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Kazzah posted:Oh hell yeah. I also recently played it for the first time; this friend of mine, who was sitting between me and my traitor buddy, was a Drunk Empath who took each of us aside on the first day and confided that he trusted us absolutely. Drunk is the best Outsider, and I’ll fight. Evil Twin is the best Minion.
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Jul 14, 2022 01:40
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Lol I thought this was a character description instead of a specific game mechanic, I have several friends I'd describe as Drunk Empaths and taking people aside to say they trust them unconditionally is absolutely what they do regardless of game
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Jul 14, 2022 03:16
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I’ve been playing Clocktower regularly once a week online with a dedicated group since the start of lockdown, and it’s been a blast almost every time. I ordered the game soon after (missing out on the Kickstarter stuff, sadly), and got pretty frustrated about the constant delays and revisions to the artwork over and over and over again, but now having the box in my hands I’ve got to say I was mightily impressed at the quality of the production. With how much Kickstarter whales love wood and plastic, I imagine it’s really hard to make cardboard tokens that are thin and light but still feel premium but they managed it somehow. I’ve run a few games now with the various experimental characters, including a game on an Atheist script where the evil players convinced the good team to execute me, the game’s storyteller, instantly winning the game for evil. CitizenKeen posted:Drunk is the best Outsider, and I’ll fight. I’m still waiting for the day when I can be the evil twin and get a snake charmer good twin and coordinate my twin getting the demonhood so we can win together. Harder these days since the rules clarification that creates a new twin, but there’s ways around that.
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Jul 14, 2022 03:27
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GetDunked posted:Lol I thought this was a character description instead of a specific game mechanic, I have several friends I'd describe as Drunk Empaths and taking people aside to say they trust them unconditionally is absolutely what they do regardless of game Yeah same, NGL. I've never played BotC before, but 'Drunk Empath' (and the absolute trust that player expressed) is definitely a label I'd firmly affix to a couple of people I know 
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Jul 14, 2022 03:54
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For context, the Empath is a goodguy role who is told every night how many of their (living) neighbours is evil. However, any goodguy role can secretly be the Drunk; the Drunk thinks they have some other role, but they don't; if they're a special-action role, their action doesn't work, or if they're a special-information role, all the info they get is bullshit.
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Jul 14, 2022 04:00
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That's interesting; Clocktower is the one with a DM-equivalent that runs it for the other players, right? So the DM would just know that player is a Drunk and make up random nonsense when they ask?
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Jul 14, 2022 04:03
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The initial allocation of roles is random, but the DM gets to make some choices. In this case, if the Empath is between the two traitors, it could easily end the game before it begins, so she assigned the Drunk role to him - the Drunk, by design, must be set secretly, without their knowledge. And yeah, whenever there's any sort of ambiguity or chance, the DM chooses. So for instance there is an evil character who may appear as good, or a good one who may be flagged as evil, in certain circumstances; the DM's job is to maximise drama, basically.
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Jul 14, 2022 04:11
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GetDunked posted:That's interesting; Clocktower is the one with a DM-equivalent that runs it for the other players, right? So the DM would just know that player is a Drunk and make up random nonsense when they ask? Traditional werewolf also has that role but they don't influence the game. I'm still skeptical of the entire premise of clocktower being werewolf with the wacky randomness turned up to 11 and a moderator that can influence who wins and loses but I guess people that want that kind of thing are very happy with it as an experience even if it's a flawed design.
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Jul 14, 2022 04:57
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Bottom Liner posted:Traditional werewolf also has that role but they don't influence the game. I'm still skeptical of the entire premise of clocktower being werewolf with the wacky randomness turned up to 11 and a moderator that can influence who wins and loses but I guess people that want that kind of thing are very happy with it as an experience even if it's a flawed design. Please, walk us through how it is a flawed design.
