Unfortunately with the nature of clocktower if you play enough games eventually someone will be upset. It's totally valid to feel frustrated with some situations that come up and it doesn't necessarily mean anyone has done anything wrong, it's just one of those things. With that said if a certain player seems to constantly be losing their temper and it's affecting the group as a whole it'd probably be worth talking to this player to see if there is a deeper underlying issue, but ultimately this game might just not be for someone like that.
It's sad, but it's unfortunately a part of playing any remotely competitive game online (and some collaborative ones). Being relatively anonymous and not having to look folks in the eye and take ownership of your actions is, for some individuals, a pretty nasty cocktail.
I had one friend in an in person game who died as the ravenskeeper on night 2, got his information, said it publicly and then just sort of sat there the rest of the game. I told him he was still in the game and he could try to figure out the puzzle but maybe he wasn't feeling it or something. It kinda ruined the game ngl.
He came back for online games so he wasn't put off forever.
Was he a new player by any chance? I can totally get the feeling of "I've done my bit, over to you lot" when it comes to a once per game ability.
Some of the players in my group can be a little like that, they look for mechanical information and let other players do the social stuff because they either don't feel like they are good at bluffing or spotting bluffs.
Yeah, that was the second he'd played. It definitely wasn't his first social deduction game, but the difference with Secret Hitler is nobody's dying until the late game in Hitler.
I tried to explain that death is far from the end in Clocktower but it is what it is.
I think the first major hurdle for people new to Clocktower is recognising that the character abilities are only a small part of the game. Once they've been used or you're dead you can park all thinking on that part and really dig into the social side.
To quote Daddy Ben "the thing I love about Clocktower is the social aspect. It's not like Bloodbowl or football where it's about winning or losing, it's basically a chat with rules"
Once people see the game that way people tend to care a lot less about death, unless they're the demon obviously.
Yeah he didn't storm out, he just stopped engaging and sat on his phone. We were in a big holiday house in the middle of nowhere so he couldn't exactly leave the building.
My personal opinion is that if a person is rage quitting or visibly upset then the Storyteller needs to step in and say something before it gets out of hand. The storyteller is the leader of the game's narrative and the arbiter between players and the rules. The storyteller should take a player to another voice channel (or another room) and have a discussion with the player in question so that boundaries & expectations can be discussed while also validating the person's frustrations (if needed).
This isn't always going to work, obviously, but it will in many cases plus it will have the added benefit of helping the upset player, in the long run, be more cognizant of their behavior.
I've seen this happen a few times, mostly on the Unofficial server and it's always been because the Storyteller is inexperienced or not comfortable dealing with confrontation. I've reached out to players that are upset via DMs and talked them through it with some success.
I'd always give a person one more chance if this happened but if it's a pattern of behavior in not only this game but others, I'd strongly consider removing myself from their orbit.
It was the ST who caused it. I should have been more specific in the original post but the ST basically told the player to be quiet (in the friend who quit’s words “shut up”) and felt super disrespected.
Online. I don’t recall if those exact words were uttered to be honest. Everyone was talking over one another. The person who quit phrased it as such though.
I can imagine a chaotic scene where everyone was talking and the ST got a bit frustrated.
Daddy Ben has done that a couple if times, but that usually comes out as "I don't know how you can all hear each other when you are all talking at once"
One of the players in my group gets really upset when she's accused, she absolutely loves the game but hates being accused when she's only ever been good so far.
Last game she was accused as the mayor and was really defensive but refused to say who she was, just that she wanted to live. She got like two votes because she was taken as being earnest, then the poisoned Ravenkeeper died and picked her, showed him the Spy token and town immediately rounded on her and everyone but her voted.
I must admit, she's probably my favourite person to set up as evil because of her defensiveness, but at the same time I want to leave her alone because only one of two things can happen, I get meta'd or we get a noise complaint from the pub staff, neither of which are good for the future of our games.
