If you are playing Dupery: A Game of Solo Deduction, choosing the right quirks can make a big difference in how easily you solve cases. Some quirks give you helpful information, improve your reputation, or make certain roles easier to identify. Others can make investigations much harder and force you to rely on guesses.
In this post, we will tell you about the best and worst quirks in Dupery, based on a community tier list for version 1.0.7. We will explain which quirks you should try to avoid, which ones are mostly neutral, and which ones can give you a real advantage while investigating cases.
Keep in mind that these rankings are based on Challenge difficulty, with a particular focus on the Office region. The experience can be different on Easy difficulty or in other regions, so you should consider your current situation before choosing a quirk. Let’s go through the rankings and see which quirks are worth taking.
Dupery Quirk Tier List – Best Quirk Guide (October 2026)
Quirks can change the rules of an investigation by affecting reputation, hiding information, changing character roles, or giving you extra clues. Some effects are manageable, while others can make an already difficult case much harder to solve.
Here is a quick overview of the four categories used in this tier list.
Dead Tier – Quirks You Should Avoid
These are the most dangerous quirks in the list. They can severely damage your reputation, hide essential information, or make investigations extremely difficult. If you have the option to avoid them, I recommend doing so.
- Ticking Clock
- Anti-authoritarianism
- Mortal Dread
- Silent Accomplice
- Perfect Crime
- Evil Suspects
- Broken Radio
Bad Tier – Quirks That Make Investigations Harder
These quirks introduce frustrating restrictions or make it harder to distinguish innocent characters from evil ones. They are not always run-ending, but they can force you to make more guesses.
- Hidden Smirk
- Misty Streets
- Radio Interference
- Setup
- Dirty Cop
- Outsider Loyalty
- Unholy Land
- Haunted
- Broken Clock
- Faulty Clock
Neutral Tier – Situational Quirks
Neutral quirks can have both positive and negative effects. Their usefulness depends on the roles present in a case, your reputation, and how you approach the investigation.
- Visible Justice
- Swift Justice
- Deadly Aim
- Bad Influences
- Paranoia
- Insider Loyalty
- Shrink
- That Smile
Good Tier – Quirks Worth Choosing
These quirks generally provide useful information, help you recover reputation, or make certain roles easier to identify. They are the options I would prioritize when building a more manageable investigation.
- Evil Gaze
- Good Intuition
- Dark Whispers
- Public Favour
- Shot in the Dark
- Jealousy
- Medical Breakthrough
Dead Tier Quirks Explained
These are the quirks that can cause the biggest problems during your investigations. Many of them interfere with the information you need to solve a case reliably.
Ticking Clock
Effect: You lose 4 reputation if you reach the 24th hour without solving the case.
This is one of the most dangerous quirks because losing four reputation can be devastating. If your reputation is already low, this penalty can effectively end your run.
The biggest problem is that later rounds can take a long time to solve. Some role combinations make it difficult or even impossible to finish within 24 hours, especially when you need extra time to investigate.
If you see Ticking Clock as an available quirk, I would avoid it whenever possible. The time restriction creates unnecessary pressure, particularly in the later stages of a Challenge run.
Effect: If your reputation is not Excellent, two Innocent roles become Tainted, if possible.
This quirk can completely undermine your ability to identify innocent characters. When your reputation falls below Excellent, two Innocent roles may become Tainted, making the information you receive less reliable.
The problem is that Tainted characters can appear suspicious even when they are not genuinely evil. You may end up wasting time investigating the wrong people or making incorrect arrests.
Because reputation is not always easy to maintain, this quirk can turn an otherwise manageable investigation into a guessing game. I would avoid it unless you have a reliable way to maintain Excellent reputation.
Mortal Dread
Effect: When someone dies, you lose 1 reputation if your reputation is not Poor.
Mortal Dread becomes particularly dangerous in cases involving roles that can kill characters, such as the Hitman, Serial Killer, Mole, Surgeon, or Sawbones.
Every death can cost you reputation, and several deaths may leave you in a very difficult position. This is especially frustrating when you need to make a risky decision to progress through an investigation.
The quirk essentially punishes you when deaths occur, even though you may not always have control over them. If several killing roles appear in one case, your reputation can deteriorate quickly.
Silent Accomplice
Effect: One Innocent becomes evil.
Silent Accomplice introduces an additional problem by turning an Innocent role into an evil one. This makes it harder to determine which characters are genuinely innocent and which ones are working against you.
The difficulty comes from identifying the changed character. You cannot simply rely on the assumption that every Innocent role is safe.
If you are still learning the different roles and their investigation results, this quirk can be particularly frustrating. It adds another layer of uncertainty without giving you much in return.
Perfect Crime
Effect: Your suspect list starts empty and grows as you investigate new roles.
Perfect Crime is one of the worst quirks because it removes information that you would normally use to understand which roles may appear in a case.