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Jul 14, 2022 05:05
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I've played Clocktower 20~ times. I think it's a fun game, but I'd still rank it behind Avalon for a few reasons. It's a really involved game. You need a dedicated storyteller. They need to know what they are doing when designing role layouts or the game can quickly descend into random chaos. The game allows for and encourages pulling people out of the circle for 1:1 and small group discussions, which ends up skewing the game much more towards social engineering and away from the logic puzzle. All of the above means the games take a long time. When the experience works it's great, but if it descends into chaos and takes 1.5 hours, it can leave a bitter taste. There's a lot of other minor factors that make it finicky, but can easily be house ruled to work with a group. For example, certain roles do not work consistently because their abilities have variations that can be applied by the storyteller in real-time. I really dislike that, so we've played where that role is always consistent. It's a minor fix, but it takes effort and a dedicated group to employ those changes. The game does have a lot of cool stuff. The poisoner is one of the best roles in any social deduction game. The idea of outsiders is well done and adds a nice depth to the logic puzzle. I think it's worth owning if you have a consistent group of regulars who are committed to learning it & there are a few people in the group who are ok being a storyteller instead of a player and dedicated to learning how to run the game well. Megasabin fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Jul 14, 2022 |
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Jul 14, 2022 05:45
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I'm mostly just curious. I don't do all that well at hidden role games generally (and therefore tend to avoid them) because I have the worst poker face and am horrible at reading people, although I do still enjoy them, especially if there's other plates to spin like in Unfathomable/BSG. Maybe if I run the game instead I won't have to be a bad liar 
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Jul 14, 2022 06:00
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GetDunked posted:I'm mostly just curious. I don't do all that well at hidden role games generally (and therefore tend to avoid them) because I have the worst poker face and am horrible at reading people, although I do still enjoy them, especially if there's other plates to spin like in Unfathomable/BSG. Maybe if I run the game instead I won't have to be a bad liar Definitely give storytelling a shot, I'm also bad at deduction games but had a great time running the show. It was also fun to let others take over on occasion and play for myself, but you really need to make sure that anyone storytelling has a good handle on the rules and can keep things running smoothly. For example, in one game I was going off of some claims to work out who might be lying, only for the new storyteller to reveal (after the fact) that she had messed up the outsider count. In another (custom) game, we had an Evil Twin-Fool pair. Some of the players decided on the strategy of executing one of the two, and if that person didn't die, they must be the good twin! They even privately checked with the ST to make sure this would work, and he said it would. When I caught wind of the plan, I pointed out that the Evil Twin's ability just activated when the good player is executed, not when they die. The ST rushed to correct everyone, in the process more or less confirming which player was good. So if you run the game, you need to have a good idea of how it all works, and also have the presence of mind to stick to your rulings when something is unclear. Players will understand and be forgiving as long as you're honest with them!
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Jul 14, 2022 06:48
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It appears that in BotC the storyteller is much more an active participant in the fun and trying to make things interesting rather than in Werewolf where they are simply a computer necessary to maintain the state of the game. I can certainly imagine that BotC can do things that other games cannot, and those games already exist and are well established. Instead of distilling and simplifying the experience down like Resistance or Insider, it instead refines it mechanically to only eliminate the parts we realize since the 90s actually suck: things like player elimination. I welcome its inclusion in the hobby, in spite of the goon campaigns against it. If it was Blood on the Concourse or maybe Blood on the Well-Appointed GWR 1901 with Dining Car, goons would be all over it.
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Jul 14, 2022 09:01
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I may have inadvertently designed a framework for Bacon Bandits last night.
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Jul 14, 2022 09:13
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Jedit posted:I may have inadvertently designed a framework for Bacon Bandits last night. Please tell me that you're now spending the day pitching it to various game companies, right?
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Jul 14, 2022 09:16
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Major Isoor posted:Please tell me that you're now spending the day pitching it to various game companies, right? It needs more work than "that would be a good way to do it". I think it would definitely appeal, though - my concept is a card game with little or no extraneous bling, and probably plays in about 30-40 minutes. The basic idea: each card has a "bacon value" from 1 to 3 printed on its back, and on the other side it has either a special ability or a member of staff who hinders your shoplifting. Some cards (and all staff) are played when drawn, others are kept. Cards with higher bacon values are more likely to be staff, but also have stronger abilities. However, as you can't both play a card and score it you have to weigh up whether it's worth using them. It also costs you a turn to stash your bacon, so there's a push your luck element on how long you can get away with it before you're caught.
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Jul 14, 2022 10:44
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Jedit posted:It needs more work than "that would be a good way to do it". I think it would definitely appeal, though - my concept is a card game with little or no extraneous bling, and probably plays in about 30-40 minutes. Interesting! Riffing off this: At the start of the game everyone is dealt some number of cards, and then five cards are placed bacon-side up on next to the deck to form a tableau. On your turn, you can either bank your bacon, draw some number of cards (two?), or play one from your hand. When you draw from the deck, the card goes into your hand, regardless of its ability. When you draw from anywhere else, the card immediately activates on you if it's a staff card. The twist is that in addition to drawing from the deck or tableau, you can also draw from other players' hands. So if someone has a 3 card in their hand that they haven't banked in a bit, you need to weigh up if they're keeping it because it has a powerful ability, or if it's a staff card they're trying to trick you into drawing. Some ability cards let you draw cards from the tableau without activating staff cards, some abilities can force players with staff cards in their hands to play them on themselves.
