axolator

[axolator]

d1 claims that are never real

[axolator]

fearmonger meta

[axolator]

With the carousel releasing, do you have any scripts you'd recommend that contain mostly characters from the carousel? I know some of the people I play with want to try out the new stuff, so ideally I'd like to have a script where I can have most of the tokens presorted and don't have to spend forever digging through the base 3 boxes to get things set up 😅

Hey, thanks for the ask! Just a quick note - it's a tight line to walk between "scripts I think are good" and "scripts that mostly feature the Carousel characters". While you absolutely can make good customs featuring mostly experimental characters, the limited set of characters featured makes it pretty difficult to scriptbuild well. That being said, here are some recommendations:

Note: At time of writing, the BotC scripts database is currently down. I've got script images, but you'll have to wait on JSONs and PDFs from me; sorry!

Ride The Cyclone by Paradox

Featured characters: Princess, Politician, Mastermind, Al-Hadikhia

Complexity: Advanced

Ride the Cyclone is a modern custom script featuring a group of punchy, powerful Townsfolk versus an Al-Hadikhia forcing them to choose who lives and who dies. The mere presence of each on-script Minion can shape how the good team approaches every phase of the game. Only featuring 5 non-Carousel characters, RtC is incredibly fun, and easily my top recommendation for your group. It's a script like no other that creates incredibly memorable games that go down to the wire.

B3 characters you'll need to pull:

BMR: Mastermind

S&V: Town Crier, Savant, Philosopher, Seamstress

The Midnight Oasis by Zets

Featured characters: Al-Hadikhia, Psychopath, Cannibal

Fabled characters: Spirit of Ivory, Sentinel (at player counts with 0 base Outsiders, sometimes base 1)

Complexity: Expert

scriptaday here!

The Midnight Oasis is power clashing with power. Broken combinations from the good team face broken combinations from the evil team, and chaos typically ensues as soon as Night 2 starts. This isn't a script for the faint of heart — game-warping characters like the Atheist, Damsel, and Poppy Grower are abound here — but when bagbuilt and storytold with a careful hand, it can be incredibly rewarding and memorable.

B3 characters you'll need to pull:

TB: Drunk, Poisoner

BMR: Professor

S&V: Snake Charmer, Savant, Barber, Pit-Hag, Vigormortis

Whose Cult Is It Anyway? by Aero

Featured characters: Cult Leader, Lycanthrope, Fearmonger

Fabled characters: Storm Catcher (favoring the Cult Leader)

Complexity: Expert

scriptaday here!

Whose Cult Is It Anyway is a complete kerfuffle of accusations, nominations, and executions. The focus sits on the stormcaught Cult Leader, who can only die by execution, making them the perfect frame (or the perfect bluff for an evil team which knows it's out of play). Players both good and evil will be executing and killing into the Cult Leader's neighbors to swing them over to their team and secure a win, if able. As an ST, you have to be careful with how you bagbuild, but if you can manage it, it's a great time.

B3 characters you'll need to pull:

TB: Recluse

S&V: Oracle, Savant, Seamstress, Mutant, Witch, Cerenovus, No Dashii, Fang Gu

That's about it from me! Hope this helps!

[axolator]

Script-A-"Day" #49: Rhetoric [Heroic: Failure] by Pixlate

Oh god, that's bad, surely I can think of a better world to push than Legion...

Featured characters: Plague Doctor, Marionette, Lord of Typhon, Legion

Jinxes:

Plague Doctor / Marionette: If the Demon has a neighbor who is alive and a Townsfolk or Outsider when the Plague Doctor dies [and would grant the ST the Marionette ability], that player becomes an evil Marionette. If there is already an extra evil player, this does not happen.

Marionette / Balloonist: If the Marionette thinks that they are the Balloonist, +1 Outsider might have been added.

Complexity: Expert. Recommended for folks who are able to stomach intense Legion paranoia and for STs who aren't afraid to stoke it in as many players as they can.

Database link (find the PDF and JSON for running it yourself!)

Writeup under the cut!

Before I say my piece, a note from Pixlate, the creator of the script!

Thanks??? for that??? i think???? Onto the writeup.

Rhetoric [Heroic: Failure] is nominally a Disco Elysium reference, but it's also a Legion script centered around having zero hard Legion solvers (no Townsfolk roles that can easily and unambiguously solve Legion, like a Chef or an Oracle) and maximizing the Legion paranoia the good team has to deal with as a result. To that end, the evil team has a number of levers to pull to simulate other evil characters being in play — a suspicious player dying at night could be an Imp starpass, Vigor kill, or Legion death; a weird voting bloc could be a Typhon line or a Legion rise-up; players tripping over themselves in doubleclaims could be from the Xaan adding a Plague Doctor and a Mutant or Legion being uncoordinated... you get the idea.

To fight this, the good team has some very powerful tools. Characters like the Librarian, Pixie, High Priestess, Farmer, and Ravenkeeper can create powerful confirmation chains, while the Balloonist, Town Crier, and Savant can slowly generate evil pings over the course of a game. If the good team can trust each other enough to coordinate despite Legion paranoia and potential cere-madness, then evil might find themselves quickly cornered!

A key part of this script's social dynamic is the combination of Marionette, Lord of Typhon, and Legion all on the same script. Good players don't want to vote on their neighbors for fear of being the Marionette, and will want to vote with their neighbors for the same reason. This means that Lord of Typhon lines have a much easier time hiding in the Marionette paranoia (and the Plague Doctor jinx means that a claim of a dead PD can get good players who had once ruled out their Marionette status to reconsider later on). Legion, a Demon with inherently weird voting patterns, can hide even more easily amidst all this, and because each individual Legion is more expendable, Legion players can fake-Marionette good players to get them to turn on their teammates!

