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bloodontheclocktower · 5 years

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Behind the Curtain #6: The Teensyville Fair

It’s always great to get together with a dozen people for a huge, intense game. Ravenswood Bluff is a large, sprawling town, with pubs, museums, gardens, alleyways, council chambers, theatres, and churches, mosques and other more pagan places of worship. But what about when you are only able to get 5 or 6 friends together? A short day or two travel away lies the small village of Teensyville… a place of thatched cottages, warm fires, strange folk, intrigue, mystery, exceptional hand sanitization laws, and bizarre degrees of toilet paper hoarding. Blood On The Clocktower can support 5 or 6 players, plus the Storyteller. But – the game is a little different. This article is about what these games are like to play, what rules are different, how to create your own Teensyville script, and a sneak peek at an unreleased Script with some new characters that work particularly well in a Teensyville setting.

How Does Teensyville Work?

Teensyville games are the same as all other games of Blood On The Clocktower, with the following differences:

There are only 5 or 6 players (plus the Storyteller)

The evil team does not learn who each other are

The Demon does not get three not-in-play good characters as bluffs

The evil team has a further challenge than normal – to find out who each other are. The evil team not knowing each other means that the good team can get creative with their bluffing, and much more successfully lie to the evil team – a strange reversal of roles. I once saw Evin, the Chef, tell the group that there was an evil pair of players (when there wasn’t), in the hope of getting an evil player to reveal who they are to a good neighbour. In a later game, I, as the Demon, fell into this trap and revealed who I was to the Mayor via an sms. I was quickly, and hilariously, executed. Teensyville games can be a tonne of fun. The Demon not getting three bluffs and the extra misinformation can lead to some pretty crazy situations that get resolved quickly. We recently had a Spy who was claiming to be the Chef, who was executed and confirmed as the Chef by the Undertaker; and a Ravenkeeper who died at night and learnt the real Chef. For an explosive, lighthearted 20 to 30 minute game, Teensyville can be great. Players feel more free to take risks, to throw caution to the wind, and go for it. However, the game does not go for as long – lasting only two days, as opposed to three or more for games with 7 or more people. Some people prefer this shorter length, as it allows for more risky bluffing and ridiculous plays, but I personally prefer games where the stakes are higher. If you are the same, and like a game that has a higher pressure, higher stakes, and higher payoff as opposed to a smaller, shorter game, you can add a Fabled character called the Toymaker. The Toymaker prevents the Demon from killing on one night, which means the game goes for three days, just like a 7 or more player game. To make things fair, the Toymaker also grants the evil team their usual information – the evil players know each other, and the Demon gets their three not-in-play good character bluffs too. So, with a Toymaker in play, the game feels much more like a 7 or more player game. I recommend Toymaker, and it is included in the base set, whether you backed the Kickstarter version or pre-ordered the standard version.

In the base set, the only 5 to 6 player Script that works reliably well is Trouble Brewing. Some of the best games I’ve ever seen have been Trouble Brewing Teensyville. You can do a Bad Moon Rising or Sects & Violets game with Teensyville rules, but I don’t recommend you do so as certain characters in these editions are specifically designed for larger games. If you are keen to get some awesome Teensyville games happening but want to move beyond Trouble Brewing… it’s time to get creative and design your own Teensyville script!

Designing a Teensyville Script? Why Not Just Do a Full Script?

If you are a Storyteller that is a close, personal friend of each character in Trouble Brewing, and can call the characters in Bad Moon Rising and Sects & Violets your passing acquaintances, then giving the Script Tool a go and having a crack at designing your own script can really spice things up. Designing a script is easy – just go to bloodontheclocktower.com/script and away you go. The Script Tool has a drop-down option on the right to preset your script to Teensyville size, and a 'randomize' feature if you're looking for some ideas to start playing around with. Designing a really good script, one that the players love and keep coming back to, takes some thought and practice. Designing a Teensyville script (with 6 Townsfolk, 2 Outsiders, 2 Minions, and 1 Demon) is a LOT easier than designing a full Ravenswood Bluff script (with 13 Townsfolk, 4 Outsiders, 4 Minions, and 4 Demons). There are fewer choices to be made and it is a lot easier to focus on a tight, interesting theme. It is also easier to focus on a couple of great character combinations. I recommend that if it is your first time designing a script, do a Teensyville script. If it is fantastic, and you can always add more characters to expand it to a full 25 character script at another time. Doing a Teensyville script makes it easier for you to run the game as well. You know your script. You know how all the characters interact. You are on top of your game.

