Shuffling in the Night - A Bevi of Believable Bounties

We checked out one of the finalists of the No Rolls Barred script contest.
Storyteller for this game: Ben Burns (Pappy Bennington).
Check out the full script here: i.imgur.com/5P...
Join us for the streams over at / thepandemoniuminstitute
Find out more at bloodonthecloc...
Intro visuals created by Jon from Luke & Dad Productions / @vfx_jon
Intro music - Private Reflection Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
creativecommons...
Other music by Karl Casey ‪@WhiteBatAudio‬

[@miadrawz1135]

I like how half the townsfolk day 1 where trying to bluff/claim amnesiac

[@kyleb8117]

I love this script. It's so chaotic. It also kinda reminds me of a One Night Ultimate Werewolf setup idea "Wolfapalooza" where it's insanely likely there's a wolf majority. It seems like a bad idea at first, but when you actually play it, you realize it ends up being a lot of paranoia (in the case of the ONUW setup, it's because of role-swapping potential) and potentially false claims of a majority or, conversely, an actual majority but the team doesn't actually coordinate. This game itself was also so crazy. Around an hour in, I thought "Okay, this is the game end. Wait...it doesn't feel like it's been 2 hours already...time sure flies." and then I found out why. Haha.

[@sebastianbaquero7227]

By the 1 hour mark I was wondering how in the actual f... does this go 1 hour and a half more. Oh boy, I was in for probably the craziest game (not including Atheist) I've ever seen

[@noluck5721]

Love nothing more than patters faking ST consult for multiple bluffed roles he has probably hard-claimed first conversation to various people

[@aquietdarkness]

Nooo people didn't believe gambling 3 nights on a row , and also surprised Aggie didn't vote on their last chance to win but understandable I guess given the lil monsta stretch being sewn

[@RedMinion5051]

This was possibly the best game I'd seen yet. And I've been on a bender of this content.

[@SharienGaming]

this game reminds me that i dont think ive ever seen a game in which the bountyhunter wasnt a massive detriment to the town... they are basically an outsider given that their harm to town (1 extra evil) is guaranteed and if they get bad info at any point they will do further damage to town...

[@EdsonR13]

I actually dont accept Patters politician win, Patters could have been the tie breaking vote 3 times in a row for a Goblin win and after Patters didnt use his vote the evil team had a clear path of victory without him. Patters was not the most important part of evils victory they won despite him

[@brianzucaro6538]

That's not how Politician works, they don't need to be the best person compared to the evil team, they need to be the worst person compared to the good team. Politician's power is if they're the most responsible for THEIR TEAM losing, then they change alignment and win. All that matters is if Patters was most responsible for his team losing, and because it was his choices that determined who won or lost, and his chose to throw at critical moments, he is responsible for his team losing. If you disagree with Patter's win, you need to state which other good player was MORE responsible than him, but no such player exists. Also, you state "Patters was not the most important part of evils victory they won despite him", this is false, Patters could have won the game for good at any point during the endgame by just voting on Gambling. Patter's obligation isn't to make evil win ASAP, but to be responsible for evil's victory.

[@EdsonR13]

@@brianzucaro6538 the role itself is very much up to Storyteller interpretation. I gave my opinion but truthfully it doesn't matter, the Storyteller gave him the win. I think you make a good point about his obligation not being to evil and if I rewatch this game I might keep that in mind while considering who's fault it was that good lost (which makes the role sound worse because now you need to assign blame rather than name an mvp). Honestly I don't like the polititian role at all, I don't like watching it, I don't like the prospect of playing with it, I never want to play as one, I would never put it in the bag if I end up being a Storyteller, and I don't put it into my built scripts. Sorry if I got a bit ranty at the end there

[@altrivotzck6565]

@@EdsonR13 You know, the Politician could still be a fine outsider role for possible scripts/games, even with you personally disliking it. If you personally don't like a character in BoTC, you can make sure it isn't in play by not playing games with it on the script. I'm sure that in most games besides impromptu convention games, your storyteller wouldn't decide to play using a script that his players actively disliked, so, unless there are other people in your play group who specifically love playing with the Politician, the storyteller most likely wouldn't even make you play with one. I personally don't know whether Politician is a well-designed role. My intuition says that it's a perfectly fine outsider, but it also depends on how the Politician actually works. I would prefer it if the Politician only had to be the good player most responsible for evil winning, because it wouldn't really make much sense for a Politician to ever win (in most cases) if they also had to be more responsible for evil winning than evil.

[@nameless6676]

​​@@brianzucaro6538 ​I think Patters deserved the win but it could be argued that Aggie was the most responsible for good team losing, since she refused to vote for Gambling after Patters decided not to vote (probably because Aggie thought Patters would've voted for Edd).

[@newman6786]

@@nameless6676 well in that retrospect Patters is still the worst because he influenced Aggie not to vote.