Without an initial suspect list, you may not know whether roles such as Drunk, Copycat, Conman, Poisoner, or Maid are present until you investigate further.
This can make it difficult to interpret clues and decide which characters deserve your attention. You may have to spend additional time investigating simply to establish what kinds of roles you are dealing with.
For me, the biggest issue is how much useful information this quirk removes. I would avoid it whenever possible.
Evil Suspects
Effect: Your suspect list starts with only evil roles and grows as you investigate new roles.
Evil Suspects is slightly more manageable than Perfect Crime because your initial suspect list still contains evil roles. However, it can still hide important information about the other roles that may be present.
The missing information about Meddlers can be particularly problematic. If you cannot establish whether a Meddler role exists, some of your usual deductions may become unreliable.
Although this quirk is not as restrictive as Perfect Crime, it still makes you more dependent on guesses. I would not choose it when better options are available.
Broken Radio
Effect: All categories in the ratio incorrectly read as zero.
Broken Radio is extremely harmful because it prevents you from trusting the role ratios. These numbers are important for working out which categories of roles are present and checking whether your deductions make sense.
When every category appears to have a value of zero, many of your usual methods stop working. You lose a valuable source of information and may have difficulty determining which roles are still unaccounted for.
Since the role ratios can help you confirm whether certain characters or roles must exist, losing that information makes investigations much harder.
Bad Tier Quirks Explained
Bad Tier quirks are frustrating, but they do not necessarily ruin every run. Their main disadvantage is that they introduce misleading information, remove useful clues, or make incorrect arrests more costly.
Hidden Smirk
Effect: The Scoundrel lies and pretends to be a suspected role.
Hidden Smirk makes the Scoundrel more difficult to identify because it can disguise itself as another suspected role.
This effectively makes the Scoundrel behave more like a Mobster from the perspective of your investigation. You cannot rely as easily on the information that would normally help you identify it.
However, the impact depends on the case. Since a Mobster is not always the biggest threat, this quirk is less dangerous than those that completely remove your role information.
Misty Streets
Effect: Each case starts with an obscured role.
Misty Streets introduces an obscured role into every case, making it harder to interpret the information you receive.
The main problem is that you do not know which role is obscured. This can affect your deductions and make certain characters appear more confusing than they should.
If you remember how different roles behave and what their information normally looks like, you may still be able to work around the effect. However, the added uncertainty makes Misty Streets a frustrating choice.
Radio Interference
Effect: One category in the ratio is incorrectly reduced by 1, while another category is incorrectly increased by 1.
Radio Interference makes the role ratios less reliable by changing two category counts.
This can be particularly troublesome when you are trying to determine whether a Meddler role is present. Some roles, such as Drunk and Copycat, can be difficult to confirm without accurate category information.
The altered numbers may lead you to incorrect conclusions, forcing you to spend more time investigating or make guesses that could otherwise have been avoided.
Setup
Effect: The Fall Guy pretends to be an Innocent in-play role.
Setup makes the Fall Guy harder to identify by allowing it to appear as an Innocent role.
This can make the Fall Guy behave similarly to a Mobster from the perspective of your deductions. Other characters may appear to confirm that the role is an evil underling, while the Fall Guy’s disguise makes it harder to distinguish from the expected setup.
The effect can be especially harmful early in a run, when losing reputation from an incorrect arrest can have a lasting impact.
Dirty Cop
Effect: The Partner becomes Tainted if surrounded by an evil role.
Dirty Cop changes how you interpret the Partner’s information. When the Partner is surrounded by an evil role, they become Tainted, which can make their results unreliable.
The problem is that the Partner may also be Tainted or disguised for other reasons. This makes it difficult to determine why the information is incorrect.
You may need to investigate further before deciding whether the Partner is trustworthy. Since the quirk can both remove certainty and provide clues about surrounding characters, its impact depends on the situation.
Outsider Loyalty
Effect: You lose an additional reputation point when arresting a good role positioned on the edge of the board.
Outsider Loyalty makes incorrect arrests more costly when the target is a good character on the board’s edge.
There are many edge positions on a standard 4×4 board, so this effect can trigger relatively often compared with quirks that only affect a smaller number of positions.
If you arrest the wrong person, the extra reputation penalty can quickly put you in danger. Be particularly careful when investigating characters on the edges of the board.
Unholy Land
Effect: The Priest lies and pretends to be a Skeptic.
Unholy Land makes it more difficult to interpret information from characters who appear to be Skeptics.
A lying Skeptic can be difficult to distinguish from a genuine Skeptic, a Meddler, or a Priest affected by the quirk. This creates uncertainty around information that you might otherwise use to confirm your deductions.
Even without complicated role combinations, the disguise makes investigations less straightforward. I would avoid this quirk when possible.