The best part about designing a Teensyville script, though, is that it is much easier for new and veteran players alike to understand and develop strategies for. Totally new players are learning how 11 characters work, and can more easily see on the page what is possible in the game. Veteran players can focus on the interactions between a few core characters, and are forced to develop new strategies based on this concoction of chaos that you have presented to them. Whilst it might be obvious to you what an evil player could do when presented with a small script that contains the Pit-Hag, the Undertaker, the Tea Lady, and the Mastermind, veteran players will be encountering this for the first time and will develop strategies on the fly that only work in your script. All players are encountering something new, and the basic building blocks are there for them to use.

It’s also a great way to test an idea. If your script works, great! If it fizzles… it is easy to move on and try something else.

How to Design a Really Great Teensyville Script

There are a few general principles on how to design a banger of a Teensyville script. A few 'dos' and 'don’ts'. No script can hit all the marks so take this with a grain of salt and do what you can. Start with a strong idea – The first thing to do is to think “What is this script all about?” You can have a theme in mind. Or a flavor. Or a gimmick. It can be anything. Maybe you want a script that has all characters wake at night to learn information. Maybe you want to go for a heavy drunkenness theme. Maybe you want to have a game where nobody dies. Maybe you just want to build a script around the Poisoner but don’t really know what else to add. Maybe you want a great Evil Twin script, where evil is incentivized to bluff that there is an Evil Twin in play when there isn’t. Maybe you just want to have all your favourite characters in the one place. Just start there and go for it. Remember what your theme is and stick to it.

Focus on a few core characters – Since Teensyville only has 11 characters, every character counts. Focus on a small group of core characters that have great interactions. Clocktower isn’t about characters, or players acting in isolation. It is about characters interacting with others, and players adjusting their strategy based on things that happen in the game. Pick say, 3, 4, or 5 characters that you really like and really work together and build from there. These core interactions are what will make your script special and will be the reason players keep coming back to play again and again. These are the guts of your script.

Know your group – Like running a roleplaying game, you need to know what your particular group likes and doesn’t like. Some groups like a solvable puzzle, if they work hard enough to solve it. Some like weird and crazy situations that they need to think abstractly to get to grips with. Some like insane complications. Some like things simple. It might be fun to make the most complicated, unfair, ridiculous script ever made, but that will only work if the group likes that kind of thing. Create for you, but also for your group.

Make interesting decisions – If you design a script, and your first thought is “Well, the good team should obviously do this, and the evil team should obviously do that,” then it’s probably best to rethink things a little. Clocktower works best when there is no “should”, no obvious correct strategy. If you set things up so that there is always a number of interesting decisions to make, the game will be more fun. This is similar to writing a story, where by creating conflict between the characters, drama and story progression happens more smoothly. For example, if you have an Empath but no character that could possibly make that Empath’s information incorrect, consider adding a Recluse. If you have a Ravenkeeper, add lots of characters that the Ravenkeeper would want to find out about, not just one – or if there is just the one viable target, complicate things by adding a character that incentivizes that player to lie. Presenting interesting decisions for the players is tricky, but something you’ll get the hang of with practice. Basically, if there is no “correct” decision for any of the puzzles, the players will be forced to get creative and that is where the fun happens.

When you are making a script, if you are thinking in terms of possible player strategies, what the good team could possibly know and do, and how the evil team could possibly bluff in ways that have not been done before, you are on the right track. Make every character count – There is no room for characters that don’t fit! If it isn’t working, chuck it and find a better character. Go back to your theme and to the core interactions to check if the new character is a good fit.

