Engineer

Information

Type	Townsfolk
Artist	John Grist
Revealed	21/10/2021

"If it bends, great. If it breaks, well, it probably needed fixing anyway."

Character Showcase

Summary

"Once per game, at night, choose which Minions or which Demon is in play."

The Engineer manufactures the threat that the town faces.

• The Engineer can choose which Minion characters are in play, or which Demon is in play, but not both.
• When the Engineer creates new in-play characters, the Demon player remains the Demon, and the Minion players remain Minions. The number of evil players stays the same.
• If the Engineer tries to create an in-play character, that character stays as the same player. The Engineer doesn’t learn this, and may not use their ability again.
• If creating Minions, the Engineer chooses the same number of Minions that should be in play for the number of players (see the Traveller sheet or the setup sheet).
• If the Engineer accidentally chooses too many or too few characters, the Storyteller changes as many evil players’ characters as is fair and feasible.
• Only characters from the current script may be chosen.

How to Run

Each night, wake the Engineer. They either shake their head no or point at evil characters on the character sheet.

If they shake their head no, nothing happens. Put the Engineer to sleep.

If they point to a Demon or Minions on their character sheet, put them to sleep. Swap all appropriate character tokens with new character tokens. Wake each evil player that changed character, show the YOU ARE info token, then their new character token, then put them to sleep. The Engineer loses their ability—mark them with the NO ABILITY reminder and remove their night token from the night sheet.

Examples

On the second night, the Engineer chooses that the Demon is a Lleech. Lewis, who was the Imp, is now the Lleech.

On the first night, the Engineer changes the Baron into the Boomdandy. There are still an extra two Outsiders in play.

The Fearmonger and the Psychopath are in play, and causing havoc. The Engineer chooses that the Mezepheles and the Spy are in play. The Storyteller chooses to change the Fearmonger into the Mezepheles and the Psychopath into the Spy.

The Spy, Assassin, and Witch are in play. The Engineer chooses that the Spy, Assassin and Mezepheles are in play. The Witch turns into the Mezepheles.

Tips & Tricks

• If you are the Engineer, you can broadly accomplish one of four things: deciding which Minions are in play, deciding which Minions are not in play, deciding which Demon is in play, deciding which Demon is not in play.

• If you want to choose which Minions are in play, this lets you and the entire good team know what you are facing. This can be crucial information. Knowing that there is a Goblin or Boomdandy is in play at least means that you need to be wary on who to execute. Knowing that a Spy or Widow is in play means that you and all the good players should reveal who you are, honestly, as soon as possible. Knowing what you are up against means that you can plan your strategy accordingly. Similarly, choosing which Demon is in play allows you to plan what to do. Knowing that a Vortox is in play means the good team must reverse their information, that it can not be true, for example.

• If you want to choose which Minions are not in play, simply choose the other Minions to be in play instead. If you want to avoid poisoning, then choosing characters other than the Poisoner may guarantee it. If your group is particularly susceptible to the Mastermind then you can make sure that you don't have to think about it by changing all Minions to other characters instead. Similarly, if you don't know what Demon you do want in play, but there is one Demon in particular that you definitely do NOT want in play, choose to turn the Demon into this character. You will still be facing a powerful adversary, but not the most feared adversary.

• To prevent the evil team (or the good team!) killing you before you use your ability, use your ability on the first night. This guarantees that you will get to act. The downside to acting this early is that you miss out on the group discussion, and any pertinent information that may influence your decision, like which good characters are in play and which evil characters that they are particularly suited at combatting.

• To choose the most ideal Minions or Demon to create, wait until the second or third night, and generate as much discussion as you can in the meantime. To make the best decision possible, you'll need to know as many good characters that are in play, so that their particular abilities can be used to the full, such as creating a Vigormortis to help the Oracle detect evil players, or creating a Goblin if there is a Voudon in play you are fairly certain that the dead players are all good.

• Timing can be crucial for the Engineer. Some evil abilities can be entirely negated by you acting at the right time. For example, if you turn the Mezepheles into the Devil's Advocate on the night that the Mezepheles was due to turn a player evil, that player will stay good. If you turn the Devil's Advocate into the Mezepheles on the final night, then you guarantee that the final day will continue without the Demon being safe from execution AND prevent the Mezepheles from using their ability (since there are no more nights).

• Creating an obvious Demon or Minion in the middle of the game may confirm your identity as the Engineer. A surprise Fearmonger or Evil Twin will get the good team trusting you, since those characters didn't seem to exist the previous day, but they may not be the Minions that the good team really wants to face. Be careful when balancing the benefit of your glowing reputation as a good player with the benefit of facing the most ideal Minions and Demons.

• Don't be afraid to create character that add Outsiders in square brackets, like [this]. Square brackets indicate to the Storyteller what tokens to add or remove during the game setup, and won't influence what happens in the middle of the game. If you add a Baron, then two Outsiders will not be added.

• How much discussion you generate about your ability is up to you. Too much discussion, and the Demon may kill you that night, preventing you from using your ability. Too little, and the group may get suspicious that you didn't involve them in the decision.

Bluffing as the Engineer

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

• The easiest way to bluff as the Engineer is to say that you have created the character that you actually are. If you are the Poisoner say that you have created a Poisoner. If you are the Shabaloth then say that you have created a Shabaloth. You may need to do this on the first or second night, before the good team discusses and insists that you choose a particular character, as they may not choose the character you want them to choose!

• Make sure that you tell the group that you have created a character that doesn't have an obvious tell. If you claim that you have created an Al-Hadikhia and yet there is no Al-Hadikhia acting at night, you'll have some pretty serious explaining to do. But if you say that you have created a Pukka then it is much harder for the group to tell whether you are lying or not, assuming that the real Demon is an Imp or Fang Gu or similar and is NOT a character like the Al-Hadikhia to contradict that information.

• If all the evil characters on the script don't have an obvious tell, then feel free to generate as much discussion as you can as to what evil characters you should create. The good team will have no way of knowing whether your Engineer ability worked or not.

• If you want to confuse the good team, tell them that you have created evil characters that are different to the real evil characters in play.

• If you want to look like a good player, at the expense of helping the good team gain clarity, tell them that you have created evil characters that are the same as the real evil characters in play.

• Whatever character(s) you decide to tell the good team that you have created, have a solid, ready-made, well-prepared story as to WHY you made that choice. Often, the good team will focus on the extra threat that a new evil character creates as opposed to the benefit of removing other evil characters, and look at your choice as one that has made the evil team more powerful. For example, if you tell them that you have created a Witch and a Cerenovus, the good team may cry foul if all they see is the extra possibility of dying during the day, but if you tell them that you created these characters specifically to avoid the possibility of a Mastermind or a Goblin and that the group is very familiar with Sects & Violets so you figured that the good team would play best against Minions that they are familiar with, that will be more believable that a simple shrug of your shoulders.

• Bluffing as the Engineer is highly dependent on which Minions and Demons are on the character sheet. Before bluffing as the Engineer, chat with your fellow evil players and find out what characters they are, and tell them that you are planning to bluff as the Engineer. Knowing which evil characters are really in play, and what those players intend to do, will greatly help smooth out the rough edges of your Engineer bluff.