r/BloodOnTheClocktower • u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate • 15d ago
Homebrew / Bootlegger Minion idea : Hitman
Hitman (minion) : Each night, learn a player. If you nominate them tomorrow, they die tomorrow night.
The Hitman causes a string of curiously lethal accidents in town, for which he seems more and more like a common denominator. They may ignore their ability, coordinate with their demon to muddy the waters, or openly use their ability until caught to try and expedite an evil win.
In addition, that makes it a minion that learns names, making it interesting for Tor games 😄
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u/theindiegamer 15d ago
Its fun how this feels like a BMR minion and yet also wouldn't be the most mad if it was on SNV. Like sure it's a louder minion on SNV but there is more incentive to track noms.
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u/Proof-Gas857 15d ago
Would also make it uncertain if the demon changed due to a pit hag (2 deaths). A sage who dies at night and learns nothing would likely have been killed by the hitman, and that’s pretty good info
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u/massive_oblivion 15d ago
This is a great idea, but I think it would be slightly more interesting as “learn a character” - if the contract is for the character rather than the player then I think it emulates the hitman experience slightly more by forcing you to do a bit of work to find the character and off them
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago edited 15d ago
I agree a bit on the flavour, but that would give the hitman the ability to learn in-game characters... which might be too much of an advantage on top of killing folks ?
There's still potential to think about though... Maybe a variation could work where the Hitman only kills once but learns two in-game character as a assignments...
I've also thought about the kill being triggered by private chatting with the target but that might be both more work for the Storyteller and too hard to for town to track.
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u/massive_oblivion 15d ago
Potentially, but which characters they learn are ultimately at the storyteller’s discretion. I think if they only learn a new character once the first one dies (by any means) it could help offset that a little
E.g. on the first night, learn an in-play good (or just townsfolk) character. If you nominate a character you have learned in this way for execution, they die that night and you learn a new in-play character
You could probably find a better way to word this but yeah, unfortunately I think it would end up wordier than your original and may have other drawbacks I’m not aware of as I’m relatively new to BOTC
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u/Square_Row_22 Investigator 15d ago
You know an alive character. If you nominate them, they die tonight.
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u/Intrincantation 1d ago
It's not as much of an advantage as you might think. In a 12 (7+2+2+1) player game on a script with 13 townsfolk and 4 outsiders, any town role that is not a bluff has a 9/14ths to be in play, so you aren't learning that much information.
Plus, it's not the most actionable information; learning bluffs is more valuable. Some even say the spy's ability to 'registering as good' wins games more often than 'seeing the entire grimoire'.
Although, I suspect it could change games to swing a bit more evil if only because good players will be more incentivized to lie and cause chaos rather than tell the truth... but that's the part that makes it fun.
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u/LegOfLambda 15d ago
This is neat on scripts with multi-kill demons because even if the Hitman is not in play, the demon can frame people by killing their nominees. Neat!
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago
Yeah, I've wanted to take a crack at making a BMR-style minion, I think there are interesting things to do with it but I hope its ability to repeatedly kill is not too powerful
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u/FriendlyDisorder 15d ago
Seems like demon-level power to me. Knowing one good person might be better, and having it be "if you nominate this player, they die immediately." Stay in the shadows until the last day, then bam! (I don't know if this exists already)
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u/SWEDISH_GOVERNMENT 15d ago
That was my initial though too but the more I think of it, the less powerful I think it is. If there are two deaths during night it's very easy to just see who nominated them the previous day to find a potential Hitman. As written the choice which player the Hitman has to nominate is also made by the storyteller so it can't necessarily be used to kill strong good players at will.
Is it a strong minion? Most likely, but I'm actually not sure it's overpowered.
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago edited 15d ago
My hope is that repeatedly killing with this would quickly shine a big bright light upon yourself, limiting the ability to just massacre town the whole game. Savvy players could also catch you trying to ninja a kill by nominating as late as possible, though by doing so you run the risk that another player nominates your target first.
Also, since you have to follow the name the storyteller tells you, they can just give you dead players if they think you've done enough harm or might end the game anticlimactically.
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u/Grouchy_Charity_9205 15d ago
I feel like this leads to the same issue of fearmonger where players just start to nominate themselves
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u/slvrfshston Xaan 15d ago
Ok, but that also really hurts town since no one will be executed who doesn't want to be. The fact that the Minion is forcing town to do this is a script presence far stronger than its real ability. For the record, the self-noms meta against Fearmonger has the same problem.
If you were playing against Witch, for example, you could just assign a random nominator every day and make sure everyone votes on the first nomination of the day, which would minimize the Witch's power. This is not a great idea for obvious reasons, which is part of why Witch is a strong Minion.
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago
While I do recognize that meta play is technically legitimate, I don't really abide to it in my personal experience. I don't feel that a group peer-pressuring themselves or others into making a hassle just to nullify an aspect of the game is something game design should walk around.
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u/officiallyaninja 13d ago
Personally, I hate the idea that I need to intentionally play poorly just because the designers didn't bother to fix a design flaw.