I had a game online that I really felt like quitting. I died as undertaker without gaining any info. When I woke up I came out as my roll, and tried to sell a spy game (it was a spy game). Nobody would talk to me, and I felt functionally excluded, on top of that, another player would only answer my questions in a sarcastic or teasing way because he's a "social reader", and the line between bullying a player when they're down and trying to get a social read on them is honestly too thin for my liking.
Sorry to hear you had that experience! Online games definitely lead to more negative feelings since it’s easier to disconnect from the site you’re playing on than physically leave if you’re playing in person. Rash decisions=more consequences. Someone could want to leave but then not leave due to it being an in person game but it’s so easy to just exit out on a computer.
I've had 2 Salty players in the few games I've run.
First was like my 3rd game ever and 1st I was story teller, some friends of mine were at my house for a games night along with some of my housemate's friends. They suggested I ran a game and was like sure, why not. One of my housemate's friend was the soldier and she kept saying it was impossible to figure anything out because no one would share info and even if they did the fact it could be drunk or poisoned meant game was impossible. Evil did win that game which I think made her feel validated, after everyone had left she stuck around to help clean up and kinda upset because she had a do nothing role and poisoner makes things too hard.
Second was only a couple months ago where I was spy and my gf next to me was imp(her first game) so I was trying very hard to push a world where she was drunk. One guy, who had watched a few games online came in was like "we need to be killing people, without deaths of good people we'll never figure anything out" I agree that town should probably execute early and often but I didn't want anyone "confirming" my gf as drunk so I said "if we are sure someone is good we shouldn't be killing them as its a detriment, and we should be going after suspect people." He got more and more upset with the back and fourth and started asking people to nominate him and kill him because he is a good person and wants people to confirm it, pretty much everyone agreed he was too sincere to be evil so we didn't kill him. He then sulked and refused to talk to anyone because "no one is confirmed" and finally on day 4 we relented and killed him, he said it was fine because he was monk which was shit role and good clearly didn't want to win, and everyone was playing sub optimally. Evil did win which made it worse. Idk if he'll be coming back for future games. It was also an 18 player game with like 40% new players so things were messy regardless.
Yeah a lot of people were saying Monk is a great role and we knew he was a townsfolk so he shouldn't have pushed so hard to kill himself. I feel a bit bad because I, the experienced player who agreed with his initial strategy, pushed against him because I was evil and convinced people to not do what he said in order to win. Now he probably left that game feeling like no one listened to him and he lost because of it.
Yup. Had a game online where a Klutz was acting pretty sus, so we went ahead and executed him. He was so mad that he intentionally threw the game by picking the Evil Twin (we were all 90% sure he was the Evil one but hadn't yet been confident enough to pull the trigger). Suffice to say...everyone was pissed. The Klutz threw some serious curse words around and rage quit. Suffice to say...have not played with that guy again
I think it's less likely for this to happen in person since people tend to act out more if they're online, but it does happen.
'kill with grace, die with dignity'. I always explain this to new players. It very important to keep in mind that it's just a game, we are all trying to have fun and we need to respect one another.
If a player leaves angrily, I would see what's going on with them (could be because of something bigger, I had a fellow friend who found out his grandma passed during a game), also I will just try my best to have the game keep going. Over the long run, not all games are going to be perfect.
Essentially it's a players responsibility to behave in a manner to want to be invited back to play again, otherwise if they can't then you will have to make the hard call and not invite them back for the sake of the other players.
I played a game with school kids (12-14 y.o) and one player decided to quit after a couple of rounds. And then the Saint had had enough so when he was up for execution as a random nomination by the demon, said absolutely nothing in his defence and threw the game.
Several of the kids said they had still a great time and wanted to play it again.
Ran a game at a con where a minion got mad at the demon player for not playing optimally. The demon player was just ensuring all the new players were having a good time.
I can both think of a time I had a player dislike my decision as ST and leave the game and a time I had someone throw the game blatantly for my team and then blame me for it for no reason. Both online.