[@ZeroFate643]

I enjoyed the Politician role - it's quite fitting for an outsider, who are generally there to balance out the script.

[@ErekLich]

Wow, what a train wreck! Fun to watch! Note to self, never play this script...

[@Baalslegion07]

I enjoyed this! What I didn't like was the politician win, but apart from that I'm absolutely amazed by this script! I love these paranoia inducing scripts and this one definitly makes you paranoid. I think that Patters didn't do enough for the evil team in this game to count it as "loosing the game for your own team". He didn't cause good to loose, he simply didn't help them. Yes, he coukd have won the game for them a couple of times, but he didn't. That said though, matters like these are just so much up to interpretation and playstyle that there simply isn't a correct way to do it.

[@QuibbleTrouble]

Normally a vote isn't enough to flip a politician, but in this case Patters was literally the deciding vote, he had full control of the good team losing at the end and that's a quintessential politician win.

[@francisxavier8374]

super sad that the amne ability ended up doing nothing

[@davidbigby7685]

When people over talk you with a fake "oh we losing townsfolk" with a cannibal in play they just out evil

[@Friedensbringer]

While it was entertaining for the first hour and a half, the end dragged on far too long and was just not fun. I really don't see how patters was more responsible for his team losing than Aggie, who also didn't vote when it would have been necessary. If he had placed his vote in a crucial spot, I could see a poli switch, but in this game? He didn't do anything, how can he be most responsible for good losing? Still its good to see this side of the game as an opportunity to learn and be careful about situations

[@dinmorerstor1]

Why wasn't Nicky first in the night order?

[@BloodontheClocktower]

The Amnesiac's ability is invented, wholesale, by the Storyteller. This includes where in the night order they go. An experienced ST can normally tell where such an ability should go, owing to how similar it is to other abilities. For example, protectors normally go very early (or at least before the Demon kills), whereas info roles generally go after the Demon. - Ben

[@alexbarber1566]

what are the red and blue numbers l/r of tokens..?

[@BloodontheClocktower]

The order in which you wake those characters up at night. The left is the first night, the right is every other night. - Ben

[@natew13]

This is good content.

[@NikeKolder]

Thank you for a fun game. Would've been beautiful if ended at the moment when Edd forgot to say something before the voting ;)

[@raing9737]

heres a fun and simple evil amne ability: each night choose a player. if they are evil, they learn all players who are on the evil team.

[@Baalslegion07]

Thats nice, but not good enough. I mean, what are you going to do if you know your evil team mates except coordinating a the spreading of misinformation a bit better? I'd say add a bit of poisoning or drunkeness on top of it and then its fine. Maybe an evil information role? Like, you learn the ability of the person you name, that way you can guess what character they are, but need to look it up but you dont knlw the other evil players.

[@LifeUntilLove]

This really went from a fun game of pure chaos to just a really unpleasant experience at the end. I think the politican is just a terrible role that just always plays for evil and gets given the win. They should just change the the role to a traveler or just an official extra evil.

[@altrivotzck6565]

​@@falsnamae3511 if "evil played well on their own" was a factor in whether a politician got an evil win, I'm pretty sure they'd never get an evil win at all (since the evil team would almost always be more responsible for evil winning), so, without looking at the almanac/rulings/rulebook, I'm pretty sure I can safely guess that that isn't factored into the politician's ability. If that assumption is true, then that means that the politician only has to be the most responsible person on the good team for evil winning, which, in at least this game, I'm pretty sure very few people would say was anyone other than Patters. as my argument: Every other good player tried to win the game for good, including the drunk and leech host, and Patters specifically decided to not let good win with his vote, meaning that, while his vote "was only as strong as as any other good player's vote", him deciding not to use it guaranteed that the good team lost, making him the player most responsible for good losing. If he had voted, and good still somehow lost, then he wouldn't have won with evil. Whether or not other storytellers running games with politicians in them *are* too lenient with the politician is completely separate from this game, as far as I'm concerned, since the politician was run perfectly fine in this game. If you still think that an outsider helping the evil team win is bad design for an outsider, you may be right. I think it's fine, since the politican can still use their outsider position to win with the good team, and their ambiguity over which team they want to/are able to win with means they're fulfilling their role as an outsider (dragging down the good team) In games like this one, where the Politician somehow managed to claim their spot as the deciding factor for either team, then it's just up to them to choose which team they win with, and you can feel free to think that that's a bad thing, but, remember: that's not the only kind of game a Politician can be in. They can be in a game where they aren't sure which team is going to win without their help, and they therefore aren't sure who to try to help.

[@altrivotzck6565]

If that first assumption I made was false, then, Patters only won with the evil team *because* he managed to claim his spot as the deciding factor in whichever team won, (even though the evil team did a decent job at getting the evil win?), so he could choose which team to win with. This would make the Politician quite different from how I thought it worked, and I'm not quite sure whether I would like the role in that case or not? (It would be a role that was only an outsider without a townsfolk ability, who knew they were an outsider, and can decide who wins with them if they're able to land themselves the spot as the player most responsible out of every other player for evil winning/losing.)

