Tag: pacts

SATURDAY

First scheduled Saturday game, Rot in Bloom with Andrew

My good friend Andrew was running a few games this con, and what better way to start my Saturday by playing his Al-Hadikhia script. I immediately pull the Goon token and get up to shenanigans. I get approached by my friend Lindsey, who is claiming Dreamer, and has dreamed of me as Savant (my natural go-to bluff when one is on script), and I accept the confirmation and start going to the Storyteller regularly to bolster my bluff. It seems like I am in a double claim, but the Pixie is on script, so I reassure people to not worry about it too much. Big con boss, Emily herself, is in this game, and she’s claiming Oracle. We have a Princess claim day 1, and after a big discussion on who they should nominate, they pick Ryan, the Hatter, who gives us the go-ahead to just vote. We end up with no Al-Had announcement night 2, and the Princess is kind of confirmed. However, there is also an Exorcist claim, so even with an Oracle 0, the Princess ends up getting executed just in case they are an Al-Had that chose not to kill to confirm themselves. I am suspicious of the Savant claim and nominate them but it doesn’t go through. Al-Had chooses Emily the Oracle, the Exorcist, and the unspent Philosopher, and because Emily made a deal with the Exorcist to choosing death if she was selected, she dies and so does the Philosopher. I end up getting executed for the double claim and come out as the good Goon who never got turned. My friends Tyler and Duke are claiming Empath & Chambermaid, and the Empath who had a 0 on the Chambermaid & Princess now has a 1 on the Dreamer confirming me, so I am suspicious of both. Chambermaid has an impossible information on me from night 1, which clashes with the Dreamer because only one of them can be drunk from my ability. The Exorcist ends up choosing the Dreamer and we end up with a night of no deaths. We get the Dreamer executed and win the game! Turns out, she was the Spy who became the Al-Had, picking it up from the original Al-Had who was claiming Savant, who is now the Poisoner after the Hatter swap. Very glad Emily had made that deal and let the Exorcist live.

Second scheduled game, as ST, Two Towns and a Boomdandy

This was a joint event that I co-hosted with Julian/cb, who is famous for hosting the regular “Two Rooms and a Boom” sessions at F3C every year. This year they were kind enough to help me out with this hybrid mode as well. If you didn’t know, Two Towns is a homebrew version of Clocktower that combines mechanics from 2R1B to create two towns that simultaneously play together, and can move players between towns at the end of each day. There are more details in the link above, but the short of it is that the Boomdandy and the Mayor are guaranteed to be in play and their co-existence kind of play a tie-breaker role if one town is won by good, and the other by evil.

There’s been lots of interesting stuff on this session, but to summarize, we ended up with a session that went to the wire on day 5 with an evil win at the end. Leviathan was killed on one town, and Zombuul was tapped once on the other. The Leviathan town ended up killing the Goblin who claimed, which resulted in an evil victory there. However, the Zombuul town killed the Zombuul, which resulted in a good victory. The Leviathan town ends up sending the Mayor over, thinking the other town would send the Boomdandy, but accidentally re-uniting them with the Boomdandy instead, which results in an evil win on the tie-breaker.

Some highlights include:

• Zombuul killing the Xaan that was sent over from the other town (evil teams don’t know each other across towns), which had blocked the Gambler from dying before the Zombuul acted, stopping the Xaan poisoning in the middle of the night, giving the Oracle correct information that one dead player was evil (the Xaan).
• Politician bluffing Amnesiac with a Marco-Polo-like ability that we backed with randomly calling “cold, warm, hot” as they walked around. Politician turned and won with evil due to causing a lot of chaos and confusion and lifting a vote from Zombuul, preventing an early end to the game.
• Sage as a Lycanthrope’s Faux Paw registering as evil to the Oracle, giving an Oracle 3 at the end.
• Julian bringing in two crochet ducks, one red and one blue, to determine the leader of each town (they are voted, and decide who gets sent over at the end of each day).

This was a lot of fun, and I am hoping we’ll be able to host it again next year!

