Blood on the Clocktower is a social deduction game that shares the same basic concept and structure as Werewolf. However, it represents a significant improvement, offering a more complex and strategic version of the classic genre. In traditional Werewolf, players often lack a solid foundation for discussion or deduction, relying mostly on observing facial expressions and reactions. In contrast, Blood on the Clocktower gives every town resident a unique ability, and as a team, the townsfolk possess a wealth of information to analyze. This provides players with concrete data to base their discussions on.
The game is divided into two opposing teams. The bad guys consist of the demon and their minion, who must keep their identities secret. Their goal is to eliminate most of the townsfolk. If the demon can survive until only two players remain, the demon team wins, even if the minion is killed. The good guys are the townsfolk, and their objective is to identify and kill the demon. To achieve this, they must work together to deduce who the demon is. Game rounds alternate between day and night phases. During night rounds, the demon secretly kills a town resident. During day rounds, the townsfolk vote to lynch a person suspected of being the demon. This game requires a facilitator who does not participate in the game itself. Being a facilitator in this game is much more complex than in Werewolf, involving significantly more work and information management. In night rounds, everyone closes their eyes, and the facilitator instructs specific players to open their eyes to convey or receive information without the others knowing.
During the day round, the townsfolk discuss who they believe the demon is and can vote to kill that person. This is the primary method for eliminating the demon. One key difference from Werewolf is that players do not have to pick someone to kill if they are unsure. If none of the accused receive enough votes, or if votes are tied, nobody dies. Another major difference is that dead people continue to play. After being killed, a player is still allowed to speak, though they lose their special powers. They are even allowed to vote, but from the moment they die until the end of the game, they can only vote once. Since the dead can still speak, the demon cannot silence them by killing them. The demon must be careful not to expose themselves, as these dead players still have one vote each, and if they band together, they can get the demon killed. This aspect makes the game superior to Werewolf because there is no player elimination; everyone remains engaged until the end.
The best part of the game is the character powers. Every character has a unique power, and only the facilitator and the player know which character they are. There is no card indicating who you are, and nothing to prove your identity. Players may declare who they are, but whether others believe them is a different matter. Certainly, the bad guys want to pretend to be good guys.
Here are some examples of townsfolk characters. The fortune teller gets to pick two players every night and learns whether the demon is among them. However, there is a weakness to her power: one specific town resident will be mistaken as the demon. The monk protects one player every night; if the demon attempts to kill that player, the protected player is saved. The washerwoman starts the game knowing that between two town residents, one is a particular character.
The characters mentioned above are townsfolk. There is another type among the good guys called outsiders. They are on the same team as the townsfolk, but their powers are liabilities that help the demon. One outsider is the drunkard. He doesn’t know he’s drunk and believes he is someone else. He thinks his information is correct, but it may not be. As you can see, the existence of this character can really mess with the townsfolk. All of this needs to be managed by the facilitator.
The demon’s minion can be one of four characters. The poisoner gets to disable and confuse the power of a town resident for 24 hours. The scarlet woman can take the place of the demon if the demon is killed early, allowing the game to continue.
Although the townsfolk collectively have much information to help them figure out who the demon is, the demon and their minion also get tools and information. For example, the facilitator will let the demon know about three specific characters that are not in play. This is helpful because the demon can pretend to be one of these characters, and there won’t be any town resident who can verify that he is lying.
I played a 7-player game where I drew the demon, which made me rather nervous. My minion was Sam, but I didn’t know which character he was. Right off the bat, we got into a sticky situation. Xiang Yang was the empath, seated exactly between Sam and me. The power of the empath is to sense how many evil persons are next to him. He sensed two, which meant it must be both the demon and his minion. Game over?! This sucked big time. Another problem was that Han was the washerwoman, and at the start of the game, he knew that between Xiang Yang and me, one was the empath. This meant his information matched what Xiang Yang claimed. I knew for our game the soldier was not in play, so I was prepared to say that I was the soldier. The soldier cannot be killed by the demon. I planned to say that I couldn’t reveal my character early because I needed to lure the demon to kill me. He would fail, and I would have given us one more precious round. I didn’t dare to deny what Xiang Yang had said because Han’s input matched his. If I went against two of them, I would arouse suspicion. So I said I believed Xiang Yang was the empath, but I claimed his information was wrong and that he must have been poisoned by the poisoner. Thankfully, there was such a character in the game, and I could use this to wriggle out of this tight spot. At the time, I had no idea whether Sam was the poisoner. It turned out that he was.
