On Running the High Priestess in Blood on the Clocktower

This essay was original posted on Google Documents, but I wanted to collect all my long form writings in one place.

The High Priestess is one of the most storyteller intensive characters in hit social deduction game Blood on the Clocktower. Its ability is nebulous: “Each night, learn which player the Storyteller believes you should talk to most.” The almanac helpfully provides “There are no official criteria that determine which player the Storyteller must show to the High Priestess.” Though it provides some examples of what the Storyteller might think of when deciding, it also is careful to state “Or something new” might be the reason. Of all the characters I’ve seen in Blood on the Clocktower, High Priestesses have the highest percentage of 1) incorrectly believing their information is poisoned when it’s sober 2) solo solving a game in a way that’s not fun or satisfying to either the winning or losing team.

How can we make sure the High Priestess is fun, useful, and not overly powered?

This essay depends on a few principles. If you don’t agree with these principles, you probably won’t find it convincing. I’ll lay them out here:

1. Blood on the Clocktower is a social experience masquerading as a game more than it’s a game we play to win. While it's competitive and both teams should be trying to win, it’s the journey, not the destination that makes the game fun.

2. Games are fun when the good team comes together to put together strands of information from different players to find a solve, or when the evil team successfully disrupts and bamboozles the good team. They aren’t fun when a team feels like they don’t have a chance to win.

3. Good players are presumed to share their information until proven otherwise. A Fortune Teller with a yes isolated to one living player will share this. An Oracle with a 0 after three nights will share this. A Ravenkeeper who dies and sees a player as the imp will mention this.

4. One member of the good team shouldn’t have the full solve. For example, the Fisherman gets advice to help them win the game. The good team wins by executing the demon. Yet no one thinks a Fisherman should be told “Execute John” even though John is the demon. It’s just not fun.

5. Recurring info should be weaker than one shot info. The Steward and Village Idiot both learn if a particular player is good. The Steward doesn’t have to deal with solving whether their information is drunked by their own ability. The Village Idiot does.

A lot of the time High Priestess is run in a way that contravenes each of these principles. For example, let’s say Sally the Fortune Teller checks Sam the Demon and Pat the High Priestess night one and gets a Yes. A lot of storytellers will show Sally to Pat who now learns that Sally has a Yes on Pat and Sam, one of whom Pat knows isn’t the demon, meaning Pat can immediately deduce Sam is either the Demon or the Red Herring. Great info, right? Except Pat and Sally have now solo solved the game. The good team isn’t coming together to solve anything by weaving together all the parts of the puzzle. There’s no journey—Sam will likely be executed in the face of this overwhelming information. Pat got information stronger than any once per game character. And all this for information that Sally was probably going to share anyway; after all Fortune Tellers aren’t known for hiding night one yeses when they are least likely to be poisoned.

This information sucks. It doesn’t make for a fun play experience. The evil team feels railroaded, the good team unsatisfied. Yet not only is this the typical way of running High Priestess, some players will complain if Pat isn’t sent to Sally, as Sally has the info most useful to both Pat and the good team in general.

I’ll submit a counter-proposal: it is anathema to running a fun and balanced game to send Pat to Sally. Sending Pat to Sally immediately after Sally gets a Yes on Pat and Sam is an indefensible and incorrect choice that violates both the text and the spirit of the High Priestess ability.

First let’s talk about design theory. When the High Priestess was released, it was mentioned it was invented and designed by one of the formerly designated “Fabled” storytellers, Andrew Nathenson, to act as a social lubricant to help get shyer and quieter players involved in the game. If a player, especially on the good team, is sitting by themselves unsure of who talk to or how to start a conversation, they probably aren’t having a good time. Voila! The High Priestess. A character that the storyteller can use to provoke a conversation with the shy quiet player who might otherwise be left out.

Importantly, this is the sort of player good likely needs to get on board. Blood on the Clocktower games are frequently tight. They might come down to a single vote, and players who are unsure of the world sometimes don’t vote, even on final three. The High Priestess can be used to convince an undecided good player who isn’t sure how they are voting because no one has talked to them to vote with the good players who have the right world. This single vote is likely more important than the good player who already shared their information with the High Priestess but hasn’t convinced our shy players. And perhaps even more than players who don’t know, players who good has excluded (knowingly or not) because they think they are evil, or are sharing bad info, might vote with the evil team who is talking to them, even more damaging to good than not voting. The High Priestess offers an opportunity to correct these social exclusions and get players talking.

Second, let’s talk about fun. We all know the best games end on final three not on day 1. Is it occasionally funny if the slayer shoots the demon at the top of day one before anyone has a chance to talk? Yes. But only because it’s so novel and rare. We want the tense, puzzle solving experience of final three. That’s what draws us back. While a storyteller can take this too far, e.g. executing a mutant who really hasn’t broken madness just because the demon is on the block, the unsolved final three is a goal. When Pat the High Priestess sees Sally the Fortune Teller who checked Pat and Sam the Demon night one, and Sam gets executed day 1, no one has fun.

