History TabletopGame / Werewolf

[[redirect:TabletopGame/Werewolf1986]]

Werewolf is a {{social deduction|Game}} {{Parlor Game|s}} (usually using cards to assign roles when played in person) that is, while commonly played at conventions, also popular online via PlayByPost or voice/text-based chatrooms. It is a variant of a 1986 game from the Soviet Union called Mafia by psychology student Dimitry Davidoff, who created the game to teach high schoolers about his field of study. It spread among students, and soon to other countries. In 1997, Creator/AndrewPlotkin gave the game a werewolf theme and listed the rules online under the new name Werewolf.

A lot of players are needed, with one being the moderator. The rest of the people are all citizens of a village. Depending on how many players there are, one to three people play the role of werewolves. The werewolf's job is to kill all of the villagers. The villagers' role is to survive. One of the villagers is usually the Seer (in other versions, a "cop" or "seeker"), who once a night can "see" whether an individual person is a werewolf. There are many other possible roles and rule variations, depending on the number of players and medium of play, such as defender roles that can protect a person from being eaten at night, "strongmen" who take two attempts to kill, or games where the werewolves can convert a villager to their side.

* During the "night" phase, everyone must close their eyes, put their head down, and repeatedly slap their thigh or pound the table. GENTLY. This creates enough noise to mask sounds of movement from players responding to the moderator, which can otherwise give away a player's role to sharp-eared neighbors.
* When the werewolf is called by the moderator, it is his or her job to select who they want to kill by silently pointing to whom he or she desires to be eliminated from the game. If there are multiple werewolves, they must silently come to an agreement on who to kill, without giving themselves away. The moderator will then tell the werewolf/werewolves to go to sleep...
* ...and call upon the Seer, who will point to a person he or she wants to check that night. The moderator will indicate whether that person is a werewolf or not, usually by a nod/headshake or thumbs up/down. Since the moderator has to see the werewolf/werewolves raise their heads to know who they are, it must be done in this order.
* Any other special roles the moderator needs to know the identities of or get information from will be called in their turn.
* When morning comes, the moderator announces who has been killed, usually also revealing their alignment and role (if they had one), and that person remains silent for the rest of the game. It is then time for the villagers to decide who is most likely to be the werewolf, voting every "day" on someone to lynch. Anyone can claim to be the Seer (or any other role, for that matter), as it throws people off and makes the game fun.

This is a simpler version of ''TabletopGame/TheWerewolvesOfMillersHollow''. ''TabletopGame/OneNightUltimateWerewolf'' by Bézier Games takes this formula and shortens it to a single round. The most common form of this game is ''Are You A Werewolf?'', developed by Looney Labs in 2001. There are various online and app versions of the game. An online version, ''VideoGame/TownOfSalem'', was developed by indie company Blank Media Games in 2014. Compare ''VideoGame/AmongUs'', which has the similar premise of identifying and executing undercover killers.

Do not confuse with ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse''.

