Hello! I'm Tom. I'm a game designer, writer, and programmer on Gunpoint, Heat Signature, and Tactical Breach Wizards. Here's some more info on all the games I've worked on, here are the videos I make on YouTube, and here are two short stories I wrote for the Machine of Death collections.
By me. Uses Adaptive Images by Matt Wilcox.
I played Werewolf for the first time tonight, a game you play with just a few scraps of paper. I’ll explain what it is and the specific setup we played at the same time:
There were eight of us, seven played and Kim ran the game. She hands all seven of us a folded piece of paper that we look at and keep to ourselves. Written on it is our role, which will be one of the following – numbers in brackets are how many people are assigned that role.
Wolf (3): secretly a werewolf. The werewolves know who each other are, and each night can gang up to kill one person.
Villager (1): an innocent person who has no special abilities or powers.
Defender (1): each night, the defender picks one person to protect. That person is safe even if the werewolves decide to attack them. They can’t pick the same person two nights running.
Fortune Teller (1): each night, they can point to one person and the GM, Kim, will tell them that person’s true role.
Witch (1): has 1 healing potion and 1 poison potion. Any night someone is attacked, the Witch is told who, and given the option to use her healing potion to save them. She can use the poison potion on any night to kill anyone, including on the same night she saves someone. Both are one-time-use.
Each ‘night’, all players close their eyes. In turn, the GM tells people of each role to open their eyes, asks them to indicate what they want to do in some silent way (for wolves, point to who they want to kill), and then close their eyes again. This way, no roles know what the others did that night. Since the wolves all open their eyes at the same time, they know who each other are.
During the day, the players can vote to ‘lynch’ someone if they suspect they’re a werewolf. If the vote passes, that person is killed and their true identity is revealed. If anyone is killed in the night, their true identity is revealed as well.
During the day, anyone can say whatever they like, including things that aren’t true. The only thing you can’t do is show anyone your slip, proving your real role.
It’s a very cool game, and very quickly leads to unique and interesting situations.
In the second game we played, I was a villager. On one turn, another player Tony declared he was the Fortune Teller, and named two other players as wolves. One of them I already suspected, so I trusted the intel and called a vote to lynch that person. It passed, they died, and were revealed as a wolf. That night, the other accused player and the Witch killed each other – again, the intel was right.
That left me, the now very trustworthy Fortune Teller, and two other players who now both claimed to be the Defender. I had previously suspected one of them, Andy, but wasn’t sure enough to call for a lynching. I tried to test their claims: if you’re the Defender, who did you defend last night? Andy said he had protected me. Dave, unfortunately, couldn’t remember.
That made both of them suspicious. After some deductions, Dave decided he must have protected our Fortune Teller Tony the previous night. I could still call a vote to lynch either of them that day, or I could wait one more night to see what would happen.
Since you can’t protect the same person two nights in a row, and each ‘Defender’ claimed the other was the wolf, each would have only one choice to protect that night, if they were telling the truth. If Dave protected Tony last night, he would protect me that night. If Andy protected me last night, he would protect Tony. Whichever was the wolf, they could use the same logic to deduce who would be vulnerable that night. They could either use that information to kill one of them, or use it to intentionally fail the attack and leave the issue undecided.
In every case, even my own death, I decided it was better to wait one night. The worst outcome would be that no-one died, leaving us just as uncertain as today, in which event I would call to lynch Andy, who I still found more suspicious.
The wolf killed Tony that night. I had to run my own logic by myself one more time to make sure I wasn’t being stupid, then called a vote to lynch Andy. Obviously Dave voted with me, we lynched Andy, and he was indeed the final wolf.
Much more than a pre-written murder mystery, Werewolf lets you feel like a detective. The lies you’re picking through are ones real people made up on the spot, and the logic they’re based on is simple enough that even idiots like me can legitimately attempt to use deduction to determine guilt.
I have a question about it though, for anyone really. I’ve literally only played two games, so I’m just trying to figure things out.
Isn’t it always in the humans’ interests to declare their roles as soon as the game starts?
If they do, the wolves either make themselves conspicuous by staying silent, or they have to immediately pick a lie and announce it confidently. Even if all three of them do this quickly enough not to arouse suspicion and deliver the lie convincingly, they still reveal a lot.
If more than one wolf claims to be the same role, we end up with three or more people claiming that title, giving a 2/3 chance or better of killing a wolf if you lynch one of them. Eg.
Player 1: I’m the villager.
Player 2: I’m the defender.
Player 3: I’m the witch.
Player 4: I’m the witch.
Player 5: I’m the witch.
Player 6: I’m the fortune teller.
Player 7: I’m the fortune teller.
If you get it wrong and lynch the genuine one, you’ve revealed at least two of the three wolves in doing so.
If the wolves co-ordinate perfectly and each pick a different role to claim, three humans now know the identity of one wolf each – the one who’s claiming to be them. Every human also knows of one trustworthy human – with three wolves and four human roles, one will remain uncontested and is definitely genuine. Eg.
Player 1: I’m the villager.
Player 2: I’m the defender.
Player 3: I’m the defender.
Player 4: I’m the witch.
Player 5: I’m the witch.
Player 6: I’m the fortune teller.
Player 7: I’m the fortune teller.
If two claim to the be the Fortune Teller, the Defender can pick one to defend that night. If the other Fortune Teller is attacked, the Witch will be told and can use her potion to save them. Either way, the Witch can use her poison to kill the wolf claiming to be her. Meanwhile, the real Fortune Teller can use their ability to test one of the Defenders or Villagers to uncover another wolf (no need to test a Witch or Fortune Teller).
If the wolves attacked the Fortune Teller that night, no humans die. One wolf is dead, the Fortune Teller knows the identity of both the remaining wolves, the Witch knows which Fortune Teller is genuine, and by calling to lynch the Defender or Villager imposter he uncovered, the Teller proves themselves to the real human in that role.
If they attacked the Witch that night, the Witch dies but she still got to kill a wolf. The Fortune Teller now knows who both remaining wolves are: the other Fortune Teller, and whatever they learned from their test. And by calling to lynch the Defender or Villager imposter he uncovered, the Teller proves themselves to the real human in that role.
If they attacked the Defender or the Villager, that person will die, but one wolf is dead, the Fortune Teller knows the identity of both the remaining wolves, and the Witch is alive and has her healing potion.
The latter case is less conclusive, but in all eventualities it seems like a great start. The Fortune Teller can’t die the first night, always knows the identity of the wolves by day 2, and if they die any time after that, all remaining humans know they were genuine and hence know the identity of the remaining wolves.
Is instant human honesty ever not a good idea? Is there some way for the wolves to turn it to their advantage? Is it a quirk of our number of players and number of wolves?
Edit: Thanks for the input! From the comments, it sounds like we played an unusual configuration – many say the players aren’t usually told how many of each role exist, and the Witch is an unusual addition. We probably played with too many powerful roles on the human side – revealing your identity to the wolves wasn’t a big deal since almost every human player was important.
Masses of interesting roles and rules on the Wikipedia page (Mafia is the game it’s based on).