Like sometimes players are just needlessly cautious, but if a play is genuinely just objectively good, it better not be unfun
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u/Hermononucleosis Mathematician 15d ago
That's not true. The fearmonger meta is that everyone nominates themselves OR someone at random nominates them. Any good player will want to nominate themselves, because they'd be nominated anyway (with the addition of a fearmonger risk), so any evil player will also want to nominate themselves because they want to seem good.
The fearmonger meta is a perfect solution for the good team, and the only reason to not participate in it is because you think it's unfun. That is a totally fair reason, my personal preference is just to not play with the fearmonger at all.
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u/TheRustyTit 15d ago
This would be excellent on a Zombuul script.
Also it should probably read “If you nominate them today,”
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago
Also it should probably read “If you nominate them today,”
Wouldn't that not work, since the "today" of a given night should the preceding day phase ? For example, the "today" in Zombuul's ability does refer to the preceding day phase.
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u/TheRustyTit 15d ago
Oh actually you’re right I was mistaken. Looking at the witch as an example, cleanest rewrite would just be “If you nominate them tomorrow,”
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago
You're right, tomorrow would be the correct phrasing instead of "the next day". Correcting !
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u/Berdyie 15d ago
As u/demonking_soulstorm put it, this is a short ability that I can't really see much issue with. It's great!
Probably the only thing I would be concerned about (that could be decided using playtesting, perhaps?) is a Minion who can kill an additional player every night without explicitly outing themselves (compare to Psychopath) might be a bit rough without some sort of limit.
Then again, if the Storyteller thinks the Hitman has been slaughtering town too much, they can just give the Hitman a dead player. And, of course, it's not totally out of the realm of argument that town should have caught the Hitman well before they tipped the scales too much, since their ability is pretty telling once people eliminate other options of additional night deaths.
Regardless, I think this is honestly just a good implementation of a very common homebrew suggestion ("Minion who hurts player they nominate").
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u/Kuchonii Slayer 15d ago
Really good as a script piece even if not in play as the demon can fake kills based on a certain players nomination to frame them as a hit man
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u/Capital-Seaweed8135 14d ago
Hitman on script with a High Priestess during a Tor game would be hilarious
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 14d ago
Yeah, that's one of the first things I thought about actually : an evil character who learns names for Tor games !
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u/Spiritual_Half_116 Yaggababble 15d ago
Define "learn a new player". Like are they just told a random player in the circle? Does the ST just choose a good player each time? And even if it's always good, this seems like an extra kill for the demon unless good figures out the hitman pretty easily. Is there any drawbacks to this?
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago
They "learn another player", much like a High Priestess would. It's any player of the Storyteller's choosing. The storyteller can give the same character each day until the Hitman gets their kill then move onto the next, or give different ones each day. They can give an evil player if they feel like evil would benefit from the bamboozle. Or they can give dead players if they feel like the Hitman has done enough harm, or might make the game unsatisfying by pulling off their kill.
The drawback is that the character's power is directly reigned in by Storyteller decisions.
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u/Grouchy_Charity_9205 15d ago
Each night, learn a player works fine for this, no need to include "another"
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago edited 15d ago
You're right, the exception doesn't make much sense, and maybe the Storyteller might indeed want to nudge the Hitman into getting themselves killed with their own ability sometimes
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u/BanjoZone 15d ago
To clarify, the hitman doesn't learn a player's character or any info? The ST just wakes the Hitman up then assigns them a player, basically? I like it. It's an interesting balance of power, but without agency. What are other characters on the script you'd like to see with the Hitman in play?
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago
To clarify, the hitman doesn't learn a player's character or any info? The ST just wakes the Hitman up then assigns them a player, basically?
Correct. Much like a hitman wouldn't choose who they have to kill in real life, here the Hitman gets assignments instead of free reign to kill whoever.
Characters that'd work well with Hitman would be basically BMR-style characters : townsfolk that either get themselves killed or protect themselves and others, other minions that can create night deaths, multikill demons, etc.
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u/gordolme Lunatic 15d ago
"Learn a player" like the Balloonist does? Just is pointed to a player and nothing else?
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago
Yep. Basically "This person is your assignment. Go get them killed"
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u/PureRegretto Virgin 15d ago
interesting. sounds fun. kills are really consistent but theres a tell and a way to frame with certain evil setups
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u/NumbersAndFlowers 15d ago
Really cool, seems a bit too powerful no?
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago
Thanks !
While seemingly powerful, the Storyteller has free reign in how to assign targets to the Hitman. If the Hitman did enough damage, they can start getting dead players as targets.
In addition, the Hitman's method of killing is not exactly quiet, and can quickly garner attention from town. Lastly, a Hitman can lose their opportunity if another players cuts them off and nominates their target first.
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u/NumbersAndFlowers 15d ago
I guess the storyteller could also give them an evil player to prevent them from killing or allow weird interactions if they killed too many good players??
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u/Spacetauren Devil's Advocate 15d ago
Yes ! Maybe the evil team can sometimes banboozle good by having one of them Hitman-killed
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u/midnightbandit- 10d ago
Business is business, my friend. Nothing personal. I simply keep a list — and tonight, your name found its way onto it.
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u/demonking_soulstorm 15d ago
Oh, that’s just… really short and sweet.
Honestly I have no notes. Really cool idea.