BMRheaders — the Pacifist
There is nothing noble about dying.
Ooh, my favourite character in all of Clocktower.
Executed good players might not die.
Hey, wait. That seems too short for its own good. Let’s remind ourselves…
Executed good players might not die (if it’s beneficial for the good team)1.
Tad bit better, I suppose. Reminds you that Pacifist is a Townsfolk, if the other people giving Bad Moon Rising storytelling advice hadn’t drilled it into your head yet. There’s a bit of a quirk of this article: since the Pacifist is such a Storyteller-relevant character, you can’t talk about strategy if you don’t know what your Storyteller is doing. If your Storyteller does the horror stories I’ve heard people do with the Pacifist, then I think we need a Storytelling lesson. Kindly and respectfully explain the contents of this article to your Storyteller if you suspect so.
The Pacifist’s Guide to Not Being an Outsider
Of course, Townsfolk characters by definition are going to need to help their team. Unfortunately, we in the business call Pacifist a theoagentic2 role, which means your agency’s ability to actually do anything is in the hands of the Storyteller. This means that, as a Storyteller, you need to be self-conscious about the consequences of your actions.
Treating the Pacifist as a Townsfolk is a bare minimum. This article will discuss edge cases later, but in general, saving players from execution does not help the good team when:
It blocks information.
It inadvertently (or worse, advertently3) helps the evil team.
Keeping Information
Mechanically, blocking information refers to the Sailor, Tea Lady, and Fool. If the Sailor is drunk with pertinent reasons, you should execute them to tell them so. If the Tea Lady is neighbouring an evil player, you should execute their other good neighbour. If the Fool has already lost their life, you should execute them to tell them so. Not doing these simple things will block the good team’s very limited information on Bad Moon Rising. Bad idea.
Not Assisting the Evil Team
Always saving players when the Zombuul is around is partially assisting the evil team. If it doesn’t seem like you’re going to be actually executing any time soon, maybe drop a hint that it’s Zombuul. Still keep particularly good characters around, but maybe drop the blade on a Minstrel or something to give a hint. Additionally, not saving Outsiders when the Godfather is in play is assisting the evil team.
The Pacifist’s Guide to Not Being Useless
The Almanac says…
Triggering the Pacifist ability once per game is usually about right. You can trigger it more if you feel it is appropriate. On rare occasions, to make the Pacifist look suspicious, you can never trigger it.
This is not good advice. It is partially true, but it gives the wrong impression. ‘Rare occasions’ basically means never: would you give ‘On rare occasions, to make the Recluse look like a Spy, you can never register them as evil’ as advice to a new Trouble Brewing Storyteller? Of course not! Yes, you can say that you can do it, but that word never explains how rare it actually should be. This is even worse advice to give for Pacifist, because the Pacifist is a Townsfolk and not an Outsider, unlike the Recluse.
Writing ‘once per game’ gives new Storytellers a horrid baseline, and usually leads to ‘holding on’ to the Pacifist save and not actually doing anything useful with it. It is true that in 7–8 player games, saving once is usually about right, but this is completely wrong for 10–12 players. Of course, you can’t really fit this entire article into the space given for characters in the Almanac, so maybe it’s not completely inexcusable. It’s still putting Storytellers off on the wrong foot.
On Once Per Game Pacifist: Mechanically…
When a Tea Lady does their science, and the evil team sees that, what are the consequences of the action? The evil team only sees that the executee is saved. The options are: they’re neighbouring the Tea Lady, they’re the Sailor, they’re saved by the Pacifist. (We are not counting Fool.)
If you tentatively cling to the Pacifist save by treating it like a once-per-game ability, you are decreasing the chance that it’s a Pacifist save. This is really bad for the Tea Lady. This increases the chance that a day-protected player neighbours the Tea Lady for the evil team by proxy. Memento mori, Tea Lady. Don’t make every Innkeeper frantically protect the day-saved’s neighbours. It is boring, for one, as it heavily discourages Tea Lady science.
So we have Sailor left to do science, which is not healthy. Generally, Bad Moon Rising needs science as the ‘players need to do something Day 1’ impetus, as it doesn’t have the luxury of having Trouble Brewing’s Top 4 and Virgin or Sects and Violets’s wild west of information. Limiting this leads to some slow and boring Day 1s. This weakens Devil’s Advocate and Zombuul significantly, and that’s also why those two evil characters are more miserable to play in a once-per-game Pacifist group.
