The Werewolfs of Millers Hollow



 
Werewolves of Miller's Hollow is a game that takes place in a small village which is haunted by werewolves. Each player is secretly assigned a role - Werewolf, Ordinary Townsfolk, or special character such as The Sheriff, The Hunter, the Witch, the Little Girl, The Fortune Teller and so on... There is also a Moderator player who controls the flow of the game. The game alternates between night and day phases. At night, the Werewolves secretly choose a Villager to kill. During the day, the Villager who was killed is revealed and is out of the game. The remaining Villagers (normal and special villagers alike) then deliberate and vote on a player they suspect is a Werewolf, helped (or hindered) by the clues the special characters add to the general deliberation. The chosen player is "lynched", reveals his/her role and is out of the game. Werewolf is a social game that requires no equipment to play, and can accommodate almost any large group of players.

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.