Haunted
Effect: Traitors continue to function while arrested or dead.
Haunted can be more or less dangerous depending on which Traitors are present in a case.
Some Traitors may have effects that are relatively manageable after death or arrest, while others can continue causing serious problems. Your experience will therefore depend heavily on the particular roles involved.
If you can choose or ban a Traitor before the final round, that may help reduce the impact. Otherwise, Haunted can become a significant problem when combined with particularly troublesome Traitors.
Broken Clock
Effect: Time passed always incorrectly reads as zero.
Broken Clock makes the displayed elapsed time unreliable, which can interfere with investigations involving time-based clues.
The good news is that not every role relies on the clock. Depending on the roles in a case, the impact may be limited.
However, you may need to keep track of elapsed time manually. This adds extra work to an investigation that already requires you to remember clues, role information, and character positions.
Faulty Clock
Effect: The displayed clock time is always offset by a value between -2 and 2.
Faulty Clock is similar to Broken Clock, but the problem is that the displayed time is shifted rather than always reading zero.
This can make it harder to trust time-based information. You may need to track the actual time yourself when dealing with roles that depend on the clock.
Although it is annoying, Faulty Clock is not always run-ending. Its impact depends on whether the roles in your current case rely heavily on accurate timing.
Neutral Tier Quirks Explained
Neutral quirks have mixed effects or provide benefits under specific conditions. Some can be useful in the right situation, while others are easy to forget about or have little impact on most cases.
Visible Justice
Effect: If your reputation is Poor, arresting a Traitor increases your reputation by 1.
Visible Justice offers a way to recover reputation, but the conditions are restrictive. You must already have Poor reputation and successfully arrest a Traitor.
If you are in that situation, the extra reputation can help. However, you may not encounter a suitable Traitor at the right time, and the benefit is relatively small.
Because it does not consistently help throughout an investigation, I consider this quirk neutral rather than genuinely good.
Swift Justice
Effect: Solving a case within 12 hours increases your reputation by 1.
Swift Justice rewards you for solving cases quickly. The problem is that the reputation bonus is tied to a strict time limit.
During early rounds, you may be able to solve cases quickly without needing the additional reputation. Later rounds are often more complicated, and you may need more than 12 hours to investigate properly.
This makes the benefit less useful when you need it most. It can still help if you regularly solve cases quickly, but I would not rely on it for reputation recovery.
Deadly Aim
Effect: The Hitman only kills good roles.
Deadly Aim changes the Hitman’s target selection, restricting its kills to good roles.
At first, this may seem like a negative effect because innocent characters are more likely to die. However, the deaths can sometimes provide useful information.
If you know a Hitman is present, the surviving characters may become easier to evaluate because the Hitman’s targets are restricted to good roles. The usefulness of this information depends on the other roles involved.
Since the effect can both hurt and help your deductions, I place it in Neutral Tier.
Bad Influences
Effect: When at least two Meddler roles are in play, one Meddler is transformed into an Underling role that is not otherwise in play. The transformation does not occur if no eligible Underling is available.
Bad Influences changes the role composition of a case, and its impact depends on which roles are involved.
For example, transforming a Drunk into a Mobster may make the case easier to understand. However, transforming a Chatter Box into a Spectre can create a more difficult situation.
Because the transformation can help or hurt depending on the specific roles, it is difficult to give this quirk a consistently positive or negative ranking.
Paranoia
Effect: Truthful Skeptics announce nothing unless your reputation is Excellent.
Paranoia makes Skeptics less informative when your reputation is below Excellent.
This can make a truthful Skeptic appear similar to a Priest who is not providing useful information, creating uncertainty during your investigation.
However, Skeptics can still be useful roles, and the quirk is not necessarily as harmful as those that completely remove your suspect list or corrupt every role ratio.
If you are comfortable investigating without relying too heavily on Skeptics, Paranoia may be manageable.
Insider Loyalty
Effect: You lose an additional reputation point when arresting a good role that is not positioned on the edge of the board.
Insider Loyalty punishes incorrect arrests involving good characters away from the board’s edges.
Although the effect is negative, it only applies to certain positions. You can reduce the risk by being more careful when deciding whether to arrest a character in the middle of the board.
The quirk is still dangerous if you make repeated mistakes, but its limited trigger conditions make it less disruptive than some of the other reputation penalties.
Shrink
Effect: The Therapist considers Meddlers evil.
Shrink changes how the Therapist evaluates Meddler roles, which can make it harder to determine whether the Therapist is providing truthful information.
Some Meddlers, such as the Drunk and Wannabe, can already be difficult to distinguish from evil roles. This quirk introduces another complication when interpreting the Therapist’s results.
On the other hand, the difference in how Meddlers are treated may help you identify whether a Therapist is trustworthy.
Its usefulness therefore depends on the specific roles in the case and how well you understand the Therapist’s information.
