I told them it was too soon for the Flower Festival, but no, Mayor Arete insisted that the people needed something to take their minds off of the slaughter some months ago. Be that as it may, the forces of evil are not so easily deterred, and the wild jubilations have unsurprisingly drawn in more servitors of darkness. As the citizens of Ravenswood Bluff revel in their fleeting triumph, foul magics once again descend upon their home. The time is ripe… for Sects and Violets.
That’s right, folks, Blood on the Forums is back with a vengeance, and your lovely Storyteller Tan is here to leave you hopelessly confused. With my new co-host, @Arete, we’ll be taking you back to the madness of Ravenswood Bluff, with a whole new set of characters, wild new powers, and… Are those Travelers?
For those of you who are new to the game, I’ve prepared a rundown of the things you’ll need to know.
Character List
This game will be running the Sects and Violets script; this script is thick with information and misinformation alike, and the Minions excel at causing utter chaos.
Townsfolk:
Clockmaker: You start the game knowing how many steps are between the Demon and their nearest Minion. Each “step” is classified as moving one player left or right.
Dreamer: Each night, choose a player; you will be told one good character and one evil character, and one of these is the player’s true character.
Snake Charmer: Each night, choose a player; if you choose the Demon, you and they swap characters and alignments, and the new Snake Charmer permanently malfunctions.
Mathematician: Each night, you learn how many player’s abilities have worked abnormally since the previous dawn due to another player’s ability.
Flowergirl: Each night, you learn if the Demon voted to execute the previous day.
Town Crier: Each night, you learn if a Minion player nominated the previous day.
Oracle: Each night, you learn how many dead players are evil (but not which ones).
Savant: Each day, you may publicly announce that you are visiting the Storyteller; if you do so, the Storyteller will privately tell you two statements, one of which is true and one of which is false.
Seamstress: Once per game, choose two players (not yourself); you learn if they are the same alignment.
Philosopher: Once per game, at night, choose a good character; You become that character. If you become a character that is already in play, that player malfunctions until you die or change character.
Artist: Once per game, during the day, privately ask the Storyteller any question that can be answered with “yes”, “no”, or “I don’t know”, and receive an honest answer.
Juggler: During your first day in play, you may publicly guess up to five player’s characters. That night, you learn how many of your guesses were correct (but not which ones).
Sage: If you are killed by the Demon, you wake to learn two players; one of them is the Demon.
Outsiders:
Mutant: If you are mad about being an Outsider, you might be executed.
Sweetheart: If you die, one player malfunctions for the rest of the game.
Klutz: When you learn that you have died, you will be given twelve hours to publicly choose an alive good player; if you fail to do so, your team loses.
Barber: If you die, the Demon, in addition to their kill, may choose two players tonight; these two players swap characters. This ability may not target dead Demons.
Minions:
Doppelganger: You and a player of the opposing alignment are marked as “twins”, and learn each other’s characters. If the good-aligned twin is executed, evil wins. Good cannot win while both twins live.
Witch: Each night, choose a player; if that player nominates tomorrow, they die immediately (but their nomination stands). If only three players are alive, this ability does not function.
Cerenovus: Each night, choose a player and a Townsfolk or Outsider character; that player must be mad that they are that character tomorrow, or they might be executed.
Pit-Hag: Each night (but not the first), choose a player and a character; that player becomes that character (but their alignment does not change). If the character you choose is already in play, this ability fails. If you make a Demon, all deaths tonight are arbitrary (decided by the Storyteller).
Demons:
Fang Gu: Each night (but not the first), choose a player; they die. The first time an Outsider is chosen by a Fang Gu, the Fang Gu dies and the Outsider they chose becomes an evil Fang Gu. [+1 Outsider]
Vigormortis: Each night (but not the first), choose a player; they die. If the Vigormortis kills a Minion, they retain the use of their Minion ability and poison a Townsfolk neighbor, causing them to malfunction. [-1 Outsider]
No Dashii: Each night (but not the first), choose a player; they die. The nearest Townsfolk to your left and right are poisoned, causing them to malfunction.
Vortox: Each night (but not the first), choose a player; they die. Good abilities yield false information. If a day ends without an execution, evil wins.
Townsfolk and Outsiders are good-aligned to start, Minions and the Demon are evil-aligned to start. If your character or alignment changes, you will be notified of this. There are no neutral parties in Ravenswood Bluff.
A note on Madness: Certain character abilities in the Sects and Violets edition reference a status known as “madness”. What madness means, in the simplest terms, is that when a player is “mad” about something, they are trying to convince the other players that it is true, even if it is not (especially if it is not). Ultimately, the Storyteller is the one who judges whether the “mad” player’s efforts are sufficient to avoid punishment, but this allows the Storyteller to be more lenient toward players who are unfamiliar with the concept, and by the same token, to expect more from an experienced player.
