Tabletop Game / Blood on the Clocktower

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Blood on the Clocktower is a tabletop Social Deduction Game for up for 15 players (plus 5 travelers). Similar to games such as Mafia or Werewolf (1997), players must discover and team up with their allies, while exposing and destroying their enemies. The good team must try to kill the evil team's Demon, while the evil team must protect their Demon who is hidden among the townsfolk, and who kills a player each night.

There are five types of characters in game, Townsfolk and Outsiders who are on the good team, and Demons and Minions who are on the evil team. Townsfolk characters use abilities to help them figure out who the demon is, while Outsiders are good team members who are a major handicap in some way. Minions have abilities to protect their demon or tamper with the good team's abilities, while Demons try to get townsfolk killed, and are the primary antagonist who must be defeated for the good team to win. The final character type are Travelers, whose identity is known but not their alignment. They have great power but no information. They are designed for players who arrive late/have to leave early.

If the Demon is executed by the good players, good wins. But if good cannot solve the puzzle in time, and the Demon continues to eat player after player each night until only two players are left alive (including the demon), evil will win. What exciting stuff!

This game provides examples of:

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: The Gambler gambles on their life every night. It's usually worth it for them because they get an insane amount of confirmable info, and so much of the rest of the good team's info can be tampered with.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy:
  • The Drunk believes they're a Townsfolk, but they're not. If their false role should gain information, it's random garbage, and if they should be able to affect the game state, it doesn't work.
  • Drunkenness is a state caused by some Townsfolk and Outsider abilities, such as Innkeeper, Philosopher or Sweetheart. Similar to the Drunk character, a drunk player's ability doesn't work but they think it does. Worse, if they try to use a "once per game" ability while drunk, it won't work and they can never use it again.
  • One half of the Sailor's ability is that they cannot die by any means (save for an Assassin stab), but the other half of their ability is that they must choose a player to drink with every night and either them or that player gets drunk. This results in either the Sailor becoming drunk and losing their immortality or the other player they chose becoming drunk and their ability malfunctioning.
  • If there's more than one Village Idiot in play, one of them will be drunk.
• All Your Powers Combined: The Hermit is an Outsider who gains the abilities of all other Outsiders on the script. Unfortunately, being all the Outsiders at once, they're likely going to be quite the hindrance to the good team. The silver lining, though, is that the Storyteller has the option of replacing one other Outsider with a Townsfolk.
• Antagonist Abilities: When a Minion gets to see the Grimoire, it creates an interesting dynamic where they know the game state, but can't let it swing too much without revealing themself to be in play. If a good player ever saw the Grimoire, it would ruin the game. Needless to say, the Alchemist (which gets a Minion ability) gets a modified version of the two Minion abilities capable of seeing the Grimoire.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • If a player has a disability making communication difficult and needs assistance, or a newbie needs someone's help to figure out the game, or if two players don't feel comfortable lying to each other, the Storyteller may activate the Revolutionary during set-up, tying those players' roles together so they can safely cooperate.
  • If people aren't listening to the Storyteller, they may activate Hell's Librarian, potentially punishing anyone who talks when they have asked for silence.
  • If a game has very few players and is likely to be shorter than desired, the Storyteller may add the Toymaker — the Demon now has the option not to kill at night, and must exercise this option at least once before the game ends.
  • If a game has very many players and is likely to be longer than desired, the Storyteller may activate the Doomsayer — each player may now, once per game, opt to have a member of their team killed (as long as there are at least four total players left alive). This speeds up the game by letting players trade lives for information.
  • If a setup gives too little information to the good team, the Storyteller may add the Duchess. Each night, three players may visit the Duchess, and if they do, all three learn how many of those three are evil — though one of the three is given a false answer.
  • If a setup gives too much information to the good team, the Storyteller may add the Fibbin'. Once per game, the Storyteller can then give a good player the wrong information when they use their ability. Even if the Storyteller doesn't actually exercise this option, the mere fact that they can throws a shade of doubt onto all investigative results.