"Hey, Pixlate, do you have any advice when bagbuilding RHF?" "Just hit random and content farm"

Bagbuilding Rhetoric: Heroic Failure isn't particularly complicated. Especially on lower player counts, make sure the good team has enough sober & actionable information to figure out who's evil and who's not (maybe don't make both good players in a smaller Legion game Farmer and Ravenkeeper), but outside of that, this script is fairly resilient.

A note on bagbuilding Legion — while almost anything can work, do keep in mind that what's in the bag will influence how you run the game. In particular, don't be afraid to kill confirmed good players earlier than you otherwise would (like a Pixie-confirmed player or Librarian-confirmed Outsider), to keep the game fair for Legion.

Some notes:

I've talked about High Priestess enough here, but to summarize — The High Priestess is most interesting when they're incentivized to have conversations with their pings and socially read them: the operative word in the High Priestess's ability text is "talk", and their role is to facilitate useful conversations that would not happen otherwise. A High Priestess should expect to be shown players who benefit from being talked to, like a Minion bluffing a Seamstress NO on the HP and their Demon or the Mutant the evil team has desparately been trying to force into breaking madness. Who is most important to talk to is somewhat subjective and might change depending on which player pulls the HP token: keep your group in mind, and do what's fun.

The Balloonist, rules as written, may see multiple Legion in a row (since one can be shown as a Minion and one as a Demon). However, it's highly recommended not to do this on this script, because it makes the Balloonist's info almost worthless in a Legion game. Consider alternating showing Legion players and good players to make the Balloonist's info most potent.

Both a 3-star and a 5-star General work well here (though they have individual trade-offs), but both require immense care to run. Especially in a Legion game, be very aware when listening to which worlds the good team believes. Use that to inform the read you give to the General!

Given that this script's whole *thing* is not having any hard Legion solvers, try and avoid hardsolving Legion to characters like the Librarian, Savant, and Amnesiac if you can. This means favoring a Librarian when there's an actual Outsider to see (a Librarian 0 in a base-2 Outsider game basically means weird Xaan choice, unlucky Typhon line, or Legion), and being careful about Savant information & Amnesiac abilities to make sure they can't eliminate every possible non-Legion world.

When putting a bait role or Outsider in a Legion game, strongly consider putting them in as an extra good player. Almost all Legion games should reverse the good and evil counts (e.g. a 12-player game should have 9 Legion and 3 Townsfolk), but if you want to put in a Farmer, Ravenkeeper, or Outsider, have them replace a Legion instead of a Townsfolk.

The Plague Doctor abilities are a little weird here — choose which ability you gain based on when they die. If they die early, favor gaining the Marionette (via the jinx) or Xaan abilities. If they die mid-game, a Boffin ability can do wonders, like Fisherman or Puzzlemaster. Late-game, gaining the Cerenovus ability can often be most impactful and fun.

If the Plague Doctor dies on what would be the Xaan night and you choose to gain the Xaan ability, I'd rule that the Xaan-poisoning starts happening immediately.

In general — prioritize fun over making the most evil-sided choices. Cere-locking the only info-gathering Townsfolk alive with a Plague Doctor is definitely Outsidery, but not the most fun for either team.

Make sure you're on the same page as your Cerenovus! If someone blatantly breaks cere-madness, executing them deconfirms Legion worlds entirely. Maybe pull the Cere over for an ST consult and ask them if they want to keep selling Legion worlds and spare the execution. When in doubt, pull the trigger and execute — even when Legion is ruled out, that's still a valuable execution the good team has lost!

If you decide to grant the Demon a Boffin-Amne ability, be careful. Definitely lean toward quieter information-gathering abilities (and away from loud abilities that might out non-Legion!). Do avoid quiet droisoining abilities that poison more than 1 player! They're just not fun to solve for or deal with, and it can feel terribly lopsided for the good team due to the nature of the Boffin as an evil character that isn't about to share their cool droisoining Amne ability.

A quick quip to close off - use Vigor-poison to sell Legion worlds to people. Give the vigorpoisoned TC a YES when only two people nominated! Obviously, make sure it helps the evil team (as to not completely out that it's Vigor), but this can be a very potent use of the limited static droisoning on script.

That's it from me! See you soon!

[axolator]

“average number of outsiders per game is 3” factoid actually statistical error. average number of outsiders per game is 1. Hermit Georg, who lives in cave and has all outsider abilities, is an outlier and should not have been counted

[axolator]

Script-A-"Day" #48: Leviaxaan (eggs in a basket approved) by Navean

"meow!" - eggs, probably

Featured characters: Poppy Grower, Xaan, Boffin, Leviathan

Jinxes:

Ogre / Recluse: If the Recluse registers as evil to the Ogre, the Ogre learns that they are evil.

Boffin / Ogre: The Demon cannot have the Ogre ability.

Boffin / Village Idiot: If there is a spare token, the Boffin can give the Demon the Village Idiot ability.

Marionette / Poppy Grower: When the Poppy Grower dies, the Demon learns the Marionette but the Marionette learns nothing.

Marionette / Snitch: The Marionette does not learn 3 not in-play characters. The Demon learns an extra 3 instead.

Marionette / Balloonist: If the Marionette thinks that they are the Balloonist, +1 Outsider might have been added.

Leviathan / King: If the Leviathan is in play, and at least 1 player is dead, the King learns an alive character each night.

Complexity: Advanced-Expert. Recommended for dedicated puzzle-solvers who can figure out the implications of different Xaan nights and Storytellers who can carefuly curate a bag-build and their limited discretion to make the game solvable yet exciting for both teams.

