How to Play Tragedy Looper: Midnight Circle

Game Objective

In Tragedy Looper: Midnight Circle, the world is full of lies and intrigue. This is a game of mystery and deduction where the truth is hidden behind a veil of lies, leading players to suspect all information they encounter. Unlike the base game, in this set, revealed roles and incidents on the summary sheet may not be the final truth.

The Protagonists' objective is to avoid the specific loss conditions of each Main Plot and Subplot by unraveling the lies and discovering the truth. The Mastermind, on the other hand, tries to make the Protagonists lose by manipulating information and events.

Loss conditions are varied and depend on the Plots in play. For example, in "The Sealed Item," the Protagonists lose if there are at least 2 Intrigue tokens in the Sanctuary at the end of the Loop. In "Secret Record," they lose if the Brain, Factor, or Magician are revealed during the Loop. In "Male Confrontation," loss occurs if the Ninja (or their corpse) has at least 2 Intrigue tokens. In "Showtime of Death," the Protagonists lose if there are 6 or fewer living characters at the end of the Loop. In the "Mystery Circle" set, the Protagonists' objective is to discover the culprits, and some Plots will force them to do so, or they will lose. For example, in "A Quilt of Incidents," the Protagonists lose if the Extra Gauge is 3 or more at the end of the Loop. In "Tightrope Plan," they lose if the Extra Gauge is 1 or less at the end of the Loop. In "The Black School," the Protagonists lose if there are at least X Intrigue tokens in the School, where X is 1 less than the current Loop number (they always lose in the first Loop if there is at least one Intrigue token in the School).

Setup

Refer to the manual for details on this section.

Game Flow

The game progresses in Loops. At the beginning of each Loop, during the "token removal and placement" step, all tokens from cards and the board are removed. Additionally, all Extra cards that were placed on other cards are removed. Then, if the Plot rules indicate that Extra cards should be placed somewhere, they are placed.

In the "Mystery Circle" set, the Extra Gauge represents the number of Incidents that have occurred. During the "token removal and placement" step, the Extra Gauge is reset to zero. For each Incident that occurs, the Extra Gauge increases by 1, regardless of whether the Event had any effect or not.

Some Mastermind abilities are Mandatory and others are Optional. If multiple abilities that should happen at the same time conflict, Mandatory abilities happen before Optional ones. If multiple Optional abilities that should happen at the same time conflict, the Mastermind freely chooses the order in which to apply them.

Plot-Specific Phases:

• Fated Connections (Main Plot): At the beginning of the Loop, choose a character who died during the previous Loop. Place any Extra card on that character (this does not stack with the effect of the "Dice of the Gods" Plot). Characters with an Extra card have their role changed to Key Person.
• Dice of the Gods (Subplot): At the beginning of the Loop, choose a character who died during the previous Loop and place any Extra card on that character (this does not stack with the effect of the "Fated Connections" Plot).
• Isolated Institution Psycho (Subplot): At the beginning of the Loop, if the Extra Gauge was 2 or less at the end of the previous Loop, increase it by 1.

Actions and How to Play

Refer to the manual for details on this section.

Extra Card Placement and Removal Rules

• When you remove all tokens from cards and the board in the "token removal and placement" step during the beginning of the Loop, also remove all Extra cards that were placed on other cards.
• Then, if the Plot rules indicate that Extra cards should be placed somewhere, place them.

Character Abilities (Roles)

