Demons are the star players of every game. The entire game turns upon their actions intentionally or not. Demons set the pace and tempo of the game, and sets up a fundamental tension that the good team has to deal with.

Another way to think about the impact of the demons is to ask “what kind of game do I want to create” because that’s mostly synonymous with the choice of demons.

In all of my Into the Woods scripts, I focus on demons that create a key tension with each other. In doing so, I’ve put the main elements of those demons against each other emphasising that feature.

While it’s possible to design scripts with any number of Demons, Demons are the single character type that produce the greatest amount of complexity because good scripts will ensure that the majority of characters can interact with any of the Demons available in interesting ways.

Demon Dilemma

When looking at the evil team as a whole, I often try to gauge the amount of noise the evil team is making. By this, I mean how chaotic or obvious are the evil team.

Noise is just a short hand way to describe the chaos and misdirection the evil team can sew in order to distract the good team away from the Demon.

As a general rule, the noisier the evil team is, the faster the game should be. That is, the easier it is to figure out what the evil players are by their tells, the better it is for the good team to have fewer nights to problem solve with information.

Knowable evil work better in games that are faster (lots of death), because then there are fewer nights in which the good team can gather information. Since part of the game is solved for the town, shortening the number of nights is a reasonable trade off.

In general, subtle demons and noisy demons tend to compliment each other. You can build scripts with both, but you have to build around the fact that the Demon is solvable much earlier in the game than usual.

Subtle demons have a single kill and an important ability that foils the good team: Imp, Pukka, Vigormortis, Fang Gu, No Dashii

Noisy demons have a powerful ability, or multiple kills, and a significant tell: Zombuul, Lleech, Vortox, Leviathan, Po, Shabaloth

Similarly, it’s important to think about how the noise of the minions compliments or contrasts the noise of the Demons. Quiet Demons with quiet Minions are some of the easiest scripts to build because they have fewer unusual elements to build around.

Likewise, you can get some really interesting game combinations with a noisy set of Demons with quiet Minions or vice versa. They’re slightly trickier to design but can compliment each other well if done right.

Noisy Minions can force players to look in the wrong place, while noisy Demons can put a lot of pressure on the good team making them forget about the evil team as a whole.

Noise to Speed

Outsider variation is a form of noise that isn’t always obvious at first. Despite the fact that Outsiders pose a challenge for the good team, Outsider verification is in fact incredibly useful. In most games, it’s usually far more easy to verify Outsiders than Townsfolks. In most games, Outsider claims are not Demons, they are risky (but possible) bluffs for Demons due to the tendency for most towns to eliminate Outsiders.

Outsiders are far more death prone than not, and this means finding Outsiders can be a really important strategy in solving the game.

What’s worth considering is that Outsider variance that comes from good sources is not noise at all. An extra Outsider tends to confirm a Balloonist claim for example, as opposed to additional Outsiders created by the Fang Gu or the Baron. Similarly, roles like the Mutant, Lunatic, or Politician will not out themselves and obscure the count.

A really good way to understand this distinction is comparing the Puzzlemaster against the Drunk. Both of these Outsiders mean 1 Townsfolk is unknowingly the Drunk. The difference is that with the Drunk, people start misbelieving their information if they cannot account for every Outsider, as opposed to the Puzzlemaster where players only start misbelieving their information if there is a Puzzlemaster claim. While nearly mechanically identical, the way that town attempts to consider the validity of their information is based on negative versus affirmative Outsider claims.

Similarly, consider the difference between the Lunatic, the Goon, and the Politician. Each of these Outsiders are likely to be playing for the evil team. The Goon does so by hedging their bets, the Lunatic does so by thinking they’re evil, and the last one is just trying to sabotage the good team because it’s in their interests to do so.

It is possible to build scripts with almost no Outsider variance, but again you’ll have to build around this. One of the examples I have is Widening Gyre in Into the Woods, where there is nothing to obscure Outsider count except for the natural tendency of these Outsiders to hide. What counters that is the way that the evil team can move around a lot.

Outsider Variance

When building scripts, one thing to consider is a reason for the dead not to be perfectly trusted. In each of the base three games, there is at least one explanation for why those who die at night could be evil. In Trouble Brewing, they could be the Imp who star-passed. In Bad Moon Rising, a dead player might be the Zombuul killing themselves, or even possibly a Shabaloth killing a Minion for future resurrection. In Sects & Violets, a dead player might be the result of a Fang Gu jump, or a Vigormortis killing their Minion.

Having even at least one explanation for why those who die at night might be evil (beyond the Demon choosing to kill a Minion), gives just enough reasonable doubt that the good players cannot form a perfect circle of trust through those who died at night.