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Jul 14, 2022 11:27
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Reveilled posted:Interesting! Riffing off this: The way I viewed the tableau is that it's the only place you can draw cards from, but it's also large - 4x4 cards representing the aisles of a supermarket. Each player has a marker that they use to select an aisle to take a card from or play a card on, and there are cards that affect aisles. For example, Cleanup On Aisle X is a Staff card that remains in place until your next turn and prevents cards being taken from that aisle, while They Moved It... Again lets you swap two cards without looking at them. As there will be numerous ways to "window shop" a card - pure random draws being a bit too monkeycheese - you can use these abilities to dodge the staff yourself or bluff people into picking the wrong cards.
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Jul 14, 2022 11:45
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That sounds pretty cool! If this had come out 20 years ago it could have been Supermarket Sweep themed.
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Jul 14, 2022 11:49
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You mean 30 years ago?
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Jul 14, 2022 12:10
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silvergoose posted:You mean 30 years ago? Nah, 20 is about right. A guy I went to school with worked for a bit on Supermarket Sweep as a product model.
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Jul 14, 2022 12:11
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Might depend on the country you're from. The UK version ran into the very early 2000s.
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Jul 14, 2022 12:33
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 to a real one
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Jul 14, 2022 12:44
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Very interesting mechanics discussion, but I think we're missing an important part of the player experience. The cards should smell like bacon.
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Jul 14, 2022 12:52
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Well you're in luck, a reboot of the show was started in 2020
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Jul 14, 2022 12:52
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Jedit posted:my concept is a card game with little or no extraneous bling i demand a mini of a very disapproving dietician 
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Jul 14, 2022 12:57
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CitizenKeen posted:Please, walk us through how it is a flawed design. Bottom Liner posted:. I'm still skeptical of the entire premise of clocktower being werewolf with the wacky randomness turned up to 11 and a moderator that can influence who wins and loses The first line precedes that statement as a qualifier for the “if”ㅔ
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Jul 14, 2022 13:40
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Old Swerdlow posted:I felt motivated this week finally to make a Pokemon TCG re-theme of Love Letter Premium. The most annoying part of the process was figuring out how to paint the 26 poke ball tokens that I 3d printed. I also have close to zero experience with photoshop-like programs so that was a bit of fun learning that as well. I made the cards through https://pokecardmaker.net/ and then threw them up onto a layout file I found on Deviant art. Wow that’s fantastic and I love the deck box to go with it. Thanks for sharing the files. How are you finding the balls? It looks like they’re purely spherical so I’d have concerns over them rolling off the table.
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Jul 14, 2022 13:57
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Magnetic North posted:Blood on the Well-Appointed GWR 1901 with Dining Car, goons would be all over it. Hhhhnnnng need this, where’s our murder mystery train game 
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Jul 14, 2022 14:00
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Bottom Liner posted:Traditional werewolf also has that role but they don't influence the game. I'm still skeptical of the entire premise of clocktower being werewolf with the wacky randomness turned up to 11 and a moderator that can influence who wins and loses but I guess people that want that kind of thing are very happy with it as an experience even if it's a flawed design. Bottom Liner posted:The first line precedes that statement as a qualifier for the “if”ㅔ There's very little randomness in Blood on the Clocktower. Just the random role assignment in the beginning of the game, the same as Werewolf/Mafia. (Which if we're doing logic, would make the if/then statement result in false.) And the moderator is a player in the game with an agenda, yes. With a goal of keeping the game going until the last night, by using their very proscribed, publicly known-and-described, explicit abilities to side with the losing team, yes. You have described the mechanic. You have not described how it is flawed.
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Jul 14, 2022 14:22
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I thought the main issue with BotC was its absurd price point on top of SU&SD shilling it?
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Jul 14, 2022 14:34
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Chill la Chill posted:Wow that’s fantastic and I love the deck box to go with it. Thanks for sharing the files. How are you finding the balls? It looks like they’re purely spherical so I’d have concerns over them rolling off the table. I haven’t had a chance to play it in real life yet, but that will probably be a concern!
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Jul 14, 2022 14:39
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FulsomFrank posted:I thought the main issue with BotC was its absurd price point on top of SU&SD shilling it? Oh, for sure. That I can get behind. It's a 95 minute game that cost $95 and requires a group who really wants to be there, as opposed to Werewolf which you can play in ten minutes with a free phone app and a group of coworkers who are willing to hold their thumbs up and not giggle. And SU&SD's pivot for BotC was... rough. That could have been handled better.
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Jul 14, 2022 14:39
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Chill la Chill posted:Hhhhnnnng need this, where’s our murder mystery train game Unfortunately, all goon resources are working on some bacon game? 
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Jul 14, 2022 14:42
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FulsomFrank posted:I thought the main issue with BotC was its absurd price point on top of SU&SD shilling it? SUSD's review was unprofessional and the Kickstarter was relatively poorly managed.
