entire discussion on what an intermediate player is

[cursive cobalt]

Yeah idk how you define an "intermediate" player

[indigo osprey]

From experience with my group: not knowing when to end a roleswap/fake claim

(Beginner players usually don't roleswap/fake claim, experienced players should know when to quit)

[sharp violet]

Hmm let's just say traps people fall into that you wouldn't call noobtraps

[cursive cobalt]

Ok heres a good one

Trying to mech confirm everything

[indigo osprey]

Another issue: worldbuild when good and not worldbuild when evil or, vice versa, worldbuild when evil (because they know what is true and want to worldbuild away from it) and not worldbuild when good (because not being able to pierce everything out with partial info)

[cursive cobalt]

You see this a lot in BMR and TB where players will sacrifice a bunch of valuable executions trying to mechconfirm someone who's already 90% confirmed by socials via UT or execution test

At that point, why are you even doing it

Just trust them and move on, even if they're evil you're going to be way more productive that way

[sour harness]

I lie when I'm good and only stick to one story when I'm evil

I need to work on that lol

[flat lintel]

sometimes being afraid of plays. like plays sometimes literally are the way to go for the win. yes, this snakecharmer plot might be crazy, but you have nothing to lose, or you're on track to lose, so do it.

[fast anchor]

not knowing when to quit: stuff like doubletapping execution survival on BMR, killing trusted players to feed a cannibal, trying to whisper track past day 3-4 as a magician

context is important and there are some scenarios where these things are useful: most of the time it's not really worth it or helpful for your team

[cursive cobalt]

this is what i was talking about earlier

[sly crescent]

thinking they can make good scripts

[flat lintel]

Damnnnnnn

[fast anchor]

oh this is it right here

end thread

[karmic slate]

https://tenor.com/view/porky-pig-looney-tunes-thats-all-folks-bye-gif-5803466

But also yes I read most of these and go "Yes this is what I do" lol 😂
My biggest struggle is framing evil teams honestly; I can suggest some people as evil sure but tying together evil teams on scripts beyond Base 3 I struggle at- which is worse when I'm evil

[warped fog]

5/31 What's, in your opinion, the best homebrew character you've seen?

[pliant grail]

In this case, best is "most fun to play"

[warped fog]

ooh yeah I do like courier

@primal crescent your characters are getting love

[primal crescent]

i was summoned?

oh!

Yippee!!

[indigo osprey]

there are many good characters I have seen

[primal crescent]

thank you!!

[digital drum]

Gave +1 Thanks to @pliant grail (current: #1973 - 1)

[indigo osprey]

the funniest I would love to test someday is the one that provisionally has the name: FishermanSavant

[warped fog]

let's just say there's a reason I love Matsuraid

(taken from the first ever playtest of the character)

[cursive cobalt]

I like different characters for different reasons, but Cryptid has to up there

[warped fog]

despite the name I played as the opposite of a politician

honesty and righteousness??? in a POLITICIAN???

though I did campaign for people to vote me so I guess

[warped fog]

Cryptid is cool

[cursive cobalt]

@warped fog how would you answer your own question

[warped fog]

no idea lmao

I like Renegade, Obscrul, Ketos, Matsuraid... and the list goes on

anyway I gtg so

[valid garden]

Visionary is great

Dovecoteman is another wonderful concept I love

[young sonnet]

Impossible to answer there's so many fantastic ones

[fast anchor]

there's this great hb called the "Butler" that I think is real nice on Trouble Brewing

[sly crescent]

i don't remember most, but Omen

[cloud plover]

Not sure what the "best" would be, but the coolest concept I've seen is Omen. (From Lies, Eyes, Spies, I think?) Being mad about things and having them come true is such an idea! If only I was smart enough to use it in an interesting and subtle way... 😅

[severe raven]

I wish my Golfer homebrew had been playtested.
For other peoples', I like Hannibal from Fall of Rome—it really messes up social reads.

OOTD I want to see a script with Marionette, Lunatic, and Hannibal in a 1-minion situation, so all the evil players are socially good

[sour harness]

Throw a magician on, it'll be funny

[tall raft]

Jurgen Leitner

[young sonnet]

Fuck Jurgen Leitner

I hate that guy 🙄

[fast anchor]

for a serious answer, though: Brainwasher (NWC) is beautifully simple in how it completely messes with town, being right at home with the other loud NWC minions. It's a genius idea that I'm surprised more homebrews haven't messed with (probably because they end up being "Brainwasher but...")

