Three years after the initial Kickstarter run, Blood on the Clocktower (designed by Steven Medway) has consistantly been compared to Werewolf and Mafia. Yes, it does share the bare bones of the genre: a night phase where the evil team kills and a day phase where everyone talks and votes to execute someone. But then it puts in other rules and mechanics that “fix” the issues people have with games like Werewolf: No player elimination, no character reveals, everyone has a special role yadda, yadda, yadda.
Consequently, what all those things do is not just superficially fix problem areas, they also create a wholly new dynamic.
For that reason, Blood on the Clocktower is not just a Social Reading game (“Are You Evil?!?!?”). It is a logic puzzle with living clues baked into the misinformation. Sprinkled through the game are pieces of intel and hints alongside schemes and plans, creating a cacophony of dueling dichotomies and dastardly deeds.
It is a puzzle to be solved by talking to your neighbors, gathering actual tangible bits of information, and deducing who is trustworthy and who to execute.
Blood on the Clocktower is not an improved Werewolf. It’s an improved Clue.
The Bell Tolls for Thee
One of my worst gaming memories was early in my playing career. It was at a public meet-up and seven of us were playing The Resistance: Avalon.
I was up against a wall in two ways. One, it was a public meetup where I did not know the people very well. In a game based on guessing who is telling the truth and who is telling lies, being a new person puts you at a disadvantage.
And while it’s not a particularly hard game, Avalon has a little bit of a learning curve if you are not used to it. Desperate to find footing in a very dark game (I was a goodie so, of course, I had absolutely no information) a person sitting across from me seemed to be trustworthy. With a quick nod of my head, I mentally aligned myself with him and ran with it.
When he talked, I listened.
When he voted, I raised my thumb.
We were linked. Nothing would tear us apart.
Certainly, there was no reason to trust him. I just did.
We got down to the last round It was make or break time. Whichever team won this turn would win the whole game. And my guy, my dude, was on the quest and was confident about his team.
Godspeed, my liege!
Slowly, the cards were revealed. My heart beat faster as one by one, they were turned over.
One by one, 3 out of the 4 were marked failed.
The bad team had won.
Handily.
When I asked my guy if he was the one “success” that had gone through, he flipped over his character card revealing that not only was he on the evil team, he was the Assassin.
I had been played like a fiddle.
I was crushed.
Safety in Chaos
I have grown in my experience since then, and I really enjoy Avalon. But it has always stuck with me with how, beyond the fact that I put way too much trust into one person, it wasn’t really my fault.
Social Deduction games thrive on creating chaos with very little information. It’s deemed as a feature, not a bug, to keep the good team in the dark. It’s fun to keep them guessing while the bad team wrecks havoc with lies and misinformation.
It puts almost all of the power in the evil team’s hands and the good guys have to whack around blindly, looking and over analyzing any whiff of a hint of a mistake.
But that isn’t the real world, is it? Good people know things. Good people do things.
Just because they are on the good team doesn’t mean they are naive!
So Blood on the Clocktower reflects that. Everyone gets a power that either does something to someone else or gives information on a couple of people. It’s just up to the players to decide which is correct.
To some this will create the criticisms of the game that it is a mess. That with the ability of the Storyteller (the unreliable narrator of the game) to give false information, it makes the game too chaotic, too random to be of any use to anyone.
But, and this is really crucial, the ability of the Storyteller to give false information is only within the structure of the game.
It’s far too easy to say “I may be drunk or poisoned, therefore, my information might be false.”
While this is true, what people tend to forget is that if one person is Drunk, no one else can be. Or, if there are two people claiming to be Outsiders in a game where there can only be two, then no one else can be the Drunk.
So, of course, those who wish to do so can hide behind false information.
Blood on the Clocktower is not an improved Werewolf.
It’s an improved Clue.
The Social Network
This makes every piece of information a 50/50 proposition.
Is David the Demon, causing all the evil pings to go off? Or is it because he is the Recluse a character on the good team, as he claims, which also does the same thing?
Do we trust Stacey who claims Mayor and not execute anyone on the last day, a decision that makes the good team instantly win? Or do we execute her, not trusting such a shifty proposition in a high stakes moment?
Who do you believe?
What choice will you make?
Who will you vote to die?
Basically, what this “this or that” conundrum creates is a need. A need to find a bit of corroborative evidence, something, anything to back up what you know or what you say. It’s not enough to just have your one bit of information and sit back and solve it from there. This is a game where you really need to get out of your seat. A game that requires you to reach out and talk to your neighbors, to see if they are trustworthy.
What do they know?
Can they help you?
Does what they say back up what someone else claims?
Should we compare information?
Blood on the Clocktower puts the social back in social deduction.
Why is He Talking About Taco Salad
Before this seems more like an advert for Blood on the Clocktower rather than a review, I’ll go through the caveats.
Firstly, the game requires large groups, with 8 to 13 being the sweet spot.
Secondly, the game is expensive. The retail price on The Pandemonium Institute website has it listed at $149.
Those two things alone may make some people pause.
Most importantly, depending on where your values lie, this is a game that involves lying.
There is no way around that. In a game of 8 people, you have a 25% chance of drawing an evil token. A 25% chance that your very win condition rests on not being discovered and sowing chaos. This will rub some people the wrong way.
And that’s fine. Everyone has their particular tastes. I myself don’t like olives. I find the briny vinegar taste overpowering. But when mixed in with other ingredients where it becomes part of the flavor, and not just THE flavor in like, say, a taco salad, well now we’re talking.
The point is that for the few that normally don’t like social deduction games, they might be willing to give Blood on the Clocktower a try to see what all the fuss is about. That’s because with its slight tweak to the mechanics, Blood on the Clocktower takes the genre from one of false accusations and potential bullying, to that of tentative cooperation and puzzle solving.
You no longer have to blindly trust someone only to have them crush your soul.
Now, if they want to crush it, they have to work for it.
Giving you a better chance to feel it, and avoid being played like a fiddle.
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2 comments
Nice job, Jeff!
Thank you Gabe! I appreciate the support.