Make a good title – Every good book needs a good cover. Every Clocktower script benefits from a sweet, impactful title. You can call your script whatever you want but players will remember the best, and come back for more if it’s a banger. It is usually best to think in terms of something serious and epic, or something frivolous and fun. There is no need for a title to literally represent the script. Get creative, not accurate. For example, some of the titles I’ve seen that really work are:

Love, Blood, and Rhetoric

Panic! At the Clocktower

Purple Reign

Web Of Lies

Vigormortis High School

The Black Gate

Refine, refine, refine – Most Teensyville scripts will work fine the first time you run it… except for one or two characters. Maybe they don’t fit the theme or the strategy you were going for. Maybe they just don’t interact much. Maybe you’ve just changed your mind or found a character that does what you want better. The best scripts got there by the creator noticing what works, what doesn’t, and going back to the drawing board and doing a redesign. Pay attention to what your players do, what they like… and also, what secrets you’ve put into the script that they haven’t found out yet! Some scripts take 3 or 4 plays for the players to really get their head around the particular strategies of what you’ve created, so give it a little time too.

Use Fabled – There are 4 very important Fabled characters that are designed specifically for you to use in your Script games: For Teensyville Scripts, the three important ones are: The Fibbin, the Duchess, and the Sentinel.

If your game has a lot of information but no misinformation, such as drunkenness or poisoning, then consider putting the Fibbin in play every time you run your script. Games where there is no possibility of false information tend to be less fun, because evil players are often backed into a corner. You can do it, but most games where this is the case are tilted towards the good team. The Fibbin, which makes one piece of information wrong per game, adds just a touch of vagueness to balance things and gives the evil team a little more breathing room. If your game has no passive information at all, consider adding a Duchess as a permanent fixture to your script. With only two days for the players to use character powers such as the Virgin, Tea Lady, Pacifist, or Professor, it can sometimes be that the good team ends up being information-shy. A Duchess adds a touch of information to give the good team a helping hand. The most important of the Fabled characters for creating your own scripts is the Sentinel. If your script is created in such a way that there is no way for Outsiders to be in play, or that the number of Outsiders is known with certainty, then evil players can accidentally make a bluff that the good team knows is 100% false. For example, if you have a five player game with a Godfather and a Witch on the Script, an evil player is bluffing as the Saint, and then a player dies from the Witch's curse, then the good team knows for certain that the Saint is lying. This tends to not be fun for the Saint player – who did everything right by picking a risky bluff and then convincing the cursed player to nominate. Another example would be a Demon that bluffs as the Recluse, and there are no Outsiders in the game, and no possible way Outsiders could be in the game. If you add a Sentinel to scripts you create that have this kind of known Outsider count, the problem disappears and your script will work just fine. The Sentinel is the most common Fabled character I use in my own Scripts, for this very reason. Please keep in mind that Fabled characters are not there to add random “flavour” to a game – they are there to help you create Scripts and games that are fun for everyone. Avoid extra evil voting power – Some characters turn evil, create other evil characters, or otherwise change the number of good players that can vote. With Teensyville games often having 5 players, that means 3 good players and 2 evil players. The number of players on each side can change with higher player counts, but if it changes when just 5 people are playing, that means that there could be 3 evil players and 2 good players. It is not always the case, but such a situation usually means that the evil players can either outvote the good players, or deliberately tie the vote so that the good team cannot execute the Demon. This is not what you want at all. The best way to avoid this is to create scripts that avoid characters such as the Goon, Fang Gu, and other characters that change the vote count such as Travelers like the Thief and Bureaucrat. For Teensyville, keep things at 3 good players and 2 evil players, or at 4 good players and 2 evil players, and things will work a lot better.

Think carefully about putting extra death-causing characters in – Characters such as the Po, Shabaloth, Assassin, Godfather, Gossip, or Gambler can REALLY up the stakes of a Teensyville game. With these characters on the script, the game can end without things even getting to day two. This usually won’t be a problem with an experienced group, since they will read the character sheet and adjust their strategies to suit – and this can even dramatically increase the drama and stakes of even minor decisions. But a group of new players may not realize the precarious nature of their situation, and accidentally lose on the second night due to the Shabaloth and Assassin killing everyone except the Tea Lady. Teensyville games tend to work better with some Demons than others, so adjust your character choice to suit.