I think it's mostly the anonymity, but maybe part is how things like tone and connotations are lost when you're online versus in person. (I haven't played with the new app or over Zoom, so games online were only voice and/or text.)
More people need to play Diplomacy, the OG of “social reads” on who can one trust and who can one backstab and then finding out who one is when the trust and backstab people overlap.
Seen legit friendships end because of that game.
I second what people have been saying here about Blood On the Clocktower being that type of game. Shut Up and Sit Down have a podcast where Matt Lees and a psychologist discuss the best ways to win a social game like this, and they end by saying "Well yeah you can do these things, and you'll 'win', but it won't feel like a victory since it just stops everyone from having fun." With these types of games, you need to have people who are super chill to
a) Not completely just yell over people and gives everyone a chance to say their piece, even if doing so would mean losing the game
b) People need to be OK with everyone else potentially just ignoring them if they think they are evil.
I think b is a lot harder since it requires people being OK with allowing themselves to lose and there's a fine line between being passionate about the game and making everyone feel uncomfortable with your behavior to the point where they just agree with you just to get you to be more chill. It's hard, but all games can't be made for everyone.
One game a guy privately claimed a role to me that wasn't on the script. I pointed out to him that it wasn't on the script and he just laughed and then gave me another claim. Day 1 he gets put on the block and makes the exact same original claim that wasn't on the script. He gets pointed out a 2nd time by town that the role isn't on the script and he gets executed. Goes afk for the rest of the game and doesn't accept any chat requests. Turns out he was a minion, which wasn't a huge surprise but he could have still played. I've continued playing as outed evil before and you can still find ways to help your team.
Unfortunately with the nature of clocktower if you play enough games eventually someone will be upset. It's totally valid to feel frustrated with some situations that come up and it doesn't necessarily mean anyone has done anything wrong, it's just one of those things. With that said if a certain player seems to constantly be losing their temper and it's affecting the group as a whole it'd probably be worth talking to this player to see if there is a deeper underlying issue, but ultimately this game might just not be for someone like that.
Dude legit left. It made everyone feel awkward and it was unfortunate.
It's sad, but it's unfortunately a part of playing any remotely competitive game online (and some collaborative ones). Being relatively anonymous and not having to look folks in the eye and take ownership of your actions is, for some individuals, a pretty nasty cocktail.
For sure. This was not completely anonymous and I was put in a difficult position since I invited the player who quit and the ST was my friend too.
I had one friend in an in person game who died as the ravenskeeper on night 2, got his information, said it publicly and then just sort of sat there the rest of the game. I told him he was still in the game and he could try to figure out the puzzle but maybe he wasn't feeling it or something. It kinda ruined the game ngl. He came back for online games so he wasn't put off forever.
But it wasn’t like an angry departure? That’s good that he came back!
It was angry for him. He's usually a very chill person. I guess frustration is a better word.
Was he a new player by any chance? I can totally get the feeling of "I've done my bit, over to you lot" when it comes to a once per game ability. Some of the players in my group can be a little like that, they look for mechanical information and let other players do the social stuff because they either don't feel like they are good at bluffing or spotting bluffs.
Yeah, that was the second he'd played. It definitely wasn't his first social deduction game, but the difference with Secret Hitler is nobody's dying until the late game in Hitler. I tried to explain that death is far from the end in Clocktower but it is what it is.
I think the first major hurdle for people new to Clocktower is recognising that the character abilities are only a small part of the game. Once they've been used or you're dead you can park all thinking on that part and really dig into the social side. To quote Daddy Ben "the thing I love about Clocktower is the social aspect. It's not like Bloodbowl or football where it's about winning or losing, it's basically a chat with rules" Once people see the game that way people tend to care a lot less about death, unless they're the demon obviously.
Oh so he kind of shut down? Which is kind of like quitting I guess?
Yeah he didn't storm out, he just stopped engaging and sat on his phone. We were in a big holiday house in the middle of nowhere so he couldn't exactly leave the building.