Town Composition
This game is designed for a variable number of players, and thus the composition of the game is able to change depending on how many players join. The following list denotes the composition of the game at each possible player count.
Total Players: Townsfolk/Outsiders/Minions/Demons
5: 3/0/1/1
6: 3/1/1/1
7: 5/0/1/1
8: 5/1/1/1
9: 5/2/1/1
10: 7/0/2/1
11: 7/1/2/1
12: 7/2/2/1
13: 9/0/3/1
14: 9/1/3/1
15: 9/2/3/1
Every character in-game is unique in that more than one of the same character will never appear at the start of the game (there can never be two Flowergirls at the start, for example).
Phase Length
Each day phase will last for no longer than 48 hours.
12 hours: Discussion phase. Nominations may not be cast at this time.
12 hours: Nomination phase. Players who wish to nominate may do so at this time, and votes may begun to be cast during this time as well.
24 hours: Vote finalization. During this time, votes may be cast freely on any existing nomination, but no new nominations may be made. Once this time ends or all votes have been locked in, the day will resolve.
The night phase will last for 24 hours, or until all abilities have been performed and resolved.
Storyteller
The Storyteller is the key moderator for the game; All ability uses at night must be sent to the Storyteller via private message, and Storyteller will have the final say on any open-ended ability behaviors. Storyteller’s goal is to keep the game both fun and balanced, and they’ll often be trying to make it last as long as possible; however, the Storyteller may not alter any existing rules to accomplish this.
The Fabled
The Fabled aren’t really characters so much as special modifiers that the Storyteller can put in play to tweak the game. For example, the Angel can be put into play to help keep newer players from being targeted, or the Buddhist can be put into play to keep the more experienced players from dominating the discussion. Fabled will always be announced when they are in play, along with their effect upon gamestate. For this game, we will be using a Fabled known as the Channel-Master, designed to balance games in a text format.
Channel-Master (Fabled): One Townsfolk chosen at the start of the game permanently malfunctions.
Channel-Master may be lifted depending upon player count. It’s a much more punishing effect in a game with five Townsfolk than one with nine, for example.
Scum Info
On the first night of the game, when relatively few characters act, the evil characters will all be woken to learn who one another are. Evil players will not be allowed to communicate at night. The Demon will be told who all of their Minions are, and the Minions will know who the Demon is and who all of the other Minions are. However, the Minions and the Demon will not learn which specific characters any of their fellow evils are. The Demon will additionally be told three characters that are not in play, to serve as safe claims. They may claim any of these, none of these, or simply hand the claims off to Minions; however they think they will be best served.
Malfunctions
The primary source of interference with abilities in this game is the malfunction. A class that is malfunctioning is not told that they are malfunctioning; if the class is one that gathers information, then the information they receive that night is arbitrary (open-ended, Storyteller may resolve at their discretion), otherwise, the malfunctioning class’ ability simply does not have any effect.
Nominations and Voting
Voting in this game works a little differently. After the formal discussion phase has ended, the Storyteller will declare that nominations are opened. A player must be nominated before they can be voted on. Each player may only be nominated once per day, and each player may only nominate once per day. When a nomination is opened, the storyteller will begin to count votes. Votes may be precast, and may be altered so long as they are considered not to be locked in. A vote is locked in when everyone between the accused and the voter (going down the list from the accused) has locked in their vote, or once the day ends, assuming that not all votes on the nomination have been cast. Any votes that are not counted at EoD will be considered votes to pardon. If the count of votes to execute is more than half of the number of living players, and is the highest count of votes against any player that day, the accused will be considered “about to die”. At the end of the day or when all votes on all nominations have been cast, the player who is “about to die” will be executed. There isn’t such a thing as a quickhammer around here; we’re a little more careful with what we do.
Whispers
Players may whisper each other in-game through private messages. Whispers must, however, be publicly announced, typically by requesting permission to whisper (a standard format is /whisper [Player]). Whispers to your neighbors (those seated next to you) do not have to be announced. Once a whisper has been declared and accepted, the two players may whisper via private message until one of them speaks publicly in the game chat, at which point the whisper is considered over and the players must declare whispers again if they wish to whisper.
Death
When a player dies, nothing is revealed about their character and they are allowed to stay in the game and speak. They may not nominate and they will have only one vote token (this will allow them to cast a vote to execute) for the entire game. Evil players who die may thus continue to help their allies by keeping up their claim and spreading misinformation, and good players may similarly help their allies by retaining relevant info that others may have forgotten in the heat of things. Once a player dies, their ability stops working, which means that a player killed before they would perform their ability will not perform their ability, and any ability with a persistent effect will end upon the player’s death.