Database link (find the PDF and JSON for running it there!)

Writeup under the cut!

Before I say my piece, a note from Navean, the creator of the script!

Leviaxaan, if you can't tell from the name, is built around the Leviathan and Xaan. I've found trying to balance full sized Leviathan scripts a bit tricky, in the sense that there's a LOT of information to be had with most players living for all 5 days, but drunking/poisoning to counteract that can easily tilt into the too much category. Xaan seemed like a natural fit, something more wide-spread than a Widow, but less devastatingly unsolvable than a Poisoner. The Boffin is another central Minion, meant to play a big role in Poppy Grower games in particular. A lot of the Boffin interactions aren't that useful for evil when there isn't a Poppy Grower game, so think carefully about what to leave out of the bag in order to grant that ability to the Demon should you run Boffin in non-Poppy Grower.

Leviaxaan, at first glance, is what it says on the tin. It's got a Leviathan and it uses the Xaan as its Outsider modification! What's not to like? However, just under the surface, Leviaxaan explores how several of the more experimental Carousel characters interact with the non-killing Leviathan. Characters like the Poppy Grower, Alsaahir, Village Idiot, and High Priestess are much more powerful when they aren't afraid of death, while the Ogre, Puzzlemaster, Mezepheles, and Boffin can be much more destructive. With 4 silent Minions, the Marionette is especially powerful here and the evil team can capitalize on latent paranoia and potentially get several good players playing for evil!

The Poppy Grower is one of the centerpieces of this script, and evil doesn't have the ability to kill them at night. To assuage this, evil has several tools to help find each other — the Snitch can help evil connect by identifying players claiming the bluffs, the Mezepheles can construct their own evil team to find the Demon together, and the Boffin can grant the Demon powerful Townsfolk abilities like that of the High Priestess, Village Idiot, Savant, Seamstress, and Fisherman, which can be used to tie a fractured evil team together. Meanwhile, if the Poppy Grower is not in play, it's typically a free bluff for evil (since they learn their team & know there isn't a sober PG) — which can help distance Minions from their Demon, since a Minion can claim PG without having to ask their Demon for bluffs!

When bagbuilding Leviaxaan, keep a close eye on how evil can disrupt the veracity of the good team's mechanical information. Ongoing information characters can be especially powerful in the context of Leviathan — with several in the bag, consider a Puzzlemaster, Recluse, Mezepheles, and/or Xaan to help make some of it untrustworthy. (For instance, if the good team in a smaller game has several VIs, a Balloonist, and an Alsaahir, maybe favor a Boffin-Puzzlemaster over a Boffin-Nightwatchman, or a Mezepheles over a Marionette!)

This script features two characters that can add extra evil players — the Mezepheles and the Ogre — and no Spirit of Ivory, meaning that if both of them are in the bag, they might both add extra evils. However, given the fact that the Demon doesn't kill, two extra evil votes are less powerful than they would on most other scripts, because the good team doesn't have to spend deadvotes to overpower the evil voting block. When bagbuilding, do keep the interaction in mind — lean toward not putting both in the same bag in smaller games. In games with 11 or more players, though, it's typically kosher to put both in the bag — but do consider the possibility of two extra evils and curate the Townsfolk and other Minion(s) accordingly.

Some notes:

The High Priestess is most interesting when they're incentivized to have conversations with their pings and socially read them: the operative word in the High Priestess's ability text is "talk", and their role is to facilitate useful conversations that would not happen otherwise. A High Priestess should expect to be shown players who benefit from being talked to: who is most important to talk to is somewhat subjective and might change depending on which player pulls the HP token: keep your group in mind, and do what's fun.

In the context of a Leviathan script, who is most important to talk to can be tricky to identify, since nobody dies at night — keep a close eye on what worlds your High Priestess player is pushing, both publicly and privately, and get them to talk to players who can help your High Priestess find the right one, whether that's because they're evil and saying things the HP knows is false with a crumbling bluff or because they're good and need a looping-in or some other reason.

With a near-guaranteed 5 days of info, the Balloonist is a very powerful world-limiter. As a Storyteller, show them hard conflicts on the grim — a Townsfolk followed by a Minion claiming Townsfolk, or an outed (non-Recluse) Outsider followed by the Demon bluffing Lunatic, maybe? And make sure to sow these kinds of hard conflicts between good players if the Balloonist ends up droisoned!

On other scripts, you can typically get away with showing the VI-drunk VI more blatantly false information (even if you really shouldn't), but since all VIs will be living for 5 days, this is harder to justify on a Leviathan script. Make sure all the VIs can reasonably build their info as sober by giving the drunk VI true info more often than you otherwise would, to ensure they can't confidently identify that they're drunk!

The King is an incredibly potent bluff on this script, so give a real King the good stuff if town decides to execute a player to feed them! You've got a lot of good options — if town isn't considering that a specific Minion is in play when it is, maybe show that to the King, and if the King is building a good player as evil, maybe confirm to the King that player's character really is alive and in-play.

Fisherman information in the context of a Leviathan script can be tricky — maybe don't tell them to execute the Demon player, but get them doing something that will help their team. Give the Fisherman a course of action that will help them — get them to spur the Puzzlemaster to guess the Savant to confirm their info as sober, shine light on the Balloonist's pings they haven't outed, or reassure the Snake Charmer that they're not the Marionette, maybe?

Consider the existing balance of the game when determining how long to string a Lunatic along for — the on-script Poppy Grower, Boffin, and Marionette mean that a Lunatic can potentially go the whole game without realizing what team they're on. To that end — if evil is already at an advantage (a high Outsider count, key puzzledrunk, or a general low amount of info), consider making it easier for the Lunatic to figure themselves out and vice versa.