An Example Teensyville Script – Laissez un Faire

Here is an example Teensyville Script I’ve made. In addition to a few roles from the base edition of Blood on the Clocktower, it contains a handful of roles planned for the game's expansions. Some will be included with the Kickstarter versions of the game prior to their wider release in the expansions (the Amnesiac, the Cannibal, and the Leviathan) whilst others have been completely unreleased before now (the Balloonist, the Fisherman, the Goblin, and the Widow). We're releasing these details of these roles publicly now for a number of reasons. Firstly, so that we can show you a top example of what a Teensyville script can be. Secondly, with much of the planet currently in social isolation a lot of people are turning to online forums to play Blood on the Clocktower at the moment, so we want to give them some new roles and features to try in these trying times. Thirdly, the game is already delivering later than we had hoped and there may be further delays due to the global effects of the coronavirus that are currently unforeseeable, so we want to give you a sneak peak of some of the great things we have in the works to hopefully let you know that this game will be worth the wait. The rulebook entries for these characters are not available yet, unfortunately. Many of them were super-janky in their initial stages of development and took ages to get right, and the rulebook is the last thing that I write. Also, even when their rulebook entries are written, the extremely flexible nature of these characters means that a lot of updates, fixes, and corner cases will need to be addressed prior to final release in their respective expansions. This means that if you use any of these characters, you’ll have to just wing it for the time being.

This script is not perfect, but it’s proven to be a real banger every time. I’ve run it a few dozen times and it provides an intense, varied, epic, and mind-blowing game. There is a huge amount of information, a huge risk and huge reward for bluffing, and it’s a blast for the Storyteller too. Personally, I would much rather play or run a 5 player game of Laissez un Faire than pretty much anything. I’ll highlight why it works, and also point out some things that aren’t working so well and could be improved.

As you can see… it’s a doozy. First, the good stuff: The original idea behind this Script is that I wanted a game that really captured the intense, 1 to 2 hour battles that happen in a 15 player Sects & Violets, or a 10 player game of Garden Of Sin (an unreleased expansion script currently still in development). I wanted a game for 5 players that had a library full of information for the good team, over-the-top bluffing opportunities for the evil team, and a longer, more epic feel where, over time, the information available changes. I also wanted a script to allow me, as the Storyteller, to experiment with some new ideas on the fly.

The Leviathan was the first character I chose. The Leviathan basically guarantees a longer, more high stakes game, due to it’s 5 day count, and the pressure on the good team to make every execution count.