Third, let’s talk about balance. Again, think about the Fisherman who we don’t tell Day 1: “execute Sam, he’s the demon.” We certainly shouldn’t be giving the High Priestess that level of information every day, for free.

So what can we do instead of sending the High Priestess to the good player with the best info? I’ll offer some proposals.

1. On Night One Especially, Players they might want to role swap with or who could use a friend

Do you know who could use someone to trust quickly? A Damsel. And it behooves good to know if a Damsel is in play so they can know to spend time providing Damsel cover and making it harder for the minions to find and guess the Damsel. The Damsel makes for an excellent player to send the High Priestess to. An early trust bond or giving the damsel the High Priestess role to claim while the High Priestess tries to look like a Damsel can make the difference between the minions finding the damsel or not. An early role swap for the damsel can work wonders. The High Priestess can do that.

And not just the Damsel! Demon banes like the Ravenkeeper, Sage, Farmer, or Banshee can benefit from an early High priestess visit to get a powerful role they can swap into so the demon might want to kill them.

Or a Juggler. They don’t have info yet, but having a secure High Priestess claim to juggle can help them lock in whether their info is sober or not, or subject to a Vortox.

2. Players who something weird has happened to

Another thing that can be extremely strong is to send the High Priestess to a player who something weird has happened to—like a player who is currently Cerenovus mad or Harpy mad. If John thought Jane was good yesterday, and suddenly and inexplicably will be stating Jane is evil today, the High Priestess can realize there is a harpy in play not a Baron and the outsider claims aren’t trustworthy.

But there’s lots of types of weird that can come up. Weird things are big tells in Blood on the Clocktower. With the recent Wizard release, weird can be anything.

I was recently talking to Patters about a game where he sent the High Priestess to the Mutant night one. His reasoning was simple: the Mutant was poisoned, and the relationship between the High Priestess and the Mutant is such they both just tell each other the truth when good. Since the Mutant couldn’t be executed, this was strong and useful information that something was wrong with the Mutant, specifically that they weren’t sober. This is very good High Priestess information! It gives them something about the game state they can puzzle out (there’s droisoning in play that could affect the Mutant, which probably means a poisoner, absent some cheeky Philo Mutants). But it doesn’t solve anything immediately. The Mutant could be lying. Or evil. This satisfies the goal of doing something useful with the High Priestess and giving them just a piece of the puzzle, not the entire answer.

3. Players who are in the wrong world

Let’s say yesterday with eight players alive, John, who is good, voted with Sam, Jamie, and Anna, who are evil, to kill Frank, a good player. Frank, Sally, Tom, and Pat (the High Priestess) served as an alternative voting block who wanted to kill one of the evil players.

Right now, good is at a critical junction: John is in the wrong world and voting with evil, and if he does so again, evil is highly likely to win. It’s far more important for Pat to talk to John, and convince him to consider the other world, than for Pat to speak to Sally, who has a new fortune teller “Yes” on Sam the demon. If John thinks Sally is evil, Sally sharing the new fortune teller yes isn’t going to convince him. What needs to happen is to convince John that he needs to hear the other good players out and consider voting with them.

Notably, I had no discussion of John’s info there. John could have good info and be wrong, or bad info and be wrong. It’s immaterial. The importance of talking to John is not in the info he has to share with Pat, but that John is the good player in the evil voting block, and he is therefore the one who can be peeled off. Pat needs to hear John out and try to explain the other world.

I remember a game of Strings Pulling I played many years ago. The Empath was poison locked by their neighbor, the Poisoner and getting zeros on the Poisoner and their other neighbor, who was also evil. As a result, they were voting with the evil players against the good players, whose information contradicted the Empath. I remember the Empath’s frustration—good players were disregarding them and writing them off as evil, when they were just following their information. I remember talking to them, realizing they were definitely on the good team, and that it was just their info that was wrong. I don’t remember if I convinced them, and this was before the High Priestess existed publicly, but the Empath would have been a perfect player for a good High Priestess to be sent to. Good needed to find the world where the empath was good and had bad info. And the Empath needed to be heard out and believed by other good players if good had any chance of bringing them on board. And even if their vote wasn’t critical, the Empath would have a more fun game if the other good players listened to them, and helped them find the world where their information was wrong.

I’d take that over “a Fortune Teller who has a yes they would share anyway” any day.

4. Players good players wrongly want to kill

This example comes straight from the almanac: each day the Saint nearly gets executed, each night the storyteller sends the High Priestess to the saint.

This is a prime good use of the High Priestess ability. The Saint is in a bad spot: people are trying to kill them and good will lose.

The case here feels almost self explanatory: the Saint knows something unique; if executed good will lose. It’s incredibly important that good players stop trying to execute them. Good players aren’t listening. By sending the High Priestess there you are making a signal; again, it’s up to the High Priestess to interpret the signal correctly but the High Priestess shouldn’t be solo solving games, just adding a small piece to the puzzle.

The Saint is a dramatic example, but there are plenty of others. It’s against good’s interest to execute the Soldier who can guarantee them a final three, even if they won’t lose the game necessarily if they do. If there’s 6 players and three evils alive, it’s against good’s interest to execute the Mutant because the poisoned Fortune Teller narrowed the demon to the mutant or the Acrobat, and you executed the acrobat yesterday. Any player and character can be a critical mishap if executed by good (sometimes even evil ones!). If good is wrongly gearing up to execute them, the High Priestess can be sent there to give them a chance to back down.