Quick wrinkle in the rules — if a good player gets themeslves executed, then gets turned evil by the Mezepheles, they still count as a good player executed to the Leviathan's loss condition, since they were good at the time.

Consider how you're running the Boffin-VI jinx. Different STs run different rules when it comes to whether or not the jinx impacts the VI's ability to self-drunk. Some STs rule that a solo VI in a game with a Boffin-VI can never be drunk, since the Boffin-VI isn't an "extra": others (like myself) think it's more fun and powerful if a solo VI can be self-drunk if there's a Boffin granting the VI ability. Think about which ruling you prefer, and let your players know how you'll run it.

That's about it from me! This script is a ton of fun and has a lot to it — if your group's ready for it, definitely try it out!

[axolator]

how heretic

Heretic (Outsider): Whoever wins, loses & whoever loses, wins, even if you are dead.

[axolator]

the ultimate equalizer

[axolator]

scriptbuilding pro tip: If you want to make a custom but don't have inspiration, just name it after a level from Baba is You. I have made 4 different scripts this way and I will not stop.

[axolator]

Script-A-"Day" #47: The Life and Death of Socrates by Jan

But couldn't you be drunk or poisoned? Think differently — what does your info *really* mean?

Featured characters: Mathematician, Flowergirl, Lleech

Complexity: Advanced. Recommended for fans of S&V that wanted more information in their information (with a tinge of Marionette paranoia).

Database link (find the PDF and JSON for running it there!)

Writeup under the cut!

If you can't tell from the script image, The Life and Death of Socrates is a pretty old script. More specifically, it's an entry from the 2023 Clocktower World Cup that has been slept on by the entire community after getting knocked out far too soon. Featuring a terrifyingly quiet line of Outsiders and all four poisoning Demons, the evil team has a ton of power. However, the good team has some of the strongest information in the game to work with, featuring S&V heavy-hitters like the Flowergirl, Town Crier, Oracle, Savant, and Philosopher, with gaps filled by experimental characters (and also the Empath).

When bag-building The Life and Death of Socrates, make sure that the good team can parse all of their information and misinformation, to figure out what's good and what's bunk. This means avoiding making the evil team too strong — No Dashii + Baron is almost always too much for all but 15-player games, since it means that 4 Townsfolk abilities are neutralized (2 from Dashii-poison and 2 replaced with Outsiders by the Baron) — and making sure the good team doesn't overwhelm an evil team lacking sufficient misinformation (maybe not all of Empath, Flowergirl, and Savant against a Pukka/Marionette team!). It takes a bit of experience to figure out how to evenly match the good and evil teams, especially with so many powerhouses on both sides, but if you can manage that, it can create quite a fun and engaging game.

A key consideration to make in particular: Snake Charmer and Barber have a pretty bad interaction with the Lleech, since if the Lleech changes places mid-game, they choose a new host — which can potentially be unsolvable if they end up choosing an Outsider or you-start-knowing character like the Noble. Blindly guessing for the host after a swap doesn't tend to be the most fun — avoid these combinations of characters if you can. (Though, you do have to put them together once in a while, so Barbers and Snake Charmers can't meta the Demon type.)

Some notes:

Math script! I would do the bulleted list thing, but it's literally just normal drunkenness and poisoning as the only sources of misinformation. You know how to handle Mathematician with those!

Ooh, but the Drunk and Marionette never ping the Mathematician if they get wrong information, since that's their own ability causing the abnormality.

Okay, I know what I said about Snake Charmer + Lleech above: but consider a Drunk (Snake Charmer) in a Lleech game. That's fun.

Be aware of how you can mess with the Drunk and the Marionette on this script, and make sure your players know what level of tomfoolery you're allowing. The character text of the Drunk and Marionette (the "you think you are X" bit) lets you simulate certain events happening to them when they haven't, rules as written. In particular:

The Drunk can falsely believe they've become the Farmer, since it fulfills their ability of thinking they're a Townsfolk, even if no sober Farmer has died. (Don't do this arbitrarily, though, or you risk revealing the Drunk's identity to them prematurely! And if an evil's bluffing Farmer and wants a teammate to claim the straw-pass, don't get in evil's way by fake-passing to the Drunk because you wanted to do a funny thing.)

The Marionette can falsely recieve a Widow ping, since it fulfills their ability of thinking they're a good player, even if there isn't a Widow in play. (If there is a Widow who didn't self-poison, the Marionette can't get the actual ping, so maybe don't do this then to avoid there being two separate Widow pings.)

Personally, I allow both of these, but let your group know how you intend to run these obscure interactions before the game.

The Politician is a bit of a tricky character to run, and I've talked about it before, like on the Fire Away writeup. In short, though, a Politician should be more responsible than any good player for the good team's loss, and ideally more responsible than any evil player (though this can understandably be tough). Rule of thumb, ask yourself "would evil have won had the Politician player not been in the game?" If not, then they should almost certainly flip evil.

Especially in 1-Minion games, be a little delicate with your Cerenovus executions. If the Cerenovus is confirmed in-play, it deconfirms a Baron, meaning that any evils bluffing Outsider will get smoked out. That being said — do ask your Cerenovii how they want their ability run (and if you are the Cerenovus, tell your Storyteller if you want your madness breaks executed!) It helps to make sure everyone's on the same page.

