This is a bunch of general advice about running good games. A lot of these comments come from my own observations and points gleaned from Steven Medway (the designer) over the years.
Involving New Players
Getting new players involved in games, especially when surrounded by more experienced players, is about building confidence over competence. Like all games, the whole point is to have fun and Blood on the Clocktower offers a lot of fun even when you’re not winning. If a gaming group involves all beginner players, this group often learns and fails together at the same rate. However, the most important point in combining new and veteran players is to help share the sense of fun.
The most important thing to keep in mind when thinking about beginner players is Beginner players learn to play quickly, and really enjoy the game, when all other players are beginners too. It’s just another game for them. Everyone learns the basics after a game and levels up already by game two. Storytellers have run Clocktower for non-gamers far and wide, for all ages and abilities, and all of them have been able to get into Clocktower if they were having fun. The issue isn’t Clocktower being too complex, but the player’s skill difference being too far apart for either side to have fun
Help Build New Player Confidence
Veteran players can help by not overloading the new player with strategy, but instead helping them understand the rules – strategy comes later. Also – most of the important rules are told by the Storyteller at the beginning of the game, and the rest are learnt by playing. They don’t need to know everything.
The Storyteller can take the new player aside and let them know that the only thing that they “should” do as a good player is to reveal which character they are and what information they know at some point during the game. It doesn’t have to be immediately. It can be at any time, even at the last minute. Similarly, the the only thing an evil player “should” be doing (apart from keeping the Demon alive) is to pick a good character to bluff as, and to understand how that good character works. Good and evil new players should both be encouraged to ask the Storyteller any questions about this if they want.
Discourage “what you should have done” type comments after the game. This fosters shame more than learning.
Using Fabled
Add an Angel if there is one or two beginners in a mostly veteran game, or a Buddhist if there are one or two veterans in a mostly beginner game.
The Angel gives the new player confidence that they won’t die because they said the “wrong” thing.
The Buddhist gives the space for new players to figure things out for themselves and start conversations without being interrupted or led by the veterans.
If a player is timid, add a Revolutionary and pair them up with someone who values others making their own decisions more than winning.
Drip Feed the Rules
Blood on the Clocktower doesn’t have to be learned all at once. It’s okay to drip feed the relevant parts of the game to new players along the way. This has the benefit of giving new players a new piece of information to absorb and to process it before they learn a new piece. This is how most tutorials work and there is no reason it can’t be used in social deduction games.
Here is one way to stagger out the rules of the game to give new players an opportunity to absorb one thing before the next:
Before the game starts: explain the objective of the game, and how to win. Outline the four big rules.
Before the first night starts: what a night phase is about and how the Storyteller communicates at night.
On dawn of the first day: pull aside the new player aside and explain how their character works. If they are evil, give them information on how other characters work.
When a game mechanism is first mentioned: wait until poisoning/drunkeness, madness, or registering is mentioned to explain them, perhaps privately.
The first execution phase: explain how nominations and executions work.
The first death: explain what happens when a player is dead.
Final day: explain the importance of final day and the possible consequences of actions and non-action.
What Overloading New Players Looks Like
A new player enters the game. They are continually hounded by the veterans with strategy advice. They are given every single rule in the game, from the voting specifics, to the Spy exceptions, to the Heretic changing the Saint’s win condition.
The Storyteller gives them a lot of advice on what to do as well, all in one huge chunk at the beginning, and the new player acquires a huge mental list of things that they should and should not say. If the new player reveals that they are a powerful character, the Demon kills them immediately.
The veteran players dominate the discussion and the new player never has the time to follow their own thoughts to their conclusion and is often interrupted by others who (genuinely) know better.
The new player doesn’t know how their character works, or how the character that they are bluffing as works, and they are afraid to ask for specifics. When they lose the game, the group tells them what they “should have done”.
As you can imagine, this is a recipe for low confidence, and a bad time. Players who experience this won’t stick around.
Play Groups
These points work sometimes, but not always.
Many Storytellers tend to insist on running Trouble Brewing if there is a new player in the group. This works a little bit. What it does do is give the new player a clear goal – find the Demon (if good) or lie and keep the Demon alive (if evil). They learn that information can be unreliable, but is probably correct.
If a new player jumps into Bad Moon Rising, Sects & Violets or a custom script, they may have to face hidden victory conditions, totally flipped information, and much more.
However – and this is a big however – jumping into a game of Trouble Brewing has the massive downside of playing with a bunch of veterans who know the mechanics and major strategies like the back of their hand. The veteran players will be thinking quicker, talking quicker, and the new player won’t be able to keep up.
Sure, Trouble Brewing is easier to understand, but the thoughts and actions of their fellow players are more difficult to understand. Consider chess vs checkers – if you are a new player, which would be more fun? Playing checkers against a pro, or chess against another beginner? Even though chess is the more difficult game, it would be more fun for some to be with someone closer to their skill level. Trouble Brewing is still the best script for first timers, but if a dozen veterans have to play Trouble Brewing every time there is a new player even though they don’t want to, that builds resentment.
Have a beginners group and a veteran’s group. Allow the beginners to jump up to the veterans level after a few games if they want, but only if they want. Discourage veterans from joining the beginner games until they’ve learnt the ropes. This works great, as all players get to play with others of a similar skill level. However, the downsides are that the Storyteller needs to organise two separate groups (awkward), and that veterans who bring a new friend along don’t get to play with their friend, as they are in separate groups.
Putting a tonne of attention on the new player. Some players like the attention and feel more a part of the group because of it. Others feel that the extra attention is overwhelming because it implies extra responsibility for the outcome of the game, and shut down.
Ravenswood Bluff 