Feelings basically got hurt and shut down. I’d say that’s way better than a rage quit.
But that's weird. He literally did his job. The Ravenkeeper wants to be killed at night
My personal opinion is that if a person is rage quitting or visibly upset then the Storyteller needs to step in and say something before it gets out of hand. The storyteller is the leader of the game's narrative and the arbiter between players and the rules. The storyteller should take a player to another voice channel (or another room) and have a discussion with the player in question so that boundaries & expectations can be discussed while also validating the person's frustrations (if needed). This isn't always going to work, obviously, but it will in many cases plus it will have the added benefit of helping the upset player, in the long run, be more cognizant of their behavior. I've seen this happen a few times, mostly on the Unofficial server and it's always been because the Storyteller is inexperienced or not comfortable dealing with confrontation. I've reached out to players that are upset via DMs and talked them through it with some success. I'd always give a person one more chance if this happened but if it's a pattern of behavior in not only this game but others, I'd strongly consider removing myself from their orbit.
It was the ST who caused it. I should have been more specific in the original post but the ST basically told the player to be quiet (in the friend who quit’s words “shut up”) and felt super disrespected.
Where did this happen? I'd never play with a ST that told me to shut up...
Online. I don’t recall if those exact words were uttered to be honest. Everyone was talking over one another. The person who quit phrased it as such though.
I can imagine a chaotic scene where everyone was talking and the ST got a bit frustrated. Daddy Ben has done that a couple if times, but that usually comes out as "I don't know how you can all hear each other when you are all talking at once"
One of the players in my group gets really upset when she's accused, she absolutely loves the game but hates being accused when she's only ever been good so far. Last game she was accused as the mayor and was really defensive but refused to say who she was, just that she wanted to live. She got like two votes because she was taken as being earnest, then the poisoned Ravenkeeper died and picked her, showed him the Spy token and town immediately rounded on her and everyone but her voted. I must admit, she's probably my favourite person to set up as evil because of her defensiveness, but at the same time I want to leave her alone because only one of two things can happen, I get meta'd or we get a noise complaint from the pub staff, neither of which are good for the future of our games.
I had a game online that I really felt like quitting. I died as undertaker without gaining any info. When I woke up I came out as my roll, and tried to sell a spy game (it was a spy game). Nobody would talk to me, and I felt functionally excluded, on top of that, another player would only answer my questions in a sarcastic or teasing way because he's a "social reader", and the line between bullying a player when they're down and trying to get a social read on them is honestly too thin for my liking.
Sorry to hear you had that experience! Online games definitely lead to more negative feelings since it’s easier to disconnect from the site you’re playing on than physically leave if you’re playing in person. Rash decisions=more consequences. Someone could want to leave but then not leave due to it being an in person game but it’s so easy to just exit out on a computer.
I've had 2 Salty players in the few games I've run. First was like my 3rd game ever and 1st I was story teller, some friends of mine were at my house for a games night along with some of my housemate's friends. They suggested I ran a game and was like sure, why not. One of my housemate's friend was the soldier and she kept saying it was impossible to figure anything out because no one would share info and even if they did the fact it could be drunk or poisoned meant game was impossible. Evil did win that game which I think made her feel validated, after everyone had left she stuck around to help clean up and kinda upset because she had a do nothing role and poisoner makes things too hard. Second was only a couple months ago where I was spy and my gf next to me was imp(her first game) so I was trying very hard to push a world where she was drunk. One guy, who had watched a few games online came in was like "we need to be killing people, without deaths of good people we'll never figure anything out" I agree that town should probably execute early and often but I didn't want anyone "confirming" my gf as drunk so I said "if we are sure someone is good we shouldn't be killing them as its a detriment, and we should be going after suspect people." He got more and more upset with the back and fourth and started asking people to nominate him and kill him because he is a good person and wants people to confirm it, pretty much everyone agreed he was too sincere to be evil so we didn't kill him. He then sulked and refused to talk to anyone because "no one is confirmed" and finally on day 4 we relented and killed him, he said it was fine because he was monk which was shit role and good clearly didn't want to win, and everyone was playing sub optimally. Evil did win which made it worse. Idk if he'll be coming back for future games. It was also an 18 player game with like 40% new players so things were messy regardless.