Lleech-poison is one of the trickiest things to run in Clocktower in general, but especially on this script. In general: Lleech-poison should be locatable, but not blatant. This means, for example, giving a NO or two to the Lleech-hosted Flowergirl on days the Demon votes, so the good team has ways to find the Lleech host instead of flipping a coin after the Lleech gets outed. This means that you shouldn't always help the evil team with the Lleech poison, as paradoxical as it sounds!

That being said, do favor having Lleech-poison produce clear, coherent alternative worlds when you can. Don't just give them nonsense, because that's not fun for literally anyone. Give the Math a number simulating a Pukka-poison on the person who's about to die, instead of an impossible 3 for funsies.

Oh, and addendum: I assume you know how to run Sects and Violets. Please do not run No Dashii poison this way, because evil quite literally loses on the spot if you make the No Dashii poison even slightly obvious. Dashii poison should strictly always help the evil team (meaning sometimes giving sober info to hide where it is!) in a way Lleech poison can't always afford to for the sake of fun.

That's about it from me, I think. This script can be a ton of fun, but has some jank due to it being kinda old. See you next time!

[axolator]

high-info scripts that get balanced by the evil team killing them all in 3 days

(script pictured is Babytalk, earlier version covered in Script-A-Day #35)

[axolator]

Hiii axolator!!! I was wondering; how do you pick script for script-a-day? I’d be cool to understand your selection process.

Hey, Pxlfae, thanks for the ask! If you haven’t already, check out my introduction, Script-A-Day #0 - I go into this over there as well.

So, how do I curate scripts for Script-A-Day?

In general, when I look for scripts for Script-A-Day, here’s roughly what I’m keeping an eye on:

1) Is the script trying to do something interesting or unique in a way I find effective?

Above everything else, this is what I look for when finding scripts to cover. For me, I like covering scripts that have a unique sense of identity or try and do something cool. For example, Trust centers around the veracity and sobriety of a Mayor claim and how that impacts the game around it. China Shop takes the most unbalanced Demons in the game and puts them on the same script and makes it work. Rhetoric [Heroic: Failure] is a Legion script with zero hard Legion solvers! Those are all really cool concepts that get executed on in super fun, unique ways, even if they seem strange or odd at first glance.

As a result, I often cover scripts that might be theoretically dubious or have weird interactions: The Midnight Oasis frequently gets dragged for being janky and people call it bad all the time, but it frequently produces games like no other that are incredibly fun and memorable for everyone involved. I’ll sooner cover a script that has a couple weird interactions with an incredibly strong identity than one that’s theoretically better but super bland.

2) Is the script fun?

I mean, this feels like it goes without saying, but I might as well include it, since it's a very important factor in the scripts I cover. I don’t want to cover unfun scripts. As silly and unique as the Hermit-Drunk-Golem-Yaggabable nomination-stealing torment nexus script might be, it’s likely not one anyone will have fun playing. It’s also closely tied with the next factor:

3) Is the script good?

Whether or not a script is good is obviously somewhat subjective, but I don’t want to cover scripts that really only have 1-2 working bags. Scripts like Revenge of the Martian Vampires can indeed be good fun… but there are, like, 3 setups that aren’t horrendously unbalanced. (This isn't me shading the author, by the way — the intention behind the script was for it to only be played a couple times, according to them!)

If I need to bagbuild around several game-warping bad interactions like several extra evils, pseudo-hatejinxes due to basically-indomitable evil team compositions, keeping things like the Demon type and who the Goblin is solvable and also keep general game balance in mind on top of that, that’s typically not a script I really want to cover or ST (unless it’s so incredibly unique, memorable, and fun that I think it’s worth it - Rochambeau and the aforementioned The Midnight Oasis are pretty good examples of this).

4) How popular/well-known is it? Which mediums of Clocktower is it played in?

This is probably the least important one, but it’s worth considering. I like covering scripts from across the community - stuff from a variety of different groups, like the official app, the Unofficial, and Grim Scenarios (to name a few), but also across different mediums of play, from scripts popular in convention settings and IRL to ones in online live-voice to live-text to forum-style long-text games. (That last one’s where quite a few of my Script-A-Days have been from, like Pearly Gates and Fire Away!)

Conclusion

Just to wrap up — when I cover a script on Script-A-Day, it's because I truly believe it results in interesting, fun, memorable games, whether you're on the good team, evil team, or behind the Grimoire as the Storyteller. Hopefully, this series can serve both as a repository of cool custom scripts but also as a love letter to the community that made them.

That's all from me. See you around!

[axolator]

oh. is that my weekly series that’s gone over a week without an update? is that my half-written set of like 6 new entries because it’s tough to sit down and stick to one thing for a half hour and *analyze*? is that a nearly-finished entry not being released because the creator doesn’t wanna cold DM the script author about a blog they’ve probably never heard of but also has questions and wants their feedback?

heck yeah it is.

my bad, tumblr audience. sorry for being bad at writing. i can’t promise when the next batch will be out but it’s absolutely on its way and in the works

[axolator]

Script-A-"Day" #46: Cannons Rip The Sky by Axolator & Hannah

Hoist the colors, let 'em fly!

Featured characters: Mathematician, Lycanthrope, Tea Lady, Boffin

Fabled characters: Bootlegger

The Bootlegger rules are as follows:

If the Poppy Grower dies while drunk or poisoned, the evil team still learns who each other are.

Mathematician / Lycanthrope: The Mathematician is not affected by the Lycanthrope's Faux Paw (good player that globally registers as evil), so learns about abnormalities due to the misregistration.

Jinxes:

Lunatic / Mathematician: The Mathematician learns if the Lunatic attacks a different player(s) than the real Demon attacked.

