Clues

Clues are a type of in-game knowledge based around aspects of randomly generated characters. They include:

• Significant initial (first/last/middle)
• Eye color
• Hair color
• Skin color
• Age descriptor (young/middle-aged/old)
• Star sign
• Misc. physical trait
• Personality traits

Players can view their own clues through the character menu and can see visible clues about another person by examining them. Note that the ability to see clues is influenced by identity, so if someone is concealing their eyes, their eye color cannot be identified. However, you could easily deduce many aspects about someone whose face is uncovered.

Masks like the Insider leverage clues for their core gameplay, making use of them to lead them onto potentially round-altering information. Others such as the Mind Reader are capable of extracting clues from players, furthering the deductive gameplay of the round.

An issue with typical evidence like DNA or fingerprints is that they are binary indicators; the presence of them leads you directly to the perpetrator. This is problematic for deduction, as it essentially speed-runs the investigation, leading you directly to the culprit with little effort required. As such, these mechanics are often balanced around being extremely easy to avoid, which creates low-information scenarios where deduction is impossible.

Puzzle Pieces

Clues are designed to avoid the trappings of evidence gameplay by not having a single clue be powerful enough to identify someone on its own. It's only through the collection of multiple clues or by using deductive reasoning and suspicion that the target can be identified, creating a more drawn-out investigation that requires greater engagement from the player to complete.

When clues are distributed to players, care should be taken so that no individual clue singles out a player. As a rule of thumb, clues should at least apply to 3 separate people in game.

Simply getting a clue does not create interesting gameplay. The interest and social interaction is created by the transfer of knowledge and intersection of clues. A clue which directly reveals information requires no intersection and thus no real interaction.

Hiding

In the context of normal observation (excluding abilities which give information directly), the ease of discovering a clue should be proportional to the ease of concealing it from view. This creates a gradient of clue "difficulty," where more revealing and personal clues are harder to learn than more directly visible information. Thus, it can be used as a balancing lever to reward more involved investigative play.

For example, eye color is a trait that is immediately evident when examining someone. However, it is also equally easy to obscure, as any mask or dark pair of glasses will obscure their eyes. Consequently, eye color as a clue ends up being fairly weak not only because it's common to have repeated eyes colors among crew, but also because they are easy to hide from view. This creates a type of clue which, while it helps narrow down deduction, requires extended investigation on the account of people in the round, creating lengthy interaction between many players as the details are found out.

On the other hand, something like someone's star sign may be much harder to find. Truly knowing it may be impossible short of it being told directly or gaining access to secure personnel records. This creates a much more lucrative clue, however, as hunting it down and deducing it gives you significantly more useful information than something like age. As such, people might be incentivized to take further reaches to learn it, seeking out oracle masks or employing the help of roles like the bartender.