Third scheduled game, Mostly Harmless with Andrew

I unfortunately don’t have a grim picture for this game, and my memory of it is hazier given it was a late night game, but this was a wild game of me pulling Ogre, picking Emily as my friend, who immediately claimed Wizard to me. Despite the name, this script has some spicy roles. I have claimed anything and everything under the sun, and eventually got the evil team from Emily, which also featured my friend Tyler as the Kazali, and Marshall (also part of con team with Emily) as the Cerenovus. Tyler had also gained the Organ Grinder ability from the Wizard wish, in addition to a more spicy madness condition (be mad that a spectator is messing with you… in a very specific way), that if went unsatisfied, poisoned good players. Good job double dipping onto that wish, Emily! I think I eventually ended up settling into a different outsider bluff, Puzzlemaster. At some point, the Hatter died, but because the ST runs Hatter selections separately, evil did not quite get a chance to coordinate, making the demon onto a Lleech without our knowledge of the host. Turns out, my friend Lainey was the Amnesiac with the ability “You learn the role of the last player who sits down on the town square” ended up getting hosted, and because I didn’t realize Tyler had switched to Lleech, I vote on the host, resulting in an evil loss. It was quite fun to be Emily’s Ogre friend for a game though! Sadly no grim picture for this one cause I forgot to take one.

SUNDAY

First scheduled game, as ST, Two Towns and a Boomdandy

Second round of Two Towns, hosting again with Julian. We switch up which towns we run this time, last game I had run the Zombuul town, this time I pick up the Leviathan town. This game featured a couple as the Puzzlemaster/Lunatic pair, a Clockmaker who was Widow-poisoned, and a Town Crier who was Puzzledrunk, with a couple of Village Idiots who ended up picking the same people and reading them differently. At the end of the game, the entire evil team ended up on one of the towns (which would normally trigger a notice to a good player that this has happened, if mid-game) but because the Boomdandy and the Mayor were in separate towns, and the Zombuul was double-tapped dead (after outing to a Magician, if I remember correctly), the good team has won on the tie-breaker! This game mode keeps feeling fairly balanced, as similar to last year (when I ran it with Aggie, from TPI stream team, and Polish Clocktower streams), we had one good and one evil wins across two different sessions on the con. One highlight for me this year includes Julian calling me a “chaos goblin of an ST” because I was quite disorganized with my tokens! Next year, I hope to have definitive gaps in my schedule for this and pull tokens ahead of time.

Second scheduled game, as ST, Gates of Hell

I really wanted to run my Tor/Leviathan script (linked above) this year, so I scheduled a session. In case you weren’t aware, Tor is a Loric that makes players unaware of their characters and alignment until they die. This is especially spicy with Leviathan, when only one or two players might die and learn what they are. It reminds me of the old, community version of Tor, The Veiled, where there was no learning of any character even if dead, you just went blind the whole game. Because I ran quite long from the prior session of Two Towns (which was thankfully in the same spot as this game), I quickly throw together a bag with whatever tokens I can find that match the script. There isn’t a huge overlap, but thankfully both games feature Leviathan, so that was one token I didn’t have to search. I rack up with Fearmonger & Boffin and give the Demon the Seamstress ability with the Boffin. We also have a Pixie who’s seen a Steward, looking similar to the Boffin who has seen a Seamstress. I tend to run the abilities that inform the Demon as normal on Tor, because I find that as the captain of the evil team, the Demon should have an idea that they need to try and survive. So the Demon knows they’ve been granted the Seamstress ability and also learned of the King. We have a Fearmonger, Butler, and Snake Charmer, who are picking each night and aren’t quite sure of their ability & alignment. The Steward, who is seen the King, their neighbor (Marionette is also on the script) ends up getting executed day 2 and learning their role. Cannibal eats the Steward and learns of the Pixie (also their neighbor), and the Pixie also gains the ability (I wasn’t sure how much they stuck to the madness, turns out they had broken it, but oh well) and learns the Ogre, who is the friend of the Cannibal, creating a trust chain. The King learns that the Snake Charmer is in play, which is very spicy. The Nightwatchman sends it to the King, creating another confirmation. The Demon uses their Seamstress ability to get a Yes on two good players and lies about it. However, with the Balloonist info, and a few potential Snake Charmer picks, the good team narrows down on the demon and wins the game! I think the highlight from this game was my friend Hallow, who cleverly bluffed “Courtier who made the Leviathan drunk” as the Fearmonger, going at the end “I am the Fearmonger aren’t I” and “I think the good team had a better handle on that game than evil”. It’s a fascinating script and a concept, and I continue wanting to run it every once in a while just to see how it goes and how people react to it.