[cursive cobalt]

Personally, I've never made a Brainwasher esq role because I just hate Brianwasher

[cursive cobalt]

What does Jurgen Leitner do

[dense moat]

“Each night, you gain a Townsfolk ability even if dead”. But its script dependent for two reasons

[cursive cobalt]

That's crazy

[dense moat]

1. It’s a BMR script where lots of mechanical abiluties can be fucked with

2. It has a fabled that enforces Mutant madness. Called Fuck Jurgen Lietner. So it’s like if Mutant could randomly gain the Gossip ability

[cursive cobalt]

That certainly sounds like a script

[dense moat]

Take a look at FYF. If you see the characters, you’ll quickly understand the other part of Jurgen being an Outsider (though it’s overall a Mutant whose madness is enforced by fabled)

[cursive cobalt]

Hang on what character type is this

I was assuming Minion

[young sonnet]

Outsider

[dense moat]

It’s a Mutant whose madness is enforced by Fabled and who arbitrarily gets disruptive TF abilities from ST

[young sonnet]

Face Your Fears is like, the most advanced script I've ever seen

Taking any part in isolation usually won't make sense

[dense moat]

Townsfolk abilities but they are still very disruptive on script. Kinda like Sleepwalker in that way. And the Fabled means no one can out as Jurgen Lietner, even if they are actually TF

[young sonnet]

And it's thematic, not just arbitrarily harsh mechanically

[fast anchor]

JL is just part of the genius scriptbuilding of FYF but it doesn't really work by itself

it needs the rest of FYF to support it

it's a very good HB character but it's not my personal favorite

[flat lintel]

Atheist.

My favorite that I think I've seen is Witness.

from Day by Day

[pliant grail]

Can you link me to the script? My cursory search can't find it

[fast anchor]

https://discord.com/channels/569683781800296501/1145609319455395890

[warped fog]

Omen was so good I thought of the exact same concept before I knew what Lies Spies and Eyes even was!

[dense moat]

6/1: Since it’s now Pride Month, let’s do something new. Which BOTC character is most likely to be asexual? (optionally, aroace instead)

[warped fog]

then, I had the Demon that gets the abilities of the characters they are mad about publicly claim it, not get executed, then cause all sorts of havoc without anyone catching on until the end

[warped fog]

hm

[karmic slate]

Chef 😌

[cursive cobalt]

Virgin

(The easy answer)

[midnight bloom]

Recluse, they just want to be left alone

[fast anchor]

Discounting the obvious ones like Virgin, Monk, Preacher, and Exorcist (for religious reasons) my heart’s telling me D/A, oddly enough

[dense moat]

I mean, religious celibacy doesnt necesarilly mean you're ace, but its a valid choice. And DA is a fun choice. wasnt expecting it, but i can kinda see it

[cursive cobalt]

I can see it
Bros married to the law

He has no time for romance

[fast anchor]

Fair fair. I put them up there because it seems like aces would be more drawn to professions where they don't have to pretend to experience sexual attraction compared to those of other orientations but you're right

[sour harness]

because I know several ace engineers irl lol

[dense moat]

I almost wanna say Goblin, just for the joke of saying their real love intrest is cake

[fast anchor]

we need a garlic bread townsfolk

[dense moat]

Goblin does canonically like cake

Yeah I'm sold now. Goblin is the poster child of "eat cake, do crime," and doesnt worry about sex

[karmic slate]

Chef! 😂

[sly crescent]

tbf that's assuming they only do "wholesome" crime, like murder and such

[midnight bloom]

goblin would definitely steal forty cakes

[sharp violet]

[dense moat]

Claiming Goblin is a wholesome crime

[spiral pollen]

Imp and SW have canonically hooked up but I don't think imp is driven by sex at all

Just uses it as a means to an end

[sour harness]

That's certainly a sentence

Well 2 actually

But those are certainly sentences

[heady cradle]

I can honestly see it

Give me more sex-positive ace rep — imp has a sex drive without attraction, and that's very slay.

[young sonnet]

As the answer to a slightly different, related question, I made these:

[heady cradle]

Damsel is incredibly kinky.

[sly crescent]

Golem's a nice shout. i was thinking Zombuul but wasn't sure not all undead are the same.

wdym Monke doesn't fuck tho

[young sonnet]

🚨Sir step out of the vehicle🚨

That's beastiality

He's just a lil guy

However

Organ Grinder players def Fuck

[sly crescent]

dude

you missed out on the biology lesson when they teach other species have sex among themselves or something 😆

(also skipping the optional lore that it's not a monkey but a humanoid who just happens to have one on the token. Recluse is not a lamp after all)

[young sonnet]

I was messing around lmao

But jokes aside, I think he's too addicted to the grind of jamming out to have sex with others of his species

[cloud plover]

He's got that sigma grind-set 😆

[sly crescent]

you know who definitely fucks? Snake Charmer 😆

[cloud plover]

:laguh:

[karmic slate]

Yeah, himself over more than anything

[tall raft]

Minstrel

[tall raft]

But that lamp definitely has sex

[tall raft]

Plague Doctor

[cloud plover]

Recluse: actually really outgoing, but the rest of ravenswood is intimidated by this because we’re a bunch of introverts. Lives on the edge of town because their house parties can be heard from a mile away

[tall raft]

Everyone hears the noise and thinks something suspicious is going on

[mild notch]