As the script got built, played, and refined, the following characters were chosen for the way they combined with others: The Townsfolk all make the most of Leviathan’s weakness – that no deaths occur for 5 days. The Savant can gain a library of information and will usually have 10 facts (5 of which are false) by the final execution. The Amnesiac is often weak if they die early, so having 5 days to figure out what their ability is gives the player all the time they need – Amnesiacs will often figure it out at the last minute. The Artist can relax and ask the perfect question at the perfect time – they can wait and decide exactly what to ask based on what they need to know. The Fisherman is the same, asking for their hint at the right time without fearing dying at night. The Balloonist will also get most, if not all, of their information too, which leads to a final day climax of knowledge. So, each Townsfolk’s ability is used to the fullest… and that is a big, big problem for evil. The Goblin gives the evil team a lifeline. An evil player under pressure from all that information can always claim to be the Goblin, and scare the good team into reconsidering their vote. The good team may have figured it all out, and the evil team may be sweating because they can’t kill that pesky Savant or Balloonist… but they have an ace in the hole, and it may just be enough to sow doubt and win the game. The Goblin also interacts well with the Savant + Balloonist + Amnesiac because those players may claim to be the Goblin, even if they are good, so as to survive another day or two and get more information. When good players are incentivized to claim to be the Goblin, the real Goblin and the real Leviathan have a much stronger position – because a Goblin that has convinced the good team that they are good can win by their execution, and a Leviathan that has convinced the good team that they are a good player that claimed to be the Goblin is less likely to be executed. The Widow is a great addition for two reasons. First, it provides a much needed poisoning. There are simply too many powerful information Townsfolk for the evil team to survive for five days otherwise. The Widow can not only nullify the power of one of those players, but turn it into an advantage. The interesting choice for the Widow player is “Which Townsfolk do I pick? Do I pick the most powerful Townsfolk in play, or do I pick another Townsfolk and make the players think I picked the most powerful?”. Because the good team knows a Widow is in play, this decision is an interesting one – it won’t be the same each time. The second reason for including the Widow is because it creates an interesting choice for the good team. If a player claims a Widow is in play, and a player claims that they are the Goblin, who do you believe? They can’t both be true, but the good team will need to find out. If the player that knows the Widow is in play is telling the truth, then good should definitely execute the Goblin. But if not, they should keep the Goblin alive. This also means that a player who learns that a Widow is in play is incentivized to not say so immediately, in order to trick the Demon into claiming to be the Goblin if nominated. This delay in good players claiming a Widow is in play also allows late-game Widow claims by evil. Or one evil player claiming Widow, and another claiming Goblin. Evil will probably claim Goblin or Widow each game, and will sometimes want the good team to believe one thing, sometimes the other. There are lots of interesting things that can happen. The Cannibal was added to create conflict with the Leviathan and the other Townsfolk. A Savant, Amnesiac, and Balloonist all want to survive until the second to final day. An Artist and Fisherman want their information on the fourth day. This is because with only two executions available for the good team, they are best to wait until they really need to do it. The Cannibal throws a spanner in the works by wanting to convince the most powerful Townsfolk to die earlier – they want the Artist and Fisherman to get their info, then get executed as soon as possible, and they want the other Townsfolk to die, so that the Cannibal can be the one getting the information. This creates a certain strategy for the good team. Is the Cannibal lying? If they are telling the truth, who should be eaten? That is different every game. The Cannibal also works really well with the Widow. If a player can reasonably assume that they have been poisoned by the Widow, then they should definitely get the Cannibal to eat them so the un-poisoned Cannibal can get correct information. Of course, this incentivizes the evil team to claim a Widow is in play when there isn’t, which adds further layers of scheming and deducing, which is where the fun is. The Fisherman in particular was added to create some interesting strategies around the Goblin, the Lunatic, and the Leviathan. Since the Fisherman doesn’t get information in the normal sense of the word, these characters give a lot of options for the Storyteller to get creative. The Fisherman gets a hint at what to do, not a piece of information. Usually, this means the Fisherman is told “You should execute this player” or “You should nominate this player” or “Don’t trust this player” or “Keep everyone alive today” or “Find out who this player really is.” This kind of thing really plays nicely with the Goblin and the Leviathan, because the usual strategy of “just execute players you think are evil” is thrown out the window because of the huge penalties for getting it wrong. The Fisherman interacts well with the Lunatic and the Mutant, because there are also some good characters that the Fisherman player can get a hint to find out more about. Carefully crafted hints like “Ignore what Dave is saying” can mean a whole lot more than “Dave is evil”, because Dave may be the Mutant and deliberately lying, or Dave may be the Lunatic and has no idea he is spreading mis-truths. Or Dave may be the Savant who is secretly poisoned and claiming to be the Goblin, but there is a Cannibal in play who will gain the Savant ability if Dave is executed – so the Storyteller has hinted not to trust Dave as a way of making this happen. The Fisherman is highly Storyteller dependent, so having lots of good options for hints is important. Mutant, Lunatic, Goblin, Cannibal, Leviathan, even Widow – all these roles create these opportunities.