NOTE: It’s a little unclear how to run Mathematician when the Lunatic didn’t wake up on a night the Demon did, and vice versa. Some STs (like myself) will ping the Mathematician if the set of Lunatic choices doesn't exactly equal the set of Demon choices, while others only do so if the Lunatic woke and/or just if the Demon's choices didn't include any players the Lunatic chose. Make a decision, and tell your players how you’ll run this jinx before playing.

Boffin / Goon: If the Demon has the Goon's ability, they can't turn good due to this ability.

Complexity: Advanced-Expert (Expert for STs). Recommended for STs who can manage the finer details of their discretion and can keep tabs on mechanically dense gamestates, and for players who can find their teammates in order to coordinate their abilities for maximum effect.

Database link (find the PDF and JSON for running it there!)

Writeup under the cut!

Cannons Rip The Sky is a script Hannah and I wrote for the long-form text medium of Clocktower centering around the Boffin in a BMR-like environment. Featuring staples of BMR like the Sailor, Gossip, and Pacifist in tandem experimental characters like the General, Lycanthrope, and Fisherman, Cannons is home to a truly unique form of death puzzle. At the heart of it all are the Mathematician, Poppy Grower and Boffin: the Poppy Grower provides a dimension of evil disruption that can seriously mess with evil, given that BMR as a base script is all about evil collaborate to sell various worlds and bluffs together (think the D/A helping their teammates bluff execution survival characters), the Boffin helps evil coordinate despite that and helps them bluff power roles like Professor, Lycanthrope, and Gossip, and the Mathematician keeps tabs on everything to piece together confirmation chains like a conspiracist with red yarn on a corkboard.

When bagbuilding Cannons Rip The Sky, first consider how the evil characters synergize with each other (and how that might get tampered with by a Poppy Grower). For instance, Vigormortii like having Boffins and especially Devil's Advocates to immortalize and the Pukka appreciates a Godfather or Assassin to patch up its lower-than-average kill rate.

All of these Demons (yes, even the Vigormortis) get screwed with by the Poppy Grower pretty hard, but the Ojo tends to struggle less (since it can single out the PG early) and the Pukka tends to struggle more (since it doesn't have a way to mitigate them accidentally nightkiling their Minions).

Once you have a potential evil team in place (including the planned Boffin ability), start thinking about how the good team will fight it. A Lycanthrope taking kill control away from evil can be a massive boon for good (just make sure evil has some way to deal with the Lycan besides "wait for the Lycan to hit an evil or protected player"), as can a Mathematician who can confirm players like the Sailor, Lycanthrope, or Innkeeper or a Pacifist who can protect town against making the wrong executions. The Professor tends to be the most powerful of these: them reviving a pivotal Townsfolk (especially one of the aforementioned ones) can single-handedly and decisively turn the tides.

As with all BMR-likes, balance the number of game-accelerators and game-slowers: if an evil team has a Shabaloth and Assassin, give the good team some protection and maybe a Professor; if they have a Pukka and Devil's Advocate then a Gossip and/or Gambler is probably warranted.

Some notes:

Honestly, my brain isn't big enough to track all the moving parts, so my recommendation is to run a 3-star General here (with only ratings of good, neutral, and evil). That being said, do what you're comfortable with — if you can track everything to give an accurate read on a different scale (a 5-star general with "slightly good/evil" ratings is common), then absolutely do that.

It's Mathematician hell! I actually have a whole document to track the Math on this script, but I'll give you the SparkNotes: remember a math "ping" is +1 to their number.

In general — assume that if something malfunctions to external droison (i.e. drunkenness/poisoning not caused by their own ability), it pings the Math. Same if something malfunctions to another character ability in general (e.g. killing abilities being stopped by protection). I just don't want to repeat that the whole time.

Sailor - pings if it dies to the Assassin or if it fails to make someone drunk (the reminder doesn't go down).

Mathematician - never tracks its own ability failing.

Innkeeper - pings if it fails to make someone drunk (the reminder doesn't go down) OR a pick dies.

Lycanthrope - extremely fringe case: if the Faux Paw registers as good to something like the Tea Lady or Pacifist due to the Lycan being droisoned, that pings the Math. Will it ever happen? Fuck no. But the more you know, right?

Pacifist - Some STs differ on whether the Pacifist failing to save a good executee due to external droison pings the Math. Given that it’s entirely ST discretion, I personally rule that the Pacifist failing to save never pings the Math, because a "might" ability being able to ping the Math is really stupid, but both rulings are common; let your players know beforehand.

Poppy Grower - the Bootlegger means it never pings the Math.

Tinker - see above, but way stupider. I rule the same way, though.

Goon - if they flip evil due to the Faux Paw choosing them, it pings.

D/A - pings iff their choice dies to execution. (The reminder token not going down doesn't ping in & of itself, because "safe from execution" isn't a state the way being drunk/poisoned is.)

Assassin - If the Assassin kills the Goon and flips it evil, neither ability has malfunctioned. If the Assassin pierces protection, the protective ability pings the Math.

Shabaloth - with the regurgitation, see Pacifist/Tinker.

Ooh, and bonus: things that can ping the Math due to the Faux Paw throwing a wrench into things: Gossip, Tea Lady, Moonchild, Goon, and possibly Pacifist if you run it that way. (Please don't run it that way.)

I've talked about this interaction before, but refresher on the Pukka-Lycan interaction: if the Lycanthrope kills a player, then the Pukka poisons the Lycanthrope, the previously poisoned player dies and the Lycanthrope pings the math (since it wasn't able to protect a player from the Demon), effectively resulting in a doublekill.

Remember that the Faux Paw must misregister to the Gossip. Maybe sure your Gossips carefully word their statements to get around it!