6/2: In your opinion, what's the best worst character? (Like bad by some metric, but in a :sickos: kind of way)

[cursive cobalt]

Theres a lot of answers I can give to this

Pacifist is badly designed, but very fun and useful if run properly

Pit Hag is janky as hell and definitely not exactly a great fit for its home script, but also very fun

Fang Gu is absolutely busted and definitely should not have been released in the state that it was, but nonethless makes for interesting dynamics

[young sonnet]

I don't think Fang Gu is busted by itself

PH is what makes it "busted"

But yes Fang Gu is really strong

[cursive cobalt]

I think the +1 Outsider is a little unwarranted, but then again thats how you make it useful in base 0

idk

[cursive cobalt]

Same applies to Vigor actually
Vigor on SnV simply doesn't have enough firepower to handle the script's opposition

its strength lies in tactics

But tactics don't break through 3 layers of Dreamer confirmation

[young sonnet]

Lil Monsta I think is the correct answer

[sly crescent]

Alchemist, probably the worst by any balance standards, but very exciting to most players as an idea

[sour harness]

How would you fix it?

[sour harness]

Actually I feel like dreamer is the character that doesn't fit s&v very well. But I really like it as a concept

It's not terrible or anything but that feels like it goes with a grimpeeker

I could see dreamer working well on TB for example

Vortox is its main saving grace on s&v in my eyes

[sour harness]

Alchemist is one of the funniest characters lol

Psychopath twins 🔥🔥🔥

[sly crescent]

yeah i was thinking of it and chracters like Dreamer and Zombuul are just very bad in practice in terms of everything, but great concepts

[young sonnet]

Zombuul I think is a great execution of its concept, just that it will naturally lead to longer games with a lot of death survival, which people don't find fun. That's unavoidable with the concept though so it should be expected

[cursive cobalt]

"Executed good players (at your discretion) might not die. The first critical good executee must not."

I already use that variant of Pacifist in my games as a pseudo houserule

And I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from it

[cursive cobalt]

True
Dreamer doesn't fit its home script at all

It's a TB refugee

[fast anchor]

we don't talk about the pacifist almanac 💀

[next marlin]

I love everything about the Zombuul except the Zombuul games, which are, unfortunately, the most important part

It is so cool a concept to have an undead demon

The original version that got 2 kills/night with no day deaths would probably be more popular

[sour harness]

As a houserule that's fine but pairing "must" with something subjective feels weird lol

Sounds better tho, and strictly speaking it's not mechanically different

Even if it's effectively different

[pliant grail]

Butler

It just doesn't do anything
Unlike almost every other outsider which ads to the dynamic, all Butler does is restrict your agency
I maintain that it would be better if you had to vote when your master votes

[cursive cobalt]

It works in the same field as General and HP

[young sonnet]

I mean snitch, recluse, and tinker also don't add anything either imo

Which is why I dislike all 4 of those outsiders

Even though yes, recluse and tinker are super useful as script building tools

They are the 4 worst outsiders to play and are the only ones compared to the entire cast of other outsiders that feel like they have no unique agency in the game compared to other roles

[pliant grail]

Yeah
Snitch just leaves you nothing, which is in my opinion better than an arbitrary restriction
Recluse similarly doesn't really restrict, it's an outward problem
Tinker is similarly a restriction, though.
I agree these are probably the 4 worst, But Butler, because of it's uselessness in script building and arbitrary restriction, is IMO the worst of them

[sour harness]

I mean you could say the same for baron

I love recluse and tinker

And I don't dislike snitch or Butler (though they're not my favorites)

[heady cradle]

I like

Executed good players might not die. Once per game, at night, you learn their survival was due to your ability, and might learn more.

[cursive cobalt]

That's uh

Not... really the Pacifist anymore

is it

[heady cradle]

I mean
Why not

[cursive cobalt]

The Pacifist's intent is to be both a confirmation role and a safety net for good

The first time good would otherwise make a poor decision

The Pacifist prevents them from doing it

[heady cradle]

Yeah

[cursive cobalt]

This change gives the Pacifist interactibility

Because it allows them to execute powerful roles early to test them

Just like a TL would

[cursive cobalt]

This change keeps the role uninteractable

[heady cradle]

I guess that's fair

[cursive cobalt]

Theres nothing you can do to use your ability proactively

You just sit there and wait until the ST saves people/tells you something

[heady cradle]

Yeah, makes sense

[cursive cobalt]

And that in my opinion isn't what the Pacifist needs

[heady cradle]

Also, a diabolical change for the Pacifist on Legion scripts

[cursive cobalt]

I stand by the fact that when run well, the Pacifist is a fantastic Legion detector

[heady cradle]

Executions of good players might fail.

[cursive cobalt]

"Good" players claiming powerful roles being executed left and right

But they die?

