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Nov 05

Weirdest Werewolf Game Ever

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One of the traditions at BarCamp is to play Werewolf during the overnight. Although there wasn’t any overnight with this Berlin BarCamp (and we were kicked out at 12), we get the chance to play Werewolf. Now this is not going to be a post on how to play it, so if you’re not familiar with it, check out the rules here or here (or just skip this post entirely). What is this post about? The weirdest probability-wise most unlikely game of Werewolf I ever played.

Okay, some facts before I start: there were 13 people with 3 Werewolves, 1 Seer and 1 Healer. We played with 4, maybe 5 experts and the rest were all newbies, which may be reason it went so weird. I was a Villager, so I’ll be describing everything first from my viewpoint.

Night1
randomperson13 dies

Day1
The seer declares himself during the introduction “I’m not A Werewolf” round and says he has important information. Turns out the “important” information is that MrA (who is sitting next to him) is a Villager. Worst newbie mistake ever! There’s a whole discussion that maybe the “Seer” is a Werewolf and he’s just pretending to be the Seer, but probabilistically that’s very, very unlikely. In the end, we lynch randomperson12, who was asking too many questions.

Night2
MrA (person11) dies. Logical right? The Seer told us MrA’s a Villager, so the Werewolves take him out, leaving less information for the rest of the group.

Day2
The Seer identifies MrB as a Werewolf. After some discussion, we lynch MrB (person10).

Night3
The Seer dies (person9). Hmm, interesting. This meant that or a) the Healer didn’t believe him or b) the Healer was dead.

Day3
The Healer reveals himself, saying he didn’t believe the Seer, so kept healing healing himself. I realise that he could just as well be a Werewolf, cause either way he’s not going to die next round. After some discussion I do believe he’s the Healer and we lynch the guy (person8) who to quickly wanted to kill the Healer.

Night4
Nobody dies! The Villagers win! With 7 Villagers over!

Werewolf

Now look back at the structure of the game: 3 Nights and 3 Days. You’d think the Villagers lynched one werewolf during every day round, right? Wrong. Here’s what really happened:

Night1
randomperson13 dies. The Seer picks MrA next to him: MrA IS a Werewolf, but the Seer misinterprets it and thinks he’s a Villager.

Day1
The Seer declares himself and says he has important information. The “important” information is that MrA is a Villager, while he IS in fact a Werewolf. What’s the chance of first finding a Werewolf, reading it wrong and then give it out as important information?! We lynch randomperson12, who was in fact a Villager.

Night2
MrA (person11) dies. Wait a minute…that was a Werewolf, right? He dies, because the Game master misinterprets the finger pointing. They were actually pointing at the Seer!

Day2
The Seer identifies MrB as a Werewolf. After some discussion, we lynch MrB (person10), who really IS a Werewolf.

Night3
The Seer dies (person9), because the Healer didn’t believe him.

Day3
The Healer reveals himself and we lynch the guy (who IS a werewolf) who to quickly wanted to kill the Healer.

Night4
Nobody dies! The Villagers win! With 7 Villagers over!

Phew! Bit of a different perspective, right? There were 2 mistakes that caused this strange (the misinterpreting of the Werewolf signal by the Seer and the misinterpreting of the finger pointing by the game master), but somehow the second mistake did cause to correct the first mistake. I love probabilities and the chance of this happening is mind-boggling small. Freakishly small! Anyhow, it just seemed like a very surreal game to me and I’m still amazed at it all.

Werewolf

So who’s in for more Werewolf this week?

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6 Responses to “Weirdest Werewolf Game Ever”

Almost. The first night took ridiculously long, with the werewolves (all newbies) being almost unreadably careful with their indication they were the werewolves and the fingerpointing. Unfortunately, because they all mostly kept their eyes closed, no concensus was reached until I forcibly asked them to make a choice.

For some reason that threw me off and *I* gave the wrong signal when the seer picked MrA. Totally my mistake.

However, when the werewolves eleminated one of their own, that was ‘on purpose’. The werewolves were again unable to get a concensus, with the killed werewolf (MrA) insisting on the seer, but the others sort of randomly pointing at people. At some point both other werewolves pointed at either MrA or the seer (they were sitting next to each other) but it looked a lot like a point to MrA, so, somewhat confused, I clearly indicated MrA and even more surprising, I got 3 thumbs up. MrA later confided that he didn’t even look at me and was just happy there seemed to be some sort of consensus.

As Melinda said, given that the group trusted the seer’s info, without the werewolves taking out MrA, the game would have been a win without glory (due to my mistake) for the werewolves.

Another consideration is that this game was doomed for an early end either way: Had I been signalling correctly, the seer would have been believed more readily by the healer (Ian), and lived to find the other werewolf on the second night. As a rule, when it’s 8 villagers including both a healer and a seer, versus just 1 werewolf, it’s usually over. Random luck that the seer managed to randomly pick out both werewolves.

Eventhough the werewolves were being extremely careful during all the 3 games we played at BCB2, I got at least 2 confirmed vibes that information was gleaned by villagers accidentally during the night.

My lack of perception is probably to blame, but a more effective indication method might help. I can’t really think of one. Giving each player a number written on a sticker on their shirt + binary counting on one hand (each digit is a bit) can in theory cover 16 players, but most people’s ring finger isn’t dexterous enough to pull that off, and everyone needs to remember to start at the thumb. That also leaves finger pointing free for werewolves to communicate amongst themselves.

Another option which is a lot easier to set up is to nick the don/consiglieri system from Mafia: Instead of ‘3 werewolves’, there’s an order to them. The Master, the veteran, and the initiate. During the first night, the werewolves communicate to each other their status (e.g. master raises hand with open palm, veteran raises fist, initiate just has open eyes but doesn’t raise a hand).

The ‘point’ and confirm from the highest ranked werewolf is the only one that counts; consensus is not required. If the master is killed, the veteran takes over (and the initiate after that if he’s the last werewolf still alive). This also helps in that the consiglieris can point just as a way to communicate ideas/suspicions to the ‘don’ werewolf.

I think the game was fun anyway, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t indicate myself ;-)

yeah, i just wanted to make this game “different” :-)

^^ ok, wasn’t that good idea to try a “different” tactic as a total newbie to Werewolf, but anyway it was fun :D

one of those games, we hopefully won’t forget ;)

And I thought the first game at BarcampBrighton was weird!

[...] After all the sessions were over it was announced that an hour later the games evening would begin, including the BarCamp favourite Werewolf. So together with Cristiano, Reinier, Alper and Eelke, I quickly went in search of some easy dinner; I couldn’t risk missing Werewolf, especially because we wouldn’t be able to play whole night (like normal BarCamps). We ended up getting Doner Kebab at a cute little snackbar, where the sweet guy behind the counter gave us free tea (cool and weird at the same time, right?). After that we hurried back to the BarCamp where Ian was organising and explaining the rules to all the newbies of Werewolf. We had a couple of fun games (3 if I remember), one of which was the weirdest game of Werewolf I ever played. [...]

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