What is Sort Order?

The Sort Order (“SAO”) for Blood on the Clocktower is the official order that characters appear on a script. The goal of the Sort Order is to make each script easier for Storytellers and players to understand, by sorting characters with similarities (indicated by similar wordings) together. 

The previous version of the sort order (also known as the “Standard Amy Order”) grouped abilities together that act at similar times in the game. This system worked well for many abilities, but once we reached passive abilities and trigger abilities, the order became much less intuitive, and many conceptually similar abilities were ordered separately from one another. 

In redesigning the Sort Order, we wanted to keep everything that worked well in the previous order, while providing more clarity & easy understanding of characters that were previously difficult to sort.

 

How are characters sorted?

First, characters are sorted by character type, in this order: 

1. Townsfolk
2. Outsiders
3. Minions
4. Demons

Within each character type, characters are sorted in groups based on their ability text & type:

You start knowing
At night
Each dusk*
Each night
Each night*
Each day
Once per game, at night
Once per game, at night*
Once per game, during the day
Once per game
On your 1st night
On your 1st day

You think
You are
You have
You do not know
You might
You

When you die
When you learn that you died
When

If you die
If you died
If you are “mad”
If you
If the Demon dies
If the Demon kills
If the Demon
If both
If there are 5 or more players alive
If

All players
All

The 1st time
The

Good
Evil
Players
Minions

All remaining characters are sorted by character ability text length.

Within each group, characters are sorted by ability text length, from least to greatest number of characters. Due to font size, kerning, and rendering, it sometimes happens that an ability appears visibly longer on the script even though it has fewer characters than an ability below it in the Sort Order. 

In the instance that two abilities in the same group have the same number of characters, characters are then sorted from least to greatest number of characters in the character name. For example, the Monk and the Gambler both have 82 characters in their ability text, so the Monk appears first in the Sort Order. If characters have the same ability text length and the character names are also the same length, they are sorted alphabetically.

 

What is this and why does it matter?

The Sort Order is the order that characters are listed on a script. Having a universal Sort Order means that any time you sit down to play or run a game of Blood on the Clocktower, no matter where in the world you are, you’ll be able to quickly look at the characters and get a sense of what types of abilities are on the script. Imagine it’s your first-ever game of Blood on the Clocktower, for example, and you’ve drawn the Virgin token. You might want to know which Townsfolk have already gained all the information they’re going to receive in the game, because those players won’t lose out on new information if they nominate you. You might also want to know which Townsfolk continue to receive information throughout the game, so you can tell them NOT to nominate you! 

Similarly, imagine you are playing a new script for the first time and you are the Demon. You probably want to know which characters have abilities that trigger when the Demon kills them, and it’s easier for you to see these abilities if they are all listed in the same place. If you looked at the script in alphabetical order, you’d have to read through each ability one-by-one to figure out which characters got their information on the first night. With Sort Order, you can find the groups of characters you want to know about listed together, to make the script easier to digest and understand.

 

Wait a minute, the base scripts aren't in Sort Order!

This is true! The base scripts were designed & completed before the Sort Order was updated. Each base script follows its own logic of grouping like characters with like - for example, the “top 4” characters in Trouble Brewing (Washerwoman, Librarian, Investigator, and Chef) mirror the general order of Townsfolk, Outsiders, Minions, and evil players, instead of being sorted by ability text length.

 

What happens if my script isn't in Sort Order?

If your script doesn’t perfectly follow the Sort Order, don’t sweat it! It’s certainly preferable and makes things much easier to read, but as long as it isn’t in a totally random order, your players will probably still find it easy to read and consume. Putting your script in Sort Order is just one part of building a fun and balanced script. You can find more tips on good script-building practices in this video.