Victory
Good wins by eliminating all Demons (you don’t need to kill Minions to win). Evil wins by reducing the game to two living players (even if both players are good). The Storyteller may also declare a victory for Evil if Good may no longer possibly win (for example, if only evil players are left alive and thus no one would nominate the Demon). Certain class abilities may present alternate routes to victory; these classes, if able to appear, will be made known on the class list. In the event of a tie (both teams would win at the same time), Good wins.
Player list can be found below; just ping Arete or I with /in and the seat you want (yes, we let you choose).
- Marshal
- Wazza
- DirectorHail
- Magnus
- EVO
- Shurian (with the pro gamer move)
- Universal
- Simon
- Italy
- Datbird (Bishop
) - N.1
- Nuclear_Rehab
- Apprentice (Beggar
) - Vulgard
Surprise! I may be allowing Travelers this game! Travelers are special characters who function a bit differently than normal players; see the piece below for more information on them if you need. There will be a maximum of two Travelers this game. If you wish to join as a Traveler, simply ping me with “/in as Traveler” and choose which Traveler character you want, in addition to where you want to be in the list (yes, you get to slide in between people).
Travelers
Travelers are special and powerful characters with different rules than normal citizens.
- Traveler characters are publicly known. If a player joins the game as a Judge, for example, everyone knows that they are the Judge.
- Traveler alignments are unknown. Because Traveler characters are known, the question regarding them becomes which side they’re playing for. Travelers are more likely to be good than evil; general practice is that one in three Travelers is evil, but it is possible for there to be only one Traveler in a game and that Traveler to be evil. Evil Travelers will be told who the Demon is when they enter play; Good Travelers will be told nothing. The Demon and Minions will not be told if a Traveler is good or evil.
- Traveler players may join or leave the game at any time. This game is designed for live play, and the Travelers are designed to accommodate players who arrive late or must leave early. If you would like to play, but cannot join at game start or do not think that you can stay around for the end of the game, then you may consider playing as a Traveler character instead of a normal citizen. However, I will not allow Traveler players to sub out (since the nature of their character is designed for them to simply leave if they cannot play), and if a Traveler player has left the game, they may not rejoin later. I will additionally ask that players who would consider joining as Travelers after the game has started notify me of this before the start of the game; I will compile a list of these potential Travelers and people not on this list by the start of the game will not be allowed to join as a Traveler. If a player wishes to join an in-progress game as a Traveler, I may bar them from choosing certain characters.
- Travelers with a night ability act before any citizens. Their abilities will be resolved absolutely first.
-
Travelers are not executed; they are exiled. An exile is different from an execution in a few key ways.
-An exile is not considered an execution, meaning that a game can see the exile of a Traveler and an execution in the same day.
-An exile is not affected by any abilities affecting nomination, voting or execution.
-An exile may be called for at any time, by anyone, even if that player is presently unable to nominate, and a player who calls for the exile of a Traveler may still nominate if they have not already.
-Dead players may vote on the exile of a Traveler, and they do not spend their ghost vote to do so.
-And finally, a simple majority vote is all that is required to exile a Traveler. However, I will houserule that no more than one exile may occur per day.
Traveler Characters
The following characters are Travelers, and may be chosen by players who wish to enter the game as Travelers.
Scapegoat: If a player of your alignment is executed, you might be executed instead.
Gunslinger: Each night, you may choose a player who voted on the first nomination of that day; they die.
Beggar: You must use ghost votes to vote. A dead player may give you their ghost vote (this renders them unable to vote); if they do so, you learn their alignment.
Bureaucrat: Each night, choose a player (not yourself); that player’s votes to execute count as three votes tomorrow.
Thief: Each night, choose a player (not yourself); that player’s votes to execute will count negatively tomorrow.
Apprentice: On the first night you are in play, you will gain a Townsfolk ability if you are good, or a Minion ability if you are evil.
Matron: Once per day, you may publicly choose two players; these players swap positions. Players may only whisper their neighbors.
Voudon: Only you and the dead may vote on executions. The dead do not spend a vote token to vote, and do not require one. A 50% majority is not required for an execution.
Judge: Once per game, you may force an outstanding nomination to succeed or fail (but not if you made that nomination).
Bishop: The Storyteller makes all nominations. At least one player opposed to your alignment must be nominated each day.
Butcher: Each day, after the first execution, you nominate again.
Bone Collector: Once per game, at night, privately choose a dead player; that player regains the use of their ability for that night and the next day.
Barista: Each night, until the next dusk, a player will either be allowed to act twice, or have their ability be guaranteed to work correctly (if applicable). The person affected by your ability will know how they were affected.
Harlot: Each day, privately choose a living player. At the start of the night, this player will know that the Harlot selected them, and will be given the choice to “agree”. If they agree, the Harlot learns their character, but both players may die.
Deviant: No. The Deviant is not allowed. The Deviant can go die in fire. Blame Italy for this.