  • If the Storyteller adds the Gardener, they may manually assign the roles of one or more players. This is useful for situations such as a player who has been drawing the same alignment repeatedly, or who isn't suited to a specific role.
  • The entry for the Matron, which ordinarily restricts communication by switching any two players' seats and banning leaving the circle to talk, notes that if a player cannot move easily, they are immune to the Matron's ability.
• Back from the Dead:
  • The Professor can bring a dead player back to life once per game, but it only works if the dead player is a Townsfolk.
  • The Shabaloth can kill two people every night, but the trade-off is that the Storyteller might resurrect one of the players the Shabaloth killed last night.
  • The Al-Hadikhia selects three players each night who must choose to live or die; sometimes, they may select a dead player who may choose to return to life.
• Bad Powers, Good People:
  • The Alchemist is a Townsfolk that has a Minion ability. It can be tricky for the Alchemist to convince the good team that they really are the Alchemist, however, especially since a Minion can easily bluff that they are the Alchemist who got their Minion ability.
  • The Lycanthrope is a Townsfolk that chooses an alive player to kill every night, much like the Demon does, but that player dies only if they're good, and if they die, the Demon cannot kill anyone that night.
• Becoming the Mask: The Pixie is told an existing good character at the start of the game. If the Pixie pretends to be the character (known as being "mad" about the character) convincingly enough for the Storyteller, they become the character upon the original player's death (even if that player changed characters themselves for whatever reason).
• Big Bad: The Demon obviously fills this role as the primary member of the evil team that the good team must kill. But some minions such as the Mastermind or the Evil Twin also serve this role after their Demon dies, for their ability to steal the win away from good. ^note The Mastermind does this by causing the game to go for another day after the Demon is executed, possibly causing the good team to lose if they execute a member of the good team that day, while the Evil Twin does this by getting the good team to kill the wrong twin, if the good team kills the Good Twin then they lose the game; not only that, the good team also has to make sure that the Evil Twin dies (almost guaranteed that the demon will avoid targeting either Twin as long as possible to preserve another point of failure for the town), since as long as both twins live, the good team can't win.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • The Bounty Hunter starts out knowing one evil player and will learn the identity of another evil player whenever their current 'target' dies, which would be an amazingly powerful ability if it didn't come with the huge drawback of one of the Townsfolk players being turned evil at the start of the game, which gives the evil team an extra member and vote on their side. The Bounty Hunter's ability being so obviously powerful also makes it a lightning rod for death or poisoning if the evil team gets the slightest whiff of their identity.
  • If the Demon is the Lord of Typhon, the evil team gets an extra Minion, but the trade-off is that all the Minions and the Demon have to be neighboring each other in a line, which makes it very easy for the good team to zero in on the Lord of Typhon's location if any of the Minions gives away their identity. The Lord of Typhon will likely have to kill at least one of their Minions to avoid having a very suspicious-looking unbroken line of still-alive players by the end of the game, which greatly negates the benefit of having an extra Minion in the first place.
• Brainwashed:
  • A Cerenovus will make one player mad that they are a specific role every night, forcing them to claim it... if they don't, the Storyteller might kill them.
  • A Harpy will make one player mad that another player is evil every night, failing to do so might cause one or both of those players to die.
• But Thou Must!: A few roles have this as part of the stipulations of their ability.
  • The Klutz’s ability is non-optional. If you’re the Klutz and you die, you must declare yourself as the Klutz and pick someone who is alive and hope they’re good. If your pick is evil, your team loses. (Even if you yourself have somehow turned evil.) The only mercy is that you may confer with the rest of the town before making your choice.
  • Similarly, the Moonchild has a non-optional ability: they must choose a player when they die, and if that player is good, they die that night.
  • Riot’s ability only activates on Day 3, which insta-kills any nominated player and requires them to nominate within a three-second countdown. If someone doesn’t nominate on day 3 when nominated, the Storyteller simply nominates a player and the process continues until one team wins.
