General

Information

Type	Townsfolk
Artist	Caitlin Murphy
Revealed	17/12/2019

"I don’t have time for quotes."

Summary

"Each night, you learn which alignment the Storyteller believes is winning: good, evil, or neither."

The General knows who is winning.

• If the good team is winning, the Storyteller gives a thumbs up. If the evil team is winning, the Storyteller gives a thumbs down. If neither team is winning, or the Storyteller isn’t sure, the Storyteller gives a thumbs to the side.
• The Storyteller is the judge on which team is winning. Many factors may be included, such as how many players of each team are still alive, how much information the good team has, how successful the evil team’s bluffs seem to be, which players the group wants to execute next, or how experienced the Demon player is. All of these, and more, will inform the Storyteller’s judgment.
• The Storyteller decides who is winning at the point that the General wakes. Previous events in the night may affect their decision.

How to Run

Each night, wake the General. If you believe that the good team is winning, give a thumbs up. If you believe that the evil team is winning, give a thumbs down. If you don’t know which team is winning, give a thumbs to the side. Put the General to sleep.

Examples

There are 5 good players alive and 4 evil players alive. Even though the Demon is very suspicious and will probably be executed next, there is a Scarlet Woman in play, who is very trustworthy. The Storyteller gives a thumbs down.

The Good team has a lot of information, and believes that their false information is indeed false. The only Minion is dead. The Storyteller gives a thumbs up.

The Po is a very experienced player and is coordinating well with the Minions. The Monk is successfully protecting the Savant each night and the good team have correctly identified several good players. However, the Po will probably kill 3 times tomorrow night, so it is anyone’s game. The Storyteller gives a thumbs to the side.

Tips & Tricks

• Keep in mind that your role interacts with the personal opinion of the Storyteller. This opinion will inevitably be influenced by more than just mechanics. Does your group of players include someone who is widely regarded as a very cunning evil player? Perhaps you have someone in your game who is considerably more experienced than others? What are the strategies and tactics that your Storyteller considers to be most effective? These things, and many more, can and will influence your information each night.

• Think about the events that have occurred each day/night and try to imagine how they may have altered the balance of play. Did you execute someone the day before learning that the good team is now winning? Perhaps that person was evil and that is why the Storyteller believes things have shifted in your favor. Maybe they were getting misinformation and their death has now hurt the evil team’s chances of selling a lie.

• Take note of how your information changes from night to night. If you can survive long enough, you will essentially have a line graph showing how the good team’s fortunes have altered over the course of play. On the final day, you can use this knowledge to corroborate the claims of the remaining players.

• Pay attention to what other players are saying, particularly group consensus. If the group is confident that certain players are evil and should be executed tomorrow, and those players are actually evil, then the Storyteller is likely to tell you that the good team is winning, even if there are more dead good players than evil. Similarly, if the group is vocally very trusting of several good players and their information, then the Storyteller is likely to tell you that good is winning. If the good team is vocally distrusting of good players and keen to execute them, while being trusting of evil players and isn't planning on executing them, the Storyteller will likely tell you that evil is winning.

• If your information changes from "good is winning" to "evil is winning", or vice versa, over the course of two nights, this is extremely useful. Something drastic has happened, something that you should be able to guess. Information that changes to or from "neither team is winning" isn't nearly as helpful. For example, learning that "good is winning" on night 2 to "neither team is winning" on night 3, indicates a subtle change that will be more difficult to guess as to its cause.

• If you consistently get information that the good team is winning, let the good team know. Even telling them "I don't know what we are doing right, but let's keep doing what we are doing" is helpful, because you know you are on the right track, even if you don't know the details. Be wary of any player that drastically tries to change the groups's main narrative, or suddenly advocates for the execution of a new player.

• If you consistently get information that the evil team is winning, let the good team know, and take immediate, contradictory action. If the evil team has been winning, try something, anything new, and convince the group to go along with it. Even if that Librarian who is trusted by everybody and confirmed as good by the Empath is making complete sense, if you and the group spend the day assuming that they are lying, evil, or drunk, then the Storyteller may decide that the good team is now "winning" (or even that "neither team is winning") and tell you so tonight. Anything is better than letting the evil team continue to win day after day, so it may be wise to take action that is counterintuitive or explore ideas that seem unreasonable or doubt information that seems confirmed. The worst that can happen is that the Storyteller continues to tell you that evil is winning, while the best that can happen is that the Storyteller tells you that good is now winning - either way, you learn something important. The Demon might kill you at night before you can learn this, however, so if you can sway the overall beliefs and intention of the group without revealing that you are doing so, all the better.

Bluffing as the General

When bluffing as the General, there are a few things you should keep in mind:

• Keep the good team nice and paranoid by repeatedly claiming that you’ve been informed that the good team is losing.

• Frame a dead good player by stating that, after their execution, the Storyteller told you that the good team is now winning.

• Try to make the good players doubt their information by stating that you’re being told that the good team is losing, but you can’t figure out why. This is especially effective if you know, for a fact, that the good team is getting large amounts of very useful, correct information.

• If you think evil is winning, even slightly, consistently tell the group that the good team is winning. Never say that neither team is winning. If the good team consistently believes that they are winning when they are not, they should continue to believe what they believe and not change their suspicions to new players. On the final day, believing that they have made correct decisions and wise judgments the whole game, they will likely execute the wrong player based on wrong information. Encourage their overconfidence.

• To give more damaging misinformation, at the expense of being less trustworthy, give information that fluctuates wildly between "good is winning" and "evil is winning". This implies that the group is making big decisions that are swinging the game one way then another, and will have the effect of the good team incorrectly analysing their past assumptions and actions. However, if your information is too wild and doesn't seem to match up plausibly with past actions, they may disbelieve you and execute you. As such, this strategy is better for Minions.

• To be more trustworthy, at the expense of giving less harmful misinformation, never fluctuate between saying "good is winning" and "evil is winning" on consecutive nights. Have at least one night where you claim to have been told that "neither team is winning" so that the jump from one team winning to the other seems less drastic, and more the result of gradual change over several days. This gradual change from one team winning to another is more likely in reality, so there is a greater chance that the good team will believe that you are the General. However, this is less impactful on the good team's decisions, or at least will take more time. As such, this strategy is better for Demons.

• Whenever something significant happens in the game, such as the good team campaigning for and very nearly executing a public Goblin, or the Undertaker telling the group that a Scarlet Woman must be in play because the Demon was just executed, or the Virgin causing a player to be executed, or waking up to find that the player that died is suddenly claiming to be the Klutz, drastically change which team you say is winning. Presumably, up until this point, you've been spreading false information about which team is winning. After a major event, it makes complete sense for the General to learn that a new team is winning. Play into the good team's beliefs, and take the opportunity to feed them even more dramatic false information.