WEREWOLVES

A very silly game about Werewolves.

[werewolfgame]

What's the progress like now? If there even is any, that is. I hope development for this game is still active, because I still play this game every once in a while, and I've been hoping for an update. I could use a little more roles in my playing experience.

Don’t worry, I’m still active. I’ve been bogged down with work, life, etc, but I still put a couple of hours of development in every so often. It’ll be a while before there’ll be a proper release, but I should have a demo available in the next month or so. It’ll be hella buggy and won’t have all the illustrations and bells and whistles, but if you want to help play-test it, send me your email.

[werewolfgame]

How is it coming along? I'm really keen for some of these new character types. And would it be possible to make the name pool easily accessed and edited? So someone could draw the random characters from their own picks.

Sure, that sounds doable. If you have any other suggestions, let me know

[werewolfgame]

Just popping in to say that I’m still working on the game. The demands of a full-time job have made the progress pretty slow, but it’s still going. Here’s a list of the features I’ve programmed so far.  All the above stuff has been programmed, but I have a *lot* of debugging to do. And then I’ll need to do simulations to see if any roles are over- or under-powered, and make any necessary calibrations. It’ll take a while, since there are more than twice as many roles than in the old edition (still available here btw) Anyways, I’m 1. still at it 2. still open to suggestions for more roles to add 3. still open to weird character descriptions or other junk to add to the flavour of the game

[werewolfgame]

Role explanation: The Idealist dies if they lynch more than one innocent player. If this happens, they can publically reveal the secret identity of a chosen player.

Sucks to be this role! But it's good for the team. Maybe. I'm not sure. It's a complicated balance that could go either way and is heavily dependent on a bunch of factors: what kind of other roles are in the game, are there any additional baddies, etc.

I have a plan on how to figure out how useful the role actually is. I'll run a series of simulations, games in which only computer players are involved. By running thousands and thousands of these, with random combinations of roles, it's possible to find out how the existence of a given role (the Idealist in this case) affects the chances of survival of the Village.

I'll run a game where a random set of roles are present along with the Idealist, and record who wins. Then I'll run the same game, but with the Idealist replaced by an ordinary Villager, and again record who wins. Then I'll repeat this a few thousand times with other conditions.

By counting the number of games where the Villager team won with the Idealist, but lost when the Idealist was replaced with the dummy Villager, and comparing that to the number of games where the Villager team lost with the Idealist but won with the dummy Villager, I can get an estimate of how the Idealist helps the team. If the Idealist does worse than the Dummy Villager, it truly sucks for everyone.

I can quantify the effectiveness with the following expression:

Effectiveness = ((Games changed from lost to won) - (Games changed from won to lost))/(total games played)

I can't calculate this yet, since I'm still adding features to the game, but I'll publish effectiveness values when I get around to it.

All in all, I'll be keeping the Idealist, even if it damages the Village's chances. Losing is fun!

[werewolfgame]

Role explanation: The Poet can choose a player at night. From that point on, that player will require one less vote to be lynched.

The Poet is one of the roles based around the lynch vote. It's also one of the few roles that has a permanent effect: once the Poet has cursed someone with a lower vote requirement, they're stuck with it for the rest of the game. The Poet can also repeatedly curse someone, to the point where it's possible for the lynch to go ahead even if no one casts an actual vote against them.

[werewolfgame]

Role explanation: Before the daily vote, the Satanist can sacrifice their own life to kill two or three other players.

With insane power comes insane responsibility. Or not. The Satanist is the most destructive character in the game, able to kill up to three other people. However, their choice is heavily constrained: they can only kill people who are sitting next to each other. This means the Satanist has to weigh up not only their own life, but those of the complete innocents that might be sitting next to the last remaining Werewolf.

The Satanist role can be found in other incarnations of the game, under the alternate title "Terrorist", or "Suicide Bomber". I decided to change it to avoid the vile undercurrent of racism.

Like the Hunter and Bodyguard, the Satanist has a special win condition:

1. Their team wins 2. The Satanist sacrifices their own life to kill at least one badguy

[werewolfgame]

Role description: Little Red Riding Hood does not die when attacked by a Werewolf. Instead they go snooze in the Werewolf's belly and cannot talk or vote. If the Werewolf later dies, Little Red Riding Hood emerges unharmed and rejoins the game. If Little Red Riding Hood is in the belly of a Werewolf when the game ends, they get digested and die horribly.