  • The Zealot, if alive, has to raise their hand on every vote if there are 5 or more players still alive. (Only when it gets to 4 or 3, or the Zealot dies, does the Zealot have a choice.)
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: In the case of the Atheist, it's more like "clap your hands if you believe not," as they are flavored as knowing that there is no such thing as Demons, making that the case for the games they're in.
• Compulsive Liar: The Vortox demon's power makes all the information the good players get from the Storyteller based on their powers incorrect. This is distinct from being drunk or poisoned, where the Storyteller can give correct information to players if they feel it appropriate.
• Corrupt Politician: The Politician is supposed to be one of the good team members, but if evil wins and the Storyteller deems the Politician to have been responsible for evil's victory, they'll allow the Politician to pull a Face–Heel Turn and share the glory.
• Damsel in Distress: The Damsel must avoid detection by the evil team because if a minion correctly guesses their identity before the Damsel dies or is 'saved' by being turned into a Townsfolk by the Huntsman, the evil team instantly wins.
• Dead Man's Switch: If the Boomdandy is executed, they explode and kill all but three players (even if they’re protected from death by another role). Everyone (both living and dead) must then point at one of the survivors, and the survivor with the most players pointing at them at the end of 10 seconds (originally 60) also dies.
• Death as Game Mechanic: Unlike in many other social deduction games, dead players aren't out of the game; they can still talk to other players and they have one remaining ghost vote that they can use. There are even some characters who must die at night, to the Demon or in some other manner, to gain their ability, like the Banshee who gains the ability to nominate twice each day and vote twice on each nomination for the rest of the game if they're killed by the Demon.
• Demonic Possession:
  • The first time the Fang Gu kills an outsider, they turn the outsider into a Fang Gu, and turn them evil, while killing the old Fang Gu, corrupting a good player, and allowing the Demon to get away scot-free. (Due to a special rule called a "jinx," this overrides the Scarlet Woman's ability, which normally has them taking over as Demon if there are 5 or more alive at the time.)
  • If the Summoner is in play, there is no starting Demon and the Summoner instead 'summons' a Demon on Night 3 by choosing any player to become the Demon.
• Disaster Dominoes: This is especially common in the Bad Moon Rising setup; one example is that, if the Moonchild, Godfather and Po are all in play, a badly timed execution by the good team and the Po charging their attack and coordinating with the Godfather means that it's possible for 5 players to die at night.
• Double Tap: The Zombuul demon maintains its powers after the first time it is killed, requiring the good team to figure out it's in play and execute it a second time to render it truly dead.
• Dragon Ascendant:
  • If the Demon dies while there are 5 or more players alive, then the Scarlet Woman will take over for the Demon, so the evil team can breathe easy even if the Demon has a lot of suspicion on them. (The only exception is if the Fang Gu dies due to successfully possessing an Outsider, as that creates a new evil Fang Gu. In fact, there is an official "jinx" which specifies that this is the case.)
  • The Imp can choose to kill themselves at night and have a minion take over as the Imp. They can do this at any time, but unlike if the Scarlet Woman is in play, if the Imp gets executed, the evil team still loses.^note That said, the Imp doesn't get to choose which minion gets it. Also, if the Imp goes for a starpass and there is a live Scarlet Woman in play at the time, the Scarlet Woman has to be first priority.
  • The Pit Hag has the power to change the classes of the players, and can nominate themselves or another minion to become a new demon. If they do so, however, the storyteller has control of who dies that night, and a good storyteller will often choose to kill the old demon for the sake of preserving game balance.
• The Drunken Sailor: The Sailor's mechanic requires them to secretly choose a player to have a drink with every night, and either them or the player they picked will be afflicted with the drunk status which messes with their powers.
• The Empath: One of the character roles, whose ability is that they learn every night how many of their alive neighbors are evil.
• Escort Mission:
  • The Lleech must choose a player on the first night to be their host. As long as the host is alive, the Lleech can't die, but they will die if the host does, which means that the evil team must make sure the host stays alive for the entire game even if the host is on the good team.