[@AlexH274]

This is a great game, but the script has too many roles that can become, or will play to help evil.

[@Mangaleech]

I couldn't agree more. I was very surprised to have been a finalist, but it was pretty amazing to see this one get played. I've been tinkering on it. Just got to figure out which switch to evil characters to leave in, because I still want that for what I want this script to do.

[@q-tuber7034]

Nothing wrong with lots of “can switch to evil” characters! If it’s unbalanced, just make the other Town roles more powerful.

[@johanmilde]

The key is perhaps for the ST to limit the number of those roles that are actually in the game - they should create enough paranoia for town just by being on the script in the first place.

[@Mangaleech]

@@johanmilde That was the reason I put them on there. I wanted significant paranoia. Same reason I put Lleech, Pacifist, and DA. I love seeing games with a lot of uncertainty and I can definitely say this script did that. :-)

[@TheGamblingisgood]

@@Mangaleech heya. Despite my whinging at the end of this game I honestly had a blast on this script and would love to see it played again/ play it again. I find that an interesting side effect of multiple roles that ‘can become/ play for evil’ is they can end up in competition with each other, which can be utterly hilarious. Great script.

[@ab-mc2nq]

2:18:08 omg i screamed. Patters is such a troll

[@acemind1]

5 evil players and 2 good players who have broken abilities. 1 of the good players (Pacifist) had an ability that helped evil, 2 of the evil players could not be killed by nomination. A game so blatant that the evil team can out themselves entirely and still win. And yet the ST spent the entire game helping evil. The ST role is supposed to be there to balance the game, not to giggle at the chaos while no good players are having fun. Also, Kohav MVP! You had every right to be miffed at the end, you played perfectly even when surrounded by difficult reads.

[@Ellie-rx3jt]

A pacifist save might ironically have helped good, by putting lleech into people's minds. I don't think it was as imbalanced as it might seem though. Gambling had the solve when there were still six people alive, the good team just screwed up.

[@rasmusforchhammer9557]

Ups all amnesiacs

[@EdsonR13]

Still not finished the video but I want to say that the only issue I have with Nickys Insomnia ability is that its a nerfed version of the Pit Hags ability and Ben has said that Insomnia abilities should be *stronger* than base abilities since the Insomnia has to work for them

[@Ruminations09]

Nicky is effectively a Pit Hag that adds an extra Minion to the game. Honesty, Nicky was too powerful here, if anything

[@Ellie-rx3jt]

Nah, he's a pit hag (which is one of, if not the strongest minions in the game, imo) who doesn't have to worry about roles already being in play. He could have turned the whole town into one role.

[@EdsonR13]

@Ellie you make a valid point. My initial reason for saying it's a nerfed version is because they couldn't add Minion abilities, they couldn't change Demons, and they couldn't make Outsiders. I still stand by my original take, although not being limited to not in play abilities is helpful. It's a shame it didn't really do much in practice.

[@lecommentar9851]

This game is very painful to watch. Edit: One of the worst evil games I've watched from your channel until now. Some of these choices were so questionable it's bad. Patters also absolutely did NOT deserve a Politician victory.

[@Bikes4beers]

Evil team was really annoying this game. I agree with chat, this game left a sour taste in my mouth and idt patters deserved to win with evil

[@meathir4921]

He literally prevented good from winning

[@TheLastSane1]

He did just fine. Navaen and him talked out in town what the play was going to be the next day. In that next day scenario his VOTE would be the defining vote that gave evil the win. Good and Evil would have stalled and so it would have gone to next day. Sure evil was eventually going to win but Patters is why it ended THAT time.

[@buckcherry2564]

Kohav! For the love of Patters....turn your mic down or reduce the high-range it picks up.

[@lordhawkeye]

As entertaining as this game is I have an issue with the players chatting with each other on discord chat when Ben is dealing with the night time roles. They shouldn't be talking at all.

[@KeenX72]

I think it's akin to players chatting at night in a real game, where everyone's just sat in the same room in a circle with their eyes closed for 5 minutes. It'd be a bit cruel to demand silence in that instance. The chat also seems to be more banter than strategising.

[@lyndongreer6426]

I believe the players speaking at night also covers for the ST's movements.

[@AlexH274]

irl u can talk at night

[@alejoblack368]

rule 1 of blood on the clocktower: you can say anything, to anyone, in any manner (so long as it doesn't contravene rule 4, be nice, or a more specific ability like the hell's librarian)

[@bennburns]

I'm guessing you come from a Werewolf/Mafia/Town of Salem background? The fact that you can talk all the time, coupled with the fact that there's no elimination, usually seems pretty wild to people who've come from more restrictive social deduction games. But it really does make the whole thing a lot more fun when you're free to socialise and enjoy the company of the people you're playing with, all of the time!