5. Evil Players who are intentionally spreading false worlds the High Priestess can disprove

This is another one that feels obvious when you work it through. Let’s say the Goblin has been arguing that the demon is really the Goblin, and the town shouldn’t execute them. Maybe they are claiming to have dreamed them as the Goblin. Maybe the Goblin is claiming they have been Cerenovus mad, and is framing an executed player as the Cerenovus who stopped locking them and that’s why they can share their dreams now. But Pat the High Priestess knows a Harpy is in play because they were Harpy mad day one and then the harpy was executed, so no one else knows that.

If Pat talks to the Goblin and gets their world, they will know it’s a lie. They know the minions can’t be Cerenovus and Goblin, because they know about the harpy. So they will know the Goblin is wrong that the Demon is the Goblin because of their dream.

Disproving this info will help the good team gain confidence to execute the Demon through their Goblin claim. Again, here we aren’t looking at actual info, we are looking at things a player is saying. Conversations the High Priestess might have. Putting pieces of the puzzle together.

6. Players who for some reason aren’t sharing their information

Something I didn’t list here is “players with good information.” This isn’t necessarily wrong, but it makes for dull High Priestess information and unfun games, which is where we started. The good players are going to share their good info anyway, in most cases. But if they aren’t, then maybe it’s time to send the High Priestess to them.

Let’s consider this world: Sally the Fortune Teller is worried she may be the marionette, so has never checked her neighbors. On day 4, she’s accumulated 8 nos on people she’s not sat next to, but hasn’t shared this information because of her concern that her neighbor is the demon (which they are) and that she’s the Marionette (which she’s not). So no one on the good team except Sally knows this critical information.

Maybe Pat the High Priestess knows there can’t be a Marionette in play because he’s been Cerenovus mad and Harpy mad, so those must be the two minions, and can share that with Sally to help convince her to share. Maybe he doesn’t know that, but it’s just critical Sally share her information even if Pat doesn’t have a good reason to convince Sally. But if we’ve reached Day 4 and Sally hasn’t shared her powerful information, now it probably makes way more sense to send Pat to her then it did on Day 1. One of our normal conditions isn’t being satisfied: a good player isn’t sharing their information.

There’s various other good reasons to send a High Priestess to a player. But let’s look through a counter example:

• Day 1: The High Priestess sees the Steward, who saw them. The Steward shared their information with the High Priestess immediately, because that’s what they do when they are confirming someone. The conversation would have happened without the Storyteller’s direction.

• Day 2: The High Priestess sees the Seamstress who has a no between the High Priestess and the Scarlet Woman. The Seamstress checked the High Priestess because they knew about the Steward ping, and now wants to execute the Scarlet Woman. They were going to share this publicly anyway. The Scarlet Woman is executed.

• Day 3: The High Priestess is sent to the Ravenkeeper who was killed last night and saw the Kazali as the Kazali. As soon as the day starts, the Ravenkeeper announces this. The High Priestess, says “I believe this; I was shown the Ravenkeeper last night.” The Kazali is executed, and the game ends.

Does this game seem fun? The High Priestess was spoon fed game solving info on a daily basis, and evil had no opportunity to counter this. The High Priestess was going to learn every piece of information anyway, because the good players were highly incentivized to share their info with at least the High Priestess, if not publicly. The evil team has no way out—they can’t build a world where all four players are evil. No conversations were facilitated.

This version of the High Priestess is the strongest character in Blood on the Clocktower, and one I never want to play with. There’s no journey, there’s barely a puzzle, and the evil team is bitter and defeated from a hopeless position.

Some people argue that this is just what the High Priestess is required to be given. Why? It’s not in the character text that they are sent to the good player with the best info, nor in the almanac. We looked at the start of this essay. We would have noticed if it was there. It’s not part of the design theory of facilitating conversations to be inclusive. It’s not fun.

Notably, when running the High Priestess the way I propose it will be hard for the High Priestess to figure out why they’ve been sent to a particular player. Is it because the High Priestess needs to convince the player to change their world view, or because the player has information they haven’t shared that will shake the High Priestess’s world, or because the player is evil and their world is inconsistent with the High Priestess? The only way for the High Priestess to solve this is to have the conversation and try to figure out. In essence to work as the social lubricant, a back and forth with the player, not just to grab the reason and run. That the reason could be not what the High Priestess interprets is the drawback, akin to the Fortune Teller’s Red Herring, the Savant’s false statement, or the Grandmother’s ability to die in the night.

This turns to another aspect of the High Priestess—the frustrating tendency of players to assume their information is drunk or poisoned if they aren’t getting the best info. As a storyteller, you should try to advise them against this, especially if your group is new to the High Priestess or you are only starting to run the High Priestess in line with these views. Encourage them to try to figure out your intent through the conversation, not reject it out of hand.

Let’s all make a community commitment to avoid the bad High Priestess.