  • In a Lil' Monsta game, the Demon is a baby and the Minions must decide each night which one of them will babysit the Demon for that day. The Lil' Monsta still dies if the Minion holding its token gets executed, so the Minions will often pass the Lil' Monsta token among themselves depending on which one of them is currently under the least amount of suspicion from the good team.^note There is an official jinx that provides that, if one of those minions is the Scarlet Woman, and a different Minion who is holding Lil' Monsta is executed with five or more players left, then the Scarlet Woman immediately gets the token.
• Evil Chancellor: The Vizier is not only evil, but every player in the entire game knows it.
• Evil Twin: The Evil Twin is a minion who knows a good player's character and that good player knows who the Evil Twin is. The good team cannot win as long as both twins are alive, but the evil team wins if they execute the good twin instead of the evil one.^note This means the one who’s good-aligned, regardless of which token they actually got. Also, if both twins are somehow the last two still alive, evil wins.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • The Snake Charmer becomes the Demon if they select the Demon player during the night.
  • The Mezepheles knows a secret word that will turn the first good player who says it evil.
  • The Politician has the ability to change alignment, and win with their new team if they're deemed the player most responsible for causing their original team to lose.
  • If the Summoner survives to Night 3, they choose a player to become the Demon. This player can be an evil one, but it's a lot more common for the Summoner to choose a highly trusted good player to become the Big Bad instead.
  • The Ogre is an Outsider who selects another player on the first night and turns evil if that player was evil or the Recluse.
• Faking the Dead: The Zombuul demon appears dead if killed by the other players, but its powers continue to function until it's executed for a second time.
• Flock of Wolves: In a game with Legion as the Demon, evil players outnumber good players at the start of the game. This is balanced out by the Storyteller picking who dies in the night, and by executions being successful only if at least one good player votes for them.
• Forced Transformation: The Pit-Hag can turn useful and important townsfolk into useless outsiders, or into single use townsfolk such as the Clockmaker to nullify their ability for the rest of the game.
• Game Master: The Storyteller chooses roles, activates Fabled characters when necessary, and adjudicates actions. ^note For example, the Mutant might die if they're "mad" about being an Outsider. This usually means they need to keep quiet or die, but if they decide to reveal on purpose to get killed and confirmed, the Storyteller has the option of letting them live, throwing their claim into question.
• God Is Evil: If there is an Atheist in the game, none of the players are evil and they must execute the Storyteller — who chooses the deaths at night and can break the rules whenever and wherever they want in an Atheist game — to win. (In this case, if the town gets down to two players alive and the Storyteller hasn't been executed, then evil wins.) However, if the players do execute the Storyteller and it isn't an Atheist game, then good loses.
• Good All Along: The Lunatic starts the game believing that they're the Demon, but they're actually good and will usually figure this out fairly early on when their "Minions" say that they're not Minions at all or the real Demon doesn't follow their nightly "kills".
• Good Powers, Bad People: The Boffin is a Minion that gives the Demon a good character's ability, which can be quite helpful for bluffing.
• Gossipy Hens: The Gossip, fittingly enough. However, unlike a normal chatterbox, their words can and do break bones. ^note The Gossip gets to make one public statement each day, and if true, someone - and it doesn’t specifically have to be a good player - dies.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Travellers are designed to function like this; their abilities are quite powerful but are intended to be primarily given to players who might not be able to stick around for the whole game, so they're capable of making a clear impact on the game in the short term (ex: giving another player an extra vote, making a second execution possible per day) but can leave the game partway through without harming the game in the long term.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power:
  • The Baron adds two extra Outsiders to the game and otherwise has no ability, which might seem lame compared to all the other Minions that have cooler abilities like poisoning players or learning all players' roles especially since the Baron doesn't even get to choose or know in advance which Outsiders are added, but the good team losing two powerful Townsfolk roles and getting two Outsider roles that have major drawbacks like "instantly loses the game for their team if they ever get executed ^note the Saint or die and pick the wrong player^note the Klutz" can be potent enough on its own to swing the game in evil's favor. It also gives the evil team an opportunity to bluff as the extra Outsiders if the added Outsiders are reluctant to identify themselves. What's more, the very fact that the Baron has only a setup ability is in itself a strength, as Barons can get away with a lot of chaos other Minions would be reluctant to, having nothing to lose.