The Pacifist saving someone once or twice a game is about right. Don't use it like an Outsider and fake-confirm Tea Ladies and their neighbors or save droisoned Sailors — save powerful Townsfolk with it in a way where the Pacifist can trace the save to either themselves or the D/A!

Like on BFFs and Poppyganda, you can simulate (or not simulate) a Poppy Grower to a Lunatic regardless of whether or not one actually exists in-game. Consider whether or not this is a good idea balancing-wise before doing so.

We've had Math hell, now it's Boffin hell time! You might recognize some of this from the Even Madder Science writeup.

Sailor - I trust that you know how to run the Sailor (generally drunk Townsfolk and self-drunk on non-Townsfolk, get harsher as the Sailor proves themselves). However, Boffin-Sailor is a whole different can of worms — to prevent the Demon from becoming an immortal Poisoner, I’d recommend making the Demon’s Sailor ability sober maybe once or twice a game, and definitely not in the late-game. Just one or two clutch, untraceable poisons can seal a game for an evil team.

Innkeeper - The upside of the Innkeeper ability is that it can protect two players from dying at all each night* (like a Gambler who's about to gamble an evil, or a suspicious good player about to be attacked by a Lycanthrope). With that in mind, the drunkenness should be on the player that evil benefits least from being drunk (though use your discretion to do what's fun and fair first).

Killing abilities with Lycanthrope — I rule that something like a Boffin-Gossip kill is ultimately coming from the Boffin (a Minion) so doesn't get blocked by a Lycanthrope successfulyl killing someone.

Goon - If the Demon chooses the Goon with their Boffin ability, as per Jams, the Boffin becomes Goon-drunk and the Goon becomes the Boffin’s alignment.

(by the way, huuuge shoutout to sh99er on Discord for helping me puzzle through some of these more complicated Mathematician and Boffin interactions. he's the best.)

Usually, about one Shabaloth-rez per game is about right, but keep how much the Shab has actually killed in mind. If the Lycanthrope has been hitting every single night or the Innkeeper has been routinely foiling the Shab, you might want to not resurrect a player with the Shabaloth ability at all. On the other side of the coin, if multiple explosive, multideath nights have happened and one resurrection wasn't enough, you might want to resurrect two players with the Shab ability.

I've talked about the Ojo on this very script before in my Ojo writeup! To give the tl;dr — if the Ojo intentionally misses to try and doublekill (or kill a specific player whose character eludes them), I'd almost always give it to them the first time, and sometimes on future misses depending on the gamestate. Don't use the Ojo's own ability to punish their team. That's just not fun.

That's about all from me! This script is fun, but a lot to handle — run at your own peril!

[axolator]

Script-A-"Day" #45: Best Friends Forever by bhamber

"Oh no, it's a Poppygrower game!" said the Demon.

"hello" said the Ogre.

Featured characters: Poppy Grower, Ogre, Boffin, Legion

Fabled characters: Bootlegger

If the Poppy Grower dies while drunk or poisoned, the evil team learns each other anyway.

Jinxes:

Cannibal / Juggler: If the Juggler guesses on their first day and dies by execution, tonight the living Cannibal learns how many guesses the Juggler got correct.

They can then juggle that day, and if they keep the Juggler ability that night (i.e. town doesn’t kill anyone by execution that day), they learn a second number.

Cannibal / Poppy Grower: If the Cannibal eats the Poppy Grower, then dies or loses the Poppy Grower ability, the Demon and Minions learn each other that night.

Ogre / Recluse: If the Recluse registers as evil to the Ogre, the Ogre learns that they are evil.

Marionette / Poppy Grower: When the Poppy Grower dies, the Demon learns the Marionette but the Marionette learns nothing.

Marionette / Snitch: The Marionette does not learn 3 not in-play characters. The Demon learns an extra 3 instead.

Boffin / Ogre: The Demon cannot have the Ogre ability.

Boffin / Village Idiot: If there is a spare token, the Boffin can give the Demon the Village Idiot ability.

Complexity: Expert. Recommended for players willing to trust-fall onto each other, both as good and as evil, and for those wanting to bluff big to backstab their "best friends" they forged trust with for five days as they bring it all down.

Database link (find the PDF and JSON for running it there!)

Writeup under the cut!

Before I say my bit, a word from bhamber, the creator of the script!

Despite looking like an Ogre script, Best Friends Forever has certainly evolved into a Boffin script that uses the Poppy Grower as a quiet and fun way to present its simple but arguably powerful ability. With a mixture of confirmation, meta, and mechanical roles, it subtly provides misinformation into the good team through social plays and power. Each day and night is about making a choice in the moment and reading what others are doing, with no death protection as you might find on other scripts, there's just what's happening now.

From Axolator's notes, I love highlighting that the Boffin can be used to give the Demon tools to find their evil team in Poppy Grower, not just cool fish advice. With only Xaan and No Dashii as direct sources of misinformation, you can trust that your cool boff ability isn’t getting messed with because why would it get messed with by evil droison that’d make no sense. And speaking of Boffin, remember Demons with cool Boffin abilities like Fisherman and Savant can receive meta-info a normal Savant wouldn't learn and definitely shouldn't be telling town! Finally, I fully support the Boffin-VI jinx being able to make a Solo-VI completely drunk as to give another reason to use that jinx.

Best Friends Forever is an expert script in every sense of the word. Between powerful world-limiters like the Dreamer and Savant, a high amount of confirmation between the Pixie, VI, Dreamer, Fisherman, Nightwatchman, and Ravenkeeper (and confirmation mimicry between the Boffin and the lurking possibility of Legion), the hidden Ogre and Lunatic scuffing the Outsider count (and potential Xaan number), and the Poppy Grower, it is truly a puzzle for both the good and evil teams. If the good team can build trust, they can corner the fake confirmation chains the evil team tries to build. However, without a strong trust circle (or one that involves too many evil players), the game may be over unexpectedly.