In the first night round, I promptly killed Xiang Yang. It felt too dangerous to have him seated right between Sam and me. In hindsight, that might not have been wise. The townsfolk might have interpreted this as confirmation that what Xiang Yang said was true—he was sitting between the demon and the minion. I could have let him live and let the poisoner do poisoning every round. Then what Xiang Yang said would become inconsistent, and it would just be considered gibberish. In fact, he might end up being suspected.
Joon Lam was the slayer. Once per game, the slayer can attempt to kill the demon. He just has to point, and if that player is the demon, the demon is killed. During our discussion, Joon Lam was convinced that Sam was the demon. Sam did try to defend himself somewhat, at least to try to put on some show. I did not try very hard to dissuade Joon Lam. Sam wouldn’t have been hurt anyway. I did not egg Joon Lam on either, so as not to appear too keen. The end result was the slayer wasting his holy water and Sam needing a towel for his wet face (figuratively speaking).
Eu Vin was the fortune teller. Every night he could point at two persons, and Jeff the facilitator would tell him whether the demon was among them. This was done in the evening when everyone had their eyes closed, so no one knew who he pointed at and what answer he received. In fact, we couldn’t even be sure he was indeed the fortune teller and all this happened at all. In one night round, Eu Vin pointed at Sam and Joon Lam, and Jeff signaled to him that the demon was among them. Eu Vin was given this answer not by mistake. The power of the fortune teller had a weak point: one of the townsfolk would be mistaken as the demon. In our game, that error was Joon Lam. Eu Vin was convinced that Joon Lam was the demon and asked everyone to vote to get him killed. I, of course, quietly supported the motion. So another innocent person was killed. Well, technically, the townsfolk didn’t know that yet. They could only be sure that the demon wasn’t dead yet since the game continued. It might have been the minion getting killed. The identities of the dead were not yet revealed.
Crunch time was the day round when we had four players remaining. If the townsfolk didn’t manage to kill me, by night there would be only three left. I could kill one more to get to two players left, and I would win. This time, Eu Vin was convinced that I was the demon. He proposed that I be sent to the gallows. Joon Lam was already dead. In this game, most of the dead are townsfolk, and most of the time they are honest. They can still speak, and since they usually have no more reason to lie, you have to be careful about arguing with them. I stayed away from any such argument. Joon Lam said he was the slayer, and since his attempt to kill Sam had failed, it meant Sam wasn’t the demon. I said in a matter-of-fact manner that with only four of us left still alive, the possibilities would be Eu Vin, Zackler, and me. I said I thought Eu Vin was the demon, and that I too wanted to nominate him to be hanged. Up to this point, none of the three dead people had voted yet. Their votes could be make or break. Since Eu Vin had nominated me first, the voting to kill me went ahead first. With four players alive, only two votes were needed to get me executed. There were exactly two votes. In this game, to vote means to support hanging the person. There is no vote for disagreeing. If you disagree, just don’t vote. I had also nominated Eu Vin, so we had to vote for him too. Naturally, Sam and I voted. We had two more votes from the townsfolk, making a total of four votes. I escaped the hanging, and Eu Vin was executed. That meant game over for the townsfolk. The demon and his minion won!
This game gave me a lot of anxiety. I was nervous but I had to act calm and innocent. Looks like I’m a pretty good liar. I managed to convince the townsfolk of my innocence. Blood on the Clocktower is an improved version of Werewolf. It addresses several shortcomings of Werewolf. Werewolf is simple, and if that’s what you are looking for, it will still work for you. In Blood on the Clocktower, you have much more information to work with. The game is more strategic. You have more basis for discussion and deduction. You are not deciding on who to lynch based on gut feel. There is some logic and reasoning. The townsfolk have more information, which makes things harder for the demon. However, the demon also has more tools to balance things out. There is more information, but there is also possible misinformation. The designer has done a lot of work balancing the game. This game must have been a huge undertaking to playtest thoroughly. I am truly impressed. If you like social deduction games, you must give this a go.