  • The Golem is an Outsider who can nominate only once in the entire game and the player they nominate instantly dies unless they're the Demon. This might seem like a massive drawback but with enough info and savviness, the Golem can use this power to instantly kill a Minion that would otherwise be extremely difficult or risky for the good team to execute like the Boomdandy, Goblin, or Psychopath.
  • The Acrobat was originally an Outsider who would die in the night if either of their good neighbors was drunk or poisoned. Dying without any control over it might sound lame, but in this game, a death is often worth it to learn who might be getting unreliable information from being drunk or poisoned. Because of this, many people considered the Acrobat to be one of the best Outsiders and it was eventually upgraded into an outright Townsfolk with the revised ability to choose a player every night and die if that player is drunk or poisoned.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • A demon who was chosen by the Snake Charmer swaps roles with the Snake Charmer and becomes good, while the Snake Charmer becomes the Demon that the town was hunting for. The Demon turned Snake Charmer can now help the good team with all their inside info on the good team.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: The Goon (who changes to the side of the first person that picks them at night, and makes that player drunk until the end of the day on top of that) and the Cult Leader (who becomes the alignment of a living neighbor each night) will be switching sides a lot during the game, with the good team having no idea whose side they are on until the end of the game.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • The Gambler can sacrifice themselves to prove if someone is lying about their character. This is usually worth it because sacrificing a good player to confirm someone as lying is very strong for the good team.
  • A Townsfolk (not an Outsider) can deliberately nominate the Virgin so they can get executed and be confirmed as good. However if the evil team figures out who the virgin is (because of a Spy, or hearing it from the grapevine) then they can nominate the Virgin and waste their ability.
  • A character can opt to put themselves on the block and be executed for a couple of reasons - they might be a character who only gets Night One information such as a Clockmaker, their death might provide more information to the group (for example, by having an Undertaker verify what they are, or giving the Empath new players to read), or they could believe the Vortox is in play and need to satisfy it's requirement of an execution every day without putting other townsfolk at risk.
• I Am Spartacus: If a Gossip, Juggler, or Alsaahir is on the script, multiple other players will often publicly claim to be that role so that the Demon won't know which one of them they should kill before the real Gossip, Juggler, or Alsaahir gets their information.
• Instant-Win Condition:
  • The Mayor: If only 3 players live (including you) & no execution occurs, your team wins.
  • The Evil Twin: You & an opposing player know each other. If the good player is executed, evil wins. Good can't win if you both live.
  • The Fearmonger: Each night, choose a player. If you nominate and execute them, their team loses.
  • The Goblin: If you publicly claim to be the Goblin when nominated and are executed that day, your team wins.
  • The Cult Leader: Once per day, you can attempt to form a cult, and if all good players agree to join the cult, you win and so do all your allied players (the Storyteller decides if you are good or evil based on the alignments of your nearest living neighbours).
  • The Alsaahir: Once per day, you can publicly guess which players are the Minions and which ones are the Demon(s). If your guess is correct, good wins.
• Kaizo Trap:
  • Normally, if the Demon is killed, the game ends... however, there are a couple roles that can force the game to continue:
    • If there's a Mastermind alive, it goes on one more day, and if town executes an innocent that day, they lose.
    • If there's an Evil Twin alive, the game continues on, because the town can’t win as long as both the Good Twin and the Evil Twin live.^note And since they both know each other, it's almost guaranteed that the Evil Twin will let the demon know who the Good Twin is so that a point of failure is preserved for the good team.
  • If there's a Heretic in play, the win-loss conditions are completely reversed so that the good team actually loses when they would normally win (like executing the Demon) and the same is true of the evil team.
