At the turn of the 19th century, a small, isolated village huddles at the edge of the ominous, untamed frontier: your home, for as long as you can remember. Here, superstitions fester beneath the relentless blanket of fog rolling down from the surrounding hills. Your nights are ruled by silence, fear, and timid pools of lantern-light; by day, secrets and suspicion cast a pall even sunlight can't dispel. Really, it's a wonder the werewolves waited this long to pluck such low-hanging fruit.
But last night, as the full moon rose, they rolled in with the fog, and they made some of you their own.
You are now under attack from within. Some of the people you grew up with---family, friends, foes---have become wolves in sheep's clothing, slaves to the murderous influence of the moon. If your village is to survive, your only hope is to fight back during the day, when the werewolves are vulnerable. But, by the light of the sun, the wolves look like you and talk like you... and will say whatever they must to mislead you into doing their bloody work for them.
WEREWOLF RULES
Game Setup
Before the game starts, you will each be secretly assigned a TEAM and a ROLE.
YOUR TEAM describes who you win with: the Werewolf Team or the Villager Team.
YOUR ROLE defines any special abilities you may have to help your team, and are described below. This will be an 8-Player game, and the two teams will contain the following roles:
Days & Nights
The game proceeds through a sequence of day and night cycles, beginning with The First Night.
The First Night: The Werewolves are identified to each other, but they do not kill anyone on the first night. Both the Seer and the Sorcerer wake and do choose a player to examine as per their special abilities. The Bodyguard remains asleep since, without a werewolf attack on the first night, his ability is moot.
The First Day: Everyone introduces themselves. Remember, you've all been living in this tiny frontier village your whole lives, so tell us who you are and what you do! Have fun with it. ("Hi, I'm Bob, the village donut maker. As everyone knows, Werewolves hate donuts.") Then, things get serious, because there is a lynching on the first day (process described below).
Subsequent Days & Nights: From the second night forward, the Werewolves wake to choose a player to kill, and the Bodyguard joins the Seer and Sorcerer in waking to use their special abilities.
The Daily Lynch
Lynching is a four-step process, though I may shorten it depending on pacing & group dynamics: A player is NOMINATED; another player SECONDS the nomination; the Accused offers a DEFENSE; then the other players VOTE on whether to lynch the Accused:
A few rules and formatting conventions are necessary to keep things clear and running smoothly in the thread:
Finally, a recap of some of those easy-to-miss rules that tend to trip people up:
But last night, as the full moon rose, they rolled in with the fog, and they made some of you their own.
You are now under attack from within. Some of the people you grew up with---family, friends, foes---have become wolves in sheep's clothing, slaves to the murderous influence of the moon. If your village is to survive, your only hope is to fight back during the day, when the werewolves are vulnerable. But, by the light of the sun, the wolves look like you and talk like you... and will say whatever they must to mislead you into doing their bloody work for them.
WEREWOLF RULES
Game Setup
Before the game starts, you will each be secretly assigned a TEAM and a ROLE.
YOUR TEAM describes who you win with: the Werewolf Team or the Villager Team.
- The Villager Team wins if ALL of the Werewolves are dead.
- The Werewolf Team wins if the number of surviving Werewolves equals or exceeds the number of surviving Villagers. (The Werewolves do not need to kill ALL of the Villagers to win.)
YOUR ROLE defines any special abilities you may have to help your team, and are described below. This will be an 8-Player game, and the two teams will contain the following roles:
- The 2-player Werewolf Team will include two Werewolves, with a 25% chance that one of those Werewolves will be replaced with the Lone Wolf or the Teenage Werewolf.
- The 6-player Villager Team will include a Seer, a Bodyguard, and four Villagers
- Werewolf: The basic member of the Werewolf Team. At night, the Werewolves wake together, and choose a member of the Villager team to kill.
- Villager: The basic member of the Villager Team. Villagers have no special powers. Protect your Seer, watch out for the Hoodlum, and fight to save your town.
- Seer: The most important single member of the Villager's team, the Seer wakes each night, chooses a player, and learns if they are a Werewolf.
- Bodyguard: Each night, the Bodyguard chooses a player to protect. Any attempt to kill the chosen player that night fails. The Bodyguard cannot choose the same player two nights in a row, and may not choose him/herself.
- Lone Wolf: For the Lone Wolf to win, the Werewolf team must win AND the other Werewolf must be dead.
- Teenage Werewolf: The Teenage Werewolf is so excited to be a werewolf, the word "wolf" or "werewolf" must appear in at least one of his posts each (in-game) day---or the Teenage Werewolf dies the following night.