When bagbuilding BFFs, give good the tools to figure out what they're dealing with. Between Goblin and Legion, a large part of good's win condition will be figuring out the composition of the evil team and adapting. Make sure to put a couple of Goblin-solvers (Dreamer, Savant, Fisherman, Juggler, and Ravenkeeper) in the bag (and keep one or two as a bluff for evil!) to give good the tools to fight...well, the Goblin: a good team without anything to go on can sometimes just lose to the evil team all claiming Goblin and forcing the good team to gamble.

Meanwhile, when deciding the evil team, be mindful of how much disruption and droison they have access to — and don't stack it too hard against good. No Dashii + Xaan in particular can be a devastating combination, especially at low–medium player counts. If it's a Poppy Grower game, consider ways for evil to combat it— making it a Legion game dodges the potential D1 rerack, but the Boffin and Ogre can also help (especially if the Boffin grants an information-gathering ability like the VI, Savant, Fisherman, or Juggler.

Some notes:

Both 3-star General (the rules-as-written thumb up/thumb neutral/thumb down) and 5-star General (introducing thumb slightly up/down to indicate good/evil slightly winning) work very well here. Do what you're more comfortable with running as an ST.

If you want to freak out a drunk VI, you can fake Legion to them by showing them mostly evils when choosing players. Be careful, though, because if evil isn't feeding the paranoia, they can pretty easily solve themselves as drunk (and the other VI(s) as sober), which is incredibly powerful.

Especially on this script, give the Savant or Fisherman guidance on how they should be winning the game — for the Savant, this might be through narrowing down Goblin candidates or framing specific Legion worlds. For the Fisherman, give them a course of action that can help them identify what kind of game it is or tell them what they should be doing to win. And if the Savant or Fish is drunk, poisoned, or the Marionette — screw with them and lead them to their doom!

Ooh, and one thing: the Poppy Grower, Marionette, and Legion on this script can all make for really creative advice to give to a Fisherman. If there's a script to tell the Fisherman to pretend to be evil on, it's this one!

The Nightwatchman has a very interesting play pattern here. Beteween the No Dashii, Marionette, and Xaan, they might not want to immediately approach someone they sent a ping to, in case they're the Marionette (in which case they might lose the game by outing a failed ping)! However, with No Dashii and Xaan on the script, a failed Nightwatchman ping can be incredibly illuminating by highlighting where the droison is — or where it isn't, if it succeeds! (If a NWM ping goes through successfully, it means that night wasn't a Xaan night, save for the NWM ping actually being from a Boffin ability.)

That being said — be a little careful putting Nightwatchman and No Dashii in the same bag. These Minions are quiet enough to where they can get fake-Marionetted and silenced relatively easily, but sometimes the ND's own poison can work against it in cases like these, which doesn't feel great.

You can fake a Poppy Grower to a Lunatic, even if there isn't one in-play. This can help fool the Lunatic for longer, potentially making it much more Outsidery, since they'll likely only realize their true character much later on in the game, hampering things like a solve for the Xaan number.

However, consider the balance of the bag when doing this and don't always simulate Poppy Grower to the Lunatic: if evil is already at an advantage or the Outsider count is already obscured somewhat with a Xaan, consider letting the Lunatic be a bit more face-up and give them a fake evil team.

Some STs rule that the Recluse can misregister as the Demon for the purposes of placing a Marionette (such that the Marionette neighbors the Recluse and not the Demon). However, consider whether or not that actually helps the evil team before doing it, even if a more powerful character is disabled this way: part of Marionette being on-script is knowing that not voting on your neighbors means you never vote out your own Demon accidentally, and ruling Recluse/Mario that way means it becomes more likely for a Marionette, Reclused or not, to accidentally lose for their own team. Use your best judgement and make sure your group knows whether you'd misregister the Recluse like this or not.

Consider avoiding putting the Xaan in No Dashii games (especially at lower player counts) but some of these Outsiders are more public than others. Consider a mix of them when trying to obscure the Xaan number when you bagbuild.

Remember that even if the Boffin grants the Demon a Townsfolk ability, that ability is unaffected by Xaan poison, since the Boffin is a Minion and not a Townsfolk.

Boffin on its own can be interesting in being able to perfectly bluff abilities like Dreamer, Nightwatchman, Juggler and Cannibal, but don't look down on the Boffin granting an info-gathering ability in a PG game, to help the Demon find their team! Village Idiot is the big one, but Savant, Fisherman, and even Mayor can help (a Demon can target themselves and trust the ST not to bounce it to an evil player)!

Consider how you're running the Boffin-VI jinx. Different STs run different rules when it comes to whether or not the jinx impacts the VI's ability to self-drunk. Some STs rule that a solo VI in a game with a Boffin-VI can never be drunk, since the Boffin-VI isn't an "extra": others (like myself) think it's more fun and powerful if a solo VI can be self-drunk if there's a Boffin granting the VI ability as well. Think about which ruling you prefer, and let your players know how you'll run it.

I've talked about Ojo before, and it has its own post on my blog. I would advise against multikilling on an Ojo miss — that just entirely eliminates ND and Imp worlds completely — but like my usual guidance, if the Ojo needs to kill a trusted player, doesn't know their character, and intentionally misses, strongly consider giving them the kill they want (especially if evil is behind).

That's about it for me! This script can be pretty scary to play and ST, but done well it's a ton of fun. See you soon!

[axolator]

bodying the vigormortis