Werewolf

After Matz's keynote, last night, I joined an insanely fun game called Werewolf (aka Mafia).

As Andrew Plotkin says on his werewolf page, "Werewolf is a simple game for a large group of people (seven or more.) It requires no equipment besides some bits of paper; you can play it just sitting in a circle. I'd call it a party game, except that it's a game of accusations, lying, bluffing, second-guessing, assassination, and mob hysteria."

The base rules are very simple. For a group of ten people, you have two werewolves, one seer, and seven villagers. There are day cycles and night cycles. In night cycles, werewolves get to choose one person to kill, and the seer gets to find out if a player is a werewolf. In the day cycles, the village debates and lynches one member. The humans win if they kill all werewolves. The werewolves win if they get the human:werewolf ratio down to 1:1.

The rules are very simple. The game can become as complex as you let it. Discussions of human behavior, logic chains, misdirection, trust, psychology, ethics, and more break out. If you are not careful, you can get lost in discussions about the meta-game, discussing the overarching game instead of discussing observations and thoughts as villagers.

Some IRC Werewolf sessions.

One point to add is that if you are spectating a game of Werewolf, you not only have to stay quiet and suppress your reactions when someone is lynched or killed. You also have to be wary of the body language you are giving off.

I was a spectator for parts of the four hour werewolf exhibition game last night. Participating were long-term addicts like Chad Fowler, Jay Phillips, Jim Weirich, Marcel Molina, and a dozen others. It was a no reveal game, meaning that when someone is lynched or killed, you do not get to find out what class they were, so until the very end, you cannot be certain about anything. It was definitely entertaining for the spectators; probably more so than for the players.

Charles Nutter's concerns about Werewolf and Conference Hacking.