The Balloonist was added so that an extra Outsider can be in the game, but done in tandem with the Outsiders being hidden. A Sentinel would have done the job, but Balloonist works well with Leviathan, Cannibal, and Widow too. The cool thing about the Balloonist adding an Outsider is that the added Outsider probably won’t reveal that they are an Outsider. The Lunatic doesn’t know that they are an Outsider, and the Mutant probably won’t mention it because, in a Leviathan game, the price of being executed willy-nilly is too high. Usually, at 5 players, an evil player bluffing as the Balloonist needs another evil player to pretend to be an Outsider too, because the Balloonist adds an Outsider (and there isn’t normally one in a 5 player game). With a Lunatic and a Mutant, the Balloonist becomes a much easier bluff. Of course, if an evil player is bluffing as Balloonist, and the other evil player is bluffing as an Outsider, then the real Mutant or Lunatic holds the game in their hands – they know who the evil players are, but getting that information out can be tricky.

The Amnesiac is kind of like the Savant in this script. The good team sometimes has trouble finding out who Leviathan is, and they only have two or three executions to do it. The Amnesiac and Savant allow the Storyteller to drip feed information to the good team when they are hot on the trail of evil, or to provide more useful information if the good team is really struggling. Amnesiac also works really well with the Lunatic and the Mutant, and finding out who these players are is a huge boon to the good team but doesn’t throw the evil team completely under the bus. The Amnesiac works particularly well with the Leviathan because the Storyteller can feel free to make their ability more obscure, since the Amnesiac can be guaranteed to have several days to figure out what it is. The Savant is in the same boat. The Storyteller can give a hint when needed, or something more obscure when not. The Mutant works great in combination here too. Whilst not being as hidden as the Lunatic, the fact that only two executions are allowable means that the price of the Mutant revealing they are an Outsider is high – the chance of executing the Demon is reduced by 50%. That should be enough to keep most Mutants bluffing as a false Townsfolk, which they’ll need to do because staying silent in Laissez un Faire only means one thing – you are the Mutant. Here, the Mutant will really need to be convincing that they are a Townsfolk, and so will be spreading information that might be false, or it’s curtains. The Mutant, or even the possibility of a Mutant, can keep the evil team alive when there has been no Widow claim, since just because a person is lying, doesn’t mean that they are evil. The Lunatic works brilliantly in this Script. The Teensyville setting means that the Demon doesn’t know their Minions, so the Lunatic doesn’t get shown anything on night one. Most Lunatics in Laissez un Faire have no clue that they are the Lunatic until they die, and the game continues. Then, they know for certain that they are good. This is the Lunatic working at it’s best – when the player is totally convinced of one thing, then totally convinced of something else. It’s a beautiful moment when they figure it out. Lunatic plays perfectly with the Widow too – the Widow knows who the Lunatic is, and can talk to them in private and further convince them that they are in fact Leviathan. And if the Lunatic finds out – the Widow is outed, but the Demon is still a secret, which is fine. Evil players convincing good players that they are evil is super-risky, but also super fun. The Lunatic also works really well with the Balloonist and Leviathan. The Lunatic can’t confirm a Balloonist, and can’t kill at night, so the ruse is complete. However, the Lunatic being executed is a huge boon to the good team, and a confirmed Lunatic confirms the Balloonist, plus any character whose information led to finding out who the Lunatic is. In Laissez un Faire, there are lots of reasons to execute a player, not just “Are they evil?”, and lots of reasons not to, not just “Are they good?” There is information galore for the good team to use, but just enough misinformation from poisoned or lying good players to keep things interesting. The game goes for a long time, making a 5 or 6 player game feel like an epic, large game. There are lots of ways to get information, some passive and some active. The evil players have enormous bluffing opportunities and get-out-of-jail-free cards to play, and the good players have lots of interesting decisions to make. The good team should be able to piece the information together to narrow it down to one or two players, but a tricky evil player can insinuate themselves into a position of trust, which can have a huge impact. It’s a game that generates a tonne of discussion due to it’s high information factor, and has high mid-to-late game surprise factor (with Lunatics figuring out who they are, and Balloonists and Savants and Amnesiacs putting things together on day 4 