Pickup game, third game of Sunday, Irrational Behavior

I get pulled into a small game of Irrational Behavior, the Wraith release script, with Tyler, Emily, Ryan, and Lindsey from earlier games, to play with a different Ryan (ST) & Danny (lovely folks from NYC who I’ve played with before). I pull Village Idiot and check Tyler to learn that he’s good. Turns out, he’s the Monk, but we decide that he’s also bluffing Village Idiot. Ryan & Lindsey joins us in VI claims, making us a line of 4 VIs. Emily’s claiming Fortune Teller. We end up executing a Puzzlemaster claim day 1 based on a Noble ping. Danny is the Noble with the other two pings on Ryan & Lindsey. There’s a whole bunch of FT Yeses from Emily, which I am suspicious of. I end up getting evils on Ryan & Emily and am paranoid that’s the evil team. Lindsey is the actual other VI who ends up dying before me, and I end up getting Monk-saved with a night of no deaths. The Storyteller keeps increasing what seems to be a Wizard clue about Vortox (not on script) – at first he mentions a Vortox win when there’s no execution, and upon examination of dead vote and life tokens, we find the Vortox token and freak out! Turns out, my friend Lainey was the Wizard and had wished for all information to be false. And it was a Lord of Typhon, with the Puzzlemaster claim (being the Poisoner) on the other side of the Typhon, who has been claiming High Priestess this whole time with pings on me when I had gotten my evils. Very successful bluff. We end up losing the game but feeling like it was the best puzzle-y game of the con we all had. I think my highlight for this game was when the HP (who turned out to be the demon), mentioned he’s a fan of mine! Always glad to hear appreciation of my online Clocktower presence.

Final scheduled game of the con, Bad Moon Rising, with Jon G

Jon is the Storyteller that taught me Clocktower, he ran Clocktower using the prototype grim in my local group for a couple of years and was credited in the rule book for his help in developing Clocktower. He was the main “rules person” for Clocktower for a while, a role followed by Edd and now Jams. So I definitely wanted to play in one of his games, and what script is better suited than my favorite of the base 3, BMR. I also played in his “40-player BMR” game, the previous year, as the Voudon, which was exceptionally fun. I pull the Assassin token sitting next to Viva La Sam from Hard Claim, who claims Courtier to me. I don’t get a chance to talk to my evil team for a couple of days as they don’t seem super active and wanting to coordinate. Understandable, as it is one of the latest games of the con. So I nicely settle into a Pacifist bluff, which turns to be out of play. However, evil team is in big trouble – the Demon (Zombuul) and the Godfather are sitting next to the Tea Lady, who gets executed early but comes back to life due to a Professor. My only chat with the Demon ends up with me trying to convince him that he’s not the Lunatic – his kills haven’t gone through and two other people have died, and I wasn’t involved with either. I try to explain that he probably hit the Goon or an Innkeeper-protected player, and the Gossip and the Gambler caused the other kills. I forget about this in a couple of days, but it becomes quite relevant in the end game. I have been patiently holding my ability and consider using it on Sam, who says he drunk with the Zombuul, but it’s already been two nights of the ability so I decide against it and target the Tea Lady that came back to pull the heat off my evil team. The Zombuul gets executed while drunk, triggering the Mastermind ability. We end up pushing on a player who is in a Fool double claim. Thinking we got a good player on a Mastermind day, I vote on it and get excited that we might pull off a Mastermind win. However, turns out, the player in the double claim is the Evil Goon, targeted in the one night that the Zombuul got a chance to act, and loses us the game! This was the detail that I should have remembered, but I was quite exhausted. Regardless, it was fun playing in a Jon game again, and he managed to run a Zombuul & Mastermind game in an hour and 15 minutes, which was impressive. Bit of a bummer of an ending with the brutal loss, to the con for me, but luckily I had a few private games after this which were much more fun, which I won’t go into a fully detailed write-up but will give snippets in the next section.

