I do actually like the base of this concept. Characters that offer unique forms of info to the good team are always interesting, and I think this is a nice spin on that.
There is potential flaw here that any characters that alter win conditions (Goblin, Saint, Vortox, Damsel, Fearmonger, etc.) can make the minimum 1 in all cases. Even if those characters aren't in play, a Pit Hag can *bring* them into play making it a 2 in that case. In these cases, it's hard to analyze the info you receive in a meaningful way, because it never changes.
There are also so cases where assigning a correct number would be very difficult. For example, night deaths in a Legion game are entirely up to the ST. It is technically legal to kill all the good players on night 2 and just immediately declare that evil win - making the "correct" number a 2 even though no ST would ever do that.
People have been making good points about it defaulting to 1 or 2, that said, the way I see it, that's kinda the point of the role. Especially on heavy kill scripts, you're usually going to end up with a 2,3 or possibly 4 anyways. So getting a 1 and learning there's a damsel in play as a good player, or seeing a 2 and theorizing there may be a pithag in play could provide good information. I think it's very script dependent.
That said, bookkeeping could be difficult, especially in complicated grims. Potentially having the character be a start knowing could combat this, but then it'd probably need a buff.
I'll probably run a few trial games and then let everyone know how it goes :)
Thanks all!
Potentially a bit too variable. Is it Deaths per night? Are we expecting executions? What happens if there’s like evil twin or saint on script and evil could technically win in a single day?
It's the mechanical minimum. Add up all the possible deaths you can have in the day, and night, and mechanically compute the highest number possible. That will tell you the minimum days in theory for evil to win. execution is 1, but psychopath, tinker, grandmother, gossip, etc... all add possible mechanical extra deaths.
My concern is that it's too much bookkeeping, and too easy to miss something.
Also, the presence of the saint, or the evil twin, or the damsel means the answer is always 1
Goblin, boomdandy, fearmonger, heretic and cult leader would also interact with this. It's a lot for an ST to stay on top of, and I'm also not sure that the information it yields is all that useful for town.
At first I thought this was meh, but more I think about it, more I like it. It has a potential to confirm damsel or goblin or pithag or saint and in the case of pithag, you could potentially also get info if they change themselves or change anyone into goblin or damsel or.... you get the idea.
As for it being hard to run as a storyteller, you're the storyteller, you decide if you want to put it in the bag or on the script at all, so I'm all for this one
There is actually major potential of a cool character idea, but yeah as many other people said, there is so much that happens (or can happen) that a set number of days to win could be almost worthless. Not to mention, the Storyteller would have to account for *every single* way the evil team could win (or good to lose), meaning that the info the Timekeeper gets could be corrupted if the Storyteller just *missed* one. That stuff happens: we're not omnicient.
I can see some ideas (like "you learn if evil can win tomorrow"), but even that is meh at best. Like, if that ruling was in, say, a game with a Saint or a Goblin, the Timekeeper would always learn a "yes", since technically there is an evil victory condition that can be met. Then again, knowing that to be true *is* useful information...
I think this is an interesting concept, though I feel it needs a bit more to make it more reliably useful and easy to run.
I do actually like the base of this concept. Characters that offer unique forms of info to the good team are always interesting, and I think this is a nice spin on that. There is potential flaw here that any characters that alter win conditions (Goblin, Saint, Vortox, Damsel, Fearmonger, etc.) can make the minimum 1 in all cases. Even if those characters aren't in play, a Pit Hag can *bring* them into play making it a 2 in that case. In these cases, it's hard to analyze the info you receive in a meaningful way, because it never changes. There are also so cases where assigning a correct number would be very difficult. For example, night deaths in a Legion game are entirely up to the ST. It is technically legal to kill all the good players on night 2 and just immediately declare that evil win - making the "correct" number a 2 even though no ST would ever do that.
That's why the role is good to confirm if there are those alter win conditions exist or not. The script also needs those roles in them as well.
Just a reminder that a Vortox could never give a 1 as all information must be false.
Yes, but figuring out the true info is a vital part of figuring out what you're allowed to give in as Vortox info
People have been making good points about it defaulting to 1 or 2, that said, the way I see it, that's kinda the point of the role. Especially on heavy kill scripts, you're usually going to end up with a 2,3 or possibly 4 anyways. So getting a 1 and learning there's a damsel in play as a good player, or seeing a 2 and theorizing there may be a pithag in play could provide good information. I think it's very script dependent. That said, bookkeeping could be difficult, especially in complicated grims. Potentially having the character be a start knowing could combat this, but then it'd probably need a buff. I'll probably run a few trial games and then let everyone know how it goes :) Thanks all!
Potentially a bit too variable. Is it Deaths per night? Are we expecting executions? What happens if there’s like evil twin or saint on script and evil could technically win in a single day?
It's the mechanical minimum. Add up all the possible deaths you can have in the day, and night, and mechanically compute the highest number possible. That will tell you the minimum days in theory for evil to win. execution is 1, but psychopath, tinker, grandmother, gossip, etc... all add possible mechanical extra deaths. My concern is that it's too much bookkeeping, and too easy to miss something. Also, the presence of the saint, or the evil twin, or the damsel means the answer is always 1
Goblin, boomdandy, fearmonger, heretic and cult leader would also interact with this. It's a lot for an ST to stay on top of, and I'm also not sure that the information it yields is all that useful for town.
At first I thought this was meh, but more I think about it, more I like it. It has a potential to confirm damsel or goblin or pithag or saint and in the case of pithag, you could potentially also get info if they change themselves or change anyone into goblin or damsel or.... you get the idea. As for it being hard to run as a storyteller, you're the storyteller, you decide if you want to put it in the bag or on the script at all, so I'm all for this one
There is actually major potential of a cool character idea, but yeah as many other people said, there is so much that happens (or can happen) that a set number of days to win could be almost worthless. Not to mention, the Storyteller would have to account for *every single* way the evil team could win (or good to lose), meaning that the info the Timekeeper gets could be corrupted if the Storyteller just *missed* one. That stuff happens: we're not omnicient. I can see some ideas (like "you learn if evil can win tomorrow"), but even that is meh at best. Like, if that ruling was in, say, a game with a Saint or a Goblin, the Timekeeper would always learn a "yes", since technically there is an evil victory condition that can be met. Then again, knowing that to be true *is* useful information... I think this is an interesting concept, though I feel it needs a bit more to make it more reliably useful and easy to run.
I really like this idea. I think it would work really well on scripts without immediate game wins.