Should Dead Players Vote In Social Deduction Games?

One thing many people cite as the major strength of Blood on the Clocktower is that dead players still get to play. They can continue talking with other players and vote one last time. This contrasts with Mafia and Werewolf, where dead players must watch silently. But are these games still balanced if the dead get to vote? Despite sounding bad, player elimination in social deduction games actually helps the majority team a lot.

The classic social deduction setup pits an informed "Evil" minority against an uninformed "Good" majority. The game alternates between day phases, when all players vote on whom to execute, and night phases, when the Evil team kills somebody. Evil players know who is on their team, so they can ensure that they always kill an enemy. They can also coordinate votes, making it harder for the Good team to execute them by chance.

Because Good doesn't know who is Evil, random votes tend to hit Good players. If they wait, their odds improve because the suspect pool shrinks. This matters because some Good players have abilities they can't use after they die. Stalling means more time to gather information.

The problem with waiting is that if dead players can't vote, then each Good death makes it harder to outvote Evil. If you wait too long, Evil will have all the votes, making it impossible for Good to execute them. Good is on a timer to shrink the Evil vote so they don't lose their one advantage. This dynamic forces both teams to be proactive.

Dead players voting undermines this pressure because Good can outvote Evil regardless. They can ignore executions while gathering information and then pick from the survivors. Deaths benefit Good by narrowing the pool of suspects, so you typically balance this against voting power. If dead players vote, you need to find a different way to offset the information gain.

Blood on the Clocktower achieves this in two ways. First, it lets only living players nominate for a vote. If all living players are Evil, it doesn't matter how many votes Good has because Evil won't nominate. Second, each dead player only gets one more vote for the rest of the game. They typically save this vote until the end, which means Evil only needs to survive once. This creates exciting, dramatic finales that everyone participates in.

Giving dead players ways to keep playing is essential for modern game design. But there are reasons why they traditionally couldn't in social deduction games. A decreasing pool of suspects inherently helps the Good team, and balancing that advantage is essential.