That Smile
Effect: The Idol Taints all innocent surrounding neighbours.
That Smile makes the Idol more dangerous by allowing it to Taint all surrounding Innocents.
This can make innocent characters appear suspicious and complicate your investigation. However, the resulting pattern may also help you identify the Idol.
If several neighbouring characters show unusual results, that cluster can provide a clue about what is happening. You may also be able to avoid the issue if the Idol is excluded from the case.
Because the quirk adds a threat but can also make the Idol easier to recognize, I consider it neutral.
Good Tier Quirks Explained
These are the quirks I would prioritize because they can provide useful information, help you maintain reputation, or make certain roles easier to identify.
Evil Gaze
Effect: At least one evil role will always be surrounding the Crime Scene.
Evil Gaze provides an additional clue about the characters surrounding the Crime Scene.
In many cases, this may not change your deductions significantly because an evil role could already be present nearby. However, when you are stuck between several possibilities, this guaranteed information can help narrow down your suspects.
It is a relatively straightforward benefit, and it can occasionally save you from making a completely blind guess.
Good Intuition
Effect: The Partner is more likely to announce the address of an Underling role.
Good Intuition is useful because it increases the likelihood that the Partner will reveal the location of an Underling.
Finding evil roles is one of the most important parts of solving a case, so information that points you toward a potential target is valuable.
The effect is not guaranteed to reveal an Underling every time, but the increased chance can help you prioritize your investigations and avoid wasting time on less useful leads.
Dark Whispers
Effect: The Gossip chooses a Traitor if possible.
Dark Whispers improves the Gossip’s target selection by making it more likely to choose a Traitor when one is available.
This can be particularly valuable because identifying Traitors early may prevent them from causing additional problems later in the case.
The usefulness depends on which Traitors are present, but information about a dangerous Traitor can be more valuable than information about an ordinary Underling.
For that reason, I consider Dark Whispers a good quirk, especially in cases where early identification of a Traitor is important.
Public Favour
Effect: You regain 1 reputation from solving a case.
Public Favour is one of the most consistently useful quirks on this list.
Unlike quirks that only help under specific conditions, Public Favour rewards you for completing a case. That makes it useful throughout your run, provided you continue solving cases.
Over multiple rounds, the additional reputation can add up and give you more room for mistakes. This is especially helpful in Challenge mode, where later investigations can become much more difficult.
If I had to prioritize a reputation-related quirk, Public Favour would be one of my first choices.
Shot in the Dark
Effect: The first time you arrest an uninvestigated evil role in a case, you gain 1 reputation.
Shot in the Dark rewards you for successfully arresting an evil character you have not investigated.
Its value depends on the evil roles available and whether you can identify a suitable target without investigating them first.
In cases where an obvious evil role can be identified through other clues, the bonus can provide a useful reputation boost. However, you should not make random arrests just to trigger the effect, as a wrong decision can cost you more than you gain.
When used carefully, this quirk can reward confident deductions and help you maintain your reputation.
Jealousy
Effect: The Romantic becomes evil if the Casanova is in play.
Jealousy changes the Romantic’s alignment whenever the Casanova is present.
This can be advantageous because it introduces an additional evil role into the case. Once you understand the effect, you can use the presence of the Casanova to adjust your expectations and avoid assuming that the Romantic is innocent.
The main benefit is that the changed alignment gives you another potential evil target. You simply need to remember that the Romantic’s normal role expectations no longer apply when the Casanova is in play.
Medical Breakthrough
Effect: The Surgeon always kills when they are neither lying nor Tainted.
Medical Breakthrough makes the Surgeon’s behaviour more predictable under specific conditions.
If a death occurs at the 12-hour mark and you have enough information to establish that a good Surgeon is responsible, the death can provide useful clues about the victim’s role.
This is valuable because knowing how a role behaves can help you eliminate possibilities and narrow down the remaining suspects.
The quirk does not make every death automatically informative, since you still need to account for lying, Tainted characters, and other possible explanations. However, when its conditions are met, it can give you a strong deduction to work with.
That covers the Dupery: A Game of Solo Deduction quirk tier list for version 1.0.7, based on the community guide’s experience with Challenge mode in the Office region.
If you want to make investigations more manageable, I would prioritize Public Favour, Good Intuition, Dark Whispers, and Shot in the Dark. These quirks can provide useful advantages without introducing the severe information problems associated with the Dead Tier options.
On the other hand, quirks such as Ticking Clock, Anti-authoritarianism, Perfect Crime, and Broken Radio can make cases much more difficult by punishing you heavily or removing information you need to solve them.
Remember that these rankings are based on personal experience rather than a universal ranking for every region and difficulty. A quirk that feels terrible in the Office may work differently elsewhere, depending on the roles involved. As you gain more experience with Dupery, you may find that some of the situational quirks become easier to manage.