That must mean they're evil

Guaranteeing saves on critical good players allows the Pacifist to detect self-droison and executee alignment even if their ability fails

[heady cradle]

With whatever else you want to add to make it feel better

[cursive cobalt]

Fun fact, Legion originally didn't have the fail clause

It was originally "Executees only die if at least 1 good voted"

[heady cradle]

Huh

That is interesting

But yeah, I think that change to Pacifist makes it much stronger confirmation

That creates a binary
Legion
Or good?

Which is terrifying paranoia

Tho I had a terrible time with Legion and am never playing with it again, for the people who enjoy it, they might like that

[cursive cobalt]

Legion is meh

[flat lintel]

Yeah. If you have an ST who knows how to run Legion, it can be very fun to play with. However, once an ST who doesn’t know how things work tries to, it might ruin your perception of the already controversial character.

[cursive cobalt]

I used to hate it, then I played a game with it where I tricked Legion into outing themselves via votes

Idk

Fun fact

I've played 6 Legion games

And I've been Legion 0 times

It's a solid 3.5/10 Demon for me

I dont like it, but I don't despise it anymore either

Good has more power in a Legion game than it first seems

[flat lintel]

The storyteller has to reach a point of almost constant balance to make it fun which makes it super hard to enjoy it when it’s not balanced.

If you leave too many good players alive, Evil is cooked.

You kill a good player and Good goes down a rabbit hole because of it, you’re cooked.

The failed execution rebalance too.

[flat lintel]

shout out to STES!

small town elementary (a legion script with pacifist)

[pliant grail]

From a script/info perspective tinker and recluse are fine, I have no problem with them. Snitch is fine I guess. Butler just is useless
Every other character in the game does something that you can work from
But not Butler
It's just there

[cursive cobalt]

Every other character in the game does something that you can work from
Ironic that you mentioned in your very same message the one role that doesn't.

is nothing more than a cardboard cutout of a Fabled

Even Butler has more interactibility than it

Lol

[pliant grail]

I'm not talking about interactivity, I'm fine with roles where you don't do anything for your ability
Snitch at least had some use on poppy grower scripts

[sour harness]

Ok but put it on a fang gu script and suddenly it's interesting

[pliant grail]

You can say that about literally any outsider though

[sour harness]

Throw LM on too and it's much more powerful

[pliant grail]

Or are you talking about snitch sorry

[sour harness]

That's true which is why I added the LM bit

[sour harness]

Yeah

Butler too but to a lesser extent

[young sonnet]

That's a very elementary comparison. It's not the same cause baron is an evil character + their ability is a big benefit to evil and changes their bluffing space
Outsider and minion design space are completely different. Outsiders are a detriment to the team they're on. Minions are a boon to the team they're on. In order to make outsiders not just feel bad about being unlucky enough to draw their token (because Clocktower is a game without vanillagers, like other games), good outsider design gives inherent counterplay to mitigate the negative effects of its specific power.
Yes you can have overlap in specific playstyles, as you see with the many "when you die" outsiders, but the only option butler/snitch/recluse have is to try and bait evil into killing them so a more valuable role lives (which is not unique because most characters have that option, like YSKs, spent OPGs, other better-designed outsiders, etc.)
Tinker has even less agency as they can either hope the ST day-kills them to confirm them or volunteer to be executed to godfather test (kinda detrimental strategy, especially on BMR) or pray they're on a script with no godfather and volunteer to be executed
None of those three options are engaging to the person with the tinker token

[cursive cobalt]

Snitch exists as a tool to make LM and PG slightly better

That's it

[cursive cobalt]

This.

You know what I really dislike

Outsiders that are just walking boons for evil

Zero counterplay

Zero interactibility

Your ability exists to be a passive ability with no downsides to evil that you just have

And you just have to sit there

Tinker has no interactibility

However

I can concede it being at least a half-decent Outsider because its downside isn't completely passive

You know when you die and you can tell people that

But look at something like Snitch

Snitch has a downside
It will never not be a downside

They can't do anything to mitigate that downside

You play the Snitch exactly as you would play a vanillager role

You can't say the same for any other Outsider

Okay no I lied, that applies to Tinker too

But whatever

Point still stands

[pliant grail]

Butler is literally just that but worse
At least those are vanillager
This is vanillager minus some votes
At least those you have full range of agency

[cursive cobalt]

I mean the point that Outsiders that have little interactibility or counterplay are bad

[cursive cobalt]

Butler isn't very fun

However

It does have interactibility

Its more of an illusion than anything

But at least you have to put two braincells together to make a choice that's probably not evil

That's more than the Snitch can do

Or is incentivesed to do

[sour harness]

I used to really think that botc was about the abilities but over time what I've found is that social plays matter way more. The vast majority of gameplay happens during the day, not at night

[cursive cobalt]

BOTC is about abilities

However

Abilities take the backseat when it comes to socials

[sour harness]

Abilities are important don't get me wrong

[cursive cobalt]

The best abilities are those who play into the social field

Not ones which detract from it

[sour harness]