Additionally, this makes Pacifist basically equivalent to the Devil’s Advocate, meaning you lose ‘double-tapping’ as a mechanic, which is just disappointing. Imagine if you were the Virgin but there was a Minion that went ‘all players who nominate you die’.
I unaffectionally call this the Pseudoscience Pipeline. Is your group showing symptoms of the Pseudoscience Pipeline? Call a doctor today!
Players suspecting basically every save as a Devil’s Advocate save
Tea Ladies who aren’t doing science
Players are sad that they are the Sailor or the Pacifist
Zombuul games always last way too long, even with some of the Science Quartet in play, along with speedy days and nights
Pacifists who want to commit suicide via Day 1 execution
Thankfully, the Pseudoscience Pipeline is treatable. Just follow my prescription.
On Once Per Game Pacifist: Socially…
it makes me sad as pacifist when you don’t save anyone using my ability and then i inevitably die :( can we go back to playing trouble brewing pls
Socially speaking, see Everyone has a unique ability, a special power that can help their team. Many players hate Pacifist in once-per-game groups because they don’t feel like they are helping their team. That was a promise on your behalf as the Storyteller ever since you read the blurb, and it should be fulfilled across your games. Breaching this contract will lead to less fun for everyone.
Whilst some players can still have fun in a ‘do nothing’ sort of game, I would hazard a guess that most players do not. Most people prefer playing the game. Choosing to make Pacifist stronger gives them more reasons to live, preferring to out to a few players and hide instead. This gives Pacifist the actual dynamic it deserves as a Clocktower character.
The Information You Get
There’s fun stuff the Storyteller can do with the Pacifist ability. I recommend to Storytellers that they save as much as they can, or at least are willing to. Remember, the town is not doing a very good job with executing evils in the first place if you are constantly saving. The more suspiciously correct saves there are; the higher the chances they’ve been foiled by the Devil’s Advocate. Do with it what you are willing, because there are a trillion reasons why a good player isn’t saved. Bad Moon Rising is slightly-evil sided in general. It won’t hurt, think how the Dreamer gets confirmed by giving true information, but can’t really detect specific evils very well.
When someone dies when you’re in play in this paradigm of being a decent character, there’s a few reasons why:
They’re evil!!!!!
They’re the good Goon. Keeping a hidden good Goon around is usually very bad for the good team, so your Storyteller won’t do it.
You are drunk or poisoned from a variety of good abilities that can do so. Or Pukka.
They’re the spent Fool, Sailor, or neighbour the Tea Lady and you saving them is not a good idea.
It’s a Zombuul game, and you needed a hint by this point. Usually, one of the other reasons gives you this execution anyway. I’d also only execute Minstrels, Courtiers poisoning the wrong Demon, and Grandmothers here, so…
They’re hilariously wrong, and aren’t worth keeping around as an alive hand raising for the evil team. If they’re a Pukka-poisoned Grandmother who saw the Demon or something to that extent, it would be in your team’s best interest to be telegraphed so.
The Storyteller thinks it’s best that you eliminate a Demon candidate immediately instead of wasting time double-tapping them. This is incredibly rare, I’ve not executed under this reason twice or thrice throughout my many games.
There’s loads of reasons to not save! Don’t go jumping to conclusions, and ask the Storyteller whether they would save in certain situations. If you’re the strong Townsfolk you deserve (and need) to be, tell someone that can out you’re in play, lay back, and chill around for a bit. If you read the Gambler article, you know what to claim.
Townsfolk: A type of good character. Townsfolk have abilities that help the good team. Usually, most in-play characters are Townsfolk. The Traveller sheet lists the number of Townsfolk in the current game.
Derived from theo- + agentic. Same theo- as theological. I like ‘agentic’ as an incredibly recent coinage for ‘having agency’. It’s saddening to see it only used to talk about AI mumbo jumbo.
I note that my Windows-provided spellcheck is giving me a red squiggle over much of my vocabulary, despite said vocabulary being supported by my dictionary corpora. This is a mild annoyance, considering my tests on actually misspelled words not being flagged. Microsoft, what are you doing?