• Lost Lenore: If the Sweetheart dies, another player is drunk, and their ability malfunctions for the rest of the game.
• Make a Wish: The Wizard is a Minion who can make any wish once per game that the Storyteller will grant — but to prevent game-breaking wishes, the Storyteller is encouraged to be a Jackass Genie who gives the wish a price proportional to its strength and also a clue about its nature to other players.
• Misère Game: If the Heretic is in play, all win conditions are inverted, even if the Heretic dies (provided the Heretic isn't drunk or poisoned).
• The Mole:
  • The Spy is usually one for the good team, since they can register as a good player even when dead.
  • The Magician is one for the evil team; they are seen as a Minion by the Demon and a Demon by the Minions and will typically act shady to confuse the evil team on which players they can trust.
• Negative Ability: Outsiders serve this purpose for the good team. While most players on the good team help their allies in some way, outsiders are a detriment that must be worked around. While some such as the Butler ^note Each night, choose a player (not yourself): tomorrow, you may only vote if they are voting too are not too hard to work around, there are also others that can potentially lose the game for the good team, such as the Saint ^note If you die by execution, your team loses.
• Never Needs Sharpening: The fabled character Deus ex Fiasco enables storytellers to invoke this trope if they lack confidence in their ability to run a script. Without it, making mistakes can mar the player experience. But with Deus ex Fiasco in play, storyteller mistakes become an expected — guaranteed, even — part of the game. The Storyteller just has to remember to correct every mistake that they catch, and admit to them publicly.
• Newbie Immunity:
  • If a game contains a few newbies among many veterans, the Storyteller may activate the Angel, protecting the newb(s) by causing something bad to happen to whoever causes their death.
  • Conversely, if the game contains a few veterans among many newbs, the Storyteller may activate the Buddhist, forbidding the veterans from speaking for the first two minutes of each day phase.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Very common in Blood on the Clocktower, starting from Trouble Brewing:
  • The Saint: If you die by execution, your team loses.
  • The Mastermind: If the Demon dies by execution, play for 1 more day. If a player is then executed, their team loses.
  • The Klutz: When you learn that you died, publicly choose 1 alive player: if they are evil, your team loses.
  • The Evil Twin: You & an opposing player know each other. If the good player^note in other words, good-aligned, regardless of who actually holds the roleis executed, evil wins. Good can't win if you both live.
  • The Damsel: If a minion publicly guesses you (once), your team loses.
  • If nobody is executed during the day while a Vortox is in play, the good team immediately loses.
  • If the Demon is turned into a non-Demon character and there are no other Demons in play, evil immediately loses. This is normally impossible to do or something the evil team would never let happen, but if there's a Pit-Hag who doesn't know who their Demon is due to a Poppy Grower in play or a Snake Charmer swapping places with the Demon and they happen to get unlucky with their pick, well...
  • If a Summoner is in play and is killed before they can make a Demon on Night 3, the good team wins. This also applies if their ability is unusable that day, though there is a jinx covering the situation where the Courtier (who chooses characters to make drunk rather than players) does so to preserve balance.^note Namely, the Summoner picks the Demon, but the Storyteller picks who it is.
  • If the Leviathan is in play, good can lose if 2 good players are executed or if the Leviathan survives for 5 days.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Several Fabled roles say "something bad might happen" to someone who breaks the anti-frustration rules they set out. The rulebook gives suggestions for what this should be, but notes that the vague and ominous threat of something bad is often more effective than a well-defined punishment.
• Obliviously Evil:
  • The Marionette starts the game believing that they're a good character, but they're actually evil and seated next to the Demon.
  • The Ogre picks a player at the start of the game, and becomes evil if the player they choose is evil, but is not told by the Storyteller what alignment they are.
  • Inverted with the Lunatic, a good Outsider who starts the game believing they are the Demon. The real Demon knows who they are and who they try to kill at night.