LRRH starts as a secret role, like all other players. But if eaten and saved, their secret identity is publicly revealed. This helps the Village during the lynch vote, as LRRH is a guaranteed Villager, narrowing down the pool of possible Werewolves. This does mean LRRH is likely to be re-eaten though.

For a laugh, I decided to give Little Red Riding Hood their own artwork. It's fun to watch them springing unharmed from the belly of a wolf. It's not as much fun to watch a child hanging from a tree or being brutally killed though, so be careful.

[werewolfgame]

Role description: Bad guy. The Necromancer can put a curse on another player each night. When a cursed player dies, their body rises as a mindless zombie. Zombies attack living players after the lynch vote. Any player they kill becomes a zombie. Attacked players may also catch the plague.

The Necromancer seeks to overwhelm the democratic process with hordes of the undead. A player will succumb to zombie attack if (number of votes) + (number of zombies attacking them) is greater than the majority required for the lynch. If no player gets killed by the zombies, the lynch proceeds as normal. Zombies pick their targets randomly, but they don't ever attack the Necromancer. Thus, other players can deduce the identity of the Necromancer by noting who hasn't been attacked. But it's not always possible to do this before the zombie horde swells to unmanageable numbers.

Like the Android, I had to tweak this role to make sure the player has a decent chance of winning. Unlike the Android, who was winning too often, the Necromancer was not winning often enough. To compensate, I've allowed the zombies to spread the plague. This sometimes backfires, leading to the Necromancer dying of plague. But it gives the Necromancer a good fighting chance.

[werewolfgame]

Role description: The Actor can choose to impersonate a player at night. All attacks and effects directed towards that player target the Actor instead. All attacks and effects directed towards the Actor fail.

The Actor can be played nobly or selfishly. It's a fairly weak role, but it is very well suited for heroic sacrifice. For example, if the Fortune Teller has given themselves away and is certain to be killed by the Werewolves, the Actor can step in and sacrifice their life for the more important player. Alternately the Actor can choose someone almost certain not to die, and piggyback on their survival. Whatevs.

[werewolfgame]

Role description: The Priest can kill a player once per game. The Priest can resurrect a recently killed player once per game.

Unlike other roles such as the Doctor or the Fortune Teller, the Priest can only use each of their abilities once. This is fitting, since they have control over life and death itself.

When I first started playing Werewolf this role was introduced to me as the Witch, who owns a life-saving potion and a deadly poison. When I later started running my own games, I was using Scrabble tiles to assign roles: W for Werewolf, F for Fortune Teller, etc. The W was already taken by the Werewolves, so I decided to reflavour the role as the Priest. It's fun if the Moderator (the person who doesn't play the game, instead keeping track of who's dead or alive, organising night events, moderating debate, etc.) takes on the role of God. This allows for fun roleplay where the Priest prays to God to smite/save their buddies.  

[werewolfgame]

Role description: The Doctor can select a player at night. That player will survive the night.

The Doctor is a Villager with a special ability to preserve the life of a chosen player. A selfless individual, they cannot preserve themselves.

The Doctor's ability works even if the Doctor is selected to be the victim of the Werewolves or otherwise killed. This is an important principle of the game: though all night actions are made independently and separately, they are considered to occur instantaneously at the same moment. Like an n-directional Mexican standoff. The exceptions to this rule are the role-blocking players, such as the Dentist, who go first in order to disable other players.

[werewolfgame]

Role description: The Masons know each other's identities.

The Masons are a group-role; each game starts with three of them. The Masons provide some cohesion to the Village, ensuring that at least some of the votes are more likely to go towards non-Villagers. This is the only advantage the Masons bring; they have no special abilities. But it's a crucial advantage, especially if more than one Mason survives to the final stages of the game.

[werewolfgame]

Role explanation: If fatally wounded in the night, the Whaler doesn't die immediately, but clings to life and dies the following night.

Another passive role, the Whaler uses their innately inhuman  endurance to deny the Werewolves the immediate effect of their murderous night activity. This can be crucially important if the Whaler is able to stick around for one last vote. It also gives the Whaler an extra chance to be healed by the Doctor.