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!! Tropes associated with Werewolf/Mafia:
* DrivenToSuicide: Certain roles will kill themselves under the wrong circumstances.
** In some setups, the "Vigilante" role must commit suicide if the target of their wrath is revealed to be pro-Town.
** The Lovers, chosen either by random card draw or by a Cupid role, are so in love that if one dies the other will immediately kill themself or die of grief.
** Cultists, in variants which require the Cult Leader to do any recruitment, will commit suicide if their leader is killed, since they would otherwise be stuck in an UnwinnableByDesign situation.
** The "Suicidal" role modifier indicates that whichever player draws that role will die at a specified point.
* EvilVersusEvil: "Multiball" games contain multiple anti-town factions -- two competing mafias, a mafia team and a werewolf team, or what have you. This complicates the process of finding scum, because in this variant ''everyone'' wants to find at least ''some'' of the scum, so the town can't rely on finding people who are trying to avoid getting anyone caught. They ''can'' rely on scum only finding the ''other'' scumteam, but it takes quite some time to confirm this...
* HilarityEnsues: Inevitable, once accusations, claims, and counterclaims start flying. Some variants will add even more rules to up the potential chaos.
* HouseRules: ''Extremely'' common in forum-based games; enough possibilities to fill [[https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Main_Page at least one entire wiki]]. Possible rules include whether dead players' roles are revealed (and if so, to what extent), whether there's any third-party factions, modifiers like "one shot" or "even days only" on power role abilities... Games containing an overabundance of house rules are known as "role madness".
* IKnowYouKnowIKnow: Given that information is at a premium in this game, figuring out who is on whose side often turns into this. (Is my suspicion on any given player founded in reality, or am I being paranoid? If someone is caught in a lie, are they doing it for a good reason, or are they the enemy? Is the idiot attracting a lot of attention doing it because he's a Jester who wants to get hung or a Scummy scumbag sacrificing himself for his teammates? And so on.)
* {{Nerf}}: The oldest known version of the "vigilante" role simply has the ability to kill, once per night. Eventually, due to concerns of being too [[DifficultButAwesome swingy]][[note]]A good vig can single-handedly win for town as easily as a bad one can doom them[[/note]], a variant eventually became popular which would die upon shooting a town-aligned player. The precise details of that death are still in flux; they might die alongside their target, or they might die ''instead of'' them (potentially confirming them as innocent).
* PlayerElimination: As the game largely revolves around characters killing each other, elimination is a major mechanic: during Day phases, the players vote on a player to kill (with the Townie majority hoping to target a Werewolf), and during Night phases, the werewolves get to kill someone. There are also power roles that interact with killing, such as the Doctor being able to protect players from Night kills, and the Vigilante being a Townie who can kill during Night phases. Additionally, some roles can get players killed, such as a Lover dying if the other Lover dies.
* SocialDeductionGame: TropeCodifier. Players are assigned various 'civilian' roles (some of whom have special abilities) and there's usually one to three killers, who off one villager during the night each round. During the day the rest have to figure out who are killers, and can choose to execute someone they suspect is a killer (although the killer(s) can misdirect them as well). The killers win if they bring the villagers down to even numbers with the killers, as there is then no way for the villagers to win; the civilians win if they successfully identify all of the killers.
* SpotTheImposter: Happens when more people claim to be a role that is stated to exist by the rules of the game. Most Town-aligned players' usual reaction is "hang them all and let the reveal sort it out" unless hanging the wrong person might cost Town the game.
* SuspectExistenceFailure: A suspicious-seeming player who gets killed overnight and flips town is a common twist, especially in games with a vigilante. If the player knows they're suspected, they may ''hope'' to get killed so the town doesn't have to spend any more time trying to figure them out -- which, of course, is exactly why the scumteam wants to [[DefiedTrope avoid killing scummy-looking townies]].
* TakingYouWithMe:
** A feature of some roles is that they will kill anyone who kills them, either directly in self defense as part of the Night action or after the next Morning's reveal.
** Any player on any side will often be motivated to cast aspersions on people voting for them. The knee-jerk instinct to vote for someone in retaliation for voting for them is especially prevalent, to the point that "[[https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Oh_My_God_You_Suck OMG you suck]]" is a well-known nickname for the behavior in some communities.
* VigilanteMan: The Vigilante is a common town-aligned role which is able to kill during the night. While they have the same win condition as regular townies (eliminate all scum), they may not have the same judgement... a good vigilante can carry the town to victory singlehandedly, while a bad one can doom them just as easily.
* WildCard: The Survivor role wins if and only if it's still alive when the game ends, regardless of ''how'' the game ended. This means a Survivor can spend most of the game helping the town find and eliminate scum, then turn around at the critical moment and help the scum win.
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Werewolf is a {{social deduction|Game}} {{Parlor Game|s}} (usually using cards to assign roles when played in person) that is, while commonly played at conventions, also popular online via PlayByPost or voice/text-based chatrooms. It is a variant of a 1986 game from the Soviet Union called Mafia. In 1997, Creator/AndrewPlotkin listed the rules for this version of the game online under the new name Werewolf.

This is a simpler version of ''TabletopGame/TheWerewolvesOfMillersHollow''. The most common form of this game is ''Are You A Werewolf?'', developed by Looney Labs in 2001. There are various online and app versions of the game. An online version, ''VideoGame/TownOfSalem'', was developed by indie company Blank Media Games in 2014. Compare ''VideoGame/AmongUs'', which has the similar premise of identifying and executing undercover killers.