• Cultist:
  • Mandatory Goodwill refusal.
  • Ability: [Optional] [Card Resolution] You may ignore all "Forbid Intrigue" effects at this location and on all characters at this location.
• Brain:
  • Optional Goodwill refusal.
  • Ability: [Optional] [Mastermind Ability] You may place 1 Intrigue token at this location or on any character at this location.
• Ninja:
  • Optional Goodwill refusal.
  • Ability: [Optional] [When this role is revealed] You may, instead of telling the truth, declare any other non-Person role that is in this script.
  • Ability: [Optional] [End of Day] If there is any character with at least 2 Intrigue tokens at this location, you may kill that character.
• Magician:
  • Ability: [Optional] [Mastermind Ability] You may move a character with at least one Paranoia token from this location to an adjacent (non-diagonal) location. (Only once per Loop, for all Magicians combined.)
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [On character death] When this character dies, remove all Paranoia tokens from their corpse.
• Friend:
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [End of Loop] If this character is dead, reveal their role, and the Protagonists have lost.
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Start of Loop] If this character's role has been revealed, they receive a Goodwill token.
• Conspiracy Theorist:
  • Ability: [Optional] [Mastermind Ability] You may place 1 Paranoia token on a character at this location.
• Serial Killer:
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [End of Day] If there is exactly 1 other character at this location, that character dies. (Remember that corpses are not counted as characters.)
• Obstinate:
  • Mandatory Goodwill refusal.
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Script Creation] This character must be the culprit of at least 1 Incident.
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Incident Step] This character always triggers their Incidents, regardless of the number of Paranoia tokens on them.
• Witch:
  • Mandatory Goodwill refusal.
  • Ability: None.
• Immortal:
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Always] This character cannot die.
• Factor:
  • Optional Goodwill refusal.
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Always] If the School has at least 2 Intrigue, this character gains the abilities of the Conspiracy Theorist.
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Always] If the City has at least 2 Intrigue, this character gains the abilities of the Key Person.
• Prophet:
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Mastermind Action Step] The Mastermind cannot place cards on this character.
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Incident Step] When determining if an Incident is triggered, and the culprit is another character at this location, that Incident is not triggered, regardless of the number of Paranoia tokens on the culprit.
• Key Person:
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Always] When this character dies, the Protagonists immediately lose and the Loop ends.
• Killer:
  • Optional Goodwill refusal.
  • Ability: [Optional] [End of Day] If the Key Person has at least 2 Intrigue and is at this location, you may kill the Key Person.
  • Ability: [Optional] [End of Day] If this character has at least 4 Intrigue, you may kill the Protagonists.
• Poisoner:
  • Optional Goodwill refusal.
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [End of Day] If the Extra Gauge is 2 or more, any character at this location dies (once per Loop).
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [End of Day] If the Extra Gauge is 4 or more, the Protagonists die.
• Fool:
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Script Creation] This character must be the culprit of an Incident.
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Incident Step] After this character has triggered an Incident, remove all Paranoia tokens from their card.
• Private Investigator:
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Script Creation] This character can never be a culprit.
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Always] This character cannot die.
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Incident Step] If the Extra Gauge is 0, and the culprit is at this location, the Incident is triggered regardless of the number of Paranoia tokens on the culprit.
• Paranoiac:
  • Mandatory Goodwill refusal.
  • Ability: [Optional] [Mastermind Ability] You may place an Intrigue or Paranoia token on this character.
• Therapist:
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Mastermind Ability] If the Extra Gauge is 1 or more, remove 1 Paranoia token from any other character at this location.
• Twin:
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Script Creation] This character must be the culprit of an Incident.
  • Ability: [Mandatory] [Incident Trigger] When this character triggers an Incident, they are considered to be at the diagonally opposite location.

Incidents

• Breakthrough: The Protagonist Leader chooses a location or character and removes 2 Intrigue tokens from there.
• Missing Person: Move the culprit to any location. Then, place 1 Intrigue token at that location.
• Conspiracies: Resolve a "Serial Murder" or "Missing Person" Incident. When determining if this Incident is triggered, look at the number of Intrigue tokens instead of Paranoia tokens.
• Hospital Incident: If the Hospital has at least 1 Intrigue token, everyone in the Hospital dies. Additionally, if the Hospital has at least 2 Intrigue tokens, the Protagonists die.
• Serial Murder: One other character at the culprit's location dies. The same character can be the culprit of multiple Serial Murder Incidents in the script.
• Uproar: If there is at least 1 Intrigue token in the School, everyone in the School dies. If there is at least 1 Intrigue token in the City, everyone in the City dies.
• Suicide: The culprit dies.
• Increasing Unease: Place 2 Paranoia tokens on any character, then 1 Intrigue token on any other character.
• Fake Incident: If there are at least 2 Intrigue tokens at the culprit's starting location, the Protagonists die. In script creation, on the Open Information card, you may place the name of a completely different Incident (on the Secret Information card, you must declare Fake Incident).
• Confession: Reveal the culprit and the culprit's role.
• Faked Suicide: Place an Extra card on the culprit. For the remainder of the Loop, the Protagonists cannot play any cards on character(s) with Extra cards.
• Portent: When determining whether this Incident is triggered or not, treat the culprit's Paranoia threshold as 1 less than their printed threshold. Effect: Place 1 Paranoia token on any character at the culprit's location.
• Bestial Murder: When determining whether this Incident is triggered or not, treat the culprit's Paranoia threshold as 1 more than their printed threshold. Effect: Resolve "Serial Murder" and "Increasing Unease" in that order. Then, increase the Extra Gauge by 1 more step (as a result, this Incident will cause the Extra Gauge to go up 2 steps in total).
• Terrorism: If the City has at least 1 Intrigue token, everyone in the City dies. Additionally, if the City has at least 2 Intrigue tokens, the Protagonists die.
• A Suspicious Letter: Move any character at the culprit's location to any location. If the character actually changed locations, that character cannot be moved the next day.
• Closed Circle: Reveal the culprit's location. For 3 days, including the day the Incident occurred, any movement to or from that location is nullified.
• The Silver Bullet: The Loop ends after this Incident step (resulting in a Protagonist victory, unless