• Obviously Evil:
  • If there's a Vizier in play, everyone will know who they are and that they're working with the Demon.
  • The Psychopath becomes this if they kill someone during the day or get executed, since they're the only character who plays Rock–Paper–Scissors with their nominator instead of getting a straightforward execution. There is the possibility that they could be the good Alchemist who got the Psychopath ability, but other players might not be very inclined to believe it.
• Obvious Rule Patch:
  • Some characters don't play well as originally written with others on custom scripts. In these cases, there are "jinxes" in place, special rules which modify abilities so that they interact better, or at least don't clash.
  • Setups aren't supposed to have a predictable number of Outsiders. If one does, the Storyteller can add the Sentinel, which gives them the option to add or remove an Outsider.
  • The Djinn is Obvious Rule Patch: The Role; it indicates that the setup has a special rule for when specific roles interact.
  • If a setup is intended to revolve around a specific good role, the Storyteller may add the Storm Catcher. If they do, the role they choose can only die by execution, but the evil team learns which player they are. Note that the role isn't necessarily actually in the game — if it happens to be absent, the evil team knows that too, and can use them as an easy bluff.
• The Omniscient: The Spy and (to a lesser extent) Widow know every role in play: the first may also appear as good, and the latter poisons one player at the start of the game.
• Parasitic Immortality: The Lleech nominates another player to act as their "host". The host is poisoned, and the Lleech becomes immune to being killed directly, but will die instantly if their host dies.
• Power Nullifier:
  • The Courtier makes a character role drunk for three days and nights, provided that the role they pick is in play.
  • The Preacher shuts off the abilities of the Minions they choose at night for as long as they're alive and sober.
• Prisoner's Dilemma: The Al-Hadikhia selects three players per night who each have to choose whether to live or die; if all three players choose to live, all of them die instead. This means that even though each player will want to live, it's in their overall best interest for one or two of them to choose to die. This goes double if the Mastermind is also in play and still alive, because there is a jinx that stipulates that if the Al-Hadikhia dies by being executed in that situation, they get one final set of three picks, and if all three of the Al-Hadikhia’s picks choose to live, then evil wins.
• Red Herring:
  • The Fortune Teller is a powerful role that learns if either of the two players they select is the Demon... but has the catch that one of the good players will falsely register as the Demon to them.
  • The Recluse, a good Outsider who might register as evil even when dead, can seriously mess up the good team's information on which players are evil.
  • The Lycanthrope was updated to have "one good player registers as evil" as part of its ability, which means that the character can no longer be completely sure that a player who survived being attacked by them is evil.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: Since the Psychopath is outed evil, but too powerful to make completely unexecutable, this game crops up as a compromise: if you beat the Psychopath in a game of this while trying to execute them, you succeed.^note It’s one-and-done, and ties go to the Psychopath - you must beat them outright.
• Sadistic Choice: The possibility of a King/Choirboy combo creates one for the Demon - they know which player the King is and that they will receive valuable information if they're still alive in the late-game, but killing the King if there's a Choirboy in play will cause the Choirboy to learn the Demon's identity.
• Swapped Roles: If the Barber dies, the Demon can swap the character roles of any two players.
• Take Up My Sword:
  • The Pixie learns of a specific role in play and will become that role if the original player with that role dies and the Pixie made enough of an effort to act that role beforehand.
  • If the Farmer dies at night, an alive good player becomes a new Farmer.
• Thanatos Gambit:
  • The Ravenkeeper and the Sage both actively want to be killed by the Demon at night because their abilities activate only after they're killed at night or by the Demon and enable them to, respectively, learn a player's role or that the Demon is one of two players.
  • Some Outsiders with an undesirable ability, like the Saint who causes their team to die if they get executed or the Damsel who causes their team to lose if a Minion correctly identifies them, will often try to die by execution or Demon kill to remove the possibility of their ability causing their team to lose on the spot.
  • The Zombuul won't actually die the first time it appears to die which means that if they willingly 'die' at some point in the game, the good team might waste time executing alive players instead of realizing that the Demon is one of the assumed dead players.
