Organ Grinder
All players keep their eyes closed when voting and the vote tally is secret. Each night, choose if you are drunk until dusk.
Round and round the handles go. The more you dance the less you know.
Storyteller cues
First nightThe Organ Grinder either nods their head yes to be drunk, or shakes their head no to be sober. ◦
Other nightsThe Organ Grinder either nods their head yes to be drunk, or shakes their head no to be sober. ◦
Jinxes
How to run it (Storyteller)
How to play
- Default to staying sober every night so blind voting is active as much as possible — the town loses vote-coordination information continuously and cannot confirm whether their execution targets are safe or threatened.
- Choose to go drunk on nights after a big day where the evil team needs flexibility, for example when you expect a Slayer to be in play and you want them to see a visible vote count and waste their shot, or when your team needs a cover story about 'the voting suddenly changed'.
- Coordinate with your Demon before the game: agree on a signal (e.g. which player the Demon loudly nominates) so good players arguing about who to execute can be drowned in uncertainty without evil needing to speak up and reveal themselves.
- Claim a passive townsfolk with no night ability and no information to share — Virgin, Gossip, or Pacifist are ideal since none of them produce public information that could be cross-checked against your behaviour.
- The most common mistake is staying drunk too often to seem 'safe' — being drunk does nothing for your team during the day and wastes your most powerful effect, which is the voting blackout itself.
How to fight the Organ Grinder
- The moment voting goes eyes-closed and tallies disappear, treat Organ Grinder as a strong minion suspect; this is a very visible mechanical change that does not occur without the OG being sober, so use it as hard evidence to anchor your minion reads.
- Track nomination outcomes across days — if the tally is secret but you notice executions are landing on exactly the players evil wants dead, the OG's team is likely steering nominations through a Demon or minion who is vocally encouraging certain targets.
- Force the OG to reveal their drunk choice indirectly: if a player suspected of being OG claims a townsfolk role, get them executed before a critical vote day so blind voting either stops (confirming they were the OG) or continues (clearing them).
- Use the Butler strategically — since the Butler's vote is conditionally counted during eyes-closed voting, a confirmed Butler-master pair can act as a quiet tripwire: if the Butler believes they voted and caused an execution but their master did not raise their hand, something is wrong with the tally or the OG is sober.
- If the Alchemist is in play and claims the OG ability, recognise that a sober Alchemist with this power means the real OG is also drunk — push for that window to execute aggressively while both are compromised.
Key interactions
When a sober Alchemist holds the Organ Grinder ability, the real Organ Grinder is also made drunk, shutting off blind voting entirely from both directions. Good teams should verify an Alchemist-OG claim quickly, because if it is true the evil team has lost their voting blackout and the Alchemist should be protected at all costs.
During eyes-closed voting the Butler can still raise their hand, but their vote only counts if their master voted too — meaning the OG's blackout does not free the Butler from their restriction, it just makes the restriction invisible to everyone. Evil can exploit this by arranging for the Butler's master to be an evil player, silently controlling whether the Butler's vote ever counts.