Days & Nights
The game proceeds through a sequence of day and night cycles, beginning with The First Night.
The First Night: The Werewolves are identified to each other, but they do not kill anyone on the first night. Both the Seer and the Sorcerer wake and do choose a player to examine as per their special abilities. The Bodyguard remains asleep since, without a werewolf attack on the first night, his ability is moot.
The First Day: Everyone introduces themselves. Remember, you've all been living in this tiny frontier village your whole lives, so tell us who you are and what you do! Have fun with it. ("Hi, I'm Bob, the village donut maker. As everyone knows, Werewolves hate donuts.") Then, things get serious, because there is a lynching on the first day (process described below).
Subsequent Days & Nights: From the second night forward, the Werewolves wake to choose a player to kill, and the Bodyguard joins the Seer and Sorcerer in waking to use their special abilities.
The Daily Lynch
Lynching is a four-step process, though I may shorten it depending on pacing & group dynamics: A player is NOMINATED; another player SECONDS the nomination; the Accused offers a DEFENSE; then the other players VOTE on whether to lynch the Accused:
- Nomination: At any time during the day, any player can NOMINATE any other player to be lynched.
- Seconding: If another player SECONDS the nomination, the nominated player is locked in as the ACCUSED.
- You can substitute a simple "I vote to lynch [Player A]" for either of the above. (i.e. If you start things off with "I vote to lynch", you're considered to be nominating a player AND voting to lynch. If a player has been nominated, and you "vote to lynch", you're considered to be seconding that player AND voting to lynch.
- Why bother with Nominating and Seconding at all, then? Because it can be strategically beneficial to nominate/second a player you have no intention of lynching, to see how other players react.
- Defense: The ACCUSED will get one opportunity to defend themselves. (You may wish to wait for this defense before locking in your vote.) The reason I make this a separate step is to avoid a situation where a player goes to bed on a silent thread, then wakes up to find out they've been lynched with no opportunity to argue their case!
- Result: After the Accused offers a defense, if MORE THAN HALF of the voting players vote to lynch, the Accused is killed and the game progresses to the next night. (Otherwise, the lynch fails, and discussions resume until there is another nomination.)
- If the day takes too long, I will inform you that "night is approaching", and give a deadline. If no successful lynch vote occurs by the deadline, the village immediately falls asleep without lynching anyone, and the next night begins.
- You may claim to have any role, at any time, for any reason. Be careful, though, as it's easy to backfire!
- When a player is killed for any reason, their role is revealed to all players.
- Dead players may NOT post to the thread for any reason. They will receive a private message telling them the roles of all surviving players, so they can watch the fun with full knowledge of the game.
A few rules and formatting conventions are necessary to keep things clear and running smoothly in the thread:
- Any "action" that you want to take must be in bold. This includes anything that isn't discussion: voting, nominating, seconding, choosing someone to kill, using a special ability, etc.
- You may NOT edit your posts for ANY reason.
- You may NOT begin private conversations with other players. I will bring you into private conversations myself as necessary (e.g. for the Werewolves' nightly discussion on who to kill)
- If you aren't going to be around and know what you plan to do, you can privately message me with your intended action, and I will post it at the appropriate time. You may even attach conditionals to it, as long as they are clear AND follow the bolding rule above. (e.g. "If [Player A] is nominated, I will second the nomination, and then I will vote to lynch.")
- I will be starting a new thread at the beginning of each game-day, and locking the previous day's thread when I do. The last post of each day's thread will contain a link to the new thread, so you won't get lost. This will help keep things organized, and ensure the transition from day-to-day isn't lost in the shuffle of an ever-growing thread.
Finally, a recap of some of those easy-to-miss rules that tend to trip people up:
- The Werewolves do not need to kill every Villager to win. They only need to kill enough Villagers so that the number of surviving Werewolves equals or exceeds the number of surviving Villagers.
- The Sorcerer does NOT count as a "Werewolf" when determining if a team has won: The Villagers do not have to kill the Sorcerer to win, and the Sorcerer is not counted when determining whether the Werewolves have killed enough Villagers to win.
- You win with your team even if you are dead.
- When a player dies, their role is revealed to all players.
- Dead players will be informed of every surviving player's role and may continue to watch the game, but they may not post to the thread.
- You can claim to have any role, at any time, for any reason. Lie to your heart's content.
- Once a player has been ACCUSED, any votes cast to lynch that player DO NOT COUNT until that player has posted their DEFENSE.