Dead Suspicion

Blood on the Clocktower is as much about misinformation as it is about information. While all social deduction games have “players lying” as a source of misinformation Clocktower has a greater repertoire of tools at it’s disposal: drunkenness or poisoning, false registers, movement, madness, and evil conversion.

In every instance, misdirection is like a spice – a little bit creates some good flavour, but too much just overwhelms everything else. Typically, I like to focus on one kind of misinformation as a game feature and build characters towards that.

While a little bit of everything and not too much of one thing can work well, assume that the good team will be able to solve worlds more directly through observation. Understand the dynamics they produce is important.

Drunkenness/Poisoning

Thematically, players who affect allies make them drunk, while players who affect opponents poison them. While this is a thematic difference for the same mechanism, it underlines an important difference. Largely, because allies are probably going to tell you whether you’re possibly drunk.

Poisoning has an impact even when the target isn’t poisoned because its mere presence can make the good team second guess their own information. A little bit goes a long way.

I usually find that no more than two or three sources of evil poisoning on a script is sufficient, and I tend to prefer limiting poisoning exclusively to Minions or to Demons – largely because Demon poisoning also provides an avenue for learning about the Demon.

Including evil poisoning alongside good drunkenness is fine, as the good players will help the Town account for the presence of drunkenness. However, if you’re going to have both evil poisoning and good drunkenness, it should probably be a feature of the script.

False Registers

Misinformation Game

Clocktower is designed so that players don’t need to understand the night order in order to play, but it is still there for players who like to use it as part of their game.

In fact, in most situations, players should be able to use the information they gain from their abilities without needing to refer to the night order. There are instances where night order can be important, but mostly this is just whether a character acts before or after the demon has killed in the night.

When teaching new players how to play Clocktower, it is actually recommended not to spend time detailing the night. This is a general extension of the idea that new players don’t need to understand every character to start playing, but can instead just focus on their own character to have fun.

Over time, players usually organically learn some of the finer points of the night order, and it’s usually better to teach these ideas on a case-by-case basis as they come up in interactions directly relevant to the current game. That is to say, the Storyteller shouldn’t hide the night order, but they don’t need to feature it.

For the official editions of the game, the night order is already pre-determined. In building custom scripts, the script tool will organise the night order for you. So even custom script designers don’t need to understand the night order in order to make fun scripts, but understanding the night order rationale can help make you a better Storyteller. This is because the night order is a guide for running a good game, not a strict rule that must be religiously followed.

what we do in the shadows

The night order is designed to allow for the maximum number of characters to activate and let their ability have a meaningful impact on the game.

The Demon is the hidden star player, and typically has the biggest impact on the night. Which player the Demon targets usually has the greatest impact on the game during the night.

Remember – dying has the biggest impact on players individually as it takes away abilities (usually) and limits participation at executions. The Demon’s kill at night and the town’s execution by day are the two biggest decisions in game. Generally, if the Demon kills a player that acts at night, they don’t get to act that night.

Townsfolk and Outsider abilities typically take place after the Demon, unless they specifically need to act first. This tends to mean good abilities that can neutralise or protect against evil abilities.

Minion abilities typically take place before the Demon, unless they specifically need to follow after. This tends to mean any evil abilities that could adversely interfere with the Demon’s actions or possibly the Demon themselves (especially if they somehow turned good).This limits the time between the Demon’s kill and any ability reactions that happen as a result.

The Big Idea

Roughly speaking, this is the order in which characters act. This is not a hard rule as the abilities of some characters only make sense if they happen before others.

Dusk: end of the day, some Travellers have abilities

Early night: Neutralisers – characters that can make others drunk or poisoned, or otherwise block others’ abilities typically act now (Poisoner, Sailor, Philosopher, Exorcist)

Early night: Interlopers – characters that protect others from harmful abilities or somehow meddles with the other team (Monk, Snake Charmer, Innkeeper)

Early night: Minions – most Minions act now (Cerenovus, Devil’s Advocate, Witch)

Midnight: Demons act – most Demons act now (Imp, No Dashii, Vortox)

Late night: Other Minions – any Minion that kills or could potentially harm the Demon acts now, to ensure the Demon always has a chance to take them out first (Assassin, Godfather)

Late Night: Death reactions – any player that reacts to dying at night or being killed by the Demon (Farmer, Ravenkeeper, Sage)

Late Night: Townies – pretty much all standard information characters and other good player effects happen here (Gossip, Empath, Oracle)

End of the Night: some abilities need to take place after other all other abilities because they are reacting to things that took place during the night as a whole (Mathematician, Spy)

Dawn: wake the town and reveal all observable effects from the night

General Night Order