But we're talking about roles that ignore it right

[cursive cobalt]

Not... really

[young sonnet]

A lot of the difference in opinions on butler/snitch/tinker/recluse come from a lot of different personalities/ways they interact with the game
People who are primarily STs and script writers will probably look more favorably on recluse and tinker because they are good script building tools
People who are primarily players and have played enough to have gotten them dozens of times will recognize that unless there's a godfather or a fang gu or some other external character to make their gameplay more interesting, that all games as them kinda play the same

[pliant grail]

My problem is only half that it's not very fun
If that was my problem I would agree snitch is worse
My problem is that it's not very fun and then still doesn't mechanically do anything useful

[young sonnet]

Well butler obviously feels different each game, but I've already discussed it's primary weakness earlier

[cursive cobalt]

Interactibility is very often directly linked to fun for me

If I can't interact with something

I'm not going to find it fun

My Storytelling style and the advice I give to others revolves around the philosophy that players should be given large amounts of interactibility as long as it doesnt interfere with role intent

Also

[indigo osprey]

At least Butler tries to find people who are good (and trust them)

like: everyone does that

[cursive cobalt]

By the way, going a bit off topic here, but there are examples of purely passive, "walking Fabled" Outsiders that are well designed

[indigo osprey]

but Butler can get semi-'rewarded' for it

[cursive cobalt]

See Perfumer from TBA

Its an ability you can't turn off and can't mitigate in the traditional sense, but the catch with it is that evil has to take a massive risk in order to use it

Hence, if you the Perfumer make that risk look unworthwhile

You've mitigated your ability

That's interactibility

Interactibility doesn't have to be traditional in the sense that you ask your player for choices

It can be enforced through passive abilities too

[young sonnet]

See this is really difficult for me to outright agree or disagree with this
All abilities that do something interact with the social field
Huntsman basically only plays into the social field, and it's current state sucks
So a blanket statement like yours isn't exactly an accurate description of the situation because it's multifaceted

[cursive cobalt]

Minstrel, Tea Lady, Pacifist, PG, and most well-designed Outsiders are all passive abilities

But they offer interactibility because those players know that they have more/less options due to those abilities

Snitch doesn't offer any of that

Because the way you play knowing Minions have bluffs vs the way you play knowing Minions don't have bluffs is identical

I know theres a strawman argument of "double claiming players are usually good in Snitch games" floating around

But news flash? Minions can still double claim

Nothing forces them to take the bluffs they've been given

So that argument is really just paper thin

[young sonnet]

And if your group actually believes that snitch meta it takes 0 effort for minions to break it lmao

[cursive cobalt]

Yep

[pliant grail]

I would still rather play with no ability than one that does nothing except restrict me

[sour harness]

What's the ability

[cursive cobalt]

"The 1st time an evil player is nominated & executed by another evil player, their Townsfolk neighbors are poisoned (even if dead)."

[sour harness]

Oh cool

[cursive cobalt]

The Perfumer ability is bad for good, but it requires evil to do a very specific and often self-detrimental action to trigger it

Which offers the Perfumer two forms of interactability

They can either A) not come out, bluffing a different Outsider and making evil think that they're going to gain 0 benefit from killing each other

Or B) Nominate players and get them executed themselves to take away evil's option to do so

And when the Perfumer's not in play, other Outsiders will want to bluff it

Because they can use that to trick evil into sabotaging their own position

[sour harness]

That's cool

[cursive cobalt]

It's a pretty fun Outsider, and one of the few examples where I think a purely passive Outsider ability works well

Meanwhile

Skeptic (Outsider)
"Executed players might not die."

This is a real Homebrew Outsider I've stumbled upon before

[young sonnet]

That's a valid take, I agree

Butler is incredibly slightly worse than snitch imo

[cursive cobalt]

That's fair
The competitive spirit within me would much rather draw Snitch compared to something like Recluse or Perfumer or Barber

But then again, that doesn't solve the issue that I feel the Snitch's design is just boring as hell

I don't just play this game to win, I play to have fun and make plays
In that way, overcoming an Outsider ability is much more satisfactory when that ability actually would have otherwise been detrimental

[young sonnet]

Correct but no one is saying the issue of snitch is solved

It's just arguing which is the lesser of two evils and why

[cursive cobalt]

Personally I've never really had an issue with the restrictive aspect of Butler

Because all Outsiders are inherently restrictive

[young sonnet]

Okay but that's false equivalence

They all restrict in different ways

[cursive cobalt]

How so?

Well of course

But what I'm saying is that I dont view the the Butler's method of restricting as some kind of special evil

It just exists

[indigo osprey]

If Snitch was something like:

Minions start knowing 3 characters, 2 of which are out of play. You learn one of the 3.