  • The Goblin wins the game for their team if they get executed after they publicly claim to be the Goblin. Since the Goblin is almost always an evil player, this usually leads to the Goblin trying to dupe the good team into thinking that they're really the Demon who's falsely claiming to be the Goblin to avoid execution and calling their "bluff" by executing them.
  • The Banshee gets to nominate twice a day and vote twice per nomination if they are killed by the demon, provided they are not drunk or poisoned at the time of death (and no, they don’t burn their one ghost vote to do so, unless they subsequently become drunk or poisoned). As a nice bonus, the whole town immediately finds out that the Banshee has been killed (although not who it is). This also means that good being wiped out does not end the game, since there is still a good player that can nominate.
• Tiebreaker Round: If a game has to be cut short unexpectedly, or if there's a stalemate for some reason (e.g. everyone is refusing to kill), the Storyteller can activate the Fiddler — the Demon must then secretly choose an opposing player, and the town votes between the two of them to determine which team wins the game.
• Trigger Phrase: Inverted by the Mezepheles - they are given a secret word by the Storyteller, and if they can trick or convince a good player into saying it, that player becomes evil in the night.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change:
  • The Psychopath is the only character who triggers a minigame when executed: they play roshambo (AKA rock-paper-scissors) with the player who nominated them and die only if they lose.
  • The Organ Grinder completely changes the voting process by forcing all players to keep their eyes closed while voting and having the Storyteller not give them any information on how many players voted or even if the nominated player got enough votes for execution.
  • As originally created, Riot was an extremely unusual Demon that makes nominated players die instantly but be able to immediately nominate another player afterwards who in turn will die and be able to continue the cycle of deadly nominations (the Storyteller begins a three-second count and ends the day immediately if a new nomination doesn’t happen) and evil wins if at least one Riot player is still alive after the third day. (Also, on day 3, it’s a But Thou Must! situation: if you don’t nominate within that three count, the Storyteller can either pick someone for you or disqualify your whole team.) This transforms what is normally a lengthy game of careful deduction and social strategy into a rapid-fire blitz of panicked nominations and mass deaths. A later update changed Riot so that this only triggers on day 3, with all Minions becoming Riot at that time; the But Thou Must! proviso is still in play under those conditions.
• Virgin Power: The first time the Virgin is nominated for execution, if their nominator is a Townsfolk, that person will immediately be executed. At first glance this seems like a terrible power, since it kills a good player and prevents the town from executing another (hopefully evil) player that day. However, unlike almost every other ability in the game, it is almost impossible for the evil team to pretend that the Virgin's power has triggered. This means that if a Virgin power has triggered, the player claiming to be the Virgin becomes extremely trustworthy. Coupled with the fact that a player who nominates the Virgin and is executed is probably also good (unless they are a Spy registering as a Townsfolk or, on custom scripts, an evil Townsfolk), the Virgin power can go a significant way towards solving who is good and who is evil, to the point where many players consider the Virgin to be the most powerful Townsfolk in Trouble Brewing (see this thread, for example).
• Wicked Witch: The Witch and Pit-Hag. The Pit-Hag can transform good players into useless characters such as Outsiders, evil players into Demons, to potentially save the game if the demon is about to be executed, or Minions into other Minions. The Witch can cast a deadly spell on a player each night, that makes them die if they nominate, potentially triggering the terrible side effects of characters such as the Sweetheart or Klutz
• Wistful Amnesia: The Amnesiac will know they're good and that they have a "forgotten" powerful ability: each day they'll ask the Storyteller a question to discover it.
• Words Can Break My Bones:
  • The Yaggababble is a Demon that can kill only if they publicly say a specific phrase assigned to them by the Storyteller.
  • The Gossip is a Townsfolk that makes one public statement each day, and, if that statement is true, another player dies that night.
• You Are Who You Eat: The Cannibal gains the ability of the most recently executed player, although they will be poisoned instead if the last executee was an evil player.