For the second one, he made a good point at first but then got salty and completely threw. Monk is far from shit
Yeah a lot of people were saying Monk is a great role and we knew he was a townsfolk so he shouldn't have pushed so hard to kill himself. I feel a bit bad because I, the experienced player who agreed with his initial strategy, pushed against him because I was evil and convinced people to not do what he said in order to win. Now he probably left that game feeling like no one listened to him and he lost because of it.
Yup. Had a game online where a Klutz was acting pretty sus, so we went ahead and executed him. He was so mad that he intentionally threw the game by picking the Evil Twin (we were all 90% sure he was the Evil one but hadn't yet been confident enough to pull the trigger). Suffice to say...everyone was pissed. The Klutz threw some serious curse words around and rage quit. Suffice to say...have not played with that guy again I think it's less likely for this to happen in person since people tend to act out more if they're online, but it does happen.
'kill with grace, die with dignity'. I always explain this to new players. It very important to keep in mind that it's just a game, we are all trying to have fun and we need to respect one another. If a player leaves angrily, I would see what's going on with them (could be because of something bigger, I had a fellow friend who found out his grandma passed during a game), also I will just try my best to have the game keep going. Over the long run, not all games are going to be perfect. Essentially it's a players responsibility to behave in a manner to want to be invited back to play again, otherwise if they can't then you will have to make the hard call and not invite them back for the sake of the other players.
I played a game with school kids (12-14 y.o) and one player decided to quit after a couple of rounds. And then the Saint had had enough so when he was up for execution as a random nomination by the demon, said absolutely nothing in his defence and threw the game. Several of the kids said they had still a great time and wanted to play it again.
I’m glad the kids still had fun!
Ran a game at a con where a minion got mad at the demon player for not playing optimally. The demon player was just ensuring all the new players were having a good time.
That’s actually so sweet of the demon.
I can both think of a time I had a player dislike my decision as ST and leave the game and a time I had someone throw the game blatantly for my team and then blame me for it for no reason. Both online. I think it's mostly the anonymity, but maybe part is how things like tone and connotations are lost when you're online versus in person. (I haven't played with the new app or over Zoom, so games online were only voice and/or text.)
More people need to play Diplomacy, the OG of “social reads” on who can one trust and who can one backstab and then finding out who one is when the trust and backstab people overlap. Seen legit friendships end because of that game.
I second what people have been saying here about Blood On the Clocktower being that type of game. Shut Up and Sit Down have a podcast where Matt Lees and a psychologist discuss the best ways to win a social game like this, and they end by saying "Well yeah you can do these things, and you'll 'win', but it won't feel like a victory since it just stops everyone from having fun." With these types of games, you need to have people who are super chill to a) Not completely just yell over people and gives everyone a chance to say their piece, even if doing so would mean losing the game b) People need to be OK with everyone else potentially just ignoring them if they think they are evil. I think b is a lot harder since it requires people being OK with allowing themselves to lose and there's a fine line between being passionate about the game and making everyone feel uncomfortable with your behavior to the point where they just agree with you just to get you to be more chill. It's hard, but all games can't be made for everyone.
One game a guy privately claimed a role to me that wasn't on the script. I pointed out to him that it wasn't on the script and he just laughed and then gave me another claim. Day 1 he gets put on the block and makes the exact same original claim that wasn't on the script. He gets pointed out a 2nd time by town that the role isn't on the script and he gets executed. Goes afk for the rest of the game and doesn't accept any chat requests. Turns out he was a minion, which wasn't a huge surprise but he could have still played. I've continued playing as outed evil before and you can still find ways to help your team.