That would still buff evil, but give the snitch something to do, only ever so slightly

[pliant grail]

Oh ok that's something I extremely disagree with actually
Most outsiders force you into a different shape
Butler just forces you into a smaller one

[young sonnet]

Just blanket saying "they all restrict and thus it is not relevant to consider how the restrict"

[cursive cobalt]

That's a good way to put it

In my opinion that doesn't make the Butler badly designed, though

Its just boring

[pliant grail]

And then snitch just gives every team bigger ones

Evil team*

[cursive cobalt]

Snitch doesnt restrict you at all

It just buffs evil

[pliant grail]

Yeah that's what I mean

[young sonnet]

I think a restriction that puts your agency mostly in another player's hands (whether or not they vote how you want, even though you can choose your own master) is different than say a damsel where you get decide for yourself who you out to, if at all, and how you hide

[cursive cobalt]

Honestly

Out of all the examples you could have used

I think you chose the worst one 💀

Damsel also puts your agency mostly in another player's hands
How ballsy the Minions are dictates your entire playstyle

[young sonnet]

Ehhhhh

Hard disagree

[cursive cobalt]

Damsel plays very differently in different groups

[young sonnet]

Yeah, obviously, but I think damsel's ability to lose the game relies upon the way the damsel chooses to play the game/read socially wayyyy more than the savviness of the minion players

[cursive cobalt]

Perhaps

I can concede to that

[indigo osprey]

Is there ever a reason why a snitch wouldn't just say on day 1: 'hey guys, I am the snitch, day 1 hard claims are worth nothing'?

Or worse:: "Hey guys, I am the snitch, it's probably a lil monsta game'
Or equally worse: "hey guys, I am the snitch, it's probably a poppygrower game'

That's why I removed snitch from my lil-monsta/poppygrower game; I realized I was using it as a crutch and the gameplay for the snitch was boring

[sly crescent]

Snitch does not guarantee each Minion is going to claim something different

[cursive cobalt]

To bait a kill

[sly crescent]

but other than that - yeah, Snitch is not very interesting, falls into Butler category for me: more damaging outsiders are available

depends on the script entirely; you could have Godfather reasons, Heretic reasons, Fang Gu reasons, probably some other common outsider things. and publicly informing evil team who is not the [insert ongoing info townsfolk] or the Damsel is also not always the smartest move

[indigo osprey]

I mean: the reasons for snitch not to out are generic reasons for all outsiders, but in addition to those, there are extra reasons to definitely out: inform town of the information leg-up that evil has

while saint, butler or a bunch of other generic outsiders don't have this

[flat lintel]

This comment is so funny to me but real

[lucid crag]

scratch that

I donno why, just gives me the vibes

[lucid crag]

(too strong for an outsider, but god, randomly nuking someone mid day then becoming a massive burden for town is amazing)

[lucid crag]

I've claimed leech and DA as damsel so can't say I feel I lack agency with it

but I'm also a psychopath

so take that with a grain of salt

[open pendant]

Magician. Most of the time, it just gives a little confusion for a day or two, and PG is definitely better, but my new players who are starting to get good at social plays loved our magician game

[sharp violet]

• Evil Twin is an unpopular role but every time I've been in a twin pair it's been so much fun.

[next marlin]

The first time I ever drew an evil token was as an Evil Twin in a game that was immediately ST-invalidated after said ST double-checked the setup and decided not to run "1 Minion Twin Town Criers"

I was so excited for that game

All the twin games I've spectated have also been super-fun to watch

[cursive cobalt]

6/3: Least favorite Clocktower “meta”?

[indigo osprey]

“Don’t play customs until you have mastered base3”

In game: I honestly wouldn’t know atm

[valid garden]

That all characters should be "Un-meta-able"

Sailor, Pacifist, High Priestess, Legion, etc, require you to be able to deduce the storyteller's decisions in order to be fun & playable characters

[indigo osprey]

That’s a good one, although (but I don’t think you disagree) some characters should be unmeta-able

Noble comes to mind: you shouldn’t be able to meta that noble is knight deluxe

And knight shouldn’t be investigator deluxe

And knight definitely shouldn’t be scarlet woman/outsider (when fang gu) detector lol

[cursive cobalt]

I mean even when run in a way that it learns a Minion

It’s still not

Since it doesn’t know an in play Minion

Semantics, though

I agree with both of you honestly

[karmic slate]

Haven't played much of it, but randomising Fearmonger nominations. I understand it's a good way to fight the Fearmonger but like that's the point of Fearmonger, to make every nomination suspicious, you've got to trust that the person nominating isn't a) The Fearmonger and b) Nominating their target through both social and mechanical reasons

[indigo osprey]

Self nomming with fearmonger is also a bit unfortunate

[karmic slate]

People choosing to self nom is fine. Forcing people to self nom is terrible

[indigo osprey]

I personally wouldn't mind a non-self non clause for fearmonger

I haven't had it, but I can imagine that having the police people into not pressuring people is unfun for all involved

[young sonnet]

I think if golem just said "if they are good" instead of "non-demon" it'd be balanced
Confirms itself, but can't nominate+removes another potentially useful good player+is weaker to droison