or 5), leading to a deduction-heavy game that comes to an exciting climax on the final day. Every game is incredibly different, due to the high level of creativity required from the Storyteller. Not all Scripts need to do this, by the way. It is perfectly fine to make a script where the point is for evil to hide and play it safe, choosing smart night time kills over clever bluffing, and for good to be putting all of their effort into figuring out who the Drunk is, for example. It is a different type of game, that different people will enjoy. The Downsides of Laissez un Faire Are: The experience level needed for the Storyteller role is quite high. This is something that you will need to approach after getting very familiar with Bad Moon Rising, Sects & Violets, and trying your hand at creating your own scripts. Many characters give a huge amount of power to the Storyteller, in terms of what information the Storyteller gives to the players. Choosing things that will help the players and make a fun game is an art, and avoiding giving too much away can take a game or two to get a feel for. If you’ve run the Savant a dozen times and know the basics though, you’ll probably be fine. The experience level required for the players is medium. They don’t need to be hardcore, but a completely new player will probably feel out of their depth with the amount of information on the table, and getting a character like Goblin, Lunatic, Mutant, Savant, Amnesiac, or even Artist could cause them to be overwhelmed. Those characters in their original editions are more fine, but the stakes are higher in a 5 player Leviathan game. For example, accidentally saying that you are the Mutant in a 12 player S&V game means you get executed and the game continues, but in a Leviathan game, doing so could lose the game immediately. However, if your players are up for a challenge then they could have a ruddy good time. The Cannibal combos poorly with the Lunatic and the Mutant. If the Mutant is executed, nothing happens, because the Cannibal has no clue that they have the Mutant ability, and has no reason to claim that they are an Outsider. A Cannibal with the Mutant ability does nothing. Similarly, a Cannibal with the Lunatic ability does not wake at night, thinking that they are the Demon (which is what usually happens), because the Demon does not wake at night. Again, nothing happens to the Cannibal. It is a shame for the Cannibal to waste their ability like this. Bugger. This could be improved with a more appropriate Townsfolk. The Widow isn’t the most original Minion. When designing a character, one of my rules is that it has to be unique. Each character should feel and play differently. The Widow is basically a combination of the Spy and the Poisoner so, to me, doesn’t feel wonderfully unique. However, the player experience with the Widow has been so overwhelmingly fantastic that I’ve decided to keep it. Players just LOVE to wake up on the first night, see the Grimoire, and pick precisely the character they want to poison. It’s such an exciting moment. Also, the good players learning a Widow is in play does make the character more unique, and does work well in Laissez un Faire, so there is that. Still... The name is not the greatest. “Laissez un Faire” was just meant to be a pun on “Laissez Faire”, roughly meaning “Do what you want / whatever happens, happens” and “unfair”. It was meant to be a fun little hint that what you are about to play might be a bit broken, but if you’ve got the right attitude you’ll have a blast. It’s pretentious. It’s unmemorable. But the Script was popular and the name stuck, so that’s what it is.

Some Well Wishes…

This post is obvious half promotion for BOTC, and half tools to be used. If this inspires you to get some Teensyville games happening, that is fantastic. With the world-wide crisis of Covid-19 happening, getting 6 people together is a lot easier than getting 12 people together. It was a real shame that we could not put a selection of Teensyville scripts in the base set sold via Kickstarter and CrowdOx, since putting just the one would have missed the point of providing a whole bunch of different game setups, and putting half a dozen in would have been prohibitively expensive. I’m hoping that you can get creative and remix Trouble Brewing into some really great Teensyville scripts, and even take the leap into designing your own Teensyville Scripts from the characters available. It really is a great way to tailor the game to what you want it to be, to focus on a tight collection of characters and strategies, to hone your skills as a Storyteller, and to just have a complete blast with a smaller-than-normal group. Not every Teensyville works. But those that do are total bangers. Good luck :) Steven Medway

The Pandemonium Institute

#BloodOnTheClocktower #ThePandemoniumInstitute #PandemoniumInstitute #Teensyville #SocialDeduction #Gaming #Games #TabletopGames #TTGames #bluffing #socialdemokraterna #BOTC #LaissezUnFaire #behindthecurtain

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