Non-Clocktower and Semi-Clocktower Highlights of the Con

• The Con raised $7000 for World Central Kitchen – it always blows my mind how generous the community is. If you missed the chance to donate at the con, it’s still a great cause – go donate here!
• This year, I ran a special event called “Script Doctor Office Hours”, which was essentially me sitting around in the library for an hour while I accepted questions from aspiring script writers offering some brainstorming and advice. Delighted that a few people took me up on it, even one of them, Jesse, showing me their hybrid-homebrew, which required quite the analysis! Thank you everyone who decided to pay a visit to the office hours – you’ve made it all worth it.
• Clocktower Wavelength with Etreides, Bill (curator of the Clocktower Wavelength rules & clues) & content creators was a delight. Me and Mullibok have hilariously failed at giving clues, me with a script-writing one too. I had to leave a little early but I found out my team won my a point despite my blunder! Here’s a question for you, which I have failed at – on a scale of 1 to 11 for easy to hard to write a script around, where do you put Chambermaid? I put it at 4, but my team was much more around 8-9. It’s always fascinating to see how people think much differently than you. Appreciate Navean pulling me into this session.
• A special thank you to Bennie & everyone that came to my scheduled Quest game, only to realized I got delayed from the Gates of Hell. I did send my copy of the game along to let folks get started without me, and then joined in the middle of their session, and managed to hop on the second game as the Changeling. We almost won as evil, but alas, got defeated by the Duke & Archduke abilities at Good’s Last Chance. Quest is interesting as an idea for an improvement over the Avalon/The Resistance formula, but I think the Director’s Cut module, or at least a Blind Hunter mixed in, feels necessary. Just in case you don’t know, this style of social deduction game has you going on “missions” by building a team, and that team can fail or succeed the mission. Evil tries to fail them, obviously, without getting caught. The innovation of Quest is that there’s no voting for the team – there’s a Leader, and the Leader passes along the leadership, but the leaders cannot lead again, putting them into a bit of a bind on who their successors should be. Blind Hunter makes the good team more hesitant to claim their roles like Duke & Archduke, which allow for a bit of assistance at Good’s Last Chance by allowing good players to drop their hand (which should normally be pointing at evil, and only evil). My role, Changeling, was invisible to both good team and evil team, and I didn’t know my team either.
• Another thanks to Aggie, Edd, Patters & Mae for sending & bringing my UKGE exclusive Garden of Djinn poster all the way from the UK to me. Garden of Djinn was quite special to me and I will always cherish having this little memento and wouldn’t have had it without your help. Also a shout out to TPI’s artist Lachlan for creating this amazing poster!
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• Speaking of the Garden of Djinn, it was super nice meeting fellow finalists – TrashWarlock (Ballad of Seat 7) & Hystrex (Binary Supernovae) for the first time. I’m glad I got to meet and get pictures, and sad we couldn’t play together this time, but looking forward to hopefully having more games together next year!
• I got to play-test the Pacts expansion in the board game room in between sessions, which was quite exciting. Pacts is a two-player only area control/majority game set in a Celtic land, with faefolk in Seelie & Unseelie Courts providing special abilities. The expansion seems to be bringing in Greek myth, with new maps, and new abilities, so that was quite fun, and I managed to snag a win at the end using my special ability twice thanks to a card split from my opponent who put the 2nd player token and special ability in the same group. This game features an “I cut, you choose” mechanic on a shared card deck, and because going 2nd is quite useful due to being able to react to your opponent’s play, it is also added to the card offerings. Special thanks to Jesse (whose homebrew I analyzed in my office hours) for teaching me the game (who is also apparently helping design the expansion to Pacts!), and Josie from Game Kastle for taking me up on the challenge. I also got to buy a copy of 3 Witches from GK – which is a 3-player only trick-taking game I had my eye on for a bit!
• The Gang was a big highlight this year again, both playing for hours with the train crew (shout out to the train crew, you all are awesome to travel with) and learning about and playing with Andrew’s (of Cult of the Clocktower fame) homebrew cards that take beneficial & detrimental cards to a whole new level.
• Had a few private games with Navean, Dave B (from The Grimoire), Mulli, Alexis, and a couple of other folks from the community, late night, which is always a blast. Too bad Edd couldn’t make it this year, otherwise he normally leads these sessions. Alexis and I had the funny realization after the con that she ran my first game of the con, and I ran her last game of the con, which was a fun surprise. Navean as always was a chaotic goose who betrayed me in one of these sessions after I’ve seen them as a Steward (changed by Garrett, the Cacklejack, from a Shugenja) by turning evil, but also betrayed Mulli in a different game, who got replaced by a giant goose named Big Goops whose vote was controlled by Navean, who had to speak in honks for the rest of the game due to… shenanigans. Mulli ended up getting his revenge in the next game, though, after he pulled a demon token… again!
• Watching Kohava doing karaoke is always a delight. So is seeing old friends from the stream, like Jack, Bort, Alejo, Avery, Duke & Lynxle, first three also having traveled over the ocean and many, many hours to come to the con.
• Breakfast with Jojo, Hallow & Shade was also delightful, and I am glad to report there were a lot more food options around the hotel this year. We went to this super cute Japanese bakery called Teamania that had fluffy pancakes that looked yummy. I had to grab something fast instead because I had a game coming up, but I’ll make sure to have time to order one next year.
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• Finally, Malashaan & Reznora‘s private ceremony on Friday night, with cake, and champagne, and good company, was quite beautiful and it brought some tears to my eyes. Thanks to Bruce for dragging me along. I also still shiver with horror thinking my amateur drawing of a pig might go on Rez as a tattoo – don’t do it Rez!

The biggest lesson for me from this year is to schedule more breaks and do less scheduled events (though I keep saying it every year, and I keep packing my schedule anyways). We’ll see how it goes next year!

And I think that’s a wrap on my writing (journaling? blogging?) about Final 3 Con 2026! If you missed your chance to get some merch, no you didn’t! Go grab it here!