[young sonnet]

If you mean adding "Players cannot self-nominate." to the token text I'd be totally down for that

I don't know if there's enough character space (probably not)

But it would be cool

[cursive cobalt]

Then it becomes better Virgin

[young sonnet]

Disagree because virgins can still nominate, so the demon has to waste a kill on them as a confirmed player
I feel like nominating is more important than voting
Although it allows good to more often get the execution off they want, it means evil is a whole death closer to their win con if all the evils aren't dead yet (most games)

I think it's something that would need to be playtested as I already see evils killing golems wayyyy too often to get good data

[sour harness]

People pushing more than a little to get optimal flowergirl info. Like yeah you can make an attempt to get exactly half to vote but don't take control of the whole nomination phase and don't implicitly make anyone feel bad for voting "suboptimally". Same goes for TC but it's generally not as bad

[spiral pollen]

yeah actually I think people get that twisted a bit

Cause actually as long as just 1 player doesn't vote you have decent flower girl info

[sour harness]

Yeah lol

The role is cool because of the lack of agency

And it's powerful no matter what

[lucid crag]

kill atheists (unless legion/lilmonsta script) since like no way in hell does a demon claim atheist, it's minion, drunk, or real.

[sweet birch]

I think it'd be funny if the damsel were

[young sonnet]

Yeah and it's pretty useful to eliminate an evil player and it doesn't matter if it's an actual atheist game lol

So I don't hate the meta

[sweet birch]

"Thanks for saving me, now let's watch movies and wat garlic bread"

[young sonnet]

I dislike the implementation of the character design

[sweet birch]

"Guys we can't execute the fortune teller claim! If they're real that would be too big a loss! Instead we should kill the YSK who's barely a demon candidate!"

[cloud plover]

"We need to kill someone D1 or we're not being optimal with executions!" Just chill guys, the game will work itself out

[cursive cobalt]

This is a real one

It’s not a coincidence my favorite roles are ones that diverge from this meta

[flat lintel]

But vortoxxx

[flat lintel]

I agree, just think about 2-3 days of info would be good

[flat lintel]

Should be not allowed

[next marlin]

I've played surprisingly many snv games where everyone just shrugged and decided we didn't want to kill someone d1

No Vortox wins yet

(not intentionally "hard Vortox checks", just "shit, we have no good candidates and it's funny to not execute on this script")

[flat lintel]

Yeah. Just an additional thing to this. If you dislike an ST action based on meta’ing, don’t be like that.

[acoustic chasm]

I mean, I think I kinda see where you're coming from, but I disagree

If people dont think there is a flowergirl on script and vote freely, more likely than not you're gonna get EVERYONE voting

When you remind people of FG, then people do want to optimise it, naturally.

[flat lintel]

I think they’re saying dont handhold. A reminder is enough

[fast anchor]

4/6: Two new jinxes just dropped! What do we think of them? (Or, if these prove uncontroversial, about any of the new jinxes.)

Philosopher + Bounty Hunter : If the Philosopher gains the Bounty Hunter ability, a Townsfolk might turn evil.

Magician + Lil' Monsta : Each night, the Magician chooses a Minion: if that Minion is in play, that Minion babysits Lil’ Monsta.

Notes from some TPI people about the second one:
From Bra1n:

So, I [bra1n] got a few answers from Steven:
- the Minions see the Magician as the Demon on N1
- if the Magician picks a Minion that's not in play on N1, the Minions will get to choose among themselves who has the LM
- Steven is still working on the Jinx and will probably restrict the effect to living Minions, so that the Magician doesn't end the game by picking a dead Minion

From Steven:

If you are feeling a little more adventurous, you can try this additional jinx. I have no idea whether it is sensible, the funnest thing ever, or janky as:

"Each night, the Magician chooses a Minion. If that Minion is in-play, that Minion babysits Lil’ Monsta. If that Minion is not-in-play, the Magician babysits Lil' Monsta but if they die while doing so, evil wins."

[indigo osprey]

that's an amazing magician jinx lol

I personally like that they try to find new ways that characters can interact

[pliant grail]

the magician one seems to change magician significantly from the source material honestly

like
i can see it being interesting
but it is honestly more similar to lycanthrope i feel than it is to magician
so it's just one character in most cases and then a completely different one when there is an LM

[sour harness]

Yeah I think it's just a different character at that point

I always expected that they would be jinxed similarly to pg lm

Philo BH is great tho

It's still good to choose bh but now it's not immediately obvious that it's optimal

I assume "might" is there mostly so that isn't needed?