The Whaler is one of many roles that can lead to debate and confusion about what exactly happened on a night with no victims. Some other possibilities are:

-The Doctor/Nurse/Paramedic was able to save someone's life, so no one died -The Priest resurrected the dead victim -The Wolves tried to kill the Elder or another night-immune role -The Wolves were successfully role-blocked by the Dentist/Sheriff/Nurse -The Revenant made a successful gamble -etc

Victimless nights can be the source of important information. But they are also capable of leading people far astray if they mistake one of the above possibilities for another. One of the most rewarding things about moderating real-life games is watching a bunch of people arguing about what the hell happened last night.

[werewolfgame]

Role explanation: The Prince can't be lynched. If the Prince gets selected for a lynching, their royal lineage is revealed and they escape all future lynchings, and get a bonus vote.

At first I thought this role was pretty dumb and gave too much of an advantage to the Prince. Especially irritating since the role is entirely passive: unlike the Hunter or Dentist or whoever, the Prince doesn't have to put thought into any tough decisions. But then I realised having an unworthy privileged sod was a true reflection of the actual real-life monarchy, so I kept it in.

[werewolfgame]

Role description: The Dentist can disable a player for a day. The victim cannot use their special ability, speak, or vote.

The Dentist is the ultimate disabler. The victim of the Dentist is disabled not only for a night, but also for the discussion and voting. They can still be hung though!

I can't think of anything else to say about the Dentist so I'll go on a tangent about the weird names that the townspeople have. Firstly, they're all the same length, six letters long. This is so that they line up neatly on-screen, useful for menu options and that kind of thing. Secondly, they are arranged alphabetically. Again, this is useful for menu options; it's handy that in order to vote for the player whose name begins with the 5th letter of the alphabet, you type the number 5.

I drew the names from an online census of names used in the USA since the 1950s. You'll probably have noticed that most of the names you'll see in-game are weird rare names though, not the Alberts or Hilarys you might expect . This is because the names aren't weighted according to real-life popularity: George crops up no more frequently than Gunghi or Grearo. I've had some complaints about this, but I like the weird cosmopolitanness of it. Another phenomenon is that, because there are many more ways to misspell a name than there are to spell it, there are plenty of eccentric spelling choices in the game. I think this imparts a charming air of medieval illiteracy. p.s. Sorry for the lack of updates, just got back from holiday

[werewolfgame]

Role description: A bad guy. The Android can kill one player a night, and is immune to attacks at night. The Android requires one less vote to be lynched.

A merciless killing machine, the Android will not rest until all living things in the village are exterminated. The Android is a one of the many non-Werewolf badguys programmed into the game. The role is more commonly known as the Serial Killer, but I've named it the Android to avoid confusion with the Vigilante, and because it's more plausible for an Android to be night-kill immune.

When adding new roles to the game, I try to keep the different factions well-balanced. Ideally, the Villagers should win about half of the time (a little less than half if there are many badguy factions), with the rest of the wins divided between the remaining badguy factions. The Android provided a challenge here, as their night-immunity makes them a very difficult enemy to kill, meaning they were winning disproportionately often. And removing the night-immunity makes it too easy to kill. In order to find a balance, I thought about some other options, like making it night-immune on alternate nights. That would have been really dumb and inexplicable though. In the end I decided to alter the Android's chances by another means, making it slightly more easy to lynch. It seems to work, and adds some tension to the Android-player's experience; they need to be careful to stay on people's good sides.

I'll introduce the rest of the badguys later. Including the Werewolves and the Android, there are ten varieties altogether, which is crazy.

[werewolfgame]

Role description: The Demagogue can nominate a player for a second lynch.

After the normal lynch, the Demagogue can try to stir up the Village against a player of their choice. The rest of the Village votes yes or no, and kills the player if the yes vote wins. This means the Demagogue is a collaborative role: their actions only matters if the town gives their support.

In essence, the Demagogue gives the Village a second chance at a lynch. I adapted the role from a separate role which I've not included in the game, the Troublemaker; while the Troublemaker is alive the village always lynches twice. I've tweaked it so the player instead has a choice of who is the focus of the vote, rather than it being an open vote like a normal lynch. I chose to do it this way to give the role more agency, and also to avoid the tediousness of going through the exact same lynching process twice in a row.