Werewolf Rules, Guidelines, Links, and Calendar of Upcoming Games (update 12/22)
"It is better to remain silent and be thought a wolf, than to speak up and remove all doubt."
--Abraham Lincoln, almost.

The Basic Rules of Werewolf

Overview:
The citizens of a small village one morning wake up to discover that there are werewolves in their town! If something is not done, the entire village population will be eaten!

Teams:
There are two teams, werewolves and villagers. In the standard game on werewolf side there are the werewolves. They all know each other, and may communicate with each other at night (see below). On the villager side you have the villagers, the seer, and sometimes other roles (see below). The werewolves win by eliminating enough people so that they make up half of the players in the game. The villagers win by eliminating all the werewolves.

Turn Structure - The game alternates between two phases, a Day phase and a Night Phase:

* Day Phase - During the day, the village gets together to discuss and decide who might be a werewolf! Everyone votes who they think is a werewolf (votes may be changed at any time during the day). In most games, Day has a fixed length of time, and whoever has the most votes when the time runs out is lynched. In many games, Day ends early if one player has a majority of the votes, and he is lynched immediately. The mod then reveals his role in the thread, as they will with all dead players.
* Night Phase - During the night phase, the werewolves decide who they are going to eat! They are allowed to communicate privately outside the main thread to make this decision. Normally werewolves are not allowed to communicate privately during the day. Also, anyone with a special role (such as seer or angel) gets to act during the night as well.

Roles - The following are the most common roles seen in werewolf games:

* The Villager - anyone who is a regular villager is trying to lynch all the wolves during the day, and has no action at night. They win if all the wolves are dead, even if they are dead themselves.
* The Werewolf - Werewolves talk and vote during the day just as villagers. At night they collectively choose a victim. A werewolf will win if there are as many werewolves as other people remaining in the game and like the villager, it doesn't matter if you are alive or not at the end.
* The Seer - During the day the seer talks and votes just like the villagers. At night, a seer is allowed to determine the role of any one townsperson. The seer is on the villager side and has the same winning conditions.


House Rules:

* No talking at night. There is no talking in the thread at night for any reason.
* No talking when dead. Most game mods will allow a post with some sort of funny comment, however no strategy content should be included "I knew I had it coming" is ok but "durron and Jared are wolves, look into their voting history" is not. After this post do not post anymore in the thread until the game ends. Dead wolves are dead in wolf chat as well. They may not give any further strategy input.
* In some games, the villians are the Mafia, instead of werewolves. And the seer would thus be called a cop or a detective, and an angel would be called doctor (but the powers are similar).
* Do not post pictures of actual lynchings or make references to racial lynchings. While we're using the term lynching fairly lightly in the context of the game, actual lynching is a rather different matter. Please be respectful of others and don't make inappropriate comments or post inappropriate images.


See this thread, started by Madtown which discusses rules and etiquette in more detail.

Some Basic Strategy:

* Villager - Your job is to try to kill all the wolves during the day. In trying to find the wolves, look for statements people make or voting behavior that are consistent with a player acting as a wolf but not consistent with them acting as a villager. Once it's a couple days in look at voting behavior. Try to find not only single wolves but combinations that makes sense.

Here's a thread where basic villager strategy is discussed in more detail.

* Wolf - You are trying to eliminate the villagers. You have the night kills but will not win unless you successfully frame other villagers into seeming like werewolves so you and your fellow wolves don't get voted off. Try to blend in and not make statements that only a wolf would make. At night try to eliminate players who are more likely to figure you out or who are likely to be seer candidates.

Here's a link to a thread discussing basic wolf strategy.

* Seer - Try to blend in. You don't want to stick out to the wolves or the villagers as both could kill you. Early on at night it's a good idea to search for people you think play well on both sides as it's good to know where they stand. Later obviously you should try to look at the people you think are suspicious. Another important decision for the seer is when to "come out" that is reveal that they are the seer. This varies widely game by game and depends on what information you have. The seer is very important to a villager win. You have to weigh the EV of coming out. The benefit is that you reveal all of your information; if you were to die then you cannot do so. The cost is that you are probably going to get eaten that night. This cost is much less in games with an angel, which is one reason that few are run.

And here am I thinking you are an advocate for social change and you are pushing this rubbish? Well golly me.

I'll give this a go.

Cool, but we need 5 more players!

cheers,