* SocialDeductionGame: TropeCodifier. Players are assigned various 'civilian' roles (some of whom have special abilities) and there's usually one to three killers, who off one villager during the night each round. During the day the rest have to figure out who are killers, and can choose to execute someone they suspect is a killer (although the killer(s) can misdirect them as well). The killers win if they bring the villagers down to even numbers with the killers, as there is then no way for the villagers to win; the civilians win if they successfully identify all if the killers.

* SocialDeductionGame: TropeCodifier. Players are assigned various 'civilian' roles (some of whom have special abilities) and there's at least one killer, who offs one villager during the night each round. During the day the rest have to figure out who it is, and can choose to execute someone they suspect is the werewolf (although the werewolf/mafioso can misdirect them as well). The werewolf/mafioso wins if he kills all (or all but a couple) of villagers; the civilians win if they successfully identify the killer.

Werewolf is a {{social deduction|Game}} {{Parlor Game|s}} (usually using cards to assign roles when played in person) that is, while commonly played at conventions, also popular online via PlayByPost or voice/text-based chatrooms. It is a variant of a 1986 game from the Soviet Union called Mafia. In 1997, Creator/AndrewPlotkin listed the rules for the game online under the new name Werewolf.

A lot of players are needed, with one being the moderator. The rest of the people are all citizens of a village. However, depending on how many players there are, one to three people play the role of werewolves. The werewolf's job is to kill all of the villagers. The villagers' role is to survive. One of the villagers is usually the Seer (in other versions, a "cop" or "seeker"), who once a night can "see" whether an individual person is a werewolf. There are many other possible roles and rule variations, depending on the number of players and medium of play, such as defender roles that can protect a person from being eaten at night, "strongmen" who take two attempts to kill, or games where the werewolves can convert a villager to their side.

* ...and call upon the Seer, who will point to a person he or she wants to check that night. The moderator will indicate whether that person is a werewolf or not, usually by a nod/headshake or thumbs up/down. Since the moderator has to see the werewolf/werewolves raise their heads, it must be done in this order.

* When morning comes, the moderator announces who has been killed, usually also revealing their alignment and role (if they had one), and that person remains silent for the rest of the game. It is then time for the villagers to decide who is the werewolf, deciding every morning who to lynch. Anyone can claim to be the Seer (or any other role, for that matter), as it throws people off and makes the game fun.

A lot of players are needed, with one being the moderator. The rest of the people are all citizens of a village. However, depending on how many players there are, one or two people play the role of the werewolf. The werewolf's job is to kill all of the villagers. The villagers' role is to survive. One of the villagers can be the seer (in other versions, a "cop" or "seeker"), who can "see" who the werewolf is. There are many other possible roles and rule variations, depending on the number of players and medium of play, such as defender roles that can protect a person from being eaten at night, "strongmen" who take two attempts to kill, or games where the werewolves can convert a villager to their side.

* During the "night" phase, everyone must close their eyes, put their head down, and repeatedly slap their thigh or pound the table. GENTLY.
* When the werewolf is called by the moderator, it is his or her job to select who they want to kill by silently pointing to whom he or she desires to be eliminated from the game. The moderator will then tell the werewolf/werewolves to go to sleep...
* ...and call upon the seer, who will rise and point to who he or she thinks is the werewolf. The moderator will nod yes or no, since the moderator has already seen the werewolf/werewolves raise their heads. It must be done in this order.
* When morning comes, the moderator announces who has been killed, usually also revealing their alignment and role (if they had one), and that person remains silent for the rest of the game. It is then time for the villagers to decide who is the werewolf, deciding every morning who to lynch. Anyone can claim to be the seer (or any other role, for that matter), as it throws people off and makes the game fun.

This is a simpler version of ''TabletopGame/TheWerewolvesOfMillersHollow''. The most common form of this game is ''Are You A Werewolf?'', developed by Looney Labs in 2001. A online version, ''VideoGame/TownOfSalem'', was developed by indie company Blank Media Games in 2014. The creators of Werewolves also created Werewolves Online, the video game verison of this game. Compare ''VideoGame/AmongUs'', which has the similar premise of identifying and executing undercover killers.

This is a simpler version of ''TabletopGame/TheWerewolvesOfMillersHollow''. The most common form of this game is ''Are You A Werewolf?'', developed by Looney Labs in 2001. A online version, ''VideoGame/TownOfSalem'', was developed by indie company Blank Media Games in 2014. Compare ''VideoGame/AmongUs'', which has the similar premise of identifying and executing undercover killers.