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Jul 14, 2022 14:44
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Doctor Spaceman posted:SUSD's review was unprofessional and the Kickstarter was relatively poorly managed. Unprofessional is a good word to describe that, yeah. Is every Kickstarter that runs two years over poorly managed? Honest question. Timelines for Kickstarter games matters very, very little to me, though I can understand why other people care. I measure a Kickstarter by their communication and delivery, and I feel BotC did okay on that?
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Jul 14, 2022 14:49
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CitizenKeen posted:Unprofessional is a good word to describe that, yeah. I would certainly say that the Kickstarter was beset by a sort of fussy perfectionism that turned what should have been a much shorter turnaround into a maddeningly glacial affair. The original pitch of the kickstarter was basically "all the art is done and the base rules are in place, we just need a few tweaks and the funds to get the thing made", but I eventually lost count of how many times the game's art and such was re-done over and over and over again, and the rules constantly put in states of revision for minor tweaks that were not exactly necessary given how much the thing was overrunning. Now in fairness, that fussy perfectionism did result in me getting a finished board game I'd easily consider to be the highest quality product in my collection (I can actually feel where my $100 went, which as previously mentioned is impressive for a game that's 99% felt and cardboard) and actually drat near perfect in terms of quality, so I can't say the wait wasn't worth it, but I do think the management of the kickstarter which turned from "we're basically done" to "we're re-doing everything bigger and better" was a bit of a bait and switch, even if the product that got switched in is something that is almost certainly better than what we'd have gotten otherwise.
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Jul 14, 2022 14:58
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CitizenKeen posted:Is every Kickstarter that runs two years over poorly managed? Honest question. The campaign was April 2019, with an estimated delivery date of Jan 2020 and an actual delivery date of June 2022. Even allowing for covid delays on top of the standard KS issues that's an unusually large blowout.
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Jul 14, 2022 14:58
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CitizenKeen posted:And the moderator is a player in the game with an agenda, yes. With a goal of keeping the game going until the last night, by using their very proscribed, publicly known-and-described, explicit abilities to side with the losing team, yes. I'll bite. Not really a flaw but a bit of a philosophical problem for me: it's more a performance than a game, because an all powerful GM is propping up the losing team all the way through. In the end, all 5 games I've played have been decided with a 50/50 shot in the last night. Exciting! But by the end of 4th game I could feel that the 5th was going to end the same way. And it did. And yeah, you can read people after an entire game, but the GM may have swapped their roles around, or have given them a role that required them to insist that they were another one, and could be killed if they don't, or one of 4 million things that make it impossible to logic it out/get a clean read.
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Jul 14, 2022 15:04
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Reveilled posted:I would certainly say that the Kickstarter was beset by a sort of fussy perfectionism that turned what should have been a much shorter turnaround into a maddeningly glacial affair. The original pitch of the kickstarter was basically "all the art is done and the base rules are in place, we just need a few tweaks and the funds to get the thing made", but I eventually lost count of how many times the game's art and such was re-done over and over and over again, and the rules constantly put in states of revision for minor tweaks that were not exactly necessary given how much the thing was overrunning. Yeah, absolutely. No disagreement. Fat Samurai posted:I'll bite. Not really a flaw but a bit of a philosophical problem for me: it's more a performance than a game, because an all powerful GM is propping up the losing team all the way through. Mostly agreed. I have absolutely no problem with the statement "I don't like this mechanic", but that's different from a flaw. I haven't played the game with fewer than 9, and I've only gotten one game to the final night as Storyteller. I disagree that having a Storyteller help the losing side pushes it from "game" to "performance" - if you're not factoring in the various ways you could be being misinformed by the Storyteller, and trying to read the Storyteller, then I feel like you're not using all the information you have. If you feel like you're winning, you should more heavily question the Storyteller, etc. I suspect that, Doctor Spaceman's notes aside (which are not small), a lot of the dislike comes from the fact that Blood on the Clocktower has a lot of superficial similarity to Werewolf/Mafia, where the logic is weighted more heavily than the social deduction, but BotC has a lot more in common with traitor games like Unfathomable and Avalon and so forth, where the total skillset includes both logic and lying/reading people and convincing other people that you're right. And that can thwart people who aren't expecting it. But that's an expectations problem. Combine that with a lot of hardened Werewolf/Mafia players forgetting that the Storyteller is also a player in the game, and I can see why people don't like it. (Ninja edit: I know one player I played a game on Discord with commented afterwards that they were really frustrated because they felt like their logic was sound, and it turned out to be sound, but another player was just more convincing. That didn't sit well with them. Which is fair.) But that's different than the game being flawed.
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Jul 14, 2022 15:28
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