[fast anchor]

As an ST I'd only turn someone evil if there wasn't already a BH in play

that's how I bootlegger-ed the jinx before it became official, anyway

[cursive cobalt]

It’s pretty good

Magician just becomes a homebrew character

[cursive cobalt]

Same

[sweet birch]

Philo jinx is good, LM jinx is ?????? but more importantly where's the writeup

[sly crescent]

Magician jinx is a work in progress as written i just think "lol doesn't work" (Investigator sees baron, both pings executed, Magician chooses baron, LM goes to a corpse) it's surprising but actually not completely illogical from lore perspective ("demon" (the LM token) thinks Magician is allowed to choose who holds it)

not quite lore, but just magician ability vibe

philo-bh is great. both for sane games (one evil townsfolk per sober bh ability) and for fun chaos options 😈 or theoretical musings

[fast anchor]

how long until someone makes +2 evils because it was allowed by the jinx

[cloud plover]

Athiest Game into +2 evils. Glorious

[sly crescent]

the jinx was posted on the order of hours ago i assume it's happened somewhere already

don't forget exponential barista doubled pixie-philosopher-bounty hunter

[fast anchor]

oh god

[sly crescent]

my question is how long until we start hearing complaints about self-turned evil philosopher 😄

[fast anchor]

i think barista 2-philo-PD-summoner still wins in the “most players turned evil” department though

[sly crescent]

plague doctor ?

you're right just everybody evil demon i didn't really consider PD-summoner

[flat lintel]

Finally

Philo BH is playable

[sharp violet]

6/7 Ignoring Teensyville, list some characters and the best + worst playercount for their power level

[hot orchid]

Beyond extra evils on 10 players, I feel that Baron and No Dashii on 7 is a very good example

It's just so many good roles removed

Both of them effectively cut Town in half

[sharp violet]

Baron is the only Minion with a positive wr in my current mostly 7p group

[hot orchid]

I believe that

[sharp violet]

Is No Dashii weak in large player counts?

[hot orchid]

Not necessarily, but it's definitely weaker

It feels easier to place it

[shrewd cloud]

Vortox is honestly a character I think can be noticeably more powerful in lower player counts compared to larger ones. In larger player counts, town has more time and more information to use to determine it’s a Vortox and then go from there. While it’s hardly the only strategy for a Vortox team, I think being able to hide it’s a Vortox can be super strong

Meanwhile in a smaller game, there’s less time and less information. I’ve seen small games where the 3/4 sources of good information painted a very reasonable non-Vortox world that painted someone else as the Demon. That happening feels much rarer in a larger game where it’s more likely multiple pieces of information just clearly don’t make sense and contradict one another

Also have to shout out how stupidly OP Clockmaker can be in one Minion games. Clockmaker is already super strong but having multiple Minions does dilute it a decent amount as it can be difficult to place which Minion the number is going off of

[sharp violet]

Yeah I actually do notice that my experience playing & STing low player count SnV really isn't very mech-solvey as I hear on stuff like podcasts or this discord

[lucid crag]

king with 20 players lol

oh actually

cult leader with 20 is awful

cult with 7 is amazing

[sour harness]

All the SnV demons scale very differently with player count

Vortox is better at lower townsfolk counts because it's harder to prove that it's a vortox. Outsiders don't interact with the demon much though

No dashii is also stronger at lower player counts, but it's even stronger with outsiders in play because the poison goes through them. Strongest at 9 players on average I'd say

Fang gu scales weirdly, because at base 0 outsiders it adds the only outsider which is powerful (and depending on the player they play like a politician (me)), and at base 2 there are 3 whole outsiders and it's easier to make that extra evil player. Base 1 is still strong, but it doesn't really stick out. Also tends to be stronger with lower player counts but that's not the biggest factor

And then there's vigor. This is better at higher player counts all around I think. With more minions, it becomes a better idea to vigorkill. At base 0 outsiders it hides itself nicely, at base 1 it often hurts itself without that extra outsider BUT all outsiders are available to bluff, base 2 is nice but you do need to know what to bluff. Having an outsider also means another player for vigor poison to go through

And then pit-hag messes all of this up but shhhh

[sly crescent]

poppy grower on 9 is an interesting thought

[flat lintel]

👏 true 👏 or 👏 false 👏

[flat lintel]

with 7, it's very deadly though

cause that has 4/7 non-correct info

[sour harness]

True, the difference there probably depends on the group

Evil players don't always give false info, it's a playstyle thing

[heady cradle]

6/8: How would y'all make a character that detects poison/drunkenness?

[sly crescent]

very carefully. the level of difficulty of squeezing an Acrobat into a script, especially old misunderstood instant Acrobat, shows how crazy strong that particular info is

probably druid or some shit - each night, choose a player: learn if they are drunk or poisoned.

[indigo osprey]

Like a fortune teller

[sly crescent]

with red herring, choosing 2 players or both?

[indigo osprey]

Both

[minor pier]

I have one like that on my homebrew script : "Each night*, choose two players. You learn if at least one of them is poisoned, drunk, or evil."
A tad strong, so I had to be careful with the rest of the script to give multiple options that could proc a yes in various ways. Getting a 'no' is actually more valuable with it, provided you trust your info.

[indigo osprey]

I playtested one with one good and one evil red herring