Hosting a Werewolf game in person

[Vince, Pt. II]

So I run a gaming night at my house once a month with my roommate, and we've grown to a pretty decent sized group of regulars (10-15 or so). I've been thinking of running a werewolf game as a sort of end-of-the-night type of thing, and was looking for any bits of advice anyone would have for me - both in hosting a game (which I've never done) and any tips for the in-person experience.

Since a message board is such an ideal place for this type of game (Private Messages are easy to see, so the "night" phase goes smoother), I'm wondering how difficult it is going to be to run this live with everyone in the same room. I'm pretty sure I won't have to worry about people cheating, but any suggestions for an easier way to handle werewolf killings/seer viewings/bodyguard protections etc other than "Ok, now everyone close your eyes..." would be welcome.

Edit: I'm planning on running a pretty vanilla game. 1 seer, 1 bodyguard, probably 2 wolves (maybe three if we get up to 15 total people). Not sure I'm even going to throw the duke role in there. I'm pretty sure no one at the party will have ever played this type of game before, so it's going to be all new, and I'll be pushing for easy to make sure people have a good time and don't get confused.

[CrimsonFox]

Tis very fun in person. Have you ever done it? Before I came here to this forum I had ONLY played live versions of it. At Gencon and origins game conventions.
It sounds like you've never seen this type of game done live.
So here's how it goes:

There is a moderator. He hands out cards, one to each player. The players all sit in a circle. (apart so they don't touch). Each person secretly looks at their card. It tells them what they are. Typically there are 2 wolves (maybe 3 at 15 people I think? I forget. ) and 1 seer, the rest are villagers. I've never seen a live game with anything else although I've heard of variations.


You start the game off by doing a little storytelling. Saying this is the village blahblahblah. Tell everyone to go to sleep. Sleep means "Shut your eyes" and "tap your lap". This means they repeatedly tap their lap with their right hand in a rhythm. This covers any movement noise.

MOD says "Wolves wake up and identify each other". The wolves open their eyes and the MOD and the wolves all make eye contact while still tapping their lap.
MOD says "Wolves go back to sleep" They shut their eyes

MOD says "SEER wake up" The seer opens their eyes still tapping lap and makes eye contact with MOD.
MOD says "SEER go to sleep". THey shut their eyes.

MOD says "Village wake up"
Everyone wakes up and opens their eyes and stops tapping their lap.

MOD says "When you awake The mayor/little susuie/your dog/etc has been torn apart by a werewolf. " (in other words...some character that is not actually a player...this starts the ball rolling)

MOD cues village to decide who is a werewolf and lynch them.
People talk to each other.

VOTING - to vote, a player raises one hand over their head and points at a person with the other hand. This is an OFFICIAL vote. Simply pointing at someone means nothing. If they drop their hand they are "unvoting".

LYNCH - when a player gets the majority of people voting for them, they are lynched immediately.
The player/MOD reveals their card showing what they are. The player leaves the circle/people move in.


MOD starts the night phase.
Says village go to sleep , shut their eyes and tap their lap.
says wolves wake up and kill: Wolves open their eyes, they make eyecontact (while tapping) and decide who to kill with eyecontact/points/nods/etc. They signal to the MOD their person who can confirm silently.
When confirmed MOD says "Wolves go to sleep".
MOD says "SEER WAKE UP"
Seer opens eyes and simalrly points to someone they want to guess if they are a wolf or not. MOD gives THUMBS UP if a wolf, THUMBS DOWN if not a wolf.
MOD says "SEER GO TO SLEEP"
MOD says "village wake up"

A new day. MOD tells the village that a person has died has died, their card is revealed and they leave the circle.

The game continues from there with days and nights until all the wolves gone or 1-1 with villagers/wolves.

[Thomkal]

check out the werewolf forum at boardgamegeek.com. There's a convention where the people play on the board play it live and maybe some tips you can find there. I would post and ask about it there-lots of friendly people who can help you.

Also check out youtube for some live WW games posted there.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Thanks for the tips guys!

[dzilla77]

We've done in person werewolf games for several years at a gaming weekend. You need to keep the game a little more simple than some of the games we play here.

CF's example is a good one.

I would caution you, that usually you can't just play one game. Also, theme helps a lot too.

I would also recommend Resistance. That actually plays better in person because everybody is involved for the entire game and the games go very quick.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Well, we ended up playing 4 games with 9 people. It was supposed to be 14, which would have been perfect...but three people got sick and one couple never showed. Went with 2 wolves and a seer, and added some extra roles each game.

Game 1 saw the wolves win even though the villagers lynched a wolf on day one - our second wolf did a great job staying under the radar and letting the villagers snipe at one another the whole way through. I don't think he was even voted for a single time the entire game. The seer viewed a pair of villagers and was lynched on day 3. Overall, the game was ok, but people were still trying to figure things out and several of the participants were quiet a lot.

Game 2 I introduced the Mayor role. Wolves got off to a much better start, lynching a villager on day one and killing another that night. Our star wolf from game one managed to be the seer in this game, and had the odd strategy of announcing it immediately in day one. Compounding this strange strategy, a different player (who was a vanilla villager) claimed the seer was lying and was clearly a wolf because HE was in fact the seer (even though he wasn't). The seer launched a counter-offensive, leading the bandwagon onto the second supposed seer, and he was lynched day 1. For whatever reason, perhaps because of the craziness of the day and how the initial seer reveal probably didn't look so good since he led the bandwagon on another villager, the wolves killed someone else. During the night phase, one of the wolves managed to brush up against a villager inadvertently and was outed quickly because of it. To compound matters, the seer ended up picking the second wolf as his viewing that evening, cleaning up a very strange game in a hurry for a villager win.

For game 3, I added in the bodyguard. On day one a bandwagon disguised as a freight train hit one of our quiet players, and with a 7-2 margin he was the lynch target. As the Mayor, his hand was forced early and he picked someone else (who happened to be a villager). Day two, the villagers again displayed an uncanny ability to find a wolf to lynch with next to no evidence, and even though the seer went down early, the villagers cleaned up the field neatly for another win.

For game 4, someone else volunteered to run the game so I could get involved. Because there wasn't as much discussion in the first three games as I had hoped/expected, I kicked things off by talking a lot. I had to weasel my way out of trouble on day one to avoid the bandwagon (we lynched a villager), then on day 2 out of nowhere the mayor stepped in with nothing but a hunch and changed the vote from a werewolf (unbeknownst at the time) to me (villager). Though it got real dicey at the end, the villagers pulled it off.

We had a ton of fun, but 9 is a really hard number to balance for. 1 wolf seemed to be far too difficult for the wolf, but 2 seemed to be a little too much wolf (despite a 3:1 villager win ratio). I also wish that the group was a little more talkative - there was very little arguing/discussing, even from people who were leading the vote and about to be killed. They just sort of took it in stride. We also had a guy who would routinely vote for himself (as a vanilla villager), which was just...odd. He claimed he did want to play the game, but his "strategy" was strange. Looking forward to doing it again, hopefully with a few more people.