BotC tools is a way of running in-person games with a digital grimoire. You can use it at https://botc-tools.xyz.
As a storyteller, I use it on an iPad to select roles, show them to players, and then create a "grimoire" image. That image goes into a drawing app (Concepts) where I write on it to track tokens and anything else I need to for the game. The app stays on the side and shows me the night order and gives me ways to show players information ("THIS PLAYER SELECTED YOU" for example), including character tokens. If you're an iPad, this is the "Slide Over" multitasking feature (accessible from the three dots at the top of the screen).
The app understands essentially all setup rules, reducing my errors in setup, especially for custom scripts and lots of setup-impacting abilities. (No more accidentally using a normal outsider count in a Vigormortis game!)
I prefer players to not use their phones, but sometimes if we don't have a script printed out the app does provide a mobile-friendly character sheet for custom scripts.
The tool pulls in all the scripts in the unofficial script database. It does this once and saves the results, so search is really fast.
The custom scripts listed by default are some that I've recently been playing.
The roles sheet works better on mobile than using the script tool's PDFs. The icon in the top right pulls up a QR code to quickly share the page with players.
On mobile or iPad, the night sheet is a handy reference while running a game. It can also be printed out. This night sheet gives detailed Storyteller reminders for each character, similar to the base 3 night sheets but unlike the script tool.
This is most unique part of the app: a helper for selecting, randomizing, and assigning roles for an in-person game.
The app understands roles that modify setup and tells you when the setup is correct:
In the screenshot above, we've selected a 7 player game which has base 5/0/1/1 for townsfolk/outsiders/minions/demon. The Drunk requires selecting an additional townsfolk and the Baron adds two outsiders (subtracting two townsfolk). The app lets you know this means you need to select 4/2/1/1, and that's exactly what we have selected. The other roles are grayed out since they aren't needed to have a valid setup, but they can still be selected.
The rules for setup can really get quite complex (see setup.ts for the core logic). For example, there can be multiple allowed distributions, for characters like the Godfather (+1 or -1 outsider). The number of outsiders can't go above the number on the script, or below zero, but Vigormortis -1 does cancel Godfather +1. Riot and Legion create duplicate roles during setup. High Stakes Betting has no Minions at all and only Riot, which is handled correctly. The Huntsman requires the Damsel, which can be one of the usual Outsiders or might replace a townsfolk.
Below the list of characters the assignment tool shows what tokens are in the "bag" (or really townsquare, since they are already ordered randomly):
Notice that the Drunk is listed because it's in play, but it won't be distributed to anybody. There are also four buttons:
- Shuffle the roles, if you want to re-randomize setup.
- Clear the current selections.
- Undo the last shuffle/clear, if you made a mistake.
- Redo.
The selections and random order are persisted so if you restart you won't lose them. (The undo/redo history currently isn't, but that can be implemented as well.)
Finally we have an image that shows the initial Grimoire setup. Player names are chosen by adding a list just below the image. The grimoire has tokens for every player, as well as in-play roles that aren't distributed (like Drunk and Fabled) and the bluffs as reminders for the storyteller.
On my iPad I drag the grimoire image out of the website and into a drawing app (Concepts), which then serves as a Grimoire where I can track reminders and communicate with players by writing (you can instead click on the image to copy it). This is my favorite feature of the app - it really speeds up setup, and it's much easier to run the game with characters, abilities, and player names clearly visible.
Once you've set up the game, you also have to tell players their roles. Clicking on a role in the bag list will make it full screen, and you can show that to each player in turn:
You can also show the demon their bluffs:
This also really helps with setup.
An important feature is that the app works offline. This should work automatically after first load in any browser. You can also "install" the website as if it were a native mobile app: on iOS or iPadOS, open it in Safari, click on the share icon, and select "Add to Home Screen". On Android in Chrome you can click the "three dots" menu and click on "Add to Home Screen". Opening the site from here will look and feel like any other app - it won't have any browser UI and will work offline. Note that this is the same website and will have identical functionality.
The site relies only on static hosting (provided by GitHub Pages). Everything runs on the client in JavaScript. There's no synchronization or interaction between players and the Storyteller, but all storyteller state is stored locally so you don't lose what you're doing in the middle of a game.