Preparing the game
All players sit in a circle
and each player is given a single card at random. They will look at this card,
remember it and then place it face down in front of them.
The card you have will
determine your team. Your team will either werewolves or villagers. It is the
villagers job to find and kill all the werewolves, it is the werewolves job to
eat all the villagers. Either way you win or lose as a team, the tricky part is
you don't know who is on your team and who is not.
The game progresses with
phases, with each phase lasting a few minutes. The phases are called day and
night.
Day Phase
During the day phase all players will discuss who they think are
werewolves and vote on a single person to be lynched. During this phase
everybody (werewolf or not) will generally pretend to be villagers to the best
of their ability.
Night Phase
During this phase all players will remain silent and close their eyes.
The werewolves will be asked by the moderator to "wake up" (i.e Open
their eyes in silence) and then point to the person they wish to eat (their
vote must be unanimous). They then close their eyes again as if nothing
happened. The game opens with a night phase.
That is generally how the game progresses, each player upon being
lynched or eaten will reveal their card to the group (in silence) and then will
no longer participate in the game. The game ends when all werewolves or
villagers are dead.
Card / Role List
Werewolf
The enemy of the town, played exactly as
explained in the simple explanation above.
Villager / Towns folk
This is your run of the mill villager, the role
everyone will pretend to be. They do nothing but keep their eyes closed during
the night phases.
Hunter
A regular villager
until you die by any means, at this point you will be allowed to kill another
player of your choice and take them down with you.
There is more often than not more than one
hunter in a game. I use two decks allowing me two real hunter cards, and
normally use the little girl cards as an extra two.
Seer / Clairvoyant
Every night phase you will be asked to wake up
by the moderator (after the werewolves) and you will be allowed to point to one
person and see their card. Nobody will know who you are or who's card was seen
during the night, use this information as you wish during the day phase.
Witch
You have 2 potions,
1 of them kills somebody and 1 of them saves somebody. Each night you will be
asked to wake up (after the werewolves) and told who is about to die. You will
then be asked if you wish to save this person with your save potion (nodding or
shaking your head), you will then be asked if you wish to kill anybody
(pointing at them or shaking your head). You may use each potion only once in
the game.
Cupid
At the very first
night phase Cupid will wake up, before everybody else and pick 2 people who
will become "lovers". Cupid then returns to sleep and is a regular
villager for the rest of the game. The two lovers will then be asked to wake
up, look at each other and show each other their cards. Regardless of their old
roles their new objective is to be the only 2 remaining players alive by
whatever means necessary.
Thief
The Thief card is a very special card. The card itself has no role, apart from the ability to switch between two cards at the start of the game. It is mainly used for randomising the deck more. The way it works is you shuffle two extra cards into the deck. Once you have dished out the cards you place the two extra ones in the middle. You then wake the thief up before anyone else (even cupid), and ask them to choose between the two cards. The only rule of this card is that if the two cards in the middle are werewolves, the thief must swap theirs.
Little Girl
The little girl card is a strange card. It gives one player the ability to peak
during the werewolf stage on the night phase. It's a very difficult card to
play because it requires very close observing and numerous changes to how
people are during the night phase. The main rule if you play this card is that
nobody can have their hands (or anything else) covering their faces, this is
because if the little girl is spotted peaking at all by a werewolf, she dies
instantly from shock. The card can be a